Asian Masculinities: The Meaning and Practice of Manhood in China and Japan

ASIAN MASCULINITIES

How are Chinese and Japanese masculinities constructed? Are they different? How are East Asian definitions of manhood transforming with the increasing globalisation of the region? While in recent years there has been a deluge of academic and popular works on men and masculinity, most have concentrated upon the vociferous attempts of Western men to reorient themselves as ‘new age guys’. Asian Masculinities addresses this Eurocentric bias by analysing men in China and Japan, enhancing current understandings of East Asian identities and culture as well as Western conceptions of gender and sexuality. The interdisciplinary backgrounds of the contributors incorporates a variety of insights, methodologies and topics. Issues examined include: • • • • • •

masculine ideals in China and Japan homosexuality women’s perceptions of men the role of sport and food Asian men in the Chinese diaspora gender roles performed by Chinese and Japanese men in Western countries.

This book will be essential reading not only for students of Asian studies but also for those with an interest in gender and diaspora studies. Kam Louie is Professor of Chinese Studies in the Faculty of Asian Studies, The Australian National University. Recent publications include the co-authored The Politics of Chinese Language and Culture (1998) and Theorising Chinese Masculinity: Society and Gender in China (2002). Morris Low is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Asian Languages and Studies at the University of Queensland. He is co-author of Science, Technology and Society in Contemporary Japan (1999) and the editor of many volumes including Science, Technology and R&D in Japan (2001).

ASIAN M A SC U L IN IT I ES The meaning and practice of manhood in China and Japan

Edited by Kam Louie and Morris Low

First published 2003 by RoutledgeCurzon 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by RoutledgeCurzon 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group © 2003 Kam Louie and Morris Low, selection and editorial matter; individual chapters, the contributors All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-98793-4 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0–415–29838–5 (Print Edition)

C ONTENTS

Notes on contributors Acknowledgements 1 Chinese, Japanese and global masculine identities`

ix xi 1

KAM LOUIE

East Asians as minorities 1 Spotlight on Chinese masculinity 3 Containment and Asian sexuality 6 Masculinity and the nation 9 Westernisation, Asianisation and hybridity 11 PART I

17

“Soft” masculinities 2 “Beautiful boys made up as beautiful girls”: anti-masculine taste in Qing China

19

CUNCUN WU

Introduction 19 Problematising gender categories in late imperial China 20 Gender representation in Ming and Qing dynasty romantic fiction 21 The case of Jia Baoyu 25 Moral dimensions of male beauty 27 Alternative dimensions of male beauty? 30 Beijing opera, cross-dressing and “flower guides” 32 Conclusion 34 3 Mr Butterfly in Defunct Capital: “soft” masculinity and (mis)engendering China Y I YA N WA N G

Scholar-beauty romance: the triumph of “soft” masculinity 41

41

CONTENTS

The talented communist scholars 45 Cultural roots and masculinity 48 The talented scholar in Defunct Capital 49 Writing and “soft” masculinity 51 Mr Butterfly and (mis)engendering China 54 4 Gay men, masculinity and the media in Japan

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MARK MCLELLAND

Introduction 59 Japan’s gay boom 60 Representations of gay men in gay media 64 Japan’s gay Net 68 Conclusion 74 PART II

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Martial valour 5 The Emperor’s sons go to war: competing masculinities in modern Japan

81

MORRIS LOW

Introduction 81 Turning white 82 Reviving bushidô 84 White and bright 85 Reproducing masculinities 87 Competing masculinities on the battlefield 88 Under interrogation 90 In the brothel 91 In love 93 The last samurai 95 Conclusion 95 6 Sport and the construction of masculinity in the Japanese education system RICHARD LIGHT

Introduction 100 Culture, sport and embodied masculinity 101 Social analyses of game style and tactics 103 Rugby union football in Japan 104 Culture and game style in Japanese school and university rugby 105 vi

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CONTENTS

Gaman: obligation, loyalty and self-control 112 Conclusion 115 7 Creating corporate warriors: the “salaryman” and masculinity in Japan

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RO M I T DA S G U P TA

Introduction 118 Salaryman masculinity: demarcations and delineations 119 Modernity, the nation-state and salaryman masculinity 120 Recreating and resisting salaryman masculinity through popular culture 123 The JTB man 128 Decline of the salaryman 130 Conclusion 131 PART III

135

Tracing lives 8 Rethinking male socialisation: life histories of Japanese male youth

137

F U T O S H I TA G A

Fluctuating masculinity in contemporary Japan 138 Research on men’s gender formation 140 The case studies 143 Conclusion 149 9 The cooking man in modern Japanese literature

155

T O M O KO A OYA M A

Food and masculinity after defeat, or the Confucian teachings of Cantonese cooking 157 Global wandering and the construction of masculine cooking 159 The significance of wen in global wandering 162 Cooking man loves guts: the recipe for wu 164 Women’s response to cooking man’s discourse 168 Postmodern cooking man 169 10 Desire and masculinity at the margins in Gu Cheng’s Ying’er S I M O N PAT T O N

Introduction: desiring subjects 177 Background 1: “psychic distance travelled” 179 vii

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CONTENTS

Background 2: “a box marked G” 182 Text 1: multiple masculinities 184 Text 2: phantasmal feminine territories 187 Conclusion: the land that is not 189 PART IV

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Global masculinities 11 Male gender identities among Chinese male migrants

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R AY H I B B I N S

Hegemonic masculinity(ies) – an adequate concept? 197 Migration and male gender identities: some empirical studies 198 The Chinese in Australia 201 Australian masculinities 202 The empirical study 203 The sample 203 Some methodological issues 203 Selected themes from the study 204 Conclusions 212 12 “Angry yellow men”: cultural space for diasporic Chinese masculinities

220

TSEEN KHOO

Intra-community gender division 221 The Australian expat 227 Playing with Australian icons 230 Canadian internment narratives 231 Masculinity and Choy’s The Jade Peony 234 Conclusion 237 Conclusion

244

MORRIS LOW

Index

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CONTRIBUTORS

Tomoko Aoyama is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Asian Languages and Studies, University of Queensland. Recent publications include chapters in David Wells and Sandra Wilson (eds) The Russo-Japanese War in Cultural Perspective, 1904–05 (London: Macmillan, 1999) and Elise Tipton and John Clark (eds) Being Modern in Japan: Culture and Society from the 1910s to the 1930s (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2000). Romit Dasgupta lectures in Japanese and Japanese Studies in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Western Australia. Publications include “Performing masculinities? The ‘salaryman’ at work and play”, Japanese Studies 20, no. 2 (2000) and a chapter in Nanette Gottlieb and Mark McLelland (eds) Japanese Cybercultures (London: Routledge, 2003). Ray Hibbins is Senior Lecturer in the School of Leisure Studies, Griffith University. He has recently completed a Ph.D. on “Migration and masculinities: Experiences of some recent Chinese migrants in Brisbane”. His research interests include migration and male gender identity; generational changes among Chinese male migrants; leisure policy analysis; sport, fashion and masculinity; and the effects of transnationalism on Chinese young people. Tseen Khoo is a postdoctoral research fellow in the School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Queensland. She is co-editor of Diaspora: Negotiating Asian-Australia (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2000) and Culture, Identity, Commodity: Diasporic Chinese Literatures in English (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, forthcoming), and author of Banana Bending: Asian-Australian and Asian-Canadian Literatures (Hong Kong University Press, forthcoming). Richard Light is a lecturer in physical education in the Department of Science and Mathematics Education at the University of Melbourne. He has written chapters on Japanese rugby and masculinity in T. Chandler and J. Nauright (eds) Making the Rugby World: Race, Gender, Commerce (London: Frank Cass, 1999) and numerous articles on sport and masculinity such as “culture tactics and embodied masculinity in Japanese and Australian school rugby” in International Sport Studies. ix

C O N T R I BU TO R S

Kam Louie is Professor of Chinese Studies in the Faculty of Asian Studies, the Australian National University. Recent publications include the co-authored The Politics of Chinese Language and Culture (London: Routledge, 1998) and Theorising Chinese Masculinity: Society and Gender in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Morris Low is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Asian Languages and Studies at the University of Queensland. He is co-author of Science, Technology and Society in Contemporary Japan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) and the editor of many volumes including Science, Technology and R&D in Japan (London: Routledge, 2001). Mark McLelland is a research fellow in the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies at the University of Queensland. He is the author of Male Homosexuality in Modern Japan: Cultural Myths and Social Realities (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 2000) and is co-editor of Japanese Cybercultures (London: Routledge, 2003). Simon Patton teaches in the Department of Asian Languages and Studies at the University of Queensland. Recent papers include “The forces of production: Symmetry and the imagination in the early poetry of Gu Cheng”, published in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, and a paper in Chinese on ecological consciousness in the poetry of Yu Jian, which appeared in Zuojia. Futoshi Taga is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Literature, Kurume University, Japan. His research interests include the sociology of education and gender studies. His major publication is Dansei no jendaa keisei [The gender formation of men] (Tokyo: Tôyôkan Shuppan-sha, 2001). Yiyan Wang is a lecturer in the Department of Chinese Studies, the University of Sydney. She works on Chinese literary and cultural studies. Her book on the contemporary writer Jia Pingwa is forthcoming with Routledge. Cuncun Wu is a lecturer in Chinese in the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics, the University of New England, Australia. Her latest publication is Ming Qing shehhui xing’ai fengqi [Sex and sensibility in Ming and Qing society] (Beijing: People’s Literature Press, 2000).

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The chapters in this volume were prepared for and presented at a workshop organised by Kam Louie and Morris Low at the University of Queensland in December 2000. The workshop was funded by the Faculty of Arts via the Asian Identities research concentration area. All contributors are very thankful for that support, and for the constructive comments and suggestions made at the workshop by researchers working on masculinity in other regions. Since the workshop, the papers have undergone considerable revision. The authors are grateful to the editors for their input and helpful suggestions. Versions of some of the papers were also presented at the Association for Asian Studies 2002 Annual Meeting in Washington, DC. We are grateful to the audience for questions and comments that proved useful in revising the papers. Thanks are due to a number of individuals. Tomoko Aoyama would like to thank the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies at the University of Queensland for a Faculty Fellowship in 2002 that enabled her to complete her contribution to this book. Romit Dasgupta is particularly grateful to Vera Mackie, his Ph.D. supervisor, who provided valuable advice on his chapter and thesis, of which it is a part. Futoshi Taga would like to thank Morris Low, Romit Dasgupta, Timothy Takemoto and Anne Platt for correcting his English. Simon Patton wishes to thank Kam Louie, Yiyan Wang and Rosemary Sorensen. Cuncun Wu wishes to acknowledge her supervisor, Anne McLaren, and Mark Stevenson whose many helpful suggestions have been incorporated into her chapter. Mark Stevenson kindly corrected the entire draft and assisted with English expression. Anne Platt assisted the editors and all of the authors in preparing the manuscript for publication. In London, we are grateful to Rachel Saunders, formerly of RoutledgeCurzon, for taking on this project, and Stephanie Rogers and Zoe Botterill, for taking up where she left off. Thanks are also due to Simon Bailey and Tony Nixon for seeing it through to fruition.

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1 CHINESE, JAPANESE AND GLOBAL MASCULINE IDENTITIES Kam Louie East Asians as minorities In the first sentence of the anthropological collection Dislocating Masculinity: Comparative Ethnographies, the editors Cornwall and Lindisfarne state that “[o]ver the last few years there has been a surge of interest in the study of men and masculinity. We are told that on both sides of the Atlantic men are starting to respond to the challenges of feminism” (Cornwall and Lindisfarne 1994, 1). Indeed, the book does cover topics such as Greek sexuality, prostitutes’ clients and gay male identities as well as masculine practices in countries in Europe, America and Africa. However, it has no chapters that focus on Asian masculinities. By disregarding half of mankind, it ends up offering analyses that distort comparative understandings of different masculinities in the global context. Such distortions have been a common feature of men studies in the West, and in the 1990s a number of researchers became “aware how far we still are from realising the type of inclusive scholarship we would find ideal” (Brod and Kaufman 1994, 6). This concern for a more inclusive “international masculinity research” is echoed by R.W. Connell in the inaugural issue of the journal Men and Masculinities in 1998, where he calls for “an understanding of the world gender order” as “a necessary basis for thinking about men and masculinities globally”. Connell argues that the “ethnographic moment” in masculinity research, in which communities of men are studied, and compared, has been valuable, but that we should in the twenty-first century go beyond the ethnographic moment and adopt a more global approach that considers the international setting as an arena for study. Such an aim is praiseworthy, but unfortunately remains an unrealised ideal. This call was made in 1998, and since that time there have been some attempts to expand the scope of gender and masculinity research into a global arena, as demonstrated by Connell himself (Connell 2000). However, such research tends to be empirical and descriptive, and is almost always from a Western perspective. Furthermore, in the rare instances when Men and Masculinities itself publishes articles on Asian men, those articles tend to concentrate on Chinese or Japanese men in Western contexts (for example Chan 2000). 1

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The study of minority masculinities in white America has long been a standard concession in men studies to understand “men of color” (Doyle 1989, 280). Groups such as Hispanics and blacks in particular feature prominently because they have been the more visible and oppressed “minorities” in white America or Europe. In this tradition, the Asian American male was stereotyped as “inscrutable” and “more conservative” (Doyle 1989, 290–1). Of course, the study of masculinities of ethnic minorities in predominantly white communities is important and can lead to valuable and fascinating insights. In recent years, some of the best work on Asian men has centred on the masculinities of Asian America, with some of the most interesting being on gay Asians (Eng and Hom 1998). For the most part, this research shows that, for Chinese and Japanese men, the experience of living as a man in the West can be so negative that it can be characterised as “racial castration” (Eng 2001). As Henry Yu observes: [a]lthough often portrayed as sexual threats to white women, Asian men were also emasculated by stereotypes of passivity and weakness. The image of the Chinese laundryman and domestic worker or Japanese flower gardener, willing to do “women’s work” that no selfrespecting white man would perform, served to feminize the portrayal of Oriental men. (Yu 2001, 131) While the Asian diasporas have had to come to terms with their bitter roots in foreign lands, the recent upsurge of research into their heritage has clearly empowered them. However, even though there have been more studies of Asian men (usually by the men themselves) living as minorities in the United States or Canada, their results tell us very little about Asian masculinities as understood by Asians in Asia. The trouble with studying ethnic minorities as examples of men of colour is that understandings of masculinity, femininity, sexuality and gender inevitably assume Western understandings as benchmarks simply because the “minorities” need to measure themselves against the mainstream and hegemonic culture in which they seek to succeed. To understand how Chinese or Japanese masculinities have evolved in the modern world, we must examine the archaeology of indigenous East Asian masculinities. Thus, in order to understand how being an ethnic minority in America, Europe or Australia affects one’s masculinity, it is vital that the superficial layers of identity formation be dug up and put aside, and the deeper layers exposed. In other words, indigenous conceptions of masculinity need to be exposed and analysed. Until very recently, though, there have been almost no book-length studies of general Chinese or Japanese masculinities. Exceptions, some of which are excellent, tend to be collected essays on specific aspects of these topics (Brownell and Wasserstrom 2002; Roberson and Suzuki 2002). More commonly, Asian men are depicted in both the West and China as less “sexual” and more “intelligent” than both black and white men. These popular 2

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perceptions are often given academic respectability by social scientists like J. Philippe Rushton, who as recently as in the 1990s gathered data on measures such as brain size, reproductive behaviour and sex hormones to prove that “people of east Asian ancestry…and people of African ancestry…define opposite ends of the spectrum, with people of European ancestry…falling intermediately” (Rushton 1997, xiii). Such “scientific” studies have the effect of confirming Edward Said’s observation that discourses pertaining to the Orient emasculate it to such an extent that it “is penetrated, silenced, and possessed” (Said 1978, 207). Even though Said’s Orient refers to the Middle East, the portrayal of Chinese and Japanese men seems to confirm his assertion that under the Western gaze Asian men are feminised. In the Chinese case, in keeping with a tradition that would make Orientalism proud, both Chinese and Western descriptions of Chinese male sexuality focus mainly on Daoist bedroom techniques and exotic practices such as the men’s alleged obsession with bound feet. Until the 1990s, there were very few academic studies devoted exclusively to the non-sensational aspects of Chinese and Japanese masculinity. While a body of literature on men’s studies has emerged focusing on Japan (Ito 1996; Nakamura 1996; Toyoda 1997; Inoue et al. 1998), the situation in China is still far from satisfactory. As Susan Mann opines, the poverty of studies on Chinese men is particularly vexing because “bonds among men were key to success and survival for rich and poor, elite and commoner, in Chinese history” (Mann 2000, 1,601). While it could be argued that these bonds were studied simply as human relationships that encompass all aspects of society such as politics, economics and law, the trouble with such an interpretation is that “man” as a masculine category again escapes attention. “Man” becomes a universal signifier that is not looked at specifically as a gendered object. In terms of research into male–male bonds, for both Chinese and Japanese, some of the best available tends to concentrate on the non-mainstream, particularly homoeroticism (Vitiello 2000; Volpp 2001; Leupp 1995; Pflugfelder 1999; McLelland 2000). There is little that examines the activities of Chinese and Japanese men as men, or Asian masculinities as social constructs.

Spotlight on Chinese masculinity Of course, one can argue that the apparent poverty of research devoted to Asian masculinities in English is felicitous and appropriate. Having always had enormous social power and privilege, not to mention having perpetrated wartime atrocities in the name of masculine prowess (discussed by Morris Low in this volume), why should Asian men take centre stage yet again just when the women are getting a bit of attention? I myself faced this conundrum when I embarked on the project to study Chinese masculinity. I wanted to put Chinese masculinity under the spotlight without in any way lionising it. Whether I have succeeded or not remains to be seen. In any case, Louise Edwards and I worked on issues of 3

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Chinese gender in the mid-1980s and wrote an article on the wen-wu dyad (Louie and Edwards 1994). I have since written a book about Chinese masculinity based on this concept (Louie 2002). In this work, I argue that Chinese masculinity must be examined in its own terms before its trajectory in the global scene can be analysed. While this may sound trite, the reality was that until Theorising Chinese Masculinity was published there was no book-length study of wen-wu as a masculinity ideal. Since many of the essays in the current collection refer to the wen-wu concept, it is worthwhile revisiting some of my findings on this Chinese masculinity ideal here. It is difficult to find English terms that capture the full meaning of wen-wu. Literally, it means literary–martial, and it encompasses the dichotomy between cultural and martial accomplishments, mental and physical attainments, and so on. It is an ideal that all men are supposed to work towards. Because it captures both the mental and physical composition of the ideal man, wen-wu is constructed both biologically and culturally. It has been a masculinity ideal throughout Chinese history, so there are many traditional idioms to describe perfect men as having both wen and wu. Yet despite its importance there was almost no scholarly analysis in any language of wen-wu as a key to understanding Chinese masculinity, even though there have been some analyses of it as a way of understanding phenomena such as ancient military strategy (Yang and Li 1991). Like many universally accepted practices, it was assumed that wen-wu was so well understood and its interpretation so well accepted that there was no need to analyse it. Wen-wu is a useful construct for describing Chinese masculinity ideals because it is only used for Chinese men. The unique maleness of the wen-wu dichotomy becomes apparent when it is juxtaposed with yin-yang, the most obvious and most commonly invoked paradigm in discussions of Chinese sexuality. Discarding yin and yang is crucial for discussions of Chinese masculinity because incisive theorising of masculinity is inhibited by the amorphous nature of yin-yang. Both yin and yang are characterised as elements evident in femininity as well as masculinity, though in different proportions at different times. The yin-yang dyad is attractive because it seems to dislodge the exclusivity of elements that are male or female. By contrast, the wen-wu dichotomy is applied to men only. By structuring gender in such an inflexible manner, I may seem to be taking a regressive step. Indeed, I do argue that wen-wu is a regulative ideal that can perform an oppressive function. To expose this function, its ideological construction must be examined before its actual workings in society are explored. Thus, I am not suggesting that women did not excel in literary or military pursuits. Chinese history is replete with images of talented women such as Zhu Yingtai and Hua Mulan. However, women such as Zhu Yingtai who tried to get recognition for wen accomplishments by sitting for the civil service examinations had to do so dressed as men. And the woman warrior Mulan also had to conceal her femininity while she took part in military exploits. Once these women put on rouge and satin clothing again, all their wen-wu attributes disappear. In all such 4

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cases, the women’s wen or wu achievements are acknowledged only if they publicly demonstrate that they are men, however superficially or transiently. Official recognition of wen-wu achievements was most commonly attained by passing the civil service examinations or the military service examinations. Both were only available to men. Moreover, these examinations were traditionally not available to foreigners. Thus wen-wu was also unattainable for foreign men, who were considered to be barbarians who were incapable of achieving such an ideal. The influence of these traditional beliefs is evident everywhere in modern East Asia. For example, in contemporary Taiwan the continuing strength of wen values is evidenced by the listing of political candidates’ highest educational attainment in briefings for televised electoral coverage. The high number of political aspirants with doctoral qualifications contrasts sharply with that in Anglophone countries such as the United States and Australia. Even in the rare instance that they hold a doctorate, politicians in these latter countries would prefer to emphasise their “sporting” mass appeal rather than their elite education. Education in its wen sense is a feature that has popular appeal to a Chinese electorate because it symbolises the “right to power”. The cultured elite’s sense of superiority is manifest not only in the political arena: the educated in China have always felt that they deserved a leadership role in the moral and social dimensions as well. Thus, many writers in China have a strong sense that their visions for social harmony should be adopted to secure an ethical and wealthy future for China. Many older intellectuals still believe that Confucianism is a powerful system that is best suited to such a philosophy of life, and Confucius as the god of wen has been a potent symbol for sustaining Chinese notions of the ideal gentleman for millennia. During the Asian financial boom of the 1980s, some scholars nominated Confucianism as the mainstay of the “Asian values” responsible for economic prosperity. Some also argued that it had helped Chinese culture to survive among the Chinese diaspora even when that culture had declined in China (Tu Wei-ming 1991). The above examples clearly show the vital connection between wen power and ideal masculinity. Naturally, Chinese masculinity also has many features that have elements in common with contemporary Western conceptions of the “real man”. Wu power is manifest as it has been throughout Chinese history through battles and large-scale wars, but it can also be invoked in non-military ways as evidence of peace-time, restrained wu. Displays of martial arts and qigong feature prominently in acrobatic shows or general public gatherings. New Year’s celebrations always include dragon dances or lion dances, which are usually performed by martial arts teams. These serve a similar function to the displays of military hardware and aircraft “fly-pasts” that feature in National Day celebrations or visits from other “heads of state”, but reflect the more restrained type of wu essence indicative of controlled force, persuasion and indirectness in the matrix of power relations rather than simple brute strength. Mere brawn has its uses, but those who rely on it entirely will always remain powerless, “macho eunuchs” who can never fulfil the ideals of Confucian masculinity (Louie 1991). 5

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Because of the privileging of wen above wu in constructions of ideal Chinese masculinity, appropriate male sexuality in the Chinese tradition differs markedly from the Occidental tradition. Unlike much of the recent sexual ideologies in Anglophone countries, militant homophobia is not a prerequisite for proof of masculinity in China. Indeed, homosexual relations were common and accepted among the elite over the broad stretch of Chinese history, and in the last two dynasties of imperial China in particular homoerotic sensitivities were quite deliberately cultivated to show one’s awareness of the cultural vogues of the elite (Wu 2002). The “quintessentially masculine” Emperor Wu of the Han had at least three “favourites” whose sexual appeal won them a prized place in court, as did Wu’s predecessor Emperor Wen (Hinsch 1990, 35). Moreover, it seems that both the wen and the wu type of male were “desirable” and “sexy”, unlike the Anglo-American image that until recently has been singularly dominated by the macho man. This is still the case today, with mass media or advertising images of “desirable” males in the Chinese cultural context often appearing akin to the “weakling” of the Western vision. Indeed, Cuncun Wu’s chapter in this volume shows convincingly that the frail and effeminate man was an object of desire among the literati of the Ming–Qing dynasties. This “weak” and sensitive image seems to have been appropriated by fiction writers and playwrights as one for self-identification. In China today, this “anti-masculine” or “soft” masculinity is alive and cherished. Writers such as Zhang Xianliang and Jia Pingwa consistently depict the scholar-writer as desirable primarily to women, and not to men. The attractiveness of the scholar-poet to women has of course been a standard theme of the popular caizi jiaren romance, and this theme is skilfully utilised by modern writers to promote themselves as desirable beings. For both the scholar in traditional times and the modern scholar, as Yiyan Wang shows in her chapter in this book, that attractiveness is also clothed in patriotic terms, and the scholar’s masculinity is closely integrated with nationalist concerns in modern and contemporary China. Chinese men have seen themselves for the last two centuries as guardians not just of traditional morals, but also of their women against the onslaught of Western values.

Containment and Asian sexuality The difference between contemporary Anglo-American and East Asian constructions of sexuality can also be seen in the issue of “containment”. Keith McMahon describes Confucian sexuality in his article “A case for Confucian sexuality” as being characterised by containment and control of sexual passion (McMahon 1988). Containment of the self informs the Chinese male’s sexual self, in contrast to the conquest and control over others that is the case in the Western context. The wen path of learning, with calligraphic traditions of imitating the forms of the masters, extensive rote learning of texts, and even the physical containment of examination candidates in examination halls all points to the training in control and restraint of individuals. Similarly, the wu path was 6

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one that was ideally represented by the containment of war rather than the encouragement of rampant militarism. Many aspects of training in martial arts incorporate extensive concentration on restraint, patience and the ability to know when to withhold. Sexual congress was often couched in terms of a battle, with the ultimate goal being the ability to withhold orgasm while making the other partner orgasm. Careful, restrained emission of a man’s vital essence was preached. In the case of the wu man, most vividly exemplified in the god of wu Guan Yu, this self-containment was pushed to such limits that any female attractiveness was considered a dangerous temptation. To deal with this danger, the temptation needed to be eliminated, by the physical liquidation of the woman if necessary. Thus, masculine sexuality in the Chinese tradition valued the ability to suppress one’s sexual urges. Containment of excessive and extended use of force, and containment of excessive sexual drives, form a dominant part of the discourses of masculinity in China. This perhaps accounts for the acceptance of homosexuality throughout Chinese tradition until very recent times. Morality focused on the control of excessive promiscuity in sexual matters and was not as concerned about the object of an individual man’s sexual energies. The object of sexual desire became problematised by issues of class and social power rather than physical sexual properties. Social morality was concerned primarily with the correct outplay of the hierarchies of power and the containment of excessive sexuality so that it did not interfere with other aspects of life. These social and moral strictures presuppose an ability to “contain” one’s desires. Desire and emotions are difficult to suppress effectively, and even more difficult to describe and explain satisfactorily. Nonetheless, the theorising of wen-wu has to take into account desire, whether sexual or otherwise, if it is to comprehensively explain human behaviour. Simon Patton’s chapter looks at the case of the poet Gu Cheng, who must have been placed under great strain in the last few years of his life when he and his wife settled in New Zealand, where his wen accomplishments as a poet would not have been recognised by those around him. Yet he seemed oblivious to the decline of his masculine superiority and consequent desirability despite the increasing evidence pointing to that demise. The tragic situation where he ended up murdering his wife and then committing suicide provides a most intriguing case for the study of desire. The crisis experienced by Gu Cheng was partly engendered by the fact that he was in a foreign land where his masculinity was out of place. This has been a common concern for Chinese men abroad, especially in the latter part of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first centuries, since this was a time when the educated went abroad. In earlier times, it was the powerless peasants who sojourned in foreign lands as coolies. Tseen Khoo’s chapter examines the identity frustrations and representational conflicts for diasporic Chinese and Japanese men in literature and other texts. Of course, the mere fact that they are writing, and mostly in English, implies that Khoo’s men are no longer peasants with no wen or wu. In fact, they have often 7

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mastered Western discourses and are intent on working to change them. They consider concepts such as “Chineseness” or “Japaneseness” with critical eyes, with nostalgia and regret. This is certainly the case with the professional Chinese men who were the informants in Ray Hibbins’s chapter. The conservatism and propensity to cling to family values that Hibbins found among the group of Australian Chinese men he interviewed illustrate that, even in Australia, they are likely to want to perpetuate a patriarchal system that has benefited them for centuries back in China. This is especially the case in terms of their sexuality, which apart from those who are gay tends to be relatively conservative. Again, that seems to reflect the male attitudes even back in China. The situation for female sexuality in Chinese and Japanese society was quite different. Apparently having no wen-wu and therefore deemed to have no selfcontrol, women had to be restrained and disciplined by prescriptions of purity, chastity and naivety as well as sexual segregation. Indeed, femininity was linked to passivity and submissiveness in relation to sexual desires, whereas masculinity was informed by ideologies of the mastering, controlling and moderating of sexual desires. In terms of sexuality, therefore, the opposite of masculinity does not mean femininity. It means in effect the lack of sexual dominance and control, whether it be through impotence or castration. Thus, traditionally, eunuchs were not men, and no matter how accomplished they were in the cultural or military realms, they would have less chance of having wen and wu conferred on them than women. Indeed, when Europeans in colonial times imagined the Oriental eunuch the most immediate picture that was conjured up was that of the harem and its Turkish baths, and women of great sexual allure with their sexless eunuchs. While that image is again Middle Eastern in origin, the de-sexed Oriental male has been an enduring figure in the Orientalist mind. Asian women seem to have less trouble adjusting to their sexuality when they are abroad than men. Indeed, Japanese women too have eroticised and idealised white men as symbols of modernity and desirability, and belittled Asian men as backward and undesirable (Kelsky 2001). In the West itself, East Asian women have been stereotyped as meek and self-sacrificing, virtues that have also been actively promoted in most Asian social and moral systems. Thus, we have in the West images such as Madam Butterfly and Singapore Girl, women who may have escaped the traditional gender roles in their own cultures, but who are nevertheless eager to please the men in their lives. By contrast, the stereotypical East Asian men in modern times are Fu Manchu and Charlie Chan. Curiously, these icons were not even produced in Asia, but were Western inventions. Japanese men fared slightly differently in the United States. The Meiji Restoration had launched Japan on a Westernisation/modernisation programme that led it to join the ranks of the colonialists/imperialists in the early twentieth century. Japan impinged on the Western consciousness with the Russo-Japanese War and then the Second World War. By the mid-twentieth century, the stereotypical image of the Japanese man was that of the fearless kamikaze pilot, loyally serving the Emperor whatever the cost. 8

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Masculinity and the nation By contrast, the tributary system in China had all but collapsed by the late nineteenth century, and Chinese men were seen as ineffectual and incapable of defending their country. National boundaries in Asia were being reconfigured by the colonialist powers. Most importantly, the configurations of hegemonic intrusions into China were changed fundamentally by the emergence of Japan as an imperialist power vying for supremacy. While they have never lost their cultural fundamentals as a basis on which to build a modern nation, the Japanese were quick to borrow and master foreign ideas and behaviour patterns. This is not surprising given that they have successfully integrated some fundamental Chinese cultural forms and made them their own for centuries. Very quickly, the Japanese modernised and left their Asian neighbours far behind technologically and militarily. By the first half of the twentieth century, they distinguished themselves from other “Asians”, and became an imperialist power with their own colonies. In East Asia alone, Korea and Taiwan were their colonies. By contrast, the Chinese were defeated in almost every military encounter with a foreign country. Their nation was being carved into spheres of influence by foreign powers even though formally it was not a colony. The inability of the Chinese to withstand Western encroachments was encapsulated in their self-identification as the “sick men of East Asia” [Dong Ya bing fu]. The physical aspect of masculinity was thus valorised. Blaming race as the source of physical and military weakness was of course convenient, but this charge could not be sustained. Thus, the Chinese took the “sick men of East Asia” to refer specifically to themselves, in contrast to the newly modernised Japanese. Even though Morris Low’s chapter shows that the Japanese during the Second World War were vehemently promoting themselves as “white” to show that they were superior to other Asians, the Japanese soldiers themselves were surprised by the physical difference of Americans when they came face to face with them. Ultimately, both Chinese and Japanese men were Asian. Only the Chinese were the “sick men”. This terminology was for decades considered the most humiliating insult directed against Chinese men. The frail but attractive scholar of old was considered unsuited to the modern world, and wen masculinity lost a lot of its former lustre in the eyes of the populace. In moments of crisis, the traditional patriarchal authority of Chinese men was placed under intense stress and scrutiny. Thus, during the May Fourth period in the 1920s and the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, Chinese men felt “besieged” and their concepts of masculinity were threatened (Zhong 2000). Even among overseas Chinese in the 1970s, one of the most memorable moments in Chinese cinema was in the Bruce Lee film Fist of Fury [Jingwumen], in which some Japanese karate experts humiliate the Chinese kung fu masters by holding up a sign saying “Sick Man of East Asia”. The Bruce Lee character then smashes the sign as well as his Japanese opponents.

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Such fantasies only illustrate the depth of feeling among Chinese audiences who considered that their masculine pride had been destroyed. Being beaten by the physically bigger white imperialists was explained by attributing a more advanced technical and military knowledge to the latter. The East was said to be spiritually superior. But being beaten by the Japanese was a difficult truth to accept. In reality, the Japanese impact on the East Asian region has been and continues to be immense. In the modern period, Japanese influence on China has been much more widespread and fundamental than is generally accepted by the Chinese. Many do not mind talking about Western influence in the same breath as modernisation, but few would do the same for Japanisation. Yet, if we look at some of the most significant reformers and revolutionaries in the early twentieth century – thinkers such as Liang Qichao, Lu Xun and Qiu Jin – it is easy to see that Japan has been instrumental in the formation of modern Chinese perceptions of their identity and place in the contemporary world. Changes effected by Asians on Asians, including conceptions of masculinity, are thus important and need to be examined more closely. When they cross disciplinary or geographical boundaries, researchers do so by using materials and tools that have proven useful in their own domains. The trouble with this baggage is that it may not be applicable to specific parts of Asia. The diasporic, ethnic and postcolonial experiences in much of Asia are quite different from that in America, Europe and Africa. Nonetheless, while postcolonial and multicultural studies have become fashionable and commonplace, the premises and conclusions in these fields are often not applicable to China or Japan. Thus, even in classical Orientalism, the most immediate picture that is conjured by the European mind when sexuality is considered is that of the harem and its enchanting women. If male sexuality is considered, the picture that comes to mind is of black slaves or eunuchs in harems: men from former European colonies in South or Central Asia. Neither China nor Japan belongs to this category, and despite some academic interest (Denoon et al. 2001), multiculturalism is not a national concern in either country. Much of the discussion surrounding these topics therefore does not fit easily in the East Asian region. China had for centuries been an empire with its own tributary states and Japan was also a major imperialist nation with its colonies in the twentieth century. Thus, these two countries ought to be regarded as having been colonial powers in Asia in the research into constructions of masculinity. However, studies of postcolonial masculinities usually assume that only the Europeans and Americans are colonialists and everyone else is a victim. The border or boundary is usually that separating whites and others. While the Western postcolonialist perspective is probably more relevant to most readers, a more Asia-centred approach does provide more depth and explanatory power. I should emphasise that by advancing an indigenous definition of masculinity, I do not pretend that the mind–body, mental–physical, cultural knowledge–martial arts dichotomies implicit in the wen-wu dyad are the sole preserve of the Chinese 10

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conceptualisation of masculinity. Variations on the wen-wu paradigm can be easily applied to other cultures, particularly those in East Asia. For example, the Japanese author Yukio Mishima aimed to achieve an idealised balance between the literary and the martial in his regimen of building bodily strength before committing seppuku.

Westernisation, Asianisation and hybridity In reality, the connections and borders within Asia are much more significant and complex than those found in general studies of “world” or Asian masculinities. While it is relatively easy to find examples of modern Japanese influences on China, the Chinese impact on Japanese notions of manhood can also be discerned, as shown in the chapter on cooking by Tomoko Aoyama. By examining the writings of the Taiwanese-born writer/businessman Kyû Eikan (Qin Yonghan) who has lived in Japan since 1954, Aoyama argues that Kyû’s frequent allusions to classical Chinese literature and Confucian maxims set the stage for later gourmet texts that showcased the cooking man as someone with knowledge, i.e. wen. The sensitive new-age Japanese guy who is a good cook thus has his wenwu origins. Of course, Kyû Eikan may have been highly fluent in Chinese culture, but his eloquence in the Japanese language and his immersion in a Japanese environment meant that he was Japanised even as he was writing. Coming from Taiwan at a time when it was a Japanese colony, his hybrid status as Sino-Japanese was multi-layered, and confirms his masculinity as East Asian rather than simply Chinese or Japanese. The military aspects of masculinity could also be culturally mixed and produce peculiar results. The hybrid masculinity of a warrior is revealed not just in computer games and other popular culture forms. It can also work in unexpected ways. As Morris Low shows in his intriguing chapter on the Japanese soldiers during the Second World War, ever since the Meiji period the Japanese had embarked on a program of Westernisation. This inevitably had an effect on notions of masculinity. The changes could be seen in army uniforms. Discarding the traditional samurai attire, Japanese soldiers adopted Western military dress. The Emperor helped in this process by donning Western clothing and insignia. The effect, as Low argues, was the Caucasianisation and thus hybridisation of the soldier, and its purpose was to instil in the Japanese that they were in fact white, and not weak and backward like other Asians. With Japan’s economic might second only to that of the United States in the second half of the twentieth century, the samurai image was replaced by that of the salaryman. Romit Dasgupta’s chapter analyses the phenomenon of this transformation in Japan. It shows clearly that these ideals were sometimes deliberately encouraged in Japan, but that in the end they remained stereotypes, often lacking substance in contemporary Japanese society itself. In terms of masculinity, Japan has been very quick to adopt Western ways. Some of the seemingly “Western” modes are no doubt really 11

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just manifestations of modern technology practised on a mass scale. For example, Mark McLelland’s chapter on the effects of media such as television and the Internet on gay men in Japan shows that while stereotypes are no doubt perpetuated, the new technologies also make resistance to hegemonic modes of masculinity more possible. A gradual shift towards more varied and “democratic” roles for men is being evidenced in both China and Japan. As Futoshi Taga shows in his chapter on the self-identities of modern youth, Japanese men are redefining their selfimage to fit the rapid changes in Japanese society. Some are embracing more “democratic” lifestyles in their relationships with women. However, remnants of tradition are slow to dissolve. It remains true that many consider their career as most important. This finding is not surprising given that success is measured to a large extent by one’s place on the corporate or social ladder. As business and financial institutions control and influence ever more spheres of life in China, such transformations will no doubt also quickly emerge there too. Corporatisation has reached even the sports arena. In the Soccer World Cup of 2002 the Japanese and Koreans have challenged European supremacy, and their young players displayed not just football prowess but also headfuls of blonde hair. Such displays serve to remind audiences that physical racial characteristics can be chemically altered and become socially influential. Sports excellence as a marker for masculinity will no doubt become increasingly prevalent in China as the 2008 Olympics approach. Cultural changes may in fact be slower to emerge, as Richard Light shows in his chapter based on his experiences coaching rugby in Japan. The hybridisation process in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is thus rapidly changing notions of masculine identities. In today’s internationalised world, it is common for several languages and consciousnesses to form a multilayered and multi-faceted hybrid. In terms of wen-wu, Jim Jarmusch’s recent film Ghost Dog provides an excellent illustration of this postmodern hybridisation process. Living in the slums of New York, Ghost Dog is an African American contract assassin who tries to adhere to the code of conduct described in the eighteenth-century Japanese text Hagakure. In my book Theorising Chinese Masculinity, I characterise this film as a perfect example of the postmodern hybrid because here we have the confluence of a number of languages and cultural consciousnesses. Living and dying by a masculine code that comes from another place and another time, Ghost Dog’s nostalgia for that imagined past is heroic but misplaced. He believes that he is maintaining the “ancient ways”, but, as Ryoko Otomo shows, the Hagakure is less than 300 years old. In its attempt to use the Confucian philosophy of Wang Yangming (1472–1529) “to legitimate the position of the samurai class at the top of a social hierarchy” (Otomo 2001, 33), it was already anachronistic when it was written. As Ryoko Otomo observes, the movie does not “privilege a particular meaning among others. It instead offers a style that is elected out of many, a method of eclecticism” (Otomo 2001, 36). While wen-wu in Wang Yangming’s time might have 12

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had a very culturally specific import, it is now a style that can be “inherited” by anybody in any place and at any time. In my book, I also point to the music of Ghost Dog, which shows the promiscuous manner in which wen-wu has been incorporated into popular culture. The music is by RZA. RZA is the pseudonym of Robert Diggs, founder of the phenomenally successful rap group Wu-Tang Clan. Ghost Dog plays their CDs every time he goes out on an assignment. Robert Diggs is said to have gone to the Wudang [Wu-Tang] Mountain in China (it and the Shaolin Temples are the two sacred sites of martial arts) where he was received by some kung fu masters (Eskenazi 2000). His urban-gangster-warrior image is thus like that of Ghost Dog: that of a postmodern man imbued with traditional Asian martial arts ethics. His music is “an ominous blend of creepy piano riffs, whiny horns, wailing fiddles and kung-fu movie samples” (Croal 1997, 58). As Gina Marchetti observes in another context, “[b]lack music and Chinese kung fu share a common cultural currency that circulates internationally” (Marchetti 2001). As well as music, the Wu-Tang Clan has a large crop of Wu-branded products such as the Wu-Wear clothing line and the Wu comic book line. It even has a line of kung fu video games, the first of which is called Wu-Tang Shaolin Style, which was released in 1999. In this game, the contestants fight each other in kung fu style under a pavilion with the Chinese characters “Wen-wu Temple” [wen wu miao] inscribed on its main beam. A Japanised, Westernised form of wen-wu has thus become part of a merchandising exercise directed at the young worldwide. Having argued that local masculinities need to be analysed in their own right, I seem to have come back to Connell’s view that international approaches to the study of masculinity are not only possible but necessary. This is because the mixing of different cultures has already produced global masculinities. Nonetheless, I still maintain that an internationalist vision in which the world is examined as a whole, while praiseworthy, is a premature one. Before we can accurately evaluate the whole, we must have a sound knowledge of the parts. For example, while his latest book Gender does attempt to look at “gender in world society” (Connell 2002, 109), there is little in the book to mitigate one’s unease that a utopian vision of research into interconnected global masculinities has been advocated while “local” Asian masculinities have yet to be seriously studied and understood. This means that one of the most exciting areas for research – the comparisons of masculinities between cultures within Asia itself – will be subsumed by more global concerns. We still need to dislocate researchers’ comfort zones. While I applaud an internationalist vision, I believe that the groundwork for understanding local masculinities must still be done. It is my hope that by adding more research results on East Asian masculinities to the growing field of men studies, the studies in this book will help contribute to the goal of moving towards a more inclusive and global understanding of the world.

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References Brod, Harry and Michael Kaufman, eds. 1994. Theorizing masculinities. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Brownell, Susan and Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, eds. 2002. Chinese femininities/Chinese masculinities: A reader. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Chan, Jachinson W. 2000. Bruce Lee’s fictional models of masculinity. Men and Masculinities 2, no. 4: 371–87. Connell, R.W. 1998. Masculinities and globalization. Men and Masculinities 1, no. 1: 3–23. ——. 2000. Understanding men: Gender sociology and the new international research on masculinities. Unpublished notes to Clark Lecture presented at the University of Kansas, 19 September 2000. ——. 2002. Gender. Cambridge: Polity Press. Cornwall, Andrea and Nancy Lindisfarne, eds. 1994. Dislocating masculinity: Comparative ethnographies. London: Routledge. Croal, N’Gai. 1997. Bring in ’da ruckus: Rap’s Wu-Tang Clan takes over. Newsweek 129, no. 24: 58. Denoon, Donald, Mark Hudson, Gavan McCormack and Tessa Morris-Suzuki. 2001. Multicultural Japan: Palaeolithic to postmodern. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Doyle, James A. 1989. The male experience, second edition. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown Publishers. Eng, David L. 2001. Racial castration: Managing masculinity in Asian America. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Eng, David L. and Alice Y. Hom, eds. 1998. Q & A: Queer in Asian America. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Eskenazi, Mike. 2000. Remaking wu: The Diggs brothers are part of a famous rap group, but they’d rather run a profitable conglomerate. Time 156, no. 24: 82–3. Hinsch, Bret. 1990. Passions of the cut sleeve: The homosexual tradition in China. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Inoue, Teruko, Ueno Chizuko and Ehara Yumiko, eds. 1998. Danseigaku: Nihon no feminizumu bessatsu. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Ito Kimio.1996. Danseigaku nyûmon. Tokyo: Sakuhinsha. Kelsky, Karen Lee. 2001. Women on the verge: Japanese women, Western dreams. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Leupp, Gary. 1995. Male colors: The construction of homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Louie, Kam. 1991. The macho eunuch: The politics of masculinity in Jia Pingwa’s “Human Extremities”. Modern China 17, no. 2: 163–87. ——. 2002. Theorising Chinese masculinity: Society and gender in China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Louie, Kam and Louise Edwards. 1994. Chinese masculinity: Theorizing wen and wu. East Asian History 8: 135–48. McLelland, Mark J. 2000. Male homosexuality in modern Japan: Cultural myths and social realities. Richmond, UK: Curzon. McMahon, Keith. 1988. A case for Confucian sexuality: The eighteenth-century novel Yesou Puyan. Late Imperial China 9, no. 2: 32–53. Mann, Susan. 2000. The male bond in Chinese history and culture. The American Historical Review 105, no. 5: 1600–14.

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Marchetti, Gina. 2001. Jackie Chan and the black connection. In Keyframes: Popular cinema and cultural studies, eds Matther Tinkcom and Amy Villarejo: 136–58. London: Routledge. Nakamura Akira. 1996. Zenryoku shissô shita otoko-tachi: Kigyô senshi no danseigaku. Tokyo: Kindai Bungeisha. Otomo, Ryoko. 2001. “The way of the samurai”: Ghost Dog, Mishima, and modernity’s Other. Japanese Studies 21, no. 1: 31–43. Pflugfelder, Gregory. 1999. Cartographies of desire: Male–male sexuality in Japanese discourse, 1600–1959. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Roberson, James and Nobue Suzuki, eds. 2002. Men and masculinities in contemporary Japan: Dislocating the salaryman doxa. New York: Routledge. Rushton, J. Philippe. 1997. Race, evolution, and behaviour: A life history perspective. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Said, Edward. 1978. Orientalism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Toyoda Masayoshi. 1997. Otoko ga “otokorashisa” o suteru toki. Tokyo: Asuka Shinsha. Tu Wei-ming. 1991. Cultural China: The periphery as the center. Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 120, no. 2: 1–32. Vitiello, Giovanni. 2000. Exemplary sodomites: Chivalry and love in late Ming culture. Nan nü: Men, Women and Gender in Early and Imperial China 2, no. 2: 207–57. Volpp, Solphie. 2001. Classifying lust: The seventeenth century vogue for male love. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 61, no. 1: 77–117. Wu Cuncun. 2002. Male homoerotic sensibilities in late imperial China. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Melbourne University. Yang Hong and Li Li. 1991. Wenwu zhi dao: Zhongguo gudai zhanzheng, zhanlüe sixiang he bingqi fazhan. Hong Kong: Zhonghua shuju. Yu, Henry. 2001. Thinking Orientals: Migration, contact, and exoticism in modern America. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zhong Xueping. 2000. Masculinity besieged? Issues of modernity and male subjectivity in Chinese literature of the late twentieth century. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

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Part I “SOFT” MASCULINITIES

2 “BEAUTIFUL BOYS MADE UP AS BEAUTIFUL GIRLS” Anti-masculine taste in Qing China1 Cuncun Wu

Introduction In contrast with Han (206 BCE –CE 220) or Tang (618–907) dynasty works of art, in the late imperial period (approximately 1550–1911) Chinese artistic taste experienced a gradual shift away from the celebration of masculine images. A comparison of the depiction of males in late imperial Chinese book illustrations, particularly those found in novels and short story collections, with the figures depicted in paintings or frescoes from the Han or Tang dynasties reveals a stark contrast in representations of the male form. The standard, most prevalent, male images in the late imperial period are young, weak, slim and beardless; we no longer find the images of men in the prime of their lives, with rotund torsos and impressive beards, which are evident in portraits from earlier periods (van Gulik 1961, 295–8).2 This chapter will argue that in late imperial China a feminised male appearance was generally accepted as the ideal of male beauty. The “anti-masculine” had become the supreme male form. A number of scholars have noted the presence of effeminate males in late imperial Chinese literature, particularly Jia Baoyu, the hero of Cao Xueqin’s Honglou meng [Dream of the red chamber], who represents the ideal lover, or loveliest male, to all of the novel’s women. Most of these analyses, however, fail to acknowledge the more general taste for youthful male beauty in the period that created these literary works. Robert van Gulik touches on the phenomenon in his influential studies, but new research suggests that the topic can now be taken much further.3 Kam Louie and Louise Edwards opened up the study of Chinese masculinity considerably with their explorations of the wen-wu [literary–martial] dyad in both ancient and contemporary contexts, revealing the existence of real alternative models of masculinity since at least the time of Confucius (Louie and Edwards 1994, 140; Louie 1999).4 So far, however, the framing of the wen-wu dyad has taken place largely within a discourse of virtue and orthodox role models. The effeminate forms of 19

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masculinity analysed here will include orthodoxy and transgression, heroes and anti-heroes, all of which are desired by both male and female lovers. While structuralist and feminist analyses of Chinese literature are certainly needed, there is also a need for a hermeneutic approach that takes into account social and cultural forces that operate from outside the text or between texts. This chapter will bring together a number of texts for analysis, including several romantic stories from the “gifted youth and virtuous maidens” [caizijiaren] genre; the novel Honglou meng (which contains numerous references to the previous genre); works of fiction on hetero- and homoerotic love; and the separate genre of “flower guides” [huapu], guides to the boy-actors [dan] of Beijing opera. An examination of all of these sources reveals an intertextual aesthetic fashion that valorised males of feminised appearance and manners. My main aim here is to identify the various strands of cultural logic within the sensibility of “feminised masculinity”, contributing to a more general analysis of gender representations in the cultural history of late imperial China. Because this sensibility was a pervasive presence in the lives of the late Ming and early Qing literati, an intertextual analysis will not only shed light on social history, gender and sexuality in China, but it will also broaden our understanding of a number of problems in literature and the visual and performing arts, ancient and contemporary.5

Problematising gender categories in late imperial China It becomes apparent from a reading of Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) literature that in late imperial China when men identified with women they often tended to do so in one of two fundamental ways: either in terms of an ideal form of beauty, or as powerless subjects. Certainly each of these forms of identification was expressed through complex patterns of behaviour and culture, and there were many other forms of identifying with the opposite sex. It is important not to overly polarise the range of representations (Furth 1988, 1; Starr 1999, 273; Edwards 1994, 34–7).6 In this chapter I will explore a variation on the first tendency, or the adaptation by men of feminised images of male beauty. My interest here is not so much in identifying the causes of the feminisation of male appearance in late imperial China, but instead in opening up for analysis the meanings and discourse within which this change in Chinese culture took place. And not only should the question of origins be held in suspension, but it is also important to resist any temptation to identify the change as having positive or negative consequences. While both mainstream contemporary culture and late imperial China can be characterised as phallocentric, we cannot simply assume that the meanings and values attributed to gender and gender symbolism in the two periods are directly comparable. It is therefore important not to assume that the feminisation described here was necessarily understood to be unhealthy or undesirable. It would be easy to 20

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jump to a whole series of conclusions that attach to negative representations of the value and status of women in Chinese culture, but we need to understand a lot more about this tendency before we link it to a crisis in male confidence, male sexual anxieties and the like. This seems, though, to have been the approach of a number of writers to date, who have assumed that men identified with the feminine because there was something deeply wrong within the Chinese male psyche (see, for example, T’ien 1988, 89; Chow 1991, 170). Perhaps the fascination with achieving a feminised appearance was related to the powerlessness and frustration felt by the late imperial literati, but much more needs to be known about what they were doing, in what context and what it meant, before we can reach those kinds of conclusions. In developing an analysis of the feminised male subject in late imperial Chinese writing it is inevitable that the majority of the discussion will focus on the literati. It was this group of privileged men who were most involved in the production and consumption of literature. They were also involved in forms of feminised self-representation as well as the consumption of fantasies relating to feminised boy-actors [dan]. The literati were fascinated by the appearance of young cross-dressed actors appearing on stage and in the pages of “flower guides”, the catalogues of male beauties who doubled as actors and male prostitutes. Certainly in Beijing by the second half of the Qing dynasty, and continuing into the early years of the twentieth century, feminised boy-actors were a readily available commodity to the wealthy patrons of the city’s entertainment quarters. This last fact alone should alert us to the importance of status in understanding the logic of gender identity and representation in imperial China. For one group of young men, those making their way through the imperial examinations, the temporary adoption of a feminised personal style could bring honour and admiration. For another group of young men, usually sold into acting by desperate parents or relatives, feminisation represented the confirmation of their complete lack of status. The boy-actors were only important while they were able to maintain an illusion, presenting themselves as the living image of a fantasy otherwise found in the literary inventions of an escapist elite.

Gender representation in Ming and Qing dynasty romantic fiction A glance at paintings from the Ming and Qing dynasties provides the most direct evidence of the popular taste for a feminised male appearance. Literary works, particularly stories of romantic love, but also sometimes historical novels, provide evidence of a different, less intuitive kind. They also offer an opportunity to learn something of the moods and motivations that inspired this new aesthetic of the feminised male body. A survey of the majority of fiction from this period reveals that in most cases the male heroes have a femi21

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nised appearance (Louie 1999, 835–59; Louie and Edwards 1994, 135–48; Hodge and Louie 1998).7 For my consideration of these trends I have selected a number of works that illustrate different aspects of the feminised male in late imperial literature. All of the novels discussed here are vernacular fictional narratives, the most popular and important form in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Vernacular fiction included a number of genres, and here I will consider erotic fiction, tales of urban life [shiqing xiaoshuo] and “gifted youth and virtuous maiden” stories, as well as the novel Honglou meng. Erotic tales were extremely popular in the late Ming dynasty, and were published both as short tales and longer fiction. They are quite different from the novel known widely in the West as Golden Lotus (Jin ping mei, by Langling Xiaoxiaosheng; see Roy 1993) in that their plot is always centrally concerned with providing an opportunity for sexual description (see Hanan 1996). One of the best examples of the valorisation of the feminised male in a late Ming erotic novel comes from Langshi [Tales from a life of indulgence], where the reader follows the erotic adventures of the hero Langzi [lit. “the rake”], an avid seducer of young belles. The author’s characterisation of Langzi offers nothing in his favour apart from a description of his feminised appearance and its irresistible effect on female admirers. For example, in the thirty-sixth hui, the writer discusses a woman’s temptation by Langzi: “As her ladyship gazed upon Langzi she found him to be just like a beautiful woman, sporting an ivory complexion and fine features, returning her look with a dreamy smile. Uncontrollable passions flooded over her” (Fengyuexuan Youxuanzi n.d., 14a). A feminine appearance was not a disadvantage for the seducer of experienced women, such as her “ladyship”, or in winning the hearts of innocent maidens. Around the transition from the Ming to the Qing dynasty (early to midseventeenth century) the dramatist, novelist and critic Li Yu published his short story collection Wushengxi [Silent operas] (Li 1992).8 This collection of short stories portrays the sublunary world of ordinary urban lives heavily interwoven with Li Yu’s own urban fantasies and moralism. The collection includes the story “A jealous shrew lures a groom home, a bevy of beauties try to steal the gifted youth”,9 in which the hero Lü Xu is described as a uniquely charming male beauty “just like a boy moulded from powder; there is not even a woman whose skin is whiter than his” (Li 1992, 369). Li Yu also refers to Wei Jian, a gifted youth [caizi] who lived during the third century, and portrays him as having had “a transparent air and charming figure, his body barely supporting his clothes. As delicate as a flower, soft like powder. Never mind lady admirers showering him with cherries [guozi], even long glances might have caused him to collapse.” There is no evidence in the historical record for such a portrayal of Wei Jian, and we may therefore conclude that Li Yu has added a soft Ming glow to his portrait of a figure from an earlier period. Li Yu’s story repeatedly makes it clear that its hero Lü Xu was irresistible to women, for no reason other than his feminine appearance: 22

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There is among us a talented youth whose appearance is supreme [rongmao shi dangjin diyi]. If he took off his cap and stood beside a maiden, I believe no one could distinguish which was the boy and which was the girl. (Li 1992, 379) Because of his “supreme appearance”, all women, whether from good families or from houses of prostitution, were infatuated by him. Some even offered substantial material gifts in their attempts to retain his favour. At the end of the story Lü Xu effortlessly gains a wife and four concubines with whom he shares the pleasures of connubial life. It is interesting to note that while the hero’s appearance and manner are totally feminised the structure of Li Yu’s story remains within the phallocentric perspective of his time.10 The same aesthetic tendency remains prominent in popular romantic fiction of the early Qing dynasty.11 Practically all of the romances from this period describe their male heroes as feminine in appearance and assume that feminine appearance is the main attraction of the heroes for all women. In the early Qing novel Dingqingren [Dedication of love], the hero Shuang Xin is depicted as having “a face of white snow and lips of vermilion” (Tianhuazang Zhuren 1985a, 2), a description usually used to portray upper-class young women in writing from earlier periods. Jinxiangting [Pavilion of brocade fragrance], a novel from the same period, contains the following verse extolling the hero’s marvellous appearance: A charmingly delicate aura, Elegant deportment. His face of ivory needs no powder, His vermilion lips need no paint. Dashing like a replica of Pan An, Radiant like a reincarnation of Wei Jian. His sparkling eyes like frosted crystal, His slim fingers like sprouts of spring bamboo. (Guwu Shu’an Zhuren 1985, 3)12 Tang Chang, the hero in the novel Feihuayong [Ode to drifting flowers], receives similar praise from a female admirer: What a dashing boy! Draped in woman’s clothes he would be the same as a gorgeous woman. Look, his eyes are so bright! His fingers so delicate! And more, his gentle gaze has such a tender air it makes one swoon. (Tianhuazang Zhuren 1985b, 45) Another early Qing novel, Huatuyuan [A fated painting], goes so far as to portray its hero, a general credited with great feats of war, with the same kind of feminised appearance as heroes in other novels: “He is as beautiful as white jade, as 23

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pretty as morning clouds. He passes by like a gust of white snow.…He really looks like a young woman” (Tianhuazang Zhuren 1985c, 4, 15). The romantic aesthetic of the period causes a battle-hardened man, at the height of his powers, to be painted as soft, youthful, fine featured and as light as air. In the late imperial romantic novels that have been reprinted in recent years, around forty works, the heroes are without exception portrayed as having a feminine appearance. Furthermore, the authors consistently accentuate this effect by comparing them directly with female beauties. Because such images are so prevalent in the romances written for popular consumption at this time there can be little doubt that they were part of a significant fashion in both literary and popular taste. Male heroes were given feminine form and character because it was what readers at the time demanded. The majority of the romances are so similar in content that they sometimes seem to be just copies of the same story, with only the names of characters and places changed. This absence of creativity, however, did not prevent caizijiaren stories from gaining popularity with contemporary readers, for whom they provided a simple and guaranteed flight into fantasy. The caizijiaren novels all share one feature, what we might call the relative featurelessness of their style and content. The Qing dynasty novels of “gifted youths and virtuous maidens” were an extremely conservative form of literature, and their conventionalism is attacked by Cao Xueqin’s narrator in Honglou meng, the “immortal stone”, as “those dreary stereotypes with volume after volume all pitched on the same note and their different characters indistinguishable except by name” (Cao 1979, 51).13 In the caizijiaren novels the young male heroes, the gifted youths [caizi], are painted with soft features and feminine personalities. The function of this image is to evoke a particular refinement that is also associated with social success, for the caizi plan to sit the imperial examinations and inevitably win great honours – the rewards of which always include a high position in the bureaucracy, a virtuous young wife and charming concubines. The young female heroes, the virtuous maidens [jiaren], are equally models of social respectability, devoted to aiding their caizi along the path of official success: they make sacrifices for his studies, arranging his life needs while he pursues the long succession of examinations; they happily find the best concubines for their husband and work hard at providing the caizi with healthy progeny. The jiaren are usually from highly regarded families, and the caizi from fallen or poor households, and it is likely that the widest readership of this genre came from the latter group. The beauty of the caizi, in this context, is a sign of his Confucian virtue; in fact, it is hardly distinguishable from it. When they first meet a boy with soft features and a feminine personality, readers know implicitly that he is virtuous and due for reward. Cao Xueqin despised the conventionality that seems to have flourished during his lifetime, and one of the great innovations of Honglou meng is that he was able to shape the same concerns into a new and far less orthodox plot. Honglou meng 24

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can be understood as an attack on convention, in both literature and society. In Honglou meng there is a new aesthetic entirely, and the beauty of the gifted youths and virtuous maidens is turned towards very different ends. Beauty, with few exceptions, becomes a sign of the negation of social and official respectability, and convention is employed unconventionally.

The case of Jia Baoyu The epitome of the feminised-male aesthetic is the hero of Honglou meng, Jia Baoyu. While Jia Baoyu is usually understood to be rebelling against orthodox social convention, there is nothing about his feminised appearance per se that would have been considered unusual by contemporary readers: a face like the moon of Mid-Autumn, a complexion like spring flowers at dawn, a hairline straight as a knife-cut, eyebrows that might have been painted by an artist’s brush, a shapely nose, and eyes clear as limpid pools, that even in anger seemed to smile, and, as they glared, beamed tenderness the while. the cheeks might have been brushed with powder, and the lips touched with rouge. his glance was soulful, yet from his lips the laughter often leaped; a world of charm upon that brow was heaped; a world of feeling from those dark eyes peeped. (Cao 1979, 100–1)14 Cao Xueqin uses every opportunity to recount Jia Baoyu’s feminine appearance and demeanour, describing his passion for powder, rouge and lipstick, his collection of combs and hairpins, and the daily combing out of his braids by girl servants. When an elderly aunt enters his room by accident she mistakenly enquires which girl’s it is, as it overflows with all of the trappings usually associated with a young lady. Cao Xueqin’s portrayal of Baoyu’s allure depends on the many layers of femininity employed to construct his character – a young man who not only makes up like a young lady, but who attempts to exclude all forms of masculine “coarseness” from his life. Through this process he also creates the epitome of male beauty for his time. Baoyu holds a natural and irresistible attraction for all of the female characters in the novel, whether they fall in love with him or simply dote on and indulge him.15 Honglou meng is a sustained critique of contemporary social values, particularly in its rejection of the examination system and the narrow definition of social roles and life choices, but its author, Cao Xueqin, could still not ignore the feminine aesthetic of the early Qing period. 25

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Indeed, the unique success of the novel might be attributed to the way in which he combined his anti-conservative themes with his hero’s feminisation. While he occasionally directs mock criticism at Baoyu for his “uselessness” [wuyong], he leaves no doubt that his beauty “was the first of the best”, and that he was “blessed with a decent sheath of skin” (Cao 1979, 102).16 The Jia Baoyu portrayed in twentieth-century film and television versions of the story is very different from the images we see of him in the illustrations prepared by Gai Qi in the middle years of the Qing dynasty. Gai Qi’s portrayal of Jia Baoyu is very interesting, for Baoyu appears too soft for most modern readers to appreciate: his shoulders are weak and round, his chest sunken, and he has an insubstantial figure and listless posture. The overall effect is something like a pubescent girl. While it might be difficult to imagine today, this was the ideal form of male beauty in the Qing period. The illustrations for Honglou meng prepared by Gai Qi were generally considered to be the best, and were reproduced in many editions of the novel from the middle of the Qing dynasty.17 It is also interesting to note that, like many other authors of his time, when Cao Xueqin portrays a male character with a feminine appearance it is always an indication that the author views him positively [zhengmian renwu]. Whenever a character is portrayed as having a more masculine appearance it is a signal that the author does not approve of him [fanmian renwu]. In Honglou meng, there are three males apart from Jia Baoyu who stand out because of their feminine appearance: the Prince of Bei-jing, Qin Zhong and Liu Xianglian (Chan 1980, 169). The author compares Qin Zhong to Baoyu “in delicacy of complexion, handsomeness of figure, and grace of deportment, but whose painful bashfulness created a somewhat girlish impression” (Cao 1979, 177). Baoyu’s own assessment of his friend’s beauty is representative of the significance of feminine beauty in the early Qing dynasty: When Bao-yu first set eyes on Qin Zhong it had been as though part of his soul had left him. For a while he stared blankly, oblivious to all around him, while a stream of idle fancies passed through his mind. “How perfect he is! Who would have believed there could be such perfection? Now that I have seen him I know that I am just a pig wallowing in the mud, a mangy dog! Why, why did I have to be born in this pretentious aristocratic household? Why couldn’t I have been born in the family of some poor scholar or low-grade clerk? Then I could have been near him and got to know him, and my life would have been worth living. Though I am so much richer and more nobly born than he, what use are my fine clothes but to cover up the dead and rotten wood beneath? What use the luxuries I eat and drink but to fill the cesspit and swell the stinking sewer of my inside? O rank and riches! How you poison everything!” (Cao 1979, 178) 26

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Beauty, in the form of a soft appearance and tender bearing, was the natural sign of goodness in Baoyu’s world. No amount of wealth, work or embellishment could compete with Qin Zhong’s natural endowments, which were taken by those around him to be the unmistakable signs of a noble spirit. While many scholars have discussed Baoyu’s feminisation, none seem to have made the connection between the portrayal of Baoyu and the aesthetic environment, or sensibility, that existed at the time of the novel’s creation (Edwards 1988–9, 36–7; Edwards 1990, 69–82; Han 1988, 82). In fact a survey of other romances from the first half of the Qing dynasty would reveal that the feminisation of male images was widespread, and was not a particular creation of Cao Xueqin (McMahon 1994, 234).18 While Baoyu’s belittling of the importance of “official ambitions” [shitu jingji] and “the reputation of the lineage” [guangzong yaozu] may not have been shared by most other men, his appearance, or feminisation, is in complete accord with the prevailing aesthetic of the time. As has been demonstrated above, many similar images can be found throughout the caizijiaren novels of the period, and in those works the feminised male is not necessarily a symbol of a rebellious or unconventional spirit. Jia Baoyu’s incredible popularity among female readers in the Qing dynasty is more likely attributable to his tender beauty than to his unorthodox attitudes, although it may be hard to separate that gentleness and the persona of a man who valued and understood the feminine. While such a persona may not fit the requirements of twentieth-century Western feminism, in its day it was an attractive image for many young devotees of the novel. Today it is not the feminised appearance of Baoyu that is found attractive; rather, contemporary readers tend to appreciate his unorthodox spirit.

Moral dimensions of male beauty The emergence of homoerotic novels featuring literati and boy-actors [dan, xianggong] as a genre in the mid-Qing dynasty is also important in relation to the portrayal of ideal forms of male beauty. In these stories it is not only the boyactors who are given a feminine appearance; the literati who pursue them are also depicted as being feminised in highly stylised ways, at least when the literatus is a positive figure. Mei Ziyu, the main hero of Pinhua baojian [The precious mirror of male beauties], the most important Qing work of fiction on male-love, is a promising young scholar from an influential family, who is blessed with “cheeks that might have been brushed with powder, lips that could have been tinted with rouge, fine features emitting a soft glow, and a vivacious air” (Chen 1991, 83). In the fifteenth hui of Pinhua baojian, the author describes Mei Ziyu’s feminine appearance again, this time through words of admiration from another young scholar: “his demeanour is exactly like a young maiden hiding in shadows or peering from behind a screen” (Chen 1991, 215). Other positive male characters in this novel are also treated in terms of much the same set of aesthetic conventions. 27

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In the aesthetics of the Qing dynasty romantic novel there is a distinct dualism in the description of male characters. Characters in positive roles were attributed soft, fine, feminine features – white skin, red lips, slender fingers, tender airs. It is difficult to tell them apart from the heroines. On the other hand, the manliness of negative characters was always exaggerated, with dark faces, ample beards, strong, tall bodies and deep voices. In other words, the attributes of the male and female genders were arranged along a moral scale. What is today considered a masculine appearance was associated in Qing literature with dirt, coarseness, lust and sadistic domination. Cao Xueqin describes such men as “hairy and brutish things” [xumei zhuowu]. In Pinhua baojian there is a character named Xi Shiyi who personifies these qualities, a vile but very wealthy merchant in the prime of his life (early thirties). In today’s terms, ignoring for the moment his particular crimes, he would be seen as a very attractive and manly man. However, in the Qing dynasty, to be described as having “a towering build and a dark complexion…a rigid posture and a consequential bearing” meant that the character could only be expected to behave in the coarsest manner, and was in fact considered to be ugly. A character like this was never well received as the story unfolded; rather, everyone who came near him avoided him. Such a man may even have felt cursed, not blessed. Under the influence of the aesthetic trend towards feminisation the sentiments and personalities of heroes depicted in Qing dynasty fiction also become weaker, and more sensitive and constrained. They are usually portrayed as sentimental, gentle, modest, innocent and immature youths, and their undeveloped minds and frail constitutions allow them to become easily dispirited at the least sign of frustration. Not unlike the melancholy youths of seventeenth and eighteenth-century European literature, many heroes nurtured a depressive illness and found reassurance in medicinal preparations. Such conventions were particularly common in late-Ming to mid-Qing love stories, but there are also several earlier historical and chivalrous novels where the heroes are described as being deferential, gentle, innocent, timid and even teary. These include Liu Bei in Sanguo yanyi and Song Jiang in Shuihu zhuan. In the popular romantic fiction of the early Qing dynasty, the heroes were always shy and bashful, not unlike a girl accustomed to the seclusion of her boudoir. If they found themselves in love with a girl they would usually abandon the idea rather than risk disappointment or become the subject of gossip. Any progress they made in a relationship with the opposite sex was entirely dependent on the help of more powerful seniors, or occasionally younger girls known to both parties. Yet these ultra-passive characters do not seem to have frustrated readers; on the contrary, their innocent personalities were exactly what the reader found attractive. And in the end they were always rewarded with a household that included a wife and a number of attractive concubines, relationships that they had done little themselves to arrange. Within the aesthetic of the gifted youth [caizi] there is no room for him to take an active role in love – rather, his virtues win admiration without effort. The same logic applied in other areas of 28

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success in life, such as winning office or promotion. The woman is usually portrayed as devoting herself quite naturally to the gifted and virtuous hero, and a generous wife would go even further, inviting other beauties to join their family as concubines. It was also common in stories from this era for a father, especially if he was well connected, to seek to marry as many of his daughters as possible to the same desirable young man. All aspects of life were arranged by others for the hero’s enjoyment. The purpose of the action in these stories is mainly to valorise the moral character of the young gentleman. In the Qing dynasty, the shy, timid, deferential and modest character associated with a feminine persona became the model for an eligible and attractive young man. The radical feminisation of male characters in Honglou meng represents a very different moral pattern, signifying unconventionality, individualism and a deep sympathy for the weaker sex, three values that are once again most clearly defined in the character of Jia Baoyu. For example, Baoyu is most in his element when among the women and female servants of the household. Whenever he is in the presence of his father, a demanding and strict parent, he is timid and uneasy, and only regains his balance when he is back in the company of women. Baoyu is gentle, fastidious and considerate, and is easily brought to tears. In his mind, the world is divided into the world of men and the world of women. The world of men represents all that he detests, and the world of women all that he admires: “The frames of girls are formed with water, those of men are made of mud. Seeing girls I feel refreshed, but the sight of men is repulsive.” Similarly, he sees two types of person in the world. The first consists of those who are interested in pursuing official life or the management of public affairs, in wealth and rank, whom Baoyu calls “gold-digging toadies” and “the slimiest embezzlers”. In Jia Baoyu’s eyes it is girls who are the most perfect example of human life. This has nothing to do with the status of women, but is rather an aestheticisation of all that falls outside the daily practical concerns of the “real world”, a world associated with men and one that Baoyu both deeply resents and fears. Instead he turns to the world of girls, which in his limited experience is entirely free from the unwelcome intrusion of regularity and responsibility. The combination of the fashion for high aestheticism and a literati rejection of the conventions of mainstream society ensured a warm reception for a character such as Jia Baoyu among the intellectual readership, as opposed to the literate masses [dushuren], of the Qing dynasty. His character represents the most romantic portrayal of a young man among contemporary literary works. Although the author feigns criticism of Baoyu based on the conservative, rational opinions of the times – “for uselessness the world’s prize he might bear; his gracelessness in history has no peer” (Cao 1979, 102)19 – the character still attracted sympathy from both literati circles and the female readers of the period. There were apparently even women who ended their own lives as a result of their infatuation with Baoyu.20 For female readers he was the man of their dreams, an anti-masculine ideal of masculinity. It is thus clear that the ideal male of the times was somewhat paradoxically “less male”. In contrast to both our 29

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own time and the period immediately preceding it in China, the late imperial Chinese male ideal was a form of masculinity where masculinity was de-emphasised. It was a feminine masculinity that was most widely admired. This makes it very difficult to continue to use terms such as femininity and masculinity, something that also makes us aware of the relativity of these terms in modern use.21 For what was considered the ideal male form and personality in the mind of the Qing literati is what we currently perceive to be the antithesis of masculinity. While it is now well recognised that the aesthetics of gender are malleable and that boundaries shift over different historical periods, identifying the conditions that constituted a particular sensibility requires a careful tracing of gender representations against the historical background of both textual and social practice.

Alternative dimensions of male beauty? One of the classic expressions of the trend towards a feminised ideal of the male form is to be found in the Qing dynasty literati interest in cross-dressing. Crossdressing may be said to have taken a number of forms, but did not usually involve the literati dressing as girls or young women. Instead, they either admired or desired young men who took on female stage personae (i.e. the dan of Beijing opera). This interest also has a history. Already in the Ming dynasty we find records of individuals who aspired to a more feminised appearance, or at least attempted to suppress any suggestion of excessive masculinity. For example, Zhang Juzheng, a Ming prime minister and famous reformer, is described by Shen Defu in Wanli yehuobian as “powdering his face and applying perfumed water, morning and evening without fail” [gaozhe zhixiang, zaomu dijin]. While such a practice is not in itself feminine, at this point in Chinese history it was understood to be. Shen also writes of personally seeing another high official who was over sixty but still powdered his face to an ivory complexion like a beautiful woman [xunbai ru mei furen], and that he had heard that the Wanli emperor also powdered his face and neck when meeting with his ministers. At the time Shen felt it was a little incongruous for gentlemen who carried arms to be made up like royal concubines (Shen 1959, 316, 620). There are many more such examples in the records of the Qing dynasty. Many of these refer to stories from the Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern dynasties period of men who were not ashamed to powder their faces, or who openly flaunted their girlish good looks (Wang 1989; Xu 1996, 3,460; Zhang 1985). There were also a number of stories that referred to contemporary events. One famous example is that of the poet Zhang Chuanshan, who received poems from other intellectuals confessing their admiration for him and pledging to crossdress as pretty girls and serve as his concubines (Liang 1982, 408). Usually, however, it was not the Qing literati who were cross-dressing; rather, they required their boy servants or boy entertainers to cross-dress as girls. In his Lü yuan conghua [Collected topics from Lü Garden], a popular miscellany from the mid-Qing, Qian Yong tells of a prefect in the Qianlong reign period, Wang 30

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Menglou, who boasted of a private music and dance ensemble, which included five “gorgeous girls”. However, it was later revealed that two of these were actually cross-dressed boys (Qian 1979, 623). In Qingbai leichao [A classified collection of Qing miscellanies] it is also recorded that in the Guangxu reign period there was a high-ranking official who was fond of a popular boy-actor named Wujiu, and employed him to cross-dress as a concubine in his home. He even required his private servants to call the boy “young mistress” [shao nainai] (see Xu 1996, 5,123). The preference for feminised male images in caizijiaren novels also allowed their authors to weave numerous cross-dressing episodes into their works. It is interesting that such episodes appear far more often in heterosexual romances than in stories of male-love [nanfeng, nanse]. Between 80 and 90 per cent of the caizijiaren romances include episodes of either male or female cross-dressing. Among the popular romances that employ repeated episodes of cross-dressing are works such as Liangjiaohun [Swapping weddings], Baiguizhi [A story of white jade], Wanruyue [Matching as if prearranged], Yujiaoli [A tender jade-like pear], Tiehuaxian shi [The story of the iron flower fairy], Xingfengliu [Woken from a romance], Jinxiangting [Pavilion of brocade fragrance], Lin’erbao [Rewarded with a perfect son], Huatuyuan [A fated painting], Feihuayong [Ode to drifting flowers] and Chunliuying [An oriole in a spring willow].22 We should not be too surprised to find accounts of young men cross-dressing in the romantic fiction of the Ming and Qing dynasties (of course, young women cross-dressed as well). It was a common conceit that allowed contact across the traditional separation of male and female spheres that obtained in everyday life. Furthermore, cross-dressing was an important technique for adding drama and complexity to a story. This conceit was also not unknown in the writing of earlier periods, given the appropriate social context. In the Qing dynasty, themes of cross-dressing were not only a feature of the caizijiaren romance and other forms of writing, but appeared in other areas of life. When literary representations of cross-dressing are read alongside other forms, such as the dan actors of Beijing opera (discussed below), it is evident that late imperial China was evolving its own unique aesthetic, an aesthetic based on a fascination for the feminised male. In all of these materials the primary meaning of feminised male beauty is aesthetic – the scenes are meeting a well-developed sensibility that was particularly located within the households of the literati, but also took more public forms. Episodes of cross-dressing were created for aesthetic appreciation. Much of the attraction in the caizijiaren romances was found in episodes of males crossdressing as females, and the authors never neglected to describe “the face of powder and lips of vermilion” possessed by these charming young men, the heroes of the novels. For example, the hero Shuang Xin in the Qing dynasty caizijiaren story Liangjiaohun was originally described thus: “in spite of possessing a male body, his beauty excels even that of the female”. After cross-dressing as a woman he was the perfect image of female beauty, “slender and delicate, with a charming poise, as lovely as a bedewed peach flower” (Tianhuazang Zhuren 1985d, 48, 57). In most cases these descriptions are completely independent of 31

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the overall plot, but they cannot be considered a form of superfluous adornment. We might, indeed, imagine that during the Qing dynasty many readers took these descriptions to be of great significance, and only considered the plot and characterisation of secondary importance. This trend can also be seen in Beijing opera.23 The same logic applied to episodes of females cross-dressing as males in caizijiaren novels. Under the aesthetic terms of these romances, because the “man” was a cross-dressed female beauty, the resulting male persona was sure to be pretty, delicate and feminine; thus “he” would surely be a charming “man”, and would be expected to be talented and successful too. As the plots of such tales unfold they usually reveal the magnetic admiration “he” has for girls and how the gentry queue up to marry their daughters to “him”. The conventions thus work in much the same way, whether it is males or females who are crossdressing. In either case the sign of the male has complete hegemony, males have full being, and females and the feminine are an elusive shadow. The portrayal of females cross-dressing as males in the novels only confirms the ontological marginality of the image of “woman” in Chinese literature. A woman dressing as a man is a purely aesthetic shift, for the woman was already the ornament of the male and existed in an aesthetic register. On this point I am in agreement with Louise Edwards’s analysis of Jia Baoyu’s bisexuality where she observes that “[p]art of being female is being appreciated aesthetically” (Edwards 1994, 42), but this aestheticisation of the female is evident through all of the caizijiaren novels. Perhaps this is another reason that readers never tired of the conventional conceits: despite the repeated use of feminisation the feminine remained distant and a source of fresh fascination. The formula could be usefully stated around the other way – “part of being appreciated aesthetically is being female” – and this must be a large part of the reason young men cross-dress in this literature of beauty and manners.

Beijing opera, cross-dressing and “flower guides” In late imperial China the most common location of cross-dressing (apart from literature) was the theatre. Already in the late Ming dynasty, boy entertainers [xiaochang] were well known for “making up with powder and rouge like women” in the Lianzi Lane of Beijing (Shen 1959, 621; Xie 1959, 209). During the Qing period, actors were prepared to go to even greater lengths to meet audience demand for young boys playing young women [dan]. Wei Changsheng, the most famous actor of the Qianlong period, can be seen as an example of this fashion. Wei initiated a thoroughgoing reform of the dan role in Chinese opera, including innovations such as the adoption of authentic female hairstyles and the imitation of bound feet on stage. “When he appeared on stage for the first time, the entire audience swooned and judged him an unprecedented wonder” (Anle 1991, 46; Ruizhu 1991, 356). Another fashionable actor, Chen Yinguan, a student of Wei Changsheng, was also known “to make up with powder and rouge, and wear the 32

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small curved shoes and tight sleeved robes of a woman” (Yu 1988, 30–1). The performing of young female roles [dan] by boy-actors soon became so formalised in the theatres of Beijing that the term dan came to refer to the actors themselves, both on stage and off. Qing audiences looked forward to viewing dan wearing ladies’ hairstyles or even imitating bound feet by using a special technique known as caiqiao, walking on truncated stilts. Contemporary theatre guides make it clear that until the beginning of the twentieth century the convincing portrayal of young women on stage was a major attraction of the theatres of Beijing. Troupe managers enhanced the illusion by giving dan flamboyant, feminised stage names. The fashion for transvestism in Beijing opera found its most developed expression in a particular genre of opera literature known as huapu, or “flower guides”. The original huapu were guides for enthusiasts on the advantages and disadvantages of various varieties of flowering plants. During the Ming dynasty, following the rise in popularity of private-sector prostitution, the term huapu came to be used for guides to famous beauties of the entertainment quarters in large cities (hua, “flower”, had long been a term applied to beautiful women). In the Qing dynasty, the rise in appreciation of dan and a corresponding decline in the popularity of female prostitutes resulted in huapu taking on yet another meaning, describing guidebooks to the famous dan of the entertainment quarters and their nightclubs. For the literati and theatre managers this idea of “flower guides” implied a connection between dan and femininity.24 The huapu guides to the dan were printed from the Yongzheng (1723–36) period through to the end of the nineteenth century. The period of highest circulation appears to have been during the Jiaqing and Tongzhi periods (1862–75). The titles of the more important catalogues of dan include Yinghua xiaopu [The short catalogue of melodious flowers], Rixia kanhua ji [Notes on admiring flowers in sunlight], Chang’an kanhua ji [Notes on admiring flowers in Chang’an], Pinghua xinpu [The new catalogue of flower appreciation], Yantai huashi lu [A record of floral highlights in the capital], Fengcheng pinhua ji [Notes on flower appreciation from the phoenix city], Huaifang ji [Notes recalling flowers], Zhongxiangguo [The land of assembled fragrance], Yantai jiyan [Notes on outstanding beauties from the capital] and Yantai huashi [An account of flowers in the capital].25 Huapu were composed by aficionados of dan and the opera, either as individuals or coteries. Often they were the result of “competitions” or other forms of selection, where meetings of the literati discussed the dan and their various qualities. Others were the result of individuals’ own experiences and relationships with dan over periods ranging from a few months to a lifetime. For the authors, therefore, the huapu were a means of publicising their own romantic refinement as well as their breadth of experience (i.e. their conquests). The huapu were welcomed by the dan themselves as a form of endorsement and promotion. A listing in a huapu was an exciting event for the dan, except on the rare occasion of a negative reference. Huapu were mostly published and circulated privately. Occasionally, due to their especially broad coverage, literary quality or the prestige of the author, they 33

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were marketed through bookshops (another confirmation of the place dan occupied in Beijing society). Contemporary references describe huapu as an everyday part of the capital’s culture, and give the impression that large numbers were composed and published. Most of the huapu collected by Zhang Cixi (1988 [1934]) are of the higher standard sold through bookstores – to my knowledge, nothing remains of the many simpler versions that must also have existed.26 The huapu are often categorised under biji [miscellanies]27 in Chineselanguage discussions of source materials. There are many types of biji, but the huapu tended to be less documentary or topical than most biji, and were more narrowly confined to simple assessment than discussion or commentary. Huapu were particularly concerned with the appearance of the dan, and they are therefore a valuable source on the fashion of cross-dressing and other elements of taste. However, it must also be noted that they are far from objective documents, and carry a heavy bias towards the views of the literati and their class. In 1934 Zhang Cixi published a collection of important huapu under the title Qingdai yandu liyuan shiliao [Historical materials on the opera circles of Qing dynasty Beijing], followed in 1936 by a supplement [Qingdai yandu liyuan shiliao xubian].28 The fifty-one huapu in these two collections are almost exclusively concerned with the attractiveness of the dan, and have very little to say about appreciation of the theatre. Twentieth-century scholars have observed that these writings have practically no value for the study of traditional theatre during the Qing dynasty (Zhao 1986, the appendix of Pinhua baojian). However, despite their class bias, they provide a great deal of useful information relating to male homoerotic sensibilities in late imperial China. Their value for social history is not merely limited to details about the opera. Huapu usually classified boy-actors according to their individual style, such as zheng [upright], yan [dazzling], yi [carefree], hui [intelligent], qiao [clever] and xiang [perfume]. This vocabulary was adapted directly from the language of the world of the courtesan, and it is clear that the role of the dan and the role of the courtesan, and their relationship to the literati, corresponded exactly.29 In the novel Pinhua baojian, which borrows extensively from this vocabulary, it is at first difficult to tell – unless one knows already – that those being spoken of in such romantic tones are males. Only well into the book does the true situation become obvious. The authors of huapu always emphasised the resemblance of boy-actors/dan to young women, for that was what readers most wanted to know.

Conclusion This chapter has traced the feminisation of the male image through several important forms of cultural expression in the Qing dynasty, including painting, fiction, book illustration, theatre and the “flower guides” of Beijing opera. It has become clear through the comparisons I have been able to make that the idea of the feminine, or of being “girl-like”, functioned in both an aesthetic and a moral space. It is difficult to say what this meant in terms of individual lives, 34

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but that is another promising direction for future research. The understanding of feminisation may be related to the same cultural shifts taking place around homoerotic sensibilities that were current in several regions of Qing dynasty China, including the capital, Beijing. It has often been said that in China sexual preference and sexual pleasure were generalised – that is to say, they were not fixed in the polarities that have dominated sexuality in the cultural discourse of the modern West. Sexuality was, for the late imperial literati, more or less equated with beauty, as it had always been throughout Chinese history. But beauty itself was not a simple matter. We have already pointed out how culturally defined masculine and feminine traits came to map out a moral scale in late imperial Chinese art and literature. However, at the same time – and this becomes more obvious in developments within the world of theatre – beauty was a matter of power, summed up, for example, in the relationship of the observer and the observed, the literati and the boy-actors who were used as the site of their fantasies. There is a sense, both in the novels and in theatrical performance, of a search for newer and fresher forms of beauty, and of pursuing a form of beauty free from the demands of the “real world”. This search focused on experiments with the feminine, but was limited to cultural products that were, to all intents and purposes, exclusively imagined by men. While sexual pleasure may have been generalised, particularly for men, the above account reveals a process of reification and reinforcing of gender difference. Cross-dressing was a symptom of a heightened consciousness of gender difference (Starr 1999). While the literature portrays individual young men and women experimenting with the traits of the opposite sex, it is clear that the choice is always structured as either/or. There is no middle ground. There is little sense of androgyny in what is mostly temporary “impersonation”. Androgyny in the sense of being between male and female was conceived medically as a “human anomaly” (Furth 1988). Nor is there much sense of cross-identification. For all that he despises in the world of the “hairy and brutish” males, as well as his infatuation with the world of girls and his desire to be absorbed into it, Baoyu does not once entertain the possibility of “crossing over” and identifying as female. Playing with femininity, or “passing” as feminine, were temporary pursuits for young men of the privileged literati class. Once they were married and began their own households, their feminine fantasies or forms of play soon ceased – unless, as was often also the case in the Qing dynasty, they became consumers/admirers of feminised young men who belonged to an entirely different class. If sexuality in China was a problem of beauty, time and time again the evidence also points to both sexuality and beauty as being matters of status. This has been shown in studies of homosexuality in China, as well as in feminist analysis of gender relations. Most of the symbolic, aesthetic and social meanings identified in the cultural forms analysed here were directly available only in the lives of a single class of late imperial Chinese subject – the literati. 35

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Notes 1 The phrase in the title of this paper is from Liang Shaoren’s (1792–?) poem ‘Yantai xiaoyuefu’ [Short lyric composed at Yan, Beijing], from his miscellany, Liangban qiuyu’an suibi [Jottings from two strolls at Autumn Rain Hermitage]: “Miles of soft luxury caressed by spring air,/ they notice the boys as if the girls weren’t there./ Arias ring out and rise over the roofs,/ from beautiful boys made up as beautiful girls” (Liang 1982, 322). The lines reproduce the atmosphere of the Qing capital’s entertainment district. “Soft luxury” [ruanhong, lit. soft red] is possibly a reference to the red carpets associated with the theatre, but “red” may also signify luxury. Since the world of the theatre was out of bounds to all (non-fictional) women the translation locates the scene outside that range of reference. 2 This was not the first period in Chinese history to witness such a trend. In the Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern dynasties period (220–581) men are reputed to have taken great trouble with their appearance, although there are no clear indications that they pursued effeminacy to the extent witnessed in the period under discussion here. 3 More recently Chloe Starr has also noted a “reading tradition which explores aspects such as the effeminacy and cross-dressing of characters” in relation to Pinhua baojian that goes beyond the themes of homosexuality in the Qing novel (1999, 269). 4 Further references to Louie’s work can be found in subsequent footnotes and in his own contribution to this volume. 5 See the chapters by Kam Louie and Yiyan Wang in this volume. 6 Charlotte Furth has observed that, “[i]t is well known that Chinese cosmology based on the interaction of the forces of yin and yang made sexual difference, a relative and flexible bipolarity in natural philosophy” (1988, 1); Chloe Starr, in her analysis of boy-actors in the novel Pinhua baojian, also notes a “dissection of the male–female bipolarity through the setting up of boys-as-women versus women as objects of sexual choice” (1999, 273); and Louise Edwards provides a brief summary of French feminist critique of the “binary” in (phallogocentric) Western thought and its inadequacy in addressing gender categories in Chinese cultural history (1994, 34–7). 7 There are some well-known exceptions, but even highly androcentric novels such as Shuihu zhuan [The water margin] and Sanguo zhi yanyi [Romance of the three kingdoms] have characters like Song Jiang and Liu Bei who fit the feminised pattern. I use the word hero here in the sense of “the central (male) character” or “protagonist”, although Song and Liu are both also identified as yingxiong. The category yingxiong, or “outstanding man”, is rather different in Chinese culture from its European counterparts (see Ruhlmann 1960, 150). For a detailed recent analysis of this problem see Kam Louie (1999), Kam Louie and Louise Edwards (1994), and Bob Hodge and Kam Louie, “The cult of the hero: Masculinity and popular culture” in Bob Hodge and Kam Louie (1998). 8 Hanan’s (1990) translation of selections from Li Yu’s collection does not include the story cited here. Li Yu’s collection contains twelve stories. As a result of political problems the title was changed by the publisher to Lianchengbi [The precious jade] in the early Qing period. 9 “Dufu sheji zhui xinlang, zhongmei qixin duo caizi”. 10 As we shall see below, the same applies in the case of Jia Baoyu in the novel Honglou meng. A feminist treatment of this problem can be found in Louise Edwards (1990). 11 Romances of this type are known as caizijiaren xiaoshuo [lit. “gifted youth and virtuous maiden fiction”] in Chinese. Their plots are always similar: the hero and heroine fall in love and, after an initial trial, begin a life of connubial bliss. These romances were widely distributed for popular consumption in the early part of the Qing dynasty. Most were soon forgotten as the market moved on in the mid-Qing period, but in the 1980s Chunfeng Literary Publishing House [Chunfeng wenyi chubanshe, Shenyang,

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12 13

14 15

16

17

18

19 20 21

22 23

24

China] and Zhejiang Ancient Works Publishing House [Zhejiang guji chubanshe, Hangzhou, China] reprinted approximately forty of the extant romances. The new editions gave birth to a brief fashion of scholarship; see Lin Chen (1992; 2000). See also Yiyan Wang in this volume. Pan An (Pan Yue, courtesy name Pan Anren) and Wei Jian are young men from the Jin (265–420) dynasty and Wei dynasty respectively (220–65), commonly used to signify male beauty in traditional literature. Honglou meng is universally regarded as the epitome of Chinese fictional narrative, containing far greater psychological sophistication than any work that preceded it. Its insight into personality and the human condition has rarely been matched in later works. Existing for many years in manuscript form, it was first published shortly after the death of the author, Cao Xueqin (1715?–63?). From Hawkes’s translation, with slight modification. See below for the relationship between Baoyu’s feminisation and the book’s popularity with female readers. There are interesting parallels here with contemporary Japanese women’s critique of gender relations through an interest in meeting male homosexual companions. See the chapter by Mark McLelland in this volume. Hawkes has translated “sheath of skin” [pinang] as “sausage-skin”, which misses the Buddhist imagery in the original text. Pinang, pidai or genang [lit: a sack of skin, or leather sack] appear in Buddhist literature as a description of the outer human form, and connote the impurity or unsatisfactoriness of the body. The idea is present in early Buddhism and is found in the Scripture in forty-two sections [Sishi’er zhang jing], traditionally recognised as the earliest “sutra” to have been translated into Chinese (Eastern Han dynasty, CE 25–220). See Robert H. Sharf, (1996, 361, 368). In later usage the term was mildly insulting, and implied uselessness, as if the outer form was all there was to the person. Still regarded as an outstanding part of China’s cultural heritage, this set of illustrations is widely incorporated into contemporary Honglou meng editions such as, for example, the standard edition published by Renmin wenxue chubanshe in 1959 (Cao Xueqin 1959). A number of scholars refer to this phenomenon in passing, but few subject it to extended analysis. Keith McMahon seems to overlook this feature in the caizijiaren xiaoshuo, arguing the opposite: “The classic beauty-scholar romance is the story of the upward mobility of the woman, so that a man’s dressing or acting like a woman would not only be illogical but perverse” (1994, 234). Here “gracelessness” [buxiao] should be read in the sense of “unregenerate”. A number of Qing miscellanies record female readers’ infatuations with Jia Baoyu. See Chen Yong Chusanzhai congtan; Mao Qinzhen Yiting kaogu zaji; and Chen Qiyuan Yongxianzhai biji. These can be found in Zhu Yixuan (1989, 686, 687, 691, 692). I would also argue that debates around the applicability of the term “homosexual” in discussions of nanfeng [male-love] in Chinese history, while important, do something of the same (i.e. reveal just as much about contemporary conceptions and concerns as they do about historical ones). Keith McMahon (1994) has discussed cross-dressing in several of these works. For modern editions of these works see the list of references at the end of this chapter. It seems that Keith McMahon may have been unaware of this kind of evidence when discussing cross-dressing in the caizijiaren romances, for he concludes that usually “only the woman dresses as a man; the other half of the cross-dressing story is not written except in Ming and Qing erotic works” (McMahon 1994, 234, emphasis added). Huapu have been mentioned in a number of recent works by scholars writing in the West, but only recently have their links with male actors begun to be explored. See Chloe Starr (1999, 291 n. 43), and Dorothy Ko (1997). Starr provides a number of references for discussions on huapu and female courtesans.

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25 These may all be found in Zhang Cixi (1988). 26 In Pinhua baojian there are many scenes of literati coteries spending hours discussing the attributes of individual dan and later circulating the notes from their conversations. See the first three hui in particular. 27 Miscellanies [biji] first gained popularity in the Tang and Song (960–1279) dynasties, and started out as reading notes. In later periods they included a wide range of forms and subjects, but could also focus on an area of interest or a particular region. See Endymion Wilkinson (1998, 573–75). 28 Republished together by two separate publishing houses: by Xuesheng shuju (Taibei, 1965) and by Zhongguo xiju chubanshe (Beijing, 1988, reprinted 1991). See also Colin Mackerras (1972, 237–44). 29 See Zhang Cixi, ed., Qingdai Yandu liyuan shiliao (1991) and its supplement, originally published in the 1930s, where many of the extant huapu are preserved. See also Chen Sen, Pinhua baojian, first hui. The analogy between dan and courtesan is also noted by Dorothy Ko (1997, 78).

References Anle Shanqiao. 1991. Yanlan xiaopu [A minor history of Yanlan]. In Qingdai Yandu liyuan shiliao, ed. Zhang Cixi: 1–52. Beijing. Zhongguo xiju chubanshe. Anonymous. 1985. Lin’erbao [Rewarded with a perfect son]. Shenyang: Chunfeng wenyi chubanshe. Cao Xueqin. 1959. Honglou meng (Gao E., co-author). Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe. ——. 1979, trans. David Hawkes. The story of the stone [Honglou meng]. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Chan, Ping-leung. 1980. Myth and psyche in Hung-lou meng. In Critical essays on Chinese fiction, eds Winston Yang and Curtis Adkins: 165–79. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press. Chen Sen. 1991. Pinhua baojian [The precious mirror of male beauties]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe. Chow, Rey. 1991. Woman and Chinese modernity: The politics of reading between West and East. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. Cui Xiangchuan. 1985. Baiguizhi [A story of white jade]. Shenyang: Chunfeng wenyi chubanshe. Edwards, Louise. 1988–9. Jia Baoyu and essential feminine purity. Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia 20–1: 36–47. ——. 1990. Gender imperatives in Honglou meng: Baoyu’s bisexuality. Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles and Reviews 12, December: 69–81. ——. 1994. Men and women in Qing China: Gender in The Red Chamber Dream. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Fengyuexuan Youxuanzi. Langshi [Tales from a life of indulgence]. Guangxu (1875–1908), movable type edition. Fengyun Shanren. 1985. Tiehuaxian shi [The story of the iron flower fairy]. Shenyang: Chunfeng wenyi chubanshe. Furth, Charlotte. 1988. Androgynous males and deficient females: Biology and gender boundaries in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century China. Late Imperial China 9, no. 2: 1–31. Guwu Shu’an Zhuren. 1985. Jinxiangting [Pavilion of brocade fragrance]. Shenyang: Chunfeng wenyi chubanshe.

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Han Huiqiang. 1988. Honglou meng zhong de xing guannian ji wenhua yiyi [Sexual references and their significance in The Story of the Stone]. Beijing daxue yanjiusheng xuekan, no. 1: 77–82. Hanan, Patrick, trans. 1990. Silent Operas [Wushengxi]. Hong Kong: Research Centre for Translation, Chinese University of Hong Kong. ——. 1996. The carnal prayer mat [Rouputuan]. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Heshi Daoren. 1984. Xingfengliu [Woken from a romance]. Shenyang: Chunfeng wenyi chubanshe. Hodge, Bob and Kam Louie. 1998. The politics of Chinese language and culture: The art of reading dragons. London: Routledge. Ko, Dorothy. 1997. The written word and the bound foot. In Writing women in late imperial China, eds Ellen Widmer and Kang-i Sun Chang: 74–100. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Li Yu. 1992. Lianchengbi [The precious jade]. In Li Yu quanji di 8 ce [The complete works of Li Yu, vol. 8]. Hangzhou: Zhejiang guji chubanshe. Liang Shaoren. 1982. Liangban qiuyu’an suibi [Jottings from two strolls at Autumn Rain Hermitage]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe. Lin Chen. 1992. Tianhuazang Zhuren ji qi xiao shuo [The Master of Celestial Flower Storehouse and his novels]. Shenyang: Liaoning jiaoyu chubanshe. ——. 2000. Caizijiaren xiaoshuo jicheng [A comprehensive collection of “gifted youth and virtuous maiden” novels]. Shenyang: Liaoning guji chubanshe. Louie, Kam. 1999. Sexuality, masculinity and politics in Chinese culture: The case of the “Sanguo” hero Guan Yu. Modern Asian Studies 33, no. 4: 835–59. Louie, Kam and Louise Edwards. 1994. Chinese masculinity: Theorising “wen” and “wu”. East Asian History, no. 8, December: 135–48. Mackerras, Colin P. 1972. The rise of the Peking opera, 1770–1870 : Some aspects of the theatre in Manchu China. Oxford: Clarendon Press. McMahon, Keith. 1994. The classic “beauty-scholar” romance and the superiority of the talented woman. In Body, subject and power in China, eds Angela Zito and Tani Barlow: 227–52. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Nanbei Heguan Shizhe. 1983. Chunliuying [An oriole in a spring willow]. Shenyang: Chunfeng wenyi chubanshe. Qian Yong. 1979. Lüyuan conghua [Collected topics from Lü Garden]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. Roy, David T., trans. 1993. The plum in the golden vase or Chin P’ing Mei, Volume one: The gathering. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Ruhlmann, Robert. 1960. Traditional heroes in Chinese popular fiction. In The Confucian persuasion, ed. Arthur F. Wright: 141–76. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Ruizhu Jiushi. 1991. Menghua suo bu [Memories of luxuries and trifles]. In Qingdai Yandu liyuan shiliao, ed. Zhang Cixi: 347–81. Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe. Sharf, Robert H. 1996. The scripture in forty-two sections. In Religions of China in practice, ed. Donald S. Lopez: 360–71. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Shen Defu. 1959. Wanli Yehuobian [Unofficial notes on the Wanli period]. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju. Starr, Chloe. 1999. Shifting boundaries: Gender in Pinhua baojian. Nannü 1, no. 2: 268–302. Tianhuazang Zhuren. 1985a. Dingqingren [Dedication of love]. Shenyang: Chunfeng wenyi chubanshe.

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——. 1985b. Feihuayong [Ode to drifting flowers]. Shenyang: Chunfeng wenyi chubanshe. ——. 1985c. Huatuyuan [A fated painting]. Shenyang: Chunfeng wenyi chubanshe. ——. 1985d. Liangjiaohun [Swapping weddings]. Shenyang: Chunfeng wenyi chubanshe. T’ien, Ju-k’ang. 1988. Male anxiety and female chastity: A comparative study of Chinese ethical values in Ming-Ch’ing times. Leiden: E.J. Brill. van Gulik, Robert Hans. 1961. Sexual life in ancient China: A preliminary survey of Chinese sex and society from ca. 1500 B.C. till 1644 A.D. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Wang Shizhen. 1989. Fengan yuhua [Informal notes between handing out sweets]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. Wilkinson, Endymion. 1998. Chinese history: A manual. Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series, no. 46. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Xie Zhaozhe. 1959. Wuzazu [Fivefold miscellany]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. Xihua Zhuren. 1987. Wanruyue [Matching as if prearranged]. Shenyang: Chunfeng wenyi chubanshe. Xu Ke, ed. 1996. Qingbai leichao [A classified collection of Qing miscellanies]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. Yiqiu Sanren. 1985. Yujiaoli [A tender jade-like pear]. Shenyang: chunfeng wenyi chubanshe. Yu Jiao. 1988. Meng’an zazhu [(Miscellaneous notes from Dream Hermitage]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe. Zhang Cixi, ed. 1988. Qingdai Yandu liyuan shiliao [Historical materials on the opera circles of Qing dynasty Beijing]. Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe. Zhang Xintai. 1985. Yueyou xiaoji [Minor records of a journey in Canton]. In Xiao fanghu yudi congchao di 9 ji. Hangzhou: Hangzhou guji shudian. Zhao Jingshen. 1986. Pinhua baojian kao zheng [A textual analysis of Pinhua baojian]. In Pinhua baojian, Chen Sen: n.p. (appendix). Taibei: Guiguan tushu gufen youxian gongsi. Zhu Yixuan, ed. 1989. Ming Qing xiaoshuo ziliao xuanbian [Selected sources relating to Ming and Qing fiction]. Jinan: Qilu Shushe.

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3 MR BUTTERFLY IN DEFUNCT CAPITAL “Soft” masculinity and (mis)engendering China Yiyan Wang This chapter traces the Chinese literary tradition of scholar-beauty romance in an attempt to highlight the privileged position it accords “soft” masculinity. After examining a selection of literary texts of very different ideological orientations from the Ming dynasty to recent times, the discussion will focus on Defunct Capital, a controversial novel published in 1993 by mainland Chinese writer Jia Pingwa, and its anti-hero protagonist Zhuang Zhidie. It argues that Zhuang Zhidie’s “soft” masculinity was problematic in the context of Chinese cultural nationalism in the 1990s and that Zhuang’s characterisation as a “sexual” dissident contributed to its rejection by many literary critics and the subsequent official banning of Defunct Capital.

Scholar-beauty romance: the triumph of “soft” masculinity Chinese literature has a long tradition of scholar-beauty romances – love stories between a talented scholar [caizi] and a beautiful woman [jiaren].1 The genre has often privileged the representation of “soft” masculinity as demonstrated by talented scholars, especially those studying for the imperial examination, or by intellectuals in modern times. The sexual attractiveness of such educated males mostly derives from their cultural cultivation and literary talent. Masculinity displayed through cultural or literary engagement is “soft” (although by no means weak), in contrast to that of “tough guys with muscles”. “Soft” masculinity is a result and an indication of sophisticated cultural tastes in art and literature. In traditional Chinese high culture, writing has been an indication of personal cultivation, the means to succeed in sexual seduction and the way to achieve political power. The “talented scholar” has been the model of charm for male characters and has had many enduring representatives in Chinese literary history. “Soft” masculinity appears to have occupied a central position in Chinese writing from the Tang dynasty until recent times. There has been much more narrative focus on the talented scholar than on other social groups. “Soft” 41

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masculinity holds the supreme position – at least in the realm of arts and literature. Chinese literary representation has mostly favoured the scholar in its depictions of masculinity, and has to some extent contrived a hierarchy between the cultural and the physical. In his recent book on Chinese masculinity, Kam Louie raises the importance of avoiding the use of Western notions of masculinity as the “norm” in the study of Chinese masculinity, and of avoiding generating simple and reductive comparisons between the two (Louie 2002, 8–9). His study of the wen-wu paradigm provides a useful framework for understanding the models of Chinese masculinity. The polarity between wen, cultural attainment, and wu, martial valour, invokes the authority of both the scholar and the soldier in the discourse of Chinese masculinity. Louie observes that Chinese masculinity can comprise both wenand wu and that a scholar is considered no less masculine than a soldier. More importantly, Chinese men might aspire to achieve both, and either was considered acceptably manly. Although the examples he uses to support the wen-wu paradigm mostly involve the practices of the cultural elite in Chinese history, Louie rightly points out the hierarchic structure of wen-wu and its favour of wen historically. Louie’s exploration of the wen-wu dyad explains the privileged appearance of the scholar and “soft” masculinity in Chinese literature. More importantly, when literary representations of the soldier and the scholar are compared, the scholar usually dominates and is therefore seen as more “masculine”. The scholar apparently has more political influence than the soldier and is thus more sexually attractive. Representations of masculinity in Chinese literature have created many “soft” or “feminine” male characters who are by no means mentally “weak” but who often suffer misfortune. The scholar-beauty romance in particular reflects this literary tradition of assigning male characters sentimental roles and qualities that are often associated with femininity.2 To some extent the scholar-beauty romance genre has perpetuated the attraction of the effeminate, talented scholar. His textual and stage images articulate a masculinity that emphasises male creativity and intelligence, together with his fragile health and tender sentimentality. In classical Chinese novels, particularly those written since the Ming dynasty, male sexuality has frequently been manifested through the recurrent image of an ideal lover who is “a delicate hyper-sensitive youngster with pale face and narrow shoulders, passing the greater part of his time dreaming among his books and flowers, and who falls ill at the slightest disappointment” (van Gulik 1961, 296). In addition, in Chinese traditional and folk theatre, the male characters who were most admired by and sexually attractive to women, both on and off the stage, were usually represented as “talented scholars”, with fair skin, elegant features and delicate physiques, as well as tender voices and romantic hearts – similar to female characteristics in many other cultures. In other words, these delicate males appealed to Chinese women and the Chinese audience in general, and were mostly the favoured choices as lovers, husbands or sons-in-law in the texts. Their masculinity seemed to lie in their intellectual ability or artistic 42

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creativity rather than in their physical strength, wealth, aristocratic background or other attributes that are more frequently associated with masculinity. Beijing opera has a role known as xiaosheng [the young man with a clear voice] for such feminine men, to distinguish them from heitou [dark head, or the “tough guy” with a deep and rough voice]. Beijing opera also had a tradition whereby some female roles [dan] were played by male actors who had been trained to cultivate feminine manners and develop a falsetto voice. These wellknown male actors of feminine roles, such as Mei Lanfang, not only retained their masculinity off stage but were also sexually attractive to women. On the other hand, in some local operas such as Huju and Yueju in the south Yangtze region, the male roles were played by females. Apart from the historical fact that in these areas men and women were not allowed to perform together, such transsexual role-playing also occurred because females were seen to be more suited to depicting the tenderness and sentimentality of these “talented young men”. In historical terms, the “effeminate” male scholars depicted in scholar-beauty tales were always gifted in literary writing, and were often on their way to becoming government officials or achieving literary success, whereas the “tough” guys were usually farmers, servants or bandits. To some extent, the “tough guys” had “lower” social status, and did not play a central role(s) in the discourse of sexuality in Chinese literary texts until the twentieth century. The hierarchy between soft and macho masculinity reflected the relations between sexuality and power at the time. The scholars, who obviously wrote the stories of their own success or their fantasy of such success, concentrated on depicting masculinity and power that derived from their pen. Hence, in the classical novels, the figure of the feminine male stood for civility, better education and higher social status. As such, these characters were favoured by both Confucian officialdom and female partners. Their political power was closely associated with their class background and their writing. In turn, writing provided the male scholars with dominance and hence sexual attractiveness. On the other hand, the dominance of soft masculinity did not mean that women had higher status than men. Women were not on the scale. Even in the Taoist cosmological interpretation of sexuality, which stresses the balance of the masculine and the feminine, femininity is seen as simply complementary to masculinity, and not vice versa. Female sexuality is deemed indispensable for a balanced male body and mind (van Gulik 1961, 45–51). Novels of the Ming and Qing dynasties frequently “privileged” such feminine-masculine prototypes over their “rough” masculine counterparts: Jia Baoyu, Qin Zhong and many other male characters in The Dream of the Red Chamber are typical examples of talented scholars who are undoubtedly favoured by the females in the Grand View Garden over brawny types such as Jia Lian and Jia Qiang. Xue Pan, the licentious, macho son of the wealthy Xue family, was never the dream lover of any woman, whether high-status lady or servant. Although he possessed wealth and power, he married a shrew, who properly matched his own unpleasant temperament, and the marriage quickly 43

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contributed to the downfall of his family.3 In The Water Margin, the small number of scholars such as Song Jiang, Wu Yong and Lu Junyi function as the heads of the rebel group, able to lead martial arts experts and macho figures like Li Kui and Lu Zhishen who “kill without blinking”. When the 108 “good men” [haohan] arrange the seating to reflect their status and contribution to their political and military campaign, the learned scholars, despite their small number and inferior martial skills, precede the die-hard fighters. In Journey to the West, on his way to India, Tangseng, the monk with a pink face, tender flesh and a very gentle heart, is desired by many female devils either as a sexual partner or as an elixir for longevity. He relies entirely on his disciples as his protectors and yet he is in absolute control of their destinies. Interestingly, Pigsy, who serves as a symbol of “wanton wallowing in sex”,4 suffers from frequent sexual rejection and frustration, even though his martial skills are second only to those of Monkey. There are at least three possible interpretations of the privileged soft masculinity prototype. To begin with, apart from the notion that knowledge is power and therefore sexual, the authors of the stories were themselves more or less talented scholars of the sort they depicted, either within or outside the official system. It is understandable that they modelled their characters on their own life experience and attempted to empower and idealise such images. Alternatively, the influences of Taoism and Buddhism may have created an aspiration for calmness and passivity both within oneself and in social interactions. The prevailing belief in the yin-yang balance resulted in femininity becoming an equally, if not highly, desirable attribute. Cultivating the balance between yin and yang, or male and female elements, was essential for men and was especially important for those in positions of power. Another important implication of this desire for a balance between yin and yang is that masculinity comes to be equated with innate flaws, because it “lacks” femininity and needs to absorb yin. Hence, “the problem of the lack is quite reversed in the Chinese cultural context: it is the man who lacks” (Wang 1989). Thus, the “feminine” man who appears to have achieved this balance is paradoxically more admirable. Third, admiration for soft masculinity reflected the Han antipathy for non-Han rule in the Yuan and Qing dynasties. As they came to be dominated by the Mongolians and the Manchus, the Han Chinese, especially the literati scholars, tended to regard admiration for martial arts and bodily strength as barbaric. This is because both the Yuan and Qing rulers cultivated an image of themselves as tough warriors, and promoted themselves as the conquerors who had mastered the martial arts through great physical strength. The reaction from Han scholars was a dislike of those images, and their admiration for femininity and literary cultivation carried a subversive edge (van Gulik 1961, 196). Cultivation of literary skills was seen by Han scholars as a choice of civilisation over barbarity. It should therefore not be surprising that it became a common practice for Ming and Qing novels to have “talented scholars” as the ideal of masculinity in the literature of the time. 44

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The talented communist scholars The scholar-beauty narrative mode and the dominance of soft masculinity continued well into the twentieth century and in China’s literary quest for modernity. Modern writers such as Ba Jin, Mao Dun and Yu Dafu created more of these feminine-masculine figures, although by this time “talented scholars” had become modern intellectuals with a very different outlook and knowledge structure. Stories of “mandarin ducks and butterflies” 5 – or sentimental love stories – were popular in the early decades of the twentieth century and produced further non-macho male figures. The sexual appeal of the “soft” male scholars contributed at least in part to the genre’s popularity. By comparison, the workers and peasants, who were gradually emerging onto the central stage of literary representation in line with China’s social and political changes in the early decades of the twentieth century, were hardly sexually appealing, either to readers or to their female acquaintances in the narrative settings. Although it might have been intended that these characters should be plain and down-to-earth, they were not charismatic or attractive to their female partners even in the event of their courtship. Some of Lu Xun’s major male characters are obvious examples. Ah Q , the central character in “The true story of Ah Q”, has often been seen as the negative archetype of Chineseness. Ah Q tries to court and flirt with the housemaid of his employer, but his sexual advances only result in him being insulted and humiliated. Runtu, the villager friend of the “talented-scholar” narrator in “Hometown”, another short story by Lu Xun, is inarticulate and demure, and remains a very dull character to the end, except when described as a young playmate (necessarily genderless) in the narrator’s nostalgic retrospection. The masculinity of both Ah Q and Runtu seems subdued by their lack of intellectuality and exhausted by their hard daily manual work. Other male characters created by Lu Xun, such as Hua Laoshuan and Hua Xiaoshuan in “Medicine” and Zhao Siye in “New year’s sacrifice”, are virtually genderless: they are either old, sick or observant of Confucian puritanism. The rickshaw puller in “A small incident” is portrayed as old, fragile, kind, caring and, more importantly, devoid of any trace of sexuality or masculinity. The gaze of the male narrator perceives him only in terms of his moral quality of “goodness”. However, when Lu Xun did explore sexual relationships, he too adopted the “scholar-beauty” narrative pattern. His novella ‘Regretting the past’ has as its male protagonist a young writer, who is unable to sustain his love and de facto relationship financially and emotionally because of his difficulty in establishing himself as a viable “scholar”. Lu Xun was mainly concerned here with depicting the consequences of the radical social and historical changes earnestly sought by the youth of the time, and also with exposing the discrepancies between idealism and harsh social reality. However, the failure of the relationship between the young couple is primarily portrayed as the result of the lack of social recognition of the male protagonist as a “scholar”, and of his literary talent, which brought about the financial difficulties that eventually led to their separation and the 45

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death of his partner. Because the male character’s masculinity is so closely connected to his identity as a “scholar”, his inability to sustain his ultimate male gender identification eventually causes the tragic end of the scholar-beauty story. In general, male characters in Lu Xun’s stories seem to be the unsuccessful subjects of sexual desire or to be deprived of sexual desire. Nevertheless, the scholar-beauty narrative pattern remains strong. From the 1930s to the 1970s, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tried in many ways to promote the representation of working-class characters in arts and literature. For some time after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the CCP allowed only workers, peasants and soldiers to become major literary heroes. However, the CCP’s movement of workers, peasants and soldiers from the margin to the centre in literary representation did not succeed in substantially undermining the literary tradition. The central stage of arts and literature was dominated by working-class males, but, if one observes closely, soft masculinity in the traditional sense still had an upper hand. The professions of the dominant male may have changed but they were actually “talented communist scholars”, who were workers, peasants and soldiers tamed by communist education or simply talented scholars in the setting of modern China. Despite the CCP’s guidelines, literary narratives in general still privileged “brains” over “brawn”. Intelligence obviously ranked higher than physical strength, as soldiers and Party secretaries with a communist education played dominant roles in the political, sexual and literary discourses over the “crude” masses of workers, peasants and soldiers. This was achieved by transforming the usually macho males through education or communist indoctrination so that their rough masculinity was softened and thus able to meet the expectations and discipline of the Party. Part of becoming a revolutionary hero meant successfully subjecting oneself to the CCP’s indoctrination, to the Party’s leadership and to the ultimate patriarchy. The Party’s insistence on obedience effectively reduced the macho males to a more submissive “feminine” role. In the process, macho males were overshadowed by their “intellectual” counterparts or supervisors. Their “enlightenment” thus implies their transformation into the equivalents of the “talented scholar”, with their sexual identity following suit. Thus, “soft” masculinity and talented scholars can be identified in literary representations of seemingly very different ideological orientations and at different historical times. Song of Youth (Yang 1961) may serve as an illustration of such a discourse of sexuality in which traditional scholar-beauty interaction is combined with the supremacy of the workers, peasants and soldiers. Lin Daojing, the female protagonist who was possessed of beauty, virtue, innocence and naïveté, was to be married by her widowed stepmother to an elderly Guomindang bureaucrat. She was rescued on the verge of suicide by a student from Beijing University; he seduced her and she subsequently moved in with him. Lin, however, was soon attracted to a young communist, also a student at Beijing University, but he was murdered before they were able to consummate their passion. She then decided to leave her saviour and devote herself wholeheartedly to the revolutionary 46

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cause. For years she lived alone, working as a primary-school teacher in a small village and as an underground liaison for the CCP. This process re-established her as a “virgin” – indeed, her sexual desires had to be reawakened later by another “talented scholar” Jiang Hua came from a working-class family and had once been a printing hand, but was now an enlightened revolutionary intellectual, whose communist mission was to arouse the awareness of the oppressed against the oppressors. After Jiang became Lin’s mentor and encouraged her to join the CCP, he realised that she was not only a strong comrade but also a woman in need of emotional tenderness. He proceeded to kiss Lin, and she happily accepted his sexual advances. The assumption here is that he filled her emotional void and they lived happily ever after. Jiang Hua was probably one of the few early talented scholars with a working-class background in PRC literature, and his sexual attraction lay more in his communist education than in anything else. Wang Dachun in the ballet version of White-Haired Girl is another example of the transformation of a peasant from an illiterate, ignorant, macho character to an educated and enlightened hero.6 As a poor farmhand before he joined the revolution, Dachun was not able to protect his fiancée when she was abducted and raped by the landlord. He himself had to escape, which led him to join the communist army. In time, communist education successfully transformed him into an army officer with both charm and power. On his return to the native village he was thus able to reclaim his lover and take revenge on the landlord. His political maturity is demonstrated by his understanding of the CCP’s classstruggle theory, and his masculine power is displayed in his ability to mobilise the villagers into denouncing the landlord. There are many more examples of the CCP’s narrative version of the “scholar-beauty” story. These stories have been regarded by some critics as an emerging genre, most appropriately entitled “new revolutionary romance”.7 The theme of the talented scholar in exile from society and family has been a recurrent one in post-Mao literature. The scholar-beauty sexual paradigm functions just as effectively and frequently. Examples can be found in the writings of Zhang Xianliang, whose male protagonists are frustrated scholars who have been mistreated by the CCP but saved and cared for by village beauties. Zhang Yonglin, the male protagonist of several of Zhang Xianliang’s novels, has many of the traits of the suffering talented scholar. As an intellectual persecuted by the CCP’s frequent political campaigns from 1957 to the end of the Cultural Revolution, Zhang Yonglin has been in exile in the northwest grassland, the outback frontier of China. On the verge of collapsing under extreme hardship, he is rescued and nurtured time and again by women of great passion and beauty who offer him food, love and sex. His exile, similar to that of the “talented scholars” who lost favour with the Emperor in pre-modern China, enables him to meet women who provide love and sympathy, and to assume the sexual role of the talented scholar. Zhang Yonglin embodies various qualities of “soft masculinity”, such as literary talent and a fragile physical constitution, 47

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enabling him to situate himself as “scholarly”. Surprisingly, although he is greatly disadvantaged by the CCP’s persecution, he still has power over women who are far “politically healthier”. Similar in the way his historical predecessors treated their female lovers, the intellectual in the stories either drops his sexual partners or chooses to fulfil his promise of marriage. Zhang Xianliang’s women are indeed only “half of men”, as blatantly put in the title of one of his novels. Zhang Xianliang’s female characters are conveniently placed in the path of the male exile in the traditional discourse of sexuality, which urges them to help desperate male scholars.

Cultural roots and masculinity The central position of talented scholars has been seriously challenged only since the emergence of root-searching literature as a result of social and cultural changes during the early 1980s. The search for national potency and the influence of Western conceptions of sexuality have contributed to changes in Chinese perceptions of masculinity and have led to the birth of “real men” in Chinese literature in recent decades. Women writers in China first began to lament the lack of “real men” in the late 1970s.8 The desire for “real men” implied changed perceptions of masculinity as China began to open up to the outside world. The impact of the “tough guy” images in Japanese and Western films was a very important element in this. The years between the late 1970s and the early 1980s saw the Japanese actor Ken Takakura enter the minds of Chinese audiences with an enduring and endearing power as the “real man”: reserved, taciturn, tall, strong and yet profoundly passionate. His image almost instantly replaced that of the “smooth-faced” young men [naiyou xiaosheng], a derogatory term popular at the time to indicate the diminishing charm of soft masculinity. The rise of the macho man came with root-searching literature, but perhaps not simply as the response of male writers to complaints about the lack of “real men”. Such concerns may have contributed to male writers’ attention to sexuality, especially male sexuality, but the search for masculinity was an essential part of the search for cultural roots. The macho male figures in their writings stand for the strength and potency of the Chinese nation. Noticeably, most of the nativist writers are men, and their protagonists are villagers of “primitive passions” with little Confucian-literati restraint.9 In many respects, rootsearching literature represents a male gaze into Chinese cultural traditions and lifestyles, in order to locate the source of power of the Chinese nation. Interestingly, macho masculinity, as depicted in hard life and harsh landscapes, becomes the literary representation of the Chinese national essence. To a large extent, as a reaction to the CCP’s previous strict censorship, love and sex play a dominant role in the literary search for cultural roots. In the last two decades of the twentieth century Chinese novelists produced many “tough guys” in the process of cultural root-seeking, and macho masculinity became the dominant discourse of sexuality. Unlike the tame workers and peasants in litera48

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ture produced in the previous decades under the guidance of the CCP, the male characters in this literature tend to possess the opposite qualities to those of scholars. Prominent heroes of the genre include farmhands, bandits, butchers and winemakers such as those in Mo Yan’s Red Sorghum series (Mo 1988). The family patriarch in Cheng Zhongshi’s White Deer Plain (Cheng 1993) has an enormous penis, and his potent sexual demands kill six wives one after another. His seventh wife somehow manages to survive and gives birth to many sons and daughters.

The talented scholar in Defunct Capital The 1993 novel Defunct Capital by Jia Pingwa seems to have brought the talented scholar with his “soft” masculinity back to centre stage through its anti-hero Zhuang Zhidie. Defunct Capital became an instant bestseller, and half a million copies were sold within six months. However, it was banned by the authorities in 1994, because it was considered to contain pornographic material harmful to the minds of the young (Zha 1995, 163–4). Zhuang’s image has been extremely controversial and in most cases it is his “soft masculinity” that has been the subject of criticism. Zhuang Zhidie is a middle-aged, ordinary-looking, well-established writer in the city of Xijing. Defunct Capital is about Zhuang’s daily life and disillusionment. In his own mind, he has failed to fulfil his wish to produce the supreme belleslettres, despite his fame as the best writer in the city. His family life, his affairs with a number of women and his interactions with other writers and artists all seem to contribute to his highly cultivated existence as a traditional literatus in search of a meaning for his existence in contemporary society. A “literary” lawsuit [wenren guansi] in which Zhuang is directly involved comprises the major narrative event. His defeat in the case is the last straw, and leads him to escape from his family and society into the ultimate “actionless action”[wuwei]: the narrative finishes when Zhuang has a stroke and loses consciousness while waiting to board a train bound for the south. The protagonist Zhuang Zhidie is a recent example of the “soft” masculinity of the talented scholar. Being more a traditional literatus than a modern intellectual, Zhuang Zhidie indulges himself in composing classical poems of self-expression rather than writing modern fiction voicing social concerns. His appearance recalls the image of the fragile male in the scholar-beauty romance – he is short and skinny, definitely lacking the macho masculinity demonstrated by the Shaanxi country “blokes” in Jia Pingwa’s other writings. Zhuang rides a motorbike designed for women with the brand name Mulan. “Mulan”, literally “magnolia lily”, immediately brings to mind the Chinese legendary heroine who disguised herself as a man to become a soldier in place of her father when he was conscripted. Mulan distinguished herself as a warrior, and her name is synonymous with women endowed with fighting prowess. The brand name of the motorbike thus instantly underlines Zhuang’s femininity. As he rides the 49

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motorbike daily, people take “her” to be his alter ego, for her presence indicates his. Even the name Zhuang Zhidie is problematic in its gender implications. The character for butterfly, die, is mostly, if not exclusively, used in female names in China. The image of the butterfly is usually and frequently associated with feminine beauty and the transformation of the ugly into the beautiful. Hence, despite the obvious Taoist association in his name – the butterfly of Zhuang Zhou – being named “butterfly” also obscures Zhuang’s sexual identity. Zhuang’s personality also carries a ring of “innocence and naïveté” when he is placed around “mother figures”. His occasional childish behaviour, in turn, not only endorses the necessary eccentricity of an established literatus but also stresses his inherently problematic gender image. Zhuang is very fond of a cow that its owner brings into town to sell milk, and he sucks milk directly from the cow’s teats in public. His intimacy with the cow suggests a mother–child bond and immediately conceals Zhuang’s masculinity: he is more like a child being breast-fed. He behaves as a child towards both his wife and the cow. There is also a direct link between the cow and his wife, whose family name niu is also the Chinese character for cow. Such mother figures offer a maternal atmosphere to contrast Zhuang’s childish conduct and irresponsibility. Odd, childish, wilful and irresponsible in the family environment, he is constantly irritated and irritating. In many ways he needs his wife’s “maternal” care for his daily needs, but he does not take part in decision-making or show any compassion towards her. At the same time, Zhuang quickly assumes the role of the “sincere” and “innocent” seducer when in the presence of good-looking women. On the whole, Zhuang’s manner of interaction with women, such as his polygamous inclinations and his association of erotic quality with women’s small feet, belongs to the Chinese patriarchal tradition.10 There is an obvious psychological need on the part of the literati in history and at present to depict themselves as the “talented scholars” of the scholarbeauty romance. Zhuang obviously suffers from a typical “talented scholar” complex as he searches for social, emotional and sexual confirmation. Psychologically, the “talented scholar” is on a journey to attain manhood. On the cusp of family and society, Zhuang, like his historical counterparts, remains sentimentally attached to his alienation and isolation. The feeling of not belonging produces frustration and depression that cry out for empathy from others. In Zhuang’s case, he seeks both sexual release and textual articulation of his inner loneliness. Interacting with women at intimate levels gives him the opportunity to establish a feeling of his own identity at a safe remove from his family and profession. In this respect, Zhuang’s experience is not unlike a delayed Oedipal crisis. His estrangement from his wife/mother and his eventual abandonment of family and society read as a male journey motivated by selfdiscovery, laden with guilt and characterised by exile. Zhuang’s male associates are also talented scholars skilful at practising the protocols of literati tradition. The narrative opens with an introduction to the four famous “cultural idlers” of Xijing, with detailed references to their 50

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“cultural” expertise as writers, artists, musicians and calligraphers. Their activities are reminiscent of the four skills of music, chess, calligraphy and painting that are essential for the literati. Aware of their similar social and cultural standing, they identify with each other and support one another in politics and financial matters. Their cultural and literary cultivation gives them power and status, and they entice women with easy success through their writing, painting, calligraphy and music. Most have reverted to polygamy and have extramarital affairs. Like their historical counterparts, they hold Buddhist and Taoist beliefs as well as following Confucian doctrines. They frequent temples, study The Book of Changes and climb the ladder of officialdom. On the other hand, unlike their historical counterparts, they are faced with the commercialism and Westernisation of modern times. It becomes increasingly evident during the course of Defunct Capital that the literati are inevitably diminishing in number and prestige, although they used to thrive in Xijing.

Writing and “soft” masculinity Literary creativity is essential to Zhuang’s existence as a talented scholar. His literary talent brings him many tangible privileges such as housing and political power. He also enjoys intangible benefits such as fame and influence. As a wellknown writer, he is able to choose among the women he encounters and to seduce them. Like his historical, cultural and literary predecessors, Zhuang always uses his writing to assert himself intellectually, culturally or linguistically before asserting himself sexually. He skilfully employs the techniques of the “talented scholar”: poetry, writing, music and even his need for sympathy and empathy! Both Zhuang’s eloquence and his position bespeak his masculinity in its “intellectual” capacity in the traditional cultural context, which is “softer” than and yet “superior” to physically defined beauty. In the author’s account, Zhuang as a talented scholar is irresistible to the beautiful women he encounters. Zhuang is constantly reassured by women who, attracted either by his fame or his writing, actively court him and are willing to devote themselves to him unconditionally. He attracts women with his writing, and the seduction process repeats itself several times with instant success, although not necessarily always convincingly. Tang Wanr, Zhuang’s first mistress, becomes fond of Zhuang soon after their first meeting, after she hears his philosophical discussion on seeking imperfection. Zhuang Zhidie seems far more attractive than her current partner, Zhou Min, simply because Zhuang is an established writer – despite the fact that Zhou is much younger and presumably better looking. “In front of him Zhou Min can at his best manage to be moderately clever!” (Jia 1993, 31) Tang claims of her admiration for Zhuang. From this moment on, Tang is sexually prepared for Zhuang, who has also begun fantasising about her. Soon Tang initiates Zhuang into the realm of pleasurable sex. For the first time, Zhuang feels overwhelmed by his own masculine power, as he has been suffering from impotence for some time. Zhuang’s need to recover his male ego is in no time satisfied 51

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through Tang’s beauty, her body and more importantly her complete devotion and total submission to his desires. Zhuang’s seduction of his housemaid Liu Yue operates in a similar manner. Liu Yue is from the country and works as a nanny for a household in Xijing. She is attracted to Zhuang because he is a famous writer and she likes his books. As soon as she discovers who Zhuang is she makes advances by boldly demanding some of his calligraphy for herself. As a special favour to the good-looking country girl, Zhuang composes a couplet. The poem contains a pun on her name by referring to willows and the moon in clever similes, which incorporate a play on the two characters of liu and yue. Like Tang Wanr, Liu Yue does not find Zhuang physically striking. However, before long, she arrives at Zhuang’s place to become his housemaid. She is amazed that “the writer is indeed extraordinary” (Jia 1993, 91), and in no time the two start flirting and Liu Yue becomes his mistress. Zhuang’s involvement with Ah Can only a few moments after their acquaintance is even faster and again directly connected with Zhuang’s writing activities: all it takes is for Ah Can to watch Zhuang writing a love letter to someone else. The extremely beautiful Ah Can has married for convenience due to her politically disadvantaged family background. She is filled with gratitude to Zhuang, for his making love to her satisfies not only her body but also her soul (Jia 1993, 244). Although there has not been much verbal communication, Ah Can “knows” that Zhuang understands her feelings, because he is a writer. She feels deeply indebted to him as she has been fulfilled by their physical and mental intercourse. She later even disfigures herself to eliminate any chance of being unfaithful to Zhuang. At the time, she is apparently carrying his child and knows that they will not see each other again. Wang Ximian is one of Zhuang’s literati friends, but his good-looking wife (who is not given a name in the narrative) has been secretly in love with Zhuang for years, again because he is a writer. Unknown to Zhuang, this woman had once resolved to marry him after hearing him talk about writing skills (Jia 1993, 195). She eventually married Zhuang’s friend Wang instead, disheartened by Zhuang’s marriage. However, she cherishes her passion for Zhuang in the hope that one day they will be together. Years later she eventually tells Zhuang of her feelings but insists that they maintain a platonic relationship. Indeed, she is the only woman who accompanies him at his end: her face mysteriously appears in the railway station waiting-room window beside Zhuang’s seat where he has a stroke and becomes unconscious. Her presence as his eternal lover symbolises the power of his attraction as the “scholar”. In short, it is his writing that is seductive and masculine. That linguistic power is essential to Zhuang’s sexual involvement is, on the other hand, proved by his wife Niu Yueqing’s distrust of his language. In contrast to Zhuang’s success with other women, Niu regrets having married a writer. Zhuang becomes impotent and loses his dominance over his wife, as she does not admire his power to manipulate language at all. Niu, however, pays a high price 52

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for her reluctance to adjust to Zhuang’s needs for dominance in language and sex. Despite her desperate longing, she is unable to produce a child owing to her husband’s lack of sexual interest in her, and in time the family disintegrates. Niu’s role and image resemble those of the first wife in a Chinese polygamous household. Among the husband’s numerous wives, the first wife is usually the most virtuous but is unable to satisfy her husband’s sexual needs or to produce family heirs. Zhuang relates to his wife and his mistresses very much along these lines. Between Zhuang and Niu, language is a silent but active agent. Niu’s lack of interest in language results in a lack of communication between the couple, and eventually brings about Zhuang’s lack of sexual interest in her. In other words, language works in its absence – Niu’s lack of interest in Zhuang’s language is a denial of his masculinity and his identity. Hence the failure of the marriage is unavoidable. Defunct Capital seems to have turned back the clock to an era in which only Zhuang and his literati friends are able to write and paint, and women are reduced to being mere admirers. Zhuang’s pen and brush are instruments that empower him sexually. To some extent, his pen becomes his only effective gender indicator. It gives him ownership of the language, which he uses to his advantage – politically, financially and sexually. His pen leads him to become the famous writer of Xijing, which, in turn, becomes Zhuang’s capital in politics, business and sexual relationships. His sexual seductions work invariably from pen to poetry to penis. The pen, especially the traditional Chinese brush, enables him to practise the protocols of Chinese culture, add substance to his cultural cultivation and exert dominance. In Zhuang’s situation “penis envy” does indeed become the “Pen is Envy”, for the pen is the weapon with which he conquers Xijing city and the hearts and bodies of women. Zhuang’s masculinity is from the very beginning intimately connected with his writing career and, in due course, his disenchantment with his career success is complicated and reinforced by his crisis of sexuality. Linguistically, the Chinese language links male potency with masculinity and admirable male qualities through the word yingxiong, “hero” or “heroic”, which literally means an outstanding male being. In modern Chinese, the meaning of the word has been extended to include anyone with extraordinary courage and outstanding achievements, especially in activities associated with war or fighting. Interestingly, “satisfying” male sexual potency and performance can also be praised as “yingxiong”. Although it may have been purely coincidental, for years yingxiong was the best-known brand of pens and ink produced in China. Indeed, the hero is related to both the pen and the penis. Zhuang’s egotistical sexual adventures with his mistresses easily qualify him as yingxiong. Yingxiong again highlights the masculine quality of the pen, and for Zhuang the pen and the brush are both substitutes for and a reinforcement of the penis. In short, the pen is both fundamental and instrumental in representing Zhuang’s “soft” masculinity. Defunct Capital has been linked to a number of traditional vernacular novels (Lu 2001, 244–8). In particular, it has been likened to the Ming novel Golden 53

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Lotus, as many critics perceive a similarity in their preoccupation with sex, their narrative styles and the manner in which the male protagonists seduce and dominate women (Barmé 1999, 181–7; Zha 1995, 136). There is, however, an important difference between Zhuang Zhidie and Ximen Qing, the major male character in Golden Lotus. Ximen Qing is a businessman without any social conscience who attracts women with his sexual prowess and wealth. Ximen Qing may sing vulgar songs to entertain his mistresses, but he never composes elegant poems. With its major male character clearly not a scholar, Golden Lotus cannot belong to the genre of the scholar-beauty tale. In contrast, as a literatus, Zhuang’s sexual empowerment derives from his status as a writer/poet/scholar, and his mistresses admire him for his literary talent. When Zhuang stops being a famous writer, his sexual attraction also disappears in no time. Unlike Ximen Qing, for whom sex is for the sake of sexual pleasure, Zhuang’s sexual engagement is shown primarily as an escape from his social awareness. Ultimately, Zhuang is burdened with guilt in his belief that he has failed his social responsibilities.

Mr Butterfly and (mis)engendering China The issue of Chinese identity has been central in China’s cultural politics for more than a century. Gender identity remains an important aspect in the symbolism of the Chinese nation. “A figure of a woman, often a mother, symbolises in many cultures the spirit of the collectivity, whether it is Mother Russia, Mother Ireland or Mother India,” states Yuval-Davis in her discussion of the role of women in national symbolism (Yuval-Davis 1997, 45). Indeed, the female figure has been conspicuous in the Chinese national narrative. However, gender representation of national identity also shifts according to historical contingencies. Especially at times of national crisis, images of masculine power are often called upon. In the Chinese case, one obvious example is the lyrics of The Yellow River Cantata, which was composed by the poet Guang Weiran in the mid-1930s to arouse the Chinese national spirit in resistance to Japanese invasion. In Guang Weiran’s images, the Yellow River is the embodiment of the Chinese nation and takes on a very macho masculinity – it roars its anger, unleashes its power and vows revenge. The connection between a macho masculinity and Chinese national identity in recent decades again derives from intellectual anxiety over China’s national identity. It has been argued that, because China’s modernity has been largely a project of Chinese male intellectuals, delays in achieving modernisation entail a “besiegedness” of Chinese masculinity. In the 1980s and 1990s, Chinese society was overwhelmingly perceived as yinsheng yangshui, or as being influenced by the “abnormal” rise of the feminine and decline of the masculine. In literature, the search for “real men” and concern for the degeneration of manhood and the Chinese race ushered in representations of macho male figures such as the male characters in many of the root-searching works as the embodiment of Chinese nationhood (Zhong 2000, 15–51). 54

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In comparison with the potent peasants in Jia Pingwa’s own earlier writing, for instance, Zhuang appears at best “softly” masculine and at worst even genderless. In between these extremes, he either indulges his inflated ego or suffers from impotence and self-loathing to the extent that he even wants to castrate himself. Zhuang’s ambiguous sexuality and dubious social status generate confusion in his self-perception and result in his fatal identity crisis. With women admiring his literary talent, Zhuang is able to temporarily satisfy his thirst for a positive self. Zhuang’s sexual activities are important as a means of affirming his manhood and masculinity. Time spent with beautiful women temporarily distracts him from his anxiety in society and at home. After playing the “talented scholar”, Zhuang at times effectively resumes his masculinity and even regains his ability to father children. Zhuang’s character is seen as highly problematic in light of the preference for the macho male in literary representations since the mid-1980s.11 Although sexuality has been a major theme in many of Jia’s previous works (see, for instance, Louie 1991) sexual description is a problem for Jia Pingwa only in Defunct Capital, when the literatus Zhuang disguised as a modern intellectual illustrates a kind of masculinity very different from the macho maleness of his country fellows. Impotent at times, a sissy at others, sex as demonstrated by Zhuang ceases to be a demonstration of potency. On the whole, the masculinity represented by Zhuang Zhidie is ultimately “soft” and ambiguous in the social context. His impotence means that he can never be the “real man” in the national search for China’s potency. Although Zhuang may appear to be the ideal male in a traditional Chinese cultural environment and is still able to attract women who admire his fame and writing, his “talented-but-failedscholar” image confronts expectations of a “true hero” with the desired masculinity. Zhuang’s sexuality is an essential part of Jia Pingwa’s cultural construction of a China that is urbanised, devastated and profoundly disturbed by the transition to modernity. Zhuang Zhidie embodies the dilemmas China faces in the globalisation of the 1990s and beyond. Indeed, negotiation between tradition and modernity leads to the more acute questioning of both individual and national identity. Chinese writers have been perplexed in the transition between modernisation and tradition, and are also faced with the overwhelming tides of commercialisation that have swept China since the 1980s. In other words, writers face the challenge of the market, a force they had not previously encountered. Free-market commodification has “demoted” writers from their previously privileged position as “the architects of the soul” of society to being just “common” members who are left to float or sink in the market economy. Critics perceived a crisis in quality and morality in literary production in the early 1990s. Literature depicting sex and developing sexual themes is regarded as a symptom of the deterioration of the Chinese literary tradition, and Defunct Capital is seen as a sign of a complete decline in the ethics of writing (Duowei 1993; Xu 1996; Lu 2001, 239–59). 55

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However, arguably, Jia Pingwa may have not intended to write about Zhuang’s sexual engagements to entice readers but to reveal the depth of the protagonist’s alienation and frustration. Zhuang’s personal experience illustrates the corrosion and degradation of traditional Chinese culture by rapid commercialisation in recent decades. At the same time, Zhuang also embodies the aspirations, confusion and disillusionment of Chinese writers, whose works are now increasingly seen as commodities. The urbanisation of personal space and lifestyle for both the author and the protagonist means drastic and traumatic cultural changes, which entail necessary estrangement from their familiar community and their sense of self. The shift from nature as represented by rural Shaanxi into culture as represented by Xijing in Defunct Capital reflects a process in which male potency has been gradually reduced, tamed, eroded and diminished. Sexuality, male desire and individual identity are presented in a “talented scholar” to expose the irreversible decline of Chinese traditional high culture. Defunct Capital presents an antithesis to the “real man” that had been sought after in contemporary Chinese society. Zhuang Zhidie’s “soft masculinity” and his sexual indulgence have been considered negative and derogatory symbols of the current status of Chinese civilisation. More importantly, it does not respond to the quest for the macho national spirit by both individuals and the Chinese authorities in recent decades. Zhuang Zhidie’s “soft” masculinity, therefore, qualifies him as a “sexual” dissident against contemporary Chinese cultural nationalism. The association of Chinese cultural tradition with “soft” masculinity and with China’s social reality has inevitable political implications. Many critics and readers have responded in indignation to Defunct Capital and demanded that the authorities take action (Xiao 1993; Zha 1995, 129–64). Despite the nostalgia for Chinese culture displayed in the narrative, Mr Butterfly in the ruins of Chinese civilisation indeed “misengenders” China. The “butterfly” symbolism is too soft in the search for China’s national potency.

Notes 1 For further discussion of the historical development of the scholar-beauty romance, see Cuncun Wu’s chapter in this volume. 2 Cuncun Wu’s chapter deals with the issues of the “feminine male” in greater detail, discussing in particular such feminine male figures in Qing dynasty writings. 3 Louise Edwards interprets the characterisation of Jia Baoyu as “metaphoric bisexuality”, which gives rise to his conflict with a society that seeks to divide masculinity and femininity between the sexes. Edwards recognises three types of sexual ideology and their interplay within the character Jia Baoyu: the Confucian principles of rigid gender prescriptions, the yin-yang philosophy’s flexibility of corporeal sexuality, and the Taoist adoption of femininity as a rejection of passion (Edwards 1994, 37). While Baoyu is certainly bisexual in the sense that he is sexually attracted to both men and women, his effeminate characteristics belong to the effeminate masculinity cultivated by Han scholars and officials since the Ming dynasty or even earlier. It is this “soft masculinity” that makes Baoyu sexually attractive to the women in the Grand View Garden. Van Gulik’s comments on the delicate ideal lover and the hyper-sensitive youngster image of masculinity are based on a Qing illustration of Jia Baoyu.

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4 In an article on masculinity and penile potency that compares the literary search for masculinity in Taiwan and mainland China, Kam Louie discusses several examples that illustrate how the “pig” serves as a sex symbol in Chinese legends and writing (Louie 1993–4). 5 Both mandarin ducks and butterflies are symbols of love and lovers in Chinese literary and art tradition. Hence, stories of mandarin ducks and butterflies are love stories, although in Chinese literary history the name has a specific connotation. It was applied to this school of writing because its initial success derived from characters who were compared to mandarin ducks and butterflies in ‘Yu li hun’ [The soul of the jade pear] by Xu Zhenya. Writers of this type of love story were also called mandarin ducks and butterflies by the other writers and critics of the time. Accused of lacking a social conscience and concern for matters of national importance in their writings of sentimental romance, such writers were criticised for only being concerned with trivial matters such as personal emotions. For further information, see Rey Chow’s chapter on mandarin duck and butterfly stories (Chow 1991, 34–83) and Perry Link 1981. 6 Baimaonü [The white-haired girl] was one of the eight performances promoted by Mao’s wife Jiang Qing during the Cultural Revolution. The original opera was created by artists in Yan’an where the play was first staged in 1943. In the earlier versions of the play, Wang Dachun was still a plain village lad when he returned to claim his lover after joining the communist army. In the ballet version, Wang was polished, had a communist education and was given the mission of mobilising his fiancée and the villagers against the landlord. For information on the original production of The White-Haired Girl, see Holm 1991, 320–3. For the production held during the Cultural Revolution, see Ebon 1975. 7 The novels categorised as “new revolutionary romance” [geming xin chuangqi] include, for instance, Linhai xueyuan [Sea of forest and snowy plains] and Yehuo chunfeng dou gucheng [The ancient city engulfed by wild fire and spring breezes]. See Jin Han et al. 1993, 240–3. In these new romances, the CCP soldiers must also be scholars before they are endorsed with textual and sexual privileges. The wen-wu paradigm proposed by Louie applies very well to the CCP soldiers, except that the wu here should not be mistaken as being equivalent to the “tough guy”. In classical Chinese fiction, model soldiers are also scholars, as in the case of Guan Yu. Guan Yu is certainly textually privileged over, say, Zhang Fei, the brave, foolhardy and tough fighter. Guan Yu and Zhang Fei are two major characters in the classical novel The Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong. 8 For a summary of those women’s writing and their expression of desire for “real men”, see Louie 1991 and Zhong 2000. 9 See, for example, Li Tuo’s Zhongguo xungen xiaoshuo xuan [Selected works of Chinese root-seeking literature] (Li Tuo 1993). Li selected twelve writers, among whom Wang Anyi is the only woman. Wang, well known for her writing on sexual and love themes, is not usually considered to be representative of root-seeking writers. 10 Zhuang’s fondness for small feet in women is demonstrated several times in the narrative. For instance: “The feet of Niu Yueqing are fleshy and wide so that she always wears flat heels. Zhuang often feels this is a pity, for the most important part of a woman’s body is the feet. If a woman’s feet are not good-looking, three tenths of her beauty are lost” (42). In contrast, Tang Wanr has perfect feet in Zhuang’s eyes – small, delicate, and extremely sensual: “the toes are as tender as the tips of bamboo shoots” (53). On page 151, Zhuang kisses Liu Yue’s foot to show his admiration for her. 11 Many readers and critics have questioned the credibility of Zhuang’s sexual attraction. See, for instance, discussions in Feidu fei shei (Xiao Xialin 1993).

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References Barmé, Geremie R. 1999. In the red: On contemporary Chinese culture. New York: Columbia University Press. Chen Zhongshi. 1993. Bailu yuan [White deer plain]. Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe. Chow, Rey. 1991. Woman and Chinese modernity: The politics of reading between West and East. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. Duowei. 1993. Feidu ziwei [Sensations of Defunct Capital]. Zhengzhou: Henan renmin chubanshe. Ebon, Martin, ed. 1975. Five communist plays. New York: John Day. Edwards, Louise. 1994. Men and women in Qing China: Gender in the Red Chamber Dream. Leiden: E. J. Brill. Holm, David. 1991. Art and ideology in revolutionary China. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Jia Pingwa. 1993. Feidu [Defunct capital]. Beijing: Beijing chubanshe. Jin Han, Feng Yongqing and Li Xinyu, eds 1993. Xinbian Zhongguo dangdai wenxue fazhan shi [A new history of contemporary Chinese literature]. Hangzhou: Hangzhou daxue chubanshe. Li Tuo, ed. 1993. Zhongguo xungen xiaoshuo xuan [Selected works of Chinese root-searching literature]. Hong Kong: Sanlian shudian. Link, Perry. 1981. Mandarin ducks and butterflies: Popular fiction in early twentieth-century Chinese cities. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Louie, Kam. 1991. The macho eunuch: The politics of masculinity in Jia Pingwa’s ‘Human extremities’. Modern China 17, no. 2: 163–87. ——. 1993–4. Masculinity and penile potency: Huang Youde’s “Ah Yi the madman and Ah Zhu the saint”. The Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia 25/6: 165–76. ——. 2002. Theorising Chinese masculinity: Society and gender in China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lu, Sheldon, H. 2001. China, transnational visuality, global postmodernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Mo Yan. 1988. Honggaoliang jiazu [Red sorghum series]. Taipei: Hongfan shudian. van Gulik, R. H. 1961. Sexual life in ancient China, a preliminary survey of Chinese sex and society from ca. 1500 BC till 1644 AD. Leiden: E. J. Brill. Wang Yuejin. 1989. Mixing memory and desire: Red Sorghum a Chinese version of masculinity and femininity. Public Culture 2, no. 1: 31–53. Xiao Xialin, ed. 1993. Feidu fei shei [Who is abolished in Defunct Capital?]. Beijing: xueyuan chubanshe. Xu Zhiying. 1996. Huigu yu qianzhan–Ershi shiji Zhongguo wenxue liangti [Retrospect and prospect: Two issues in twentieth-century Chinese literature]. Xinhua wenzhai, no. 9: 113–21. Yang Mo. 1961 (1977 edn). Qingchun zhi ge [Song of youth]. Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe. Yuval-Davis, Nira. 1997. Gender and nation. London: Sage. Zha Jianying. 1995. China pop: How soap operas, tabloids, and bestsellers are transforming a culture. New York: The New Press. Zhong Xueping. 2000. Masculinity besieged? Issues of modernity and male subjectivity in Chinese literature of the late twentieth century. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

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4 GAY MEN, MASCULINITY AND THE MEDIA IN JAPAN Mark McLelland

Introduction The last decade of the twentieth century saw a sudden increase in interest in Japan’s sexual minorities both within English-language scholarship and within the Japanese media. Previously largely overlooked by the field of Japanese Studies, the study of homosexuality in Japan began to pick up pace with the translation of Edo-period author Ihara Saikaku’s Great Mirror of Male Love (1990), Gary Leupp’s (1995) and Gregory Pflugfelder’s (1999) studies of Tokugawa homosexuality, Stephen Miller’s anthology of Japanese gay fiction (1996), Jennifer Robertson’s (1998) analysis of lesbianism in the popular culture of the Taishô and Shôwa periods and my own (McLelland 2000a) monograph on male homosexuality. The publication of Wim Lunsing’s (2001) study of non-mainstream relationships and Sharon Chalmers’s (2002) monograph on lesbians in contemporary Japan suggests that the study of homosexuality is finally receiving the recognition it deserves. In Japan, too, recent years have seen a massive increase in both the number and diversity of media representations of sexual minorities, predominantly gay men, but also lesbians, transsexuals and transgender individuals. This comes at a time of great stress in Japanese society when fixed notions of family, education and work practices are under pressure in the face of the longest recession in recent history and at a time when the divorce rate is rising and the birth rate falling. A voluble discourse of complaint is apparent in the media where increased space is being given to individuals whose gender performance hardly supports established roles as well as to members of sexual minorities. In January 1999, for instance, the popular magazine Da Vinci, in a special edition on AIDS, opened with an article that asked, “[i]n the midst of a society where sexual acts have become a matter of ‘personal freedom’ are you really going to ask your beloved partner as you get into bed…‘Have you had an AIDS test?”’ The special edition contains a number of nuanced and intelligent articles about AIDS, including reviews of books, movies and television series dealing with the topic and interviews with HIV positive individuals, AIDS activists and members of support groups. As this article suggests, it is increasingly the case 59

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that strict insistence on reproductive heterosexuality within the nuclear family as the paradigmatic life path is weakening. For instance, Japan’s Prime Minister Koizumi Jun’ichiro is divorced (and remains unmarried). “Salaryman Kintaro” (see Dasgupta, this volume), the hero of one of Japan’s most popular soaps (and comic books), is a single dad, and gay activists such as Itô Satoru1 write columns in daily newspapers and magazines about their vision of a Japan free from discrimination on the basis of gender and sexuality. The increased voice given to gender and sexually nonconformist individuals in Japan’s media has been sufficiently enduring now to suggest that it is more than just a passing trend. Indeed, there is a clear momentum to the representation of diversity that is having an impact upon the lives of all Japanese people, irrespective of their gender or sexual orientation, which parallels similar trends in other postindustrial democracies (Berger 1974; Giddens 1991; 1992; Castells 2000). Although the lives of many Japanese people are still very much constrained by social expectations, there has been considerable movement in the last decade towards a more flexible society from which members of sexual minorities, in particular, have benefited. This chapter focuses upon just one group from within Japan’s sexual minorities – gay men – and looks at the ways in which they have been represented in the media as well as how they seek to represent themselves. It begins with a description of Japan’s “gay boom” in the early 1990s where I consider the idealised and unrealistic representations of gay men that were then current in the media, and goes on to look at recent changes in Japan’s gay media, where there has been a not entirely successful attempt to move beyond entertainment to include more serious discussions of lifestyle and identity. Finally, it looks at the Internet, which has given unprecedented power to gay men to network and discuss wider issues concerned with gender and sexuality (see also McLelland 2000c). The Internet has proven invaluable in forging links and building ties between otherwise disparate individuals, including other groups in Japanese society that are dissatisfied with hegemonic gender ideals and conventional life paths, such as activist women (Onosaka, 2003), persons living with AIDS (Cullinane, 2003) and members of Japan’s Men’s Movement (Dasgupta, 2003). Although the Internet itself is clearly not a miracle technology that will singlehandedly demolish fixed gender identities, it is symptomatic of the trend towards plurality that in the modern world is resulting in a “transformation of intimacy” (Giddens 1992) and a reassessment of notions of gender, sexuality, family and “identity” (Castells 2000; Hall 2000; Altman 2001).

Japan’s gay boom Representations of sexual and gender nonconformity have long been apparent in Japanese popular culture, in modern times dating back to at least the Taishô period (1912–26) (Roden 1990). Today, the most visible images of male homosexuality (outside the gay press) occur in women’s comics that specialise in the 60

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homoerotic adventures of bishônen or “beautiful boys”. Beginning in the early 1970s with classics such as Hagio Moto’s The Heart of Thomas and Takemiya Keiko’s Song of the Wind and the Trees, the genre has expanded to include a wide range of titles dealing with the love between boys, and, to a lesser extent, between girls. June, the most popular boy-love title, was selling between 80,000 and 100,000 copies a month in 1995 (Schodt 1996, 120), which is twice the distribution of Badi, Japan’s leading gay magazine. Although there is a small crossover market for this kind of material among gay and straight men (McLelland 2000a, 84–5), the audience for boy-love is almost exclusively women. Readers claim that the forbidden and often tragic love between boys is somehow more “pure”, and more “equal” than that which exists between men and women, constrained as they are by the reproductive demands of the family system (Aoyama 1988; McLelland 2000b). Television too has long been a site supportive of gender and sexuality play. Transvestite “talents” [tarento] such as Peter2 and Miwa Akihiro3 have had uninterrupted entertainment careers since the 1960s. They frequently appear on panel shows, and in 2000 Miwa’s career was the subject of an appreciative NHK documentary.4 In the early 1980s, male-to-female transgender model Matsubara Rumiko was a big hit, both as a singer and television personality, and she popularised a new term in Japanese: “newhalf ” [nyûhâfu], now used to refer to male-to-female transgendered individuals who work in Japan’s sex and entertainment industries (McLelland 2002, 168). Gender-bending enka singer, Mikawa Ken’ichi, is one of Japanese television’s biggest stars, appearing almost nightly on a variety of different shows. His exotic “visual effects” performance on behalf of the men’s team on the New Year Red and White Song Contest is the highlight of the show. Osugi and Piiko – camp, albeit not transgendered – are openly gay television personalities who are often called upon to comment on film and fashion. Although sexually ambiguous female personalities are more difficult to come by on Japanese television, the aggressive self-presentation of hostess and singer Wada Akiko clearly transgresses normative modes of female behaviour, as does that of “Dump” Matsumoto, a former female wrestler. Otokoyaku – women actors who specialise in the male roles in the all-woman theatre troupe, the Takarazuka – can also move into film and television careers when they retire from the theatre, usually in their early thirties, and often maintain many of their masculine mannerisms. Indeed, in the recent film version of the classic Heian-period (794–1185) Tale of Genji, the role of Prince Genji was played by a retired otokoyaku.5 While none of the representations discussed above realistically depict the lives of gay men, lesbians or transgendered individuals in Japanese society (nor are they supposed to), it is at least clear that nonnormative sex and gender images are widespread in Japan, albeit confined to the entertainment world. In the early 1990s, however, the Japanese media underwent what was later described as a “gay boom” (Lunsing 1997; McLelland 2000a, 32–7) in which previously sidelined sexual minorities were given a greater voice. The women’s magazine CREA 61

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(February 1991) is often credited with having sparked the boom when it ran an issue entitled “Gay Renaissance” that featured a number of articles about and interviews with gay men. Unfortunately, the images of gay men picked up in the magazine relied heavily upon the rather fantastic and romanticised figures apparent in women’s comics and on television. The lead article entitled “Women who spend a pleasurable life with gays” informed readers that “[w]omen who have gay friends basically like…splendour and refinement”. One woman who was interviewed and prefers gay men to straight claims that “[w]hen we snuggle up together it’s not in the least unpleasant, it feels like petting a cat”. The CREA issue set the tone for many gay boom representations of gay men (lesbians were seldom mentioned)6 in which they were represented in terms of the friendship they could offer women, as opposed to the relationships that they might form with each other. This trend is particularly evident in three dramas produced at the time. An idealised, fantasy relationship between gay men and straight women is explored in two movies: Okoge (dir. Nakajima Takehiro, 1992) and Kira kira hikaru (dir. Matsuoka George, 1992) and in the television drama Dôsôkai (NTV, 1993). Although these dramas are ostensibly about the relationships between gay men, the key figures in the stories are young straight women who try to encourage and support the relationships between the men. In Okoge, the heroine, Sayoko, has been sexually abused by her father-in-law, leading her to associate straight men with abuse. When she sees the gay lovers Tochi and Goh kissing at the beach, she finds the scene irresistibly attractive, later commenting that “it was beautiful, your kiss”. Like the love between beautiful youths in women’s comics, the gay relationship in this movie is presented in terms attractive to women. Sayoko tells the gay men that she “feels at ease” with them. Goh, the younger of the two lovers, is gendered female in several ways in this movie. First, he is an artisan, making women’s handbags at home. It is he who does the cooking for Tochi and Sayoko, giving the latter instructions on how to make and heat up food. Furthermore, when his mother falls ill due to the neglect of his older brother and his wife, it is he, not his sister-in-law, who becomes the care-giver, and is shown bathing and feeding his mother. His sister-in-law at one stage comments “It’s a good job for us he’s gay, a normal man would never act like this!” The connection between straight men and abuse is further reinforced when Sayoko is raped by a straight man she meets in a gay bar. She has already been warned by the bartender that the man is straight because he is wearing a vulgar necktie and cufflinks, something a gay man would never do. She becomes pregnant, and both mother and child are abused by the father, who eventually deserts them. Penniless, she turns for help to an okama bar, pursued by yakuza loan sharks. The drag queens stage a battle with the loan sharks, rescue Sayoko and her baby, and lend her money. Goh, distraught over the end of his relationship with Tochi, has been unaware of the trouble that Sayoko has been through. When he finds out, he moves in with her to become the father of her baby. The final scene shows Sayoko, Goh and the baby walking through Tokyo’s famous gay area, Shinjuku ni-chome, surrounded by drag queens, butch clones and gay 62

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foreigners: the gay “other” has been naturalised. Goh, Sayoko and her baby have become a real family. Similarly, the main character in Kira kira hikaru is a young woman. Shôko is prone to alcoholism and depression. She is told by a doctor that marriage will “cure” her malaise and is subjected to a series of o-miai meetings [marriage introductions] by her concerned parents. It is only when Mutsuki, one prospective groom, tells her that he prefers men that she agrees to marry him. Like Sayoko, Shôko tries to nurture the relationship between her husband and his lover Kon, sensing that Mutsuki cannot be happy without him. However, concerned with keeping up appearances, Mutsuki refuses to see Kon, which plunges both into depression. Shôko, however, perseveres, and after a series of trying events the three seem to come to an understanding. Because of her persistence and her concern for his welfare, Mutsuki comes to return Shôko’s love (albeit platonically); the implication at the end of the movie is that the three of them will somehow work out a way of being together. The gay drama that gained most attention in Japan was, however, a ten-week mini series entitled Dôsôkai [Alumni reunion] that was broadcast nationally on the commercial network NTV in the autumn of 1993. This drama was remarkable for a number of reasons, particularly for its unflinching depiction of erotic attraction between men, who are shown in various states of undress, showering naked together, kissing, masturbating and making love. Like the two gay boom movies, this drama also features a strong female character, Natsuki, whose husband, Fûma, is battling his homosexual desires. These desires propel him first into the arms of his best friend, Atari, with whom he has been infatuated since his high-school days and later into an affair with Arashi, a 17-year-old bisexual hustler. Since Fûma has been unable to consummate the marriage, Natsuki is aware that something is wrong and soon comes to realise that her husband has homosexual desires. There is a remarkable scene where Fûma and Atari go away together to spend the weekend at a country cottage since Atari has agreed, out of his deep love and sympathy for Fûma, to make love to him for one weekend but one weekend only. The episode in which Fûma finally consummates his love for Atari is prefaced by a scene that shows Natsuki addressing Fûma’s empty bed. She says that she loves Fûma and that, as long as he is happy, he is free to do anything he likes. The immediate juxtaposition of this scene with a dream-like sequence in which Fûma and Atari sail away together to a “tiny, tiny planet covered in blue ocean” where “people love each other and that’s all that matters” suggests that she is actually imagining this scenario as she speaks. In this scene, as in similar scenes in Okoge and Kira kira hikaru, a straight woman facilitates and endorses the love between men. Remarkably, the revelation of Fûma’s homosexuality does not alienate him from his wife but brings the couple closer together. The gender roles in the marriage are reversed as Fûma is represented as the vulnerable, powerless partner in need of his wife’s public and private support.7 In the final scene of the series, after the murder of Fûma’s lover Arashi, Natsuki is shown trying to 63

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match-make on her husband’s behalf by inviting a construction worker, who is the spitting image of Arashi, home to dinner. In Japanese society the domestic sphere is constructed as an asexual space, and by inviting a male lover to return and share it with her husband Natsuki offers a direct slap in the face to conventional moral values. The dramas discussed above are as much about Japanese women’s alienation from traditional family values as they are about the difficulties of being gay in modern Japan. To this extent, they are an example of the trend discussed in the introduction, towards representing diverse relationships outside conventional patterns. They are beautifully acted, heart-warming stories that speak about the ability of human beings to love beyond the conventional boundaries erected by tradition, gender and sexual orientation. In these dramas, gay men are not shown as separate from women’s lives and concerns (as might be expected), but instead are constructed as women’s best friends, ideal partners and allies in the battle to win increased space for female subjectivity. However, in co-opting gay men back into what are still seemingly heterosexual alliances, they are rather conservative. The prevalence of media figures whose gender and sexuality are clearly nonnormative has not proven very helpful for ordinary lesbian and gay people whose lives have little in common with those of popular entertainers, movie characters and comic-book heroes. Indeed, several men interviewed in Yajima’s (1997) collection of gay life-stories point out that they found the representations of beautiful boys in girls’ comics to be disturbing. One man comments that while still a schoolboy he became depressed upon discovering these comics since they only depicted characters who were “cute and pretty”. Because he was big for his age and considered himself unattractive, he wondered what would become of him (Yajima 1997, 307). Another of Yajima’s informants argues that the “gay boom” was not about gay men at all, but a “fantasy” in which Japanese women struggled against the distorted images of sexuality thrust upon them by patriarchal society (Yajima 1997, 179).

Representations of gay men in gay media So far, I have argued that Japanese media often conflate homosexual desire with gender inversion. In mainstream media such as television, the most prevalent homosexual figures are transgendered entertainers. In media produced by or directed at women, including many gay boom representations, gay men are still gendered feminine because, as non-gender-normative men in a patriarchal society, they are disadvantaged in a way similar to women. Thus, gay men are shown as the obvious allies and best friends of women and, in some ways, their ideal partners (McLelland 1999). But to what extent are these representations mirrored in media produced by and directed at gay men themselves? While it would be untrue to say that the image of gay men as “feminine” is entirely absent in gay media, it is a relatively minor discourse. 64

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As in many publications in the West, the notion that gay men differ from their straight colleagues primarily through their “style” or sensibility is apparent in some media aimed at gay men. For instance, towards the end of the gay boom period, there appeared a special edition of the magazine Bessatsu takarajima (17 February 1994) entitled “Gays’ heavenly campus” that was subtitled in English “Gay’s [sic] lesson to happiness”. The foreword, written by Ôtsuka Takashi, owner of a gay bar, author and prominent personality on Tokyo’s gay scene, notes that “[t]he thing we need to learn is how to enjoy being gay”. The tips he gives on how to do this are interesting – for instance, there are details on how to arrange a gay dinner party. Ôtsuka writes: “What’s so special about a gay party, well, basically, it’s a matter of style”, and goes on to describe two possible themes, “Maria Callas Night” and “Party in Pink”, providing a complete menu and decoration tips for each. Most of the answers to the question “What’s gay taste?” posed in the magazine seem to be taken from a rather stereotypical reading of white, middle-class American gay culture – such as listening to musicals. However, it is important to note that the creation and enjoyment of a gay lifestyle in this magazine is described as something gay men do together, not in association with women. For example, the “Queens’ Party Study” section states that “[t]he way to enjoy gay life is, above all, to party with your friends. Even if you make an uproar with your camp speech, it’s okay.” The kind of “gay lifestyle” featured in Bessatsu takarajima is, however, a minority concern and necessarily so, even on logistical grounds. The kind of “gay style” outlined above is very much predicated on Euro-American models of socialisation; a “dinner party” that takes place at home is unusual in Japan for a number of reasons, not least lack of space. All the gay emblems mentioned are also very much Western icons that hold little significance for most Japanese gay men. Thus, although the magazine makes amusing reading, it is unlikely that many Japanese gay men would see themselves reflected in its pages or live the kind of lifestyle that would enable them to benefit from its tips. Although the above discourse is concerned with “lifestyle” issues, suggesting in accordance with media directed at women that gay men are more “feminine” in their concern with fashion, food and style than their straight counterparts, a look at Japan’s gay magazines suggests that this is not an interest shared by many gay men. Two recent media ventures produced with gay men in mind have attempted to explore the notion of a specifically Japanese “gay lifestyle” – the magazine Fabulous and the e-zine gaywalker.com – but both have conspicuously failed. Fabulous, which described itself on the cover as “an absolutely new style magazine for gays”,8 went out of circulation in June 2000 after only four editions. Slightly longer lasting was gaywalker.com, which, basing itself on the lifestyle and entertainment magazine Tokyo Walker, offered features on “Japanese gay and lesbian lifestyle”. Its regular columns included news, lifestyle, entertainment, travel, career and education, fashion, food and wine, sports and leisure, and 65

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health. A number of personalities on the Tokyo gay scene, both Japanese and foreign, were recruited to write feature articles and thus engender a sense of “gay community” that transcended both racial and linguistic barriers. The site originally appeared in Japanese only, although an increasing number of articles began to appear in English. Intriguingly, the website was not funded by Japanese financiers, but by overseas capital under the direction of a British advertising agent (who was not gay himself).9 The investors hoped to attract sponsorship from the same fashion, alcohol and leisure goods companies that support US and other gay publications such as The Advocate, Blue and Out.10 However, sponsorship was not forthcoming and the website closed down in 2001 after only one year online. Despite the failure of the above ventures, Japan does have a wide variety of gay media including four major nationally distributed gay magazines, thousands of Internet sites and a large number of small, privately distributed publications known as minikomi [“mini-communications”, as opposed to mass-media organs like newspapers]. These media are overwhelmingly concerned with erotic entertainment: instructing men on how to have sex and where to go for sex, and offering pornographic pictures, comics and stories for masturbatory purposes (McLelland 2000a, 89–120). The way in which the male body is constructed in gay magazines, videos and on the Internet is very “type” specific, depictions falling into a number of clearly identifiable categories. These include kuma [bears], gatenkei [blue-collar workers], birudâ [body-builders], supôtsuman [sportsmen], yakuza [gangsters] and janiizukei [cute guys]. However, these depictions are overwhelmingly “masculine” – muscles and body hair are much fetishised, as is penis size. Representations of the male body in gay media can be said to be the inverse of those in media produced by and directed at women. Just as women fantasise the gay man as a kind, beautiful, feminine intermediary between the sexes, who is a woman’s best confidante and ideal partner, gay media fantasise the gay man as a hyper-masculine sex machine, interested in sex, not romance, and moving in an exclusive homosocial world in which women are invisible. The favourite scenarios for gay sex in gay magazines and videos are typical men-only situations: the sports club, the changing room, the all-boys school, the building site, the dormitory, the cruising ground. Gay media rarely situate the gay man in the interior, feminine realm of the family or the home (as gay boom depictions tend to do), but remove him from the world of women and place him in an exclusively male domain where the possibility of sexual encounters is maximised. In gay pornography, there is no space for establishing long-term relationships: the change of partners and the pursuit of new and interesting sexual positions are relentless. The erotic potential of violence is frequently invoked: men are shown being forcibly violated and loving it in much the same way as women are represented in straight pornography (Allison 1996, 62). On the few occasions when women are present in these narratives, they appear as the opponents of gay men in the pursuit of the same quarry – straight men – or 66

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as naïve dupes, chasing after gay men who are only interested in sexual relations with other men (McLelland 2000a, 113–14). Given that gay media are primarily concerned with providing sexual entertainment, this should come as no surprise. However, a reading of gay male culture that simply focused on the commercial magazines aimed at gay men would overlook a variety of other publications that offer more diverse representations. For instance, the 1990s saw the development of such gay rights’ organisations as OCCUR, which from 1991–7 fought and won a court case overturning a Tokyo metropolitan government ruling that openly gay groups not be allowed access to community meeting places (Summerhawk et al. 1998, 206–10). National groups like OCCUR and many smaller regional ones support a variety of minikomi such as newsletters and a growing number of Internet sites. However, membership of these groups is very small and the circulation of these minikomi is in the hundreds, not thousands (Lunsing 1999). More readily available is the large number of books written by gay men, lesbians, transsexual and transgendered people that are sold in mainstream book stores. For instance, in January 2000, Kinokuniya, Tokyo’s largest book store, stocked several shelves of books under the labels “homosexuality” [dôseiai] and “sexuality” [sekushuariti], albeit in a section headed “family and marriage” [katei to kekkon]. Despite the fact that the gay boom featured rather narrow images of male homosexuality and tended to overlook lesbian and transgender individuals, the interest it created led to a proliferation of books by and for sexual minorities. For the first time, widespread media interest enabled gay men and lesbians to present their own coming out narratives to an audience outside the gay press. These included Fushimi Noriaki’s Private Gay Life (1991), Kakefuda Hiroko’s On Being “Lesbian” (1992) and Itô Satoru’s Two Men Living Together: My Gay Pride Declaration (1993). These writers discussed English terms such as “gay” [gei], “lesbian” [rezubian], “gay pride” [gei puraido], “homophobia” [homofobia] and coming out [kamingu auto],11 and the interest created by their stories ensured that these English loanwords were widely reported in the media. Hence, one result of the gay boom has been that recently coined English terminology for describing a whole range of queer sexualities is now widely used, although this does not mean that these terms are understood in the same way by all Japanese people.12 Many of these terms have also experienced a shift in meaning; for instance, gei in Japanese is used exclusively as a term for gay men. The resumption of sex-change operations in Japan in 1998 (Mackie 2001) also created something of a boom in transgender publications such as Toyama Hitomi’s Miss Dandy: Women Living as Men (1999), Miyazaki Rumiko’s I Am Transgendered (2000) and Komatsu Anri’s On Deciding to be a Newhalf: Living like Myself (2000). This led to a further expansion of the vocabulary available for discussing sexual minorities. The sudden appearance of a wide range of books about homosexuality was welcomed by many of my gay contacts in Japan. I received, for instance, this message from a gay man in 1998: 67

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Recently there seem to be more gay-related books being published than before but still I think there are not yet enough.…I can say that books that discuss the issue “Why am I gay?” are very important to me. Somehow, even with my gay friends I’m not able to discuss questions like “What do you think about being gay?” or “How are you going to live as a gay from now on?” I have no idea what other Japanese gays think about these things. Even if the number of other gays thinking [about these things] is small, I still want to know [about them]. This communication, and others like it that I received when doing fieldwork for my monograph on homosexuality in modern Japan (McLelland 2000a), suggests that the gay scene is not a particularly fertile place for discussions of identity politics. Indeed, as I argued at the time (McLelland 2000a, 192–6), despite the proliferation of terms describing sexual minorities in the media, they were rarely used by my informants. As noted above, the commercial gay press, too, has largely excluded this kind of identity discourse.13 The medium in which discussion about identity issues is most apparent in Japan is the Internet, which many gay men have embraced with great enthusiasm.

Japan’s gay Net The scope of the Japanese Internet is vast. Already by 1998 the amount of data in Japanese on the Internet had exceeded the total number of printed characters reproduced in all Japanese magazines and newspapers in an entire year (Gottlieb 2000, 182) and Japanese was, after English, the most prevalent language on the Net (McLelland 2002, 163). The Web contains many thousands of Japanese gay sites14 that feature chat rooms, bulletin boards and special “consultation” [sôdan] spaces where men can discuss such topics as how to “live as [a] gay” [gei toshite ikiru] and the meaning of “gay life” [gei no jinsei] (McLelland 2000c; 2001). While one’s friends at the bar may still not be very interested in discussing identity politics, for anyone with Internet access, forums offering such discussions are only a click away and many websites link to information about offline organisations and groups, including links to Men’s Movement and feminist organisations. The Internet offers space for what Miller and Slater (2001, 10) refer to as “expansive realisation”, where “one can become what one thinks one really is”, freed from many of the restrictions that condition offline identities. It is therefore on the Internet, and not in the mainstream media or in commercial publications aimed at gay men, that the true diversity of Japan’s gay community is most evident. The most striking aspect of the majority of these sites is that they are prefaced by a warning page that alerts browsers to the fact that they are about to enter a “gay space” [gei supêsu]. The entrance to the site LUST,15 for example, contains the word “Oops!!” (in English), followed by the explanation: 68

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This site has been made for gays [GAY de aru tame] and contains gay related stories and expressions. Gay people or people who understand about gays [gei ni go-rikai no aru kata], please proceed. Other people can use the exit to go to Yahoo. Other sites, such as MEN’s NET JAPAN,16 are more exclusive. On its entrance page is printed WARNING (in English), followed by the explanation: “Since this page is a place used by gay men [gei no kata gata] to communicate with male companions, the following cannot use it: men not interested in homosexuality [and] women.” It is apparent that the word “gay” [gei] has been established as the main term designating male–male sexuality on the Net, in contrast to mainstream media, which use a variety of terms including gei, homo [from “homosexual”], dôseiaisha [the Chinese character translation of the noun “homosexual”] and okama [a slang term for the buttocks]. This provides a clear linguistic connection between Japanese and Western “gays” for, despite the fact that gei is usually (but not always) written in katakana [a Japanese script for transliterating foreign loanwords], the pronunciation is identical. Indeed some sites address foreign gay men on their entrance pages. MEN’s NET, for instance, states in English: “Welcome to MEN’s NET JAPAN homepage. This homepage is written in Japanese. This site is GAY men only.” The vast majority of gay websites are similar to the gay press in that their primary function is to entertain, which usually involves providing sexually stimulating images and stories. Any departure from this mode can be a little self-conscious, even apologetic, as in the site Top Notch,17 which provides a number of message boards for men to discuss such topics as sexy baseball stars, the charms of older men, SM techniques and a variety of fetishes. The one nonsexual list is entitled “Let’s have a bit of an earnest discussion” [chotto majimena o-hanashi o]. In September 1999 the theme of the discussion was “How shall we live a gay life from now on?” [kore kara no gei jinsei dô ikiru ka?]. Most of the submissions were concerned with the problem of ageing while remaining unmarried. In Japan social welfare is rather rudimentary when compared with many Western nations and the primary care-givers to the elderly come from their immediate family, especially daughters or daughters-in-law (Wu 2002). Hence a man or woman who chooses to remain single faces a potentially lonely and isolated old age.18 In October 2000 the theme had shifted to “What’s a gay life?” [gei jinsei wa?], where many of the contributors discussed the advantages and disadvantages of using the Internet to find out information and meet partners. One contributor referred to the large amount of information that exists on the Internet in English. He argued that access to this information as well as increased travel by Japanese to foreign countries and by foreigners to Japan will result in the “internationalisation” [kokusaika] of Japanese society, bringing a gradual change of attitude towards homosexuality. As discussed earlier, the increasing penetration of English-language terms for a variety of sexual and gender nonconformist individuals suggests that to a certain extent this is already taking place. 69

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Other individuals who emphasise the important role the Internet is playing in making “gay life” possible in Japan include gay activists Itô Satoru and Yanase Ryûta, Japan’s most famous “gay couple”. They run Sukotan,19 an information website for sexual minorities (McLelland 2000c; 2001). “How to live a gay life?” is an issue constantly brought up on their online problem page20 where, in their responses, they stress the need for gay men (women seem not to write in) to make an effort to find out about gay life by reading books and searching the Internet. For instance, Itô says in response to a gay man who expresses a desire to marry a woman in order to establish a family that the reason he values marriage so highly is that it is the only lifestyle endorsed by and represented in the media. He says that “comparatively speaking the amount of information available about living as a gay is amazingly small”. His advice is to “collect ideas from such sources as books and the Internet about how gay people are living their lives”. In response to another man who is considering marrying a woman he says, “I think it would be good for you to look at homepages of gay couples and you may find that little by little gay couples are creating the kind of relationships you seem to want.” Itô’s advice supports Miller and Slater’s observation that for many people the Internet offers “expansive potential”. They note that “the encounter with the expansive connections and possibilities of the Internet may allow one to envisage a quite novel vision of what one could be” (Miller and Slater 2001, 11). These webpages discussing the possibilities for living a gay life in Japan are important because mainstream media reports still tend to sensationalise or trivialise gay people’s lives, which means that useful role models are seldom encountered. As Itô points out, “to feature homosexuals whose daily lives are really no different from heterosexuals does not make interesting programming” (cited in Summerhawk et al. 1998, 90). Since sexual preference is viewed as a private affair that has little to do with the obligation to choose an appropriate opposite-sex partner, get married and rear children “on schedule” (Brinton 1992), there is little sympathy in Japan for individuals who make their homosexual orientation public knowledge. As a recent returnee to Japan wrote to an English gay chat line: [P]eople in Japan deny all the way about the normalization of gay cultures. It is always strange and weird in everyone’s mind when thinking about gay’s [sic] in general. I am forced not to discuss any matters that relate to gay people at work because talking about it makes people uncomfortable. (cited in McLelland 2000a, 230) Since “coming out” about one’s sexual orientation has widespread ramifications for everyone one knows, Japanese gay men are extremely cautious about whom they disclose their same-sex feelings to. Coming out can even cause tension in gay relationships, as this man’s complaint on Itô’s problem page shows: 70

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I’ve come to think that I’d like to live as gay [gei toshite ikitai] in my daily life as far as possible. At work when the conversation turns to strange topics such as homos [homo] and poofters [okama], I’d like to be able to argue back. I’m also thinking about coming out to my parents. But my partner isn’t concerned about my thoughts and says such things as “[d]o as you like since I’m going to carry on as straight [nonke ni iku]”…and he won’t discuss it. The result of this social pressure to maintain silence is that many gay men experience extreme guilt about their homosexual preference, not because of any sense of its inherent sinfulness, but because it is seen as a purely personal indulgence that detracts from the adequate performance of the male gender role deemed necessary by parents, workmates and society (Edwards 1989; Ishii-Kunz 1993; Murata 2000). As another man writes in to Itô’s advice column: As far as my parents are concerned, I just can’t get rid of the idea that being born gay is unforgivable. Although I have recently come to realise that homosexuality isn’t acquired…I feel bad because I cannot show my parents the faces of their grandchildren and because, if they knew I was gay, they would feel sad. Since they have raised me up till now I am indebted to them [giri ga aru]…and I can’t get it out of my head that I am behaving badly towards them. Given the difficulties of articulating a gay identity to one’s family, colleagues and friends in Japanese society, the Internet offers gay men the unprecedented opportunity to come out and describe their problems and experiences while keeping their identities private. Indeed, the term “come out” [kamu auto] is ubiquitous on Japanese gay websites, turning up on personal homepages, problem pages, chat lines, and in personal ads. For instance, the online self-introduction form that a reader needed to fill out on the now defunct e-zine gaywalker.com21 contained the question “Have you come out?” [kamu auto shimashitaka?]. The choices provided were “to everyone”, “to friends only”, “no answer” or “not yet”, which suggests that coming out was anticipated as a future event. The pros and cons of coming out were also frequently debated on the gaywalker message board. One man, for instance, expressed impatience at the guilt expressed by another writer over pretending to be straight. He states that “before you are gay you are a human being” and “you shouldn’t regard not coming out as something negative”. Another man explained that he had a novel way of coming out: when he felt comfortable with new acquaintances, he directed them to his homepage where he described his gay experiences. This enabled his friends to ask him various questions by e-mail that they might have felt too embarrassed to bring up in face-to-face communication. Despite the fact that in their offline experience gay men tend to be cautious about revealing their personal lives, gay homepages contain a large amount of 71

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personal information. Cheung (2000) has discussed the production of the self via the homepage and notes how personal pages encourage a self-reflexive mode of narrativisation. Japanese websites run by individual gay men are generally rather uniform, containing similar narrative features. Practically all personal pages contain a “profile” [purofiiru] page that usually includes the following: name (handle), age, blood group, star sign (and birth year according to the Chinese zodiac), home town, current city, height, weight, occupation, likes and dislikes (usually food but sometimes more general), “type” of man found attractive, and hobbies. Most sites provide at least the above information about the owners but many more also feature their photographs. The Beach Boy,22 for instance, contains an “album” [arubamu] showing various pictures of the owner, Satoshi, from infancy to the present day. Other autobiographical information is provided in sections such as “diary” [nikki], “experience” [taiken] and “soliloquy” [hitorigoto], in which the site owner addresses the reader as if a friend. The owners tend to use colloquial plain-form masculine speech, helping to establish an intimate atmosphere that provides a suitable context for the discussion of personal and at times painful details. It also encourages a sense of community in that the use of such plain-style colloquial speech would, for Japanese speakers, be associated with networks of close friends or family – in other words, a group of people with whom one shares a common bond or identity. This explains the warnings on many entry pages that stress that only gay men and “those who understand gays” are welcome to enter. To be gay or to be sympathetic to the problems faced by gays is already to be an “insider” in relation to a largely unsympathetic “outside” world. Cheung, in his discussion of personal websites, draws upon Goffman’s theories of the presentation of the self, particularly the use of “dramaturgy”. A number of gay men’s homepages feature this “dramatic” style of self-presentation through the use of animation, eye-catching graphics and music, with different melodies to accompany the more sober, self-reflexive and upbeat pages on their sites. The ‘My History’ pages on the gay homepage Paradise City,23 for instance, are accompanied by synthesised renditions of touching piano and harpsichord music.24 “Coming out” [kamu auto] is a common section on gay men’s personal websites but the nuance of the term, as with other imported sexual vocabulary, seems different from that of the English phrase. Many of the men seem to understand coming out as a kind of coming to terms with their homosexual desires, since these sections seldom refer to their actual experience of public selfdisclosure. For instance, Masato, on his site Moondial,25 begins his coming out story in a section entitled “boyhood”, but his narrative is really one of selfdiscovery. He writes: “From the early years of primary school I felt that I was a little different from the other boys around me although I didn’t understand why.” The narrative that follows, tracing the development of his homoerotic interest in other boys through primary, secondary and senior school, is again better described as a coming to terms rather than a coming out as he never makes a public declaration of his orientation, unless the publishing of the story on the Internet is seen as such a declaration. 72

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The flexibility of the Internet as a communications medium enables bilingual presentations in English and Japanese, and a number of sites are hosted by Japanese/Western gay couples or by individual Japanese with English ability. Phillip and Takashi, an Australian–Japanese couple who run a bilingual website,26 discuss a variety of things on their site including gay-related news in Japan. A Place Called Shinichi’s World 27 is another bilingual site owned by a Japan-born but US-raised Japanese man. The Japanese Contents page contains the link “coming out” (in roman letters but Japanese text), which leads to a section entitled GAY PRIDE! (in roman letters) where Shinichi tells the reader that he is glad to have been born gay and would not change anything about his sexuality even if he had the chance to be born again. This section leads to another two pages, one describing his “first love” and the other his discovery of “masturbation”. These narratives describe how Shinichi came to terms with his homosexual feelings in relation to a schoolmate and his homosexual desires in relation to the picture of a naked man he discovered in a heterosexual pornographic magazine. The very personal and at times painful nature of these recollections is made clear in this excerpt from Shinichi’s online “coming out” story: [As Shinichi tried to masturbate while looking at the women in a heterosexual pornography magazine.] My penis wasn’t hard despite the fact that I was trying to masturbate, thinking that perhaps she wasn’t my type, I looked at the next page and saw a naked man…at that moment my penis sprang up and somehow I just ejaculated. It can’t be! Is it really true that I like men? What should I do about it? Should I tell someone? Should I do something? On that day the penny dropped. I realised the real thing [honto no koto]. I saw the real me [honto no jibun]. I was a homo [homo]. I was a weirdo [henjin]. I looked at the photo once more and, without eating dinner, cried myself to sleep. I didn’t know what else to do. Unlike many other “coming out” narratives in Japanese on the Internet, Shinichi’s story does result in the declaration of his homosexual feelings to a girlfriend. However, nothing is said about subsequent declarations to family or colleagues. The adoption of the discourse of “coming out” by many Japanese gay men as the primary mode of narrating “the gay life” does display a synchronicity with Western narrative patterns. As Ken Plummer points out in Telling Sexual Stories, “stories of ‘homosexuality’ have recently changed” increasingly focusing on “coming out”, which he terms “a dominant narrative” (Plummer 1995, 81). He goes on to argue that coming out is now “a global story since many of the tales told criss-cross their way around the world” (Plummer 1995, 96) as is clearly evidenced by the websites of Shinichi and Phillip and Takashi discussed above.28

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Despite the often moving narratives contained in the “coming out”, “history” and “experience” sections of the homepages, the other information provided is frequently mundane, particularly in the “diary” sections where the owners often tell us little more than what they had for dinner. However, the importance of these sites should not be underestimated, as it is their very quotidian nature that is of most significance. As outlined earlier, there is little scope in the Japanese media for representing the “ordinary” gay man and, given the reluctance of gay men to come out to family and colleagues, one does not often encounter openly gay people. This results in a sense of isolation for many gay men. Representations of the ordinariness of same-sex desire are therefore of the utmost value, as indeed are the examples set by the wide variety of site owners. As Itô argues on the Sukotan site, gay websites are an invaluable resource for anyone in Japan working through the issues of gay identity and lifestyle that are largely overlooked by mainstream media.

Conclusion It has been impossible in one chapter to give a full sense of the range and complexity of representations of gay men in the Japanese media. However, I have outlined the tendency within mainstream media to highlight gay men’s difference in terms of gender: gay men are considered more “feminine” than straight men, best suited to lives in the entertainment world and, intriguingly, as best friends for women. In commercial gay media, however, the gay man is, if anything, hyper-masculine, displaying the same kind of aggressive interest in sex that is characteristic of straight men in more mainstream media. In this regard, gay men have more in common with straight men than they do with the world of women. Recently, this binary pattern that locates gay men at opposite ends of a gender continuum has been complicated by the increasing number of publications brought out by gay activists and by the recent boom in Internet sites created by and for gay men. Gay men in Japan are clearly as diverse as straight men; there can be no ideal types, either homo- or heterosexual. While there will always undoubtedly be resistance from some quarters to lifestyles and identities outside those traditionally endorsed, the proliferation of media and the power afforded minorities by new technologies such as the Internet make the insistence upon one hegemonic mode of sex or gender identity less and less plausible. As Giddens has argued, modernity, in Japan as elsewhere, has seen the development and proliferation of “lifestyle sectors” that challenge “traditional” lifestyle patterns and gender roles (Giddens 1991; 1992). The Internet provides a window onto an enormous range of gay experience that offers “expansive potential” and a space for trying out online identities that may then move into offline life. As more gay men encounter narratives of “coming out” on the Internet, they may well be encouraged to take this step in their daily lives. The sense of loneliness and isolation, of being the only one, which charac74

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terised the youth of many gay men prior to the days of the Internet, will surely begin to disperse as an increasing number of teens find their way into gay chat rooms and discover the diversity of Japan’s gay scene. Indeed, as SindBad bookmarks states on its opening page: “Everyone, please make lots of friends and discoveries here” and then, in English, “We are not all alone!!” Likewise, the notions that homosexuality is unusual or that it is associated with only a few character types will become untenable when confronted with the enormous variety of gay self-expression on the Internet. While contemporary Japanese society is certainly no haven for those who choose to live outside the mainstream, it is apparent that Japan is not a special case that has somehow missed out on the widespread transformations that are challenging received notions about gender, sexuality, relationships and lifestyle that are taking place in other societies throughout the world. Gay men, in Japan as elsewhere, are playing an important role in this ongoing process of transformation.

Notes 1 The media section of Itô and Yanase’s website, http://www.sukotan.com/ shinbun.html#anchor (8 January 2002), mentions over forty articles that they themselves have published in a wide variety of mainstream media. These include six brief essays on the topic of sexuality by Itô in the Mainichi shimbun, one of Japan’s top three national dailies, under the title “I want to live like myself ”. Also, reports on Itô’s activities have appeared in Japan’s English-language press. See ‘Gay Pair Lecture at Schools in Bid to Nip Prejudice in Bud’, The Japan Times, Saturday 28 September 1996, available at http://www.sukotan.com/shinbun.html#anchor (8 January 2002), and ‘Academic Crusade for Homosexual Rights’, The Daily Yomiuri, 15 August 2000, available at http://www.sukotan.com/yomiuri.html (8 January 2002). 2 Peter starred in Matsumoto Toshio’s 1968 movie Bara no sôretsu [Funeral procession of roses] in which he played the role of a geiboi, i.e. a transgendered male prostitute. 3 Miwa starred in Fukusaku Kinji’s 1968 film Kuro tokage [Black lizard] where he played the role of femme fatale. 4 Soshite uta wa tanjôshita [Thus was song born], number 11, broadcast on NHK from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. on 26 December 2000. 5 Genji – A Thousand Year Love [Sennen no koi], dir. Horikawa Tonko, produced by Toei Co. in 2001 starred ex-Takarazuka male-role player Amami Yuki as Genji. 6 On the comparative invisibility of lesbians in Japan see Sharon Chalmers. 2001. Tolerance, form and female dis-ease: The pathologisation of lesbian sexuality in Japanese society. Intersections issue 6, at http://wwwsshe.murdoch.edu.au/intersections/issue6/chalmers.html (7 March 2002). 7 The elevation of Natsuki’s status is also signified by the change in her mother-in-law’s attitude towards her. Her previously distant and slightly contemptuous attitude is completely transformed when she hears rumours of her son’s homosexuality. Natsuki suddenly becomes the guarantor of her son’s heterosexual credentials and enables the family to maintain their face. Natsuki thereby becomes empowered in relations with her in-laws with whom they reside. 8 Gei no tame no mattaku atarashii sutairu magajin. 9 I interviewed the small staff of gaywalker at their office in Tokyo in December 2000. 10 Issue number 37 of Blue, Australia’s premier glossy gay lifestyle magazine, contained advertisements from a variety of sponsors including Longines watches, Sunglass Hut,

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11

12

13

14

15 16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

Musashi vitamins, Dr Martens shoes, Hugo Boss, Giorgio Armani, My Dog dog food, Absolut vodka, ANZ bank and Interflora. The first instance of the use of kamu auto that I am aware of on Japanese television occurred in the 1993 drama Dôsôkai where it was glossed as kokuhaku [confession] and sengen [declaration] of sexual preference. In 1998, however, I heard the term used without qualification on MTV Japan in a news item about George Michael. The term gei for instance was first introduced to Japan during the Occupation and at that time was used to refer to geiboi [gay boys] or transgendered male prostitutes. It is used in this sense in Matsumoto Toshio’s 1968 film Bara no sôretsu [Funeral procession of roses]. However, in the 1980s this term was displaced by nyûhâfu [new half], now the most common term for a transgendered (male) sex worker. Today gei still has transgender connotations among the older generation, for whom a geibâ (gay bar) brings up images of a transgender cabaret, but among young people it is used in a more political sense and is favoured as a self-referent by activist such as Fushimi Noriaki. Itô Satoru, however, prefers instead the Chinese-character translation of “homosexual” [dôseiaisha], as does gay rights organisation OCCUR. One recent exception to this is the periodical Queer Japan edited by gay activist Fushimi Noriaki. First published in November 1999, there had been (by January 2002) five editions. The contents, albeit more sober and political than other gay magazines, are still not particularly lifestyle oriented and, despite the seemingly inclusive title, are primarily about gay men. In January 2002, the site SindBad bookmarks had links to 3,562 Japanese sites and 27,000 sites in English, including 814 containing special formatting that enable them to be downloaded by a mobile phone, at http://www.sindbadbookmarks.com (11 January 2002). http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Club/7266/ (8 January 2002). http://www.mensnet.jp (8 January 2002). (Room no. 032) at http://club21.org/cgi-bin/topn4/vlist.cgi (8 January 2002). These concerns are also raised in volume 5 of Queer Japan, entitled “Yume miru rôgo” [Dreamlike old age]. First established in April 1997, at: http://www.sukotan.com (8 January 2002). Subsequent to the completion of this chapter, the Sukotan staff has expanded and Yanase has reduced his involvement. The problem page has now been reformatted as a conversation between Itô and his younger assistant Yûki, now at http://www.sukotan.com/yukitosatoru/yukitosatoru.html (March 2002) but the earlier messages referred to in the text are still archived on the site at http://www.sukotan.com/yukitosatoru/minnade.html (7 March 2002). Site no longer active. Was at http://www.gaywalker.com (10 December 2000). http://www.d5.dion.ne.jp/~ satosi/Main/top.htm (11 November 2001). http://www.geocities.co.jp/HeartLand-Himawari/4685/contents.htm (13 March 2002). I have noted elsewhere (McLelland 2002, 171) that newhalf sex workers also use music on their websites for dramatic effect. http://homepage1.nifty.com/masato1/moondial/about.html (11 November 2001). http://www.geocities.co.jp/SweetHome-Green/6764/index-e.html (8 January 2002). http://www.shinichisworld.com (8 January 2002). A nice example of this global trend with regard to lesbianism in Japan is provided by Marou Izumo and Claire Maree (2000) who discuss their respective experiences of coming out as a mixed-race lesbian couple in both Japan and Australia.

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References Allison, Ann. 1996. Permitted and prohibited desires: Mothers, comics and censorship in Japan. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Altman, Dennis. 2001. Global sex. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin. Aoyama, Tomoko. 1988. Male homosexuality as treated by Japanese women writers. In The Japanese trajectory: Modernization and beyond, eds Gavan McCormack and Yoshio Sugimoto: 187–203. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Berger, Peter. 1974. The homeless mind. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Brinton, Mary. 1992. Christmas cakes and wedding cakes: The social organization of Japanese women’s life course. In Japanese social organization, ed. Takie Sugiyama Lebra: 79–103. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Castells, Manuel. 2000. The rise of the network society: The power of identity, vol. 2. Malden, MA: Blackwells. Chalmers, Sharon. 2002. Emerging lesbian voices from Japan. London: Routledge-Curzon Press. Cheung, Charles. 2000. A home on the Web: Presentations of self on personal home pages. In Web.studies: Rewriting media studies for the digital age, ed. David Gauntlett: 43–51. London: Arnold. Cullinane, Joanne. 2003. “Net”-working on the Internet: Links between Japanese HIV patients in cyberspace. In Japanese cybercultures, eds Nanette Gottlieb and Mark McLelland: 126–40. London: Routledge. Dasgupta, Romit. 2003. Japanese men’s groups on-line. In Japanese cybercultures, eds Nanette Gottlieb and Mark McLelland: 109–25. London: Routledge. Edwards, Walter. 1989. Modern Japan through its weddings: Gender, person and society in ritual portrayal. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Fushimi Noriaki. 1991. Puraibêto gei raifu. Tokyo: Gakuyôshobô. Giddens, Anthony. 1991. Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Cambridge: Polity Press. ——. 1992. The transformation of intimacy: Sexuality, love and eroticism in modern societies. Cambridge: Polity Press. Gottlieb, Nanette. 2000. Kanji and the keyboard: Word-processing technology in Japan. Richmond: Curzon. Hall, Stuart. 2000. Who needs “identity”? In Identity: A reader, eds Paul du Gay, Jessica Evans and Peter Redman: 15–30. London: Sage. Ihara Saikaku. 1990. Great mirror of male love, trans. Paul Gordon Schalow. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Ishii-Kunz, Mariko. 1993. Japanese fathers: Work demands and family roles. In Men, work and family, ed. Jane C. Hood: 45–67. Newbury Park: Sage. Itô Satoru. 1992. Otoko futarigarashi: Boku no gei puraido sengen. Tokyo: Tarôjirôsha. Izumo Marou and Claire Maree. 2000. Love upon the chopping board. Melbourne: Spinnifex Press. Kakefuda Hiroko. 1992. Rezubian de aru koto. Tokyo: Kawade Shobô Shinsha. Komatsu Anri. 2000. Nyûhâfu ga kimetta: Watashi rashii ikikata. Tokyo: Ronguserâzu. Leupp, Gary. 1995. Male colors: The construction of homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

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Lunsing, Wim. 1997. Gay boom in Japan: Changing views of homosexuality? Thamyris 4, no. 2: 267–93. ——. 1999. Japan: Finding its way? In The global emergence of gay and lesbian politics: National imprints of a worldwide movement: 293–325. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. ——. 2001. Beyond common sense: Sexuality and gender in contemporary Japan. London: Kegan Paul International. Mackie, Vera. 2001. The trans-sexual citizen: Queering sameness and difference. Australian Feminist Studies 16, no. 35: 185–91. McLelland, Mark. 1999. Gay men as women’s ideal partners in Japanese popular culture: Are gay men really a girl’s best friends? U.S.–Japan Women’s Journal English Supplement, no. 17: 77–110. ——. 2000a. Male homosexuality in modern Japan: Cultural myths and social realities. Richmond: Curzon. ——. 2000b. The love between “beautiful boys” in Japanese women’s comics. The Journal of Gender Studies 9, no. 1: 13–26. ——. 2000c. Out and about on Japan’s gay Net. Convergence 6, no. 3: 16–33. ——. 2001. Live life more selfishly: An on-line gay advice column in Japan. Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 15, no. 1: 103–16. ——. 2002. The newhalf Net: Japan’s “intermediate sex” on-line. International Journal of Sexuality and Gender Studies 7, nos 2/3: 163–75. Miller, Daniel and Don Slater. 2001. The Internet: An ethnographic approach. Oxford and New York: Berg. Miller, Stephen, ed. 1996. Partings at dawn: An anthology of Japanese gay literature. San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press. Miyazaki Rumiko. 2000. Watashi wa toransujendâ. Tokyo: Neoraifu. Murata Yôhei. 2000. Chûnen shinguru dansei o sogai suru basho. Jimbun chiri 52, no. 6: 1–19. Onosaka Junko. 2003. Challenging society through the information grid: Japanese women’s activism on the Net. In Japanese cybercultures, eds Nanette Gottlieb and Mark McLelland: 95–108. London: Routledge. Pflugfelder, Gregory. 1999. Cartographies of desire: Male–male sexuality in Japanese discourse, 1600–1950. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Plummer, Ken. 1995. Telling sexual stories: Power, change and social worlds. London: Routledge. Robertson, Jennifer. 1998. Takarazuka: Sexual politics and popular culture in modern Japan. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Roden, Donald. 1990. Taisho culture and the problem of gender ambivalence. In Culture and identity: Japanese intellectuals during the interwar years, ed. J. Thomas Rimer: 37–55. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Schodt, Frederik. 1996. Dreamland Japan: Writings on modern manga. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press. Summerhawk, Barbara, Cheiron McMahill and Darren McDonald, eds. 1998. Queer Japan: Personal stories of Japanese lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transsexuals. Norwich, VT: New Victoria Publishers. Toyama Hitomi. 1999. Otoko toshite ikiru joseitachi: MISS dandi. Tokyo: Shinkôsha. Wu Yongmei. 2002. Speaking of life: Life histories of the institutionalised elderly in Kotobuki. Intersections 7, http://wwwsshe.murdoch.edu.au/intersections/issue7/wu.html. Yajima Masami. 1997. Dansei dôseiaisha no raifuhisutorii. Tokyo: Gakubunsha.

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5 THE EMPEROR ’S S ON S GO TO WAR Competing masculinities in modern Japan Morris Low Introduction From the late nineteenth century, Japanese society underwent great changes. This chapter examines how Japanese masculinity evolved against the background of a Japan that was embracing a Western-inspired modernity. Amidst the uprooting of the previously dominant historical culture, Japanese men sought a version of modernity based more in some sort of cultural authenticity (Harootunian 2000). I wish to argue that Japanese men appropriated the older cultural model of the samurai, not only as a refuge against the rapid changes that Japan was undergoing, but also as part of a national ideology centred on the emperor. Donald Roden has argued that the industrial revolution was accompanied by a crisis in masculine identity (Roden 1995, 133). This, he claims, was especially felt by the social elite, a group that was defined not only by physicality and the skilful use of arms, but also by literary sensibilities. Kam Louie (2002) has examined such ideas for Chinese masculinity in terms of wen and wu (cultural attainment and martial valour). I propose to use such concepts to gauge the changes undergone by Japanese masculinity. The balance between wen and wu, and tradition and the “new”, changed over time. This chapter focuses on masculinist ideologies at work on Japanese men at war from the late nineteenth century onwards. I will first examine how the coming of Commodore Matthew Perry to Japan heralded the Westernisation of not only Japan but also masculine ideals. As Japan embraced modernisation, representations of Japanese men became increasingly white. The second section relates how, at the turn of the century, the Japanese made considerable efforts to recall older cultural practices in the form of bushidô [the way of the samurai]. The third section uses literary sources and films to show how Japanese masculinity was closely tied to the Emperor system. Subsequent sections will show that women have been complicit in the reproduction of Japanese masculinities. I argue that actual encounters on the battlefield with the enemy had the power to subvert Japanese notions about their own 81

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manhood. Interrogation reports of captured Japanese and reminiscences of former soldiers are used to show the ambiguous feelings of Japanese towards the enemy. This sometimes bordered on awe. In problematising Japanese masculinity, I do not presume to apologise for it. The story of the “comfort women” is outlined briefly to show how insensitive to women masculine ideals can be. This is contrasted with the story of Sakai Saburô, Japan’s greatest fighter pilot, to demonstrate how ironically, with Japan’s defeat and the Americanisation of Japanese culture, narratives of Japanese manhood became more centred on women. Not all Japanese men were happy with this state of affairs. The career of Japan’s “last samurai”, the prolific writer Mishima Yukio, shows how, like the relation between tradition and modernisation, the relationship between wen and wu seems to evolve over time.

Turning white The arrival in 1853–4 of Commodore Matthew C. Perry (1794–1858) showed the Japanese that an ostentatious display of military strength and masculinity was important in imposing one’s authority on others. Perry’s visits were a calculated form of public performance, and the increasing threat of foreign invasion signalled to the Japanese that there was an urgent need for such display. From this early time, Japanese masculinity was often defined in terms of the West. In the 1870s and 1880s, imperial visits were a way of making visible the connection between the new centralised government and the Emperor, and the embracing of Western masculinities, through a form of theatrical display (Gluck 1985, 75; Cohn and Dirks 1988). In later years, the authority of the Meiji Emperor would be conveyed through images rather than in the flesh. Photographs and lithographs of the Emperor in Western military uniform helped to make the invisible visible, a process that has been referred to as the visualisation of the Emperor (Taki 1988). With the development of modernity in Japan, representations of masculinity and the nation became more important. Notions of God-given whiteness and brightness linked the body of the Emperor to the lives and bodies of Japanese soldiers. In the late nineteenth century, the Japanese embarked on a programme of Westernisation that can be interpreted as the Caucasianisation of the Japanese and the appropriation of Western ideas of masculinity (Russell 1996). This served to distance the Japanese from their Asian neighbours, and showed European nations that Japan was a world power worthy of respect. The young Emperor was used to promote national progress through images showing the imperial household involved in silkworm raising. Images of the Emperor in Western-style military uniform were also used to promote progress and national cohesion. The notion of proximity to the Emperor’s body, and the idea that Japanese soldiers were his sons, facilitated the disciplining of soldiers’ bodies and the regulation of their lives. 82

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For a rapidly modernising Japan, it was initially not so much its past but its hopes for the future that most strongly shaped its sense of self. From the late nineteenth century, the West had been important in the production of Japanese masculinity. Cultural encounters with the West framed the way Japanese men saw themselves, and what they saw was increasingly white. It was through rigid social constructions of the masculine that men were linked to the state. The power of the state flowed through a network of disciplinary codes and institutions intent on conformity, discipline and submission. The norms and standards that represented ideals of manliness were disseminated in schools and in military training, through strict regulations and images propagated by the mass media. The ultimate reinforcement of these norms in Japanese military culture saw Japanese soldiers socialised into merciless aggressors. At the same time, however, soldiers were subjugated as servants of the Emperor (Berger et al. 1995). Styles of military speech were consciously adopted from the German Army. Communications from superior officers to their subordinates, especially when giving commands and addresses to their men, tended to be as sharp, short and harsh as possible (ATIS 1945, 9). New techniques of the body were also adopted, notably Western military dress and physical education programmes that focused on military drills. Bodies served to mediate between the individual and the ideal national character. Indeed, the disciplining of bodies through the imitation and repetition of physical actions, a type of mass mimicry, has been a feature of the rise of the modern nation-state (Foster 1995, 14), with body-building and nationbuilding being fundamentally similar in their goals. The health of the body was increasingly linked to the health of the nation. From the late nineteenth century, Japanese medical policy enforced restrictions on the behaviour of the population for the good of the state and ultimately the Emperor. With Westernisation, the Japanese were becoming more “white”. Woodblock prints depicting the Sino-Japanese War (1894–5) show the Chinese in a cowardly light, with protruding cheekbones, mouths agape and effeminate pigtails. In contrast, the Japanese are portrayed more nobly, with European facial features, smart haircuts and military-style moustaches. By the time of the Russo-Japanese War (1904–5), images of the Japanese were virtually indistinguishable from those of their Caucasian combatants (Keene 1971, 270; Swinton 1995, 116). This was intentional and served to link the East and West. The Meiji-period slogan “wakon yôsai” [Japanese spirit, Western sciences] reflects how the Japanese were happy to appear outwardly white, while, in terms of masculine attitudes and their treatment of women, traditional norms and ideals still prevailed. The government encouraged the introduction of Western military systems, but through the “Imperial Rescript for Soldiers” of 1882 was able to maintain old codes of behaviour (Abe et al. 2000, 2–3) at the same time as appearing to embrace modernisation. Harry Harootunian (2000, xxiii–xxiv) suggests that this mix of the past and the present was necessary for the Japanese to be able to identify the new and the modern. 83

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Reviving bushidô The samurai lost their elite status in 1871 when feudal domains were abolished (Vlastos 1989), but the ideal of Japanese “knighthood” lived on, reformulated by intellectuals such as Nitobe Inazô. David Chaney has noted that nationalist movements have often been inspired by those from the intellectual elite, such as Nitobe, who were active in reinventing national cultural forms (Chaney 2002, 9). Nitobe argued, at the turn of the century, that similarities between East and West were underpinned by a tradition of chivalry in both Japan and Europe (Nitobe 1900). This was at a time when Westerners looked to Japan as a new Britain, a new engine of growth and model of development for the rest of the world (Dyer 1905). Such was the interest in Japan that by 1905, a tenth and revised edition of Nitobe’s book Bushidô: The Soul of Japan was published. That year, Japan emerged victorious from the Russo-Japanese War (1904–5). The contents of Nitobe’s book reflect his origins, educational background and subsequent life and career. He was born in Morioka, in current-day Iwate prefecture in 1862. He became a Quaker while studying at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore during the years 1884–7. One of his university classmates was Woodrow Wilson (Burkman 1995, 179). Nitobe was a colonial administrator in Taiwan (1901–3) under Gotô Shinpei, and was professor of colonial policy at Tokyo Imperial University from 1913 to 1919. He went on to become under-secretary general at the League of Nations (1920–6) (Oshiro 2002). Nitobe’s book draws on his Christian beliefs and internationalist outlook. Despite being about traditional Japanese ethics and morality, the book is informed by his knowledge of Western ethics and literature. What tends to be forgotten is that by championing the way of the samurai Nitobe helped the Japanese themselves to re-evaluate that glorified past. It provided them with a discourse, a cultural resource that could be used from time to time to reinforce their sense of identity and place in the world (Powles 1995). This is evident in the ease with which Japanese soldiers have been routinely portrayed as modern-day samurai. Naoko Shimazu has questioned the approximation, finding that Emperor-centred nationalism was not as widely accepted by the Japanese as has hitherto been thought. Despite attempts by the Meiji state to impose the values of the samurai class on all soldiers, many did not want to die an “honourable” death during the RussoJapanese War. As Shimazu suggests, we need to go beyond one-dimensional representations of Japanese men, although there is no denying that masculine ideologies that linked men to the state and made them sons of the Emperor were at play. The concept of bushidô was one of these ideologies. It drew on the Chinese paradigms of wen and wu, or bun and bu in Japanese [“cultural attainment” and “martial valour”]. As Morris-Suzuki has explained, they formed a conceptual dichotomy in which the idea of scholarly rule co-existed with notions of rule by the sword (Morris-Suzuki 1995, 762). Kam Louie (2002) uses this dichotomy to explain the performance of gendered identities in China. While its applicability 84

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to Japan is arguably more relevant to the Japan of the samurai, the appropriation of bushidô at least prompts us to consider the role of culture and emotion in a masculinity that was overwhelmingly seen as one in which martial valour was most prized. Indeed, the anthropologist Margaret Lock has argued that “Japan is deeply aware of ‘culture’ as a political force that unifies the country but separates it from the outside” (Lock 2002, 151). In a sense, bun and bu continued to inform Japanese ideas about themselves long after Japan had decided to embrace a Western-inspired modernity. Culture and ideology were powerful tools in the years leading up to the Pacific War. It was in the 1930s in particular that Japanese men underwent a form of religious indoctrination into State Shintô, which vested authority in the Emperor. “Church” and “state” came together in the person of the Emperor.

White and bright How was the Emperor, the symbol of spiritual unity, imagined? As Zeljko Cipris (1996) has argued, there is little direct reference to the Emperor in the war literature of the 1930s. Rather, his presence is communicated by the “radiant aura” that accompanies the Japanese soldiers doing battle in China. Cipris finds that brightness is a recurring image in the war writings of Ozaki Shiro, Kobayashi Hideo, Hino Ashihei, Hayashi Fumiko and Ishikawa Tatsuzô. By the Second World War, this is stated explicitly in morale lectures given by army officers: “The Imperial Family is the light, the life, the pride of Japan” (ATIS 1944b). The light emitted by the Emperor, descendant of the sun goddess, legitimised and aestheticised the Japanese military effort, at times bathing the Emperor’s sons in a heavenly glow. Propaganda films and magazine images reinforced this image. They often appealed to a sense of the sacred, creating an identity for the Japanese that transcended the corrupting influences of the West (Davis 1996, 112–13, 248). This transcendence emanated from the purity of the imperial house itself, and was often flagged by images of a pristine Mt Fuji hovering in the background. This reminded the Japanese of their proximity to the Emperor, that they were supposedly related by blood to the imperial family, and that the Emperor was their blood father and patriarch (ATIS 1944a). According to this logic, all Japanese shared some of the divinity of the Emperor, and because of that were the chosen people (ATIS 1944b, 15). Chaney has argued that with the development of modernity, representations became more important and the power of “culture industries” that emphasised appearances grew (Chaney 2002, 4). After the bombing of Pearl Harbour in 1941, the film industry became blatantly nationalistic, and war films/documentaries such as Fuji ni chikafu: Shônen senshahei kunren no kiroku [Pledging oneself before Mt Fuji: A record of the training of young tankmen] (Obata 1943) became more common. 85

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This hour-long film shows the day-to-day operations of a training school for youths aged between 15 and 18 years that was located under the benign gaze of Mt Fuji. It is in the light (not the shadow) of the mountain that nationalist, racial and imperial discourses come together (Weiner 1996). We are regularly reminded by the appearance of Mt Fuji that “Japaneseness” is linked to notions of purity, and of racial and cultural homogeneity. The first five minutes of the film capture the energy of youth: lots of running, shouts and cries. This is followed by the image of Mt Fuji. We then see five minutes of the boys undergoing training: camouflage, in kendô battle, being lectured on the mechanics of tanks, and doing laundry. This is interrupted by another shot of the mountain. After footage showing the boys keeping themselves clean and undergoing various forms of training, we reach the film’s halfway point, and rather predictably another view of Mt Fuji interrupts. An actual military exercise follows. One of the boy soldiers is shown at home celebrating New Year with his parents, before we return to the battlefield where we see tanks in combat. On a map, we are shown the progress made in battle by the boys, probably simulated. Through the slit-window of a tank we see the eyes of the boys, indicating that it was through their eyes that we saw the previous action. At the end of the film, the faces of the boys radiate with an innocence that reflects the light of Mt Fuji. It is as though the war is a performance, and the boys have been prematurely thrust into manhood. The film shows how masculinist and nationalist ideologies were linked during military training (Silverberg 1995, 134). Japanese men underwent various forms of discipline in order to become loyal subjects who would fight and die for the nation. Notions associated with the samurai code of bushidô were used to justify certain practices (ATIS 1944c, 3), and battle cries and kendô were ways of socialising the boys into the military culture. Sports were bodily practices that served to reinforce links to the samurai ideals of masculinity. But bushidô itself was an invented tradition that Tokugawa-period (c.1603–1868) scholars had constructed as a set of military virtues. They emphasised discipline and loyalty to counter earlier images of samurai as more independent men (Davis 1978). In the 1930s and during the Pacific War, such ideas helped to cultivate the notion that the Japanese had a superior spiritual energy that distinguished them from their sometimes materially stronger adversaries. Japanese were led to believe that while the enemy might have more impressive physiques, they were less determined than the Japanese. Australians were considered to have “just big bodies, with small hearts” (ATIS 1944c, 4). In the film Pledging Oneself before Mt Fuji the Japanese were reminded of the person and the authority of the Emperor by Mt Fuji, but away from the cinema and on the battlefield various ceremonial observances served this purpose. These practices included bowing in the direction of the imperial palace at the start of each morning; reading of the Imperial Rescript of the Meiji Emperor; and the celebration of special events connected with Japanese Emperors, past and 86

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present. There was also deep respect accorded to the regimental flag, which symbolised the power of the Emperor (ATIS 1944b). Poetry provided the Japanese people with a more traditional way in which to imagine the Emperor and their own relationship to him. The wartime poems of Kusano Shinpei (1903–88) take Mt Fuji and thus the Emperor as their theme. These poems were probably written when Kusano served as an adviser to the Ministry of Publicity in the puppet government of Wang Ching-wei (1883–1944) in Canton in the early 1940s. Published in 1943, the poems are nationalistic in tone, and combine mythology with Pan-Asianism. Those that deal with Mt Fuji can be considered as an extension of Kusano’s work in propaganda, and contributed to the idealisation of a site at which various ideologies intersected (Morton 1985; 1991). Mt Fuji was a holy mountain, symbolic of Japan. The further someone was from the mountain (also read the Emperor) the darker it would become. Japanese soldiers became nostalgic for its light, and the whiteness of Mt Fuji’s snow-capped peak. This can be seen in the “South Seas March Song” composed by Major-General Horii Tomotarô, who was stationed in Rabaul and Buna: Vigorous youths of the Southern Seas Who have been reared by the sea, The time to test your strength has come. It is delightful to leave a wake behind, Cleaving the black sea. Where are you Japan? Your light cannot be seen. (Horii 1942)

Reproducing masculinities Women must bear some of the responsibility for sending their sons into the above-mentioned “darkness” of war. As Ann Stoler has written, there have been a number of studies that have explored the interplay of state authority and gender, viewing state-building and empire-building as familially generated social processes (Stoler and Cooper 1997, 23). Recent historical research on women who participated in wartime patriotic groups suggests that men are not the only propagators of such masculinities, and that women can also be performers of them (Sedgwick 1995, 13; AMPO 1996). A letter written by Yamamoto Uki to her son contains the following rousing words: In spite of my age, I am practising how to handle a bamboo spear. If the enemy comes, I will strike to kill. You are my son – and yet you are not my son. You are the son of the Emperor. Your body is not yours – it belongs to the Emperor. Therefore you must take good care of yourself. (ATIS 1944a, 6)

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Not all mothers were so patriotic. The 1944 film Rikugun [The Army], directed by Kinoshita Keisuke, provides a more complex image of the mother–son relationship. It shows how three generations of the Takagi family reproduce a masculinity based on military careers. The son of the second generation has been unable to continue the family tradition because of ill health, and there is concern that his son may also be unable to pursue such a career because of his failure to pass a physical examination. The son, Shintarô, finally does “become a man” and goes off to war in a rousing march at the end of the film. But this is not before we are shown a fascinating psychological study of his mother, played by the well-known female actor Tanaka Kinuyo. Both scenes capture the very mixed feelings of some mothers when they saw their sons go off to war. It is interesting that both Pledging Oneself before Mt Fuji and The Army end with close-up studies of faces – psychological portraits. When it comes to war, in Japan and elsewhere, there seems to be a fascination with the sacrifice of young men, on whose shoulders each nation’s future rests. These films and the training they depict represent attempts to construct a dominant type of masculinity that suppressed other masculinities related to race, sexuality and class. In actual battle, we will see, it was a different matter.

Competing masculinities on the battlefield One dimension that has not been explored by scholars is how notions of masculinity affected wartime morale and attitudes to the enemy and vice versa. Part of the reluctance of the Japanese to describe the Pacific War as a battle against white supremacism derives from the fact that it had been argued that the Japanese were in fact white. At the same time, notions centring on bushidô reassured Japanese soldiers that they were still Japanese. This movement between traditional Japanese ideals of masculinity and more Westernised notions is arguably what Robert Bellah (1983) has referred to as the dialectical relation between tradition and modernisation. He writes that “a viable tradition should continue to guide individuals and societies in their quest for what is truly good, and modernization should simply supply more effective means for that quest” (Bellah 1983, 3). Few countries can achieve a harmonious balance between the two. What we see during wartime and after for many Japanese is a crisis of identity where notions of masculinity are in flux, and the balance between wen and wu, or bun and bu, is also changing. The Japanese uncertainty about their own whiteness came at a time when Japanese were encouraged to settle in Manchuria and racial mixing was part of the official rhetoric of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere. These images sat uncomfortably with representations of the body of the Emperor as white, bright and pure. The making of a Japanese imperial order introduced anxieties over what constituted Japaneseness, and Japan’s alliance with Germany and Italy meant that any crass description of the war as a conflict between white and non-white was inappropriate (Dower 1986, 208). 88

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Ben-Ami Shillony (1981) has discussed how the outbreak of the Pacific War was accompanied by attempts to expel Western influence from Japan. This represented an attempt to purge Japan of foreign culture, overcome aspects of Western-inspired modernity, and return the Japanese to their traditions. Given that Japan had long been exposed to Western ideas and had learnt to admire the United States and Britain, this was easier said than done. US movie stars provided the Japanese with one way of imagining the enemy and their own masculinity. Furthermore, it was difficult to draw the line between bad Anglo-Saxon culture and more “friendly” Western cultures in Germany and Italy. Shillony illustrates how flawed the attempt to eradicate Western culture was by relating how a kamikaze pilot described his final hours by writing “how funny to listen to jazz music on the night before going out to kill the jazzy Americans” (Shillony 1981, 144). For Japanese who had the enemy at a distance, it was easier to demonise an anonymous foe. Shillony has written of the way in which schools and the media played an active role in vilifying the Americans and British (Shillony 1991, 145). Allison B. Gilmore (1998, 176) has suggested that the Japanese belief in their own racial superiority was called into question when they actually encountered Americans and Australians in battle. It is clear that there was a gulf between official rhetoric and discourse and actual perceptions. Kojima Kiyofumi, a reserve naval officer, was on duty in the Philippines towards the end of the war. He surrendered to the Americans, who then drove him and the others with him back to camp by jeep. On reaching camp: A swarm of enemy soldiers came out to see us.…I guess they wanted to get a look at these funny-looking guys they’d caught. But when I saw them! Blond, silver, black, brown, red hair. Blue, green, brown, black eyes. White, black, skin colors of every variety. I was stunned. I realized then than we’d fought against all the peoples of the world. At the same time, I thought, what a funny country America is, all those different kinds of people fighting in the same uniform! (Cook and Cook 1992, 378) Kojima also expresses his feelings at encountering a nisei [second-generation] Japanese American at the next military camp, who questioned the group in Japanese. Kojima appears to have been thrown into a state of confusion as his expectations of the links between nation and racial group were shattered. The awe in which the Americans were held can be seen in Ôoka Shôhei’s Furyoki [POW account] (1952, 1967), which has recently been translated. Like Kojima, Ôoka was in the Philippines and was captured by American forces. In his book, Ôoka relates an encounter with a tall, American GI around twenty years of age. He is struck by the GI’s extreme youth, and writes of how:

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The beauty of his face struck me with wonder. From the contrast between his pure white skin and the bright red of his cheeks to the individual features of his face so different from our own, I gazed upon a simple yet undeniable beauty – a beauty whose sudden appearance before me held a particular freshness because the world it represented had been banished from my sight since Pearl Harbor. (Ôoka 1996, 20) After his capture, Ôoka relates his surprise at the racial diversity of the American troops. “Never before had I seen men of such varied skin tones and hair color gathered together in a single place” (Ôoka 1996, 30–2).

Under interrogation We only need to look at the reports of the interrogation of Japanese prisoners of war to understand the degree of ambivalence in their attitudes towards the enemy and how their encounters with others placed their own masculinity in a new light. Allison B. Gilmore, in her book on the Japanese Army in the Southwest Pacific, suggests that Allied propagandists recognised that the attitudes of Japanese soldiers varied considerably. Only a small minority could be described as fanatical fighters – “sons of heaven” (Gilmore 1998, 164–5). To understand this, it may help to consider the case of Matsushima Richihei, a 41year-old Warrant Officer (and former farmer) in the Japanese Army, who was stationed in Manchuria (1927–9). He was captured in 1943 and interrogated about Japanese attitudes to people of the Allied Nations. He answered diplomatically that “the Chinese dislike the Japanese largely because of the presence in China of an undesirable type of Japanese” (ATIS 1943b). This sentiment was echoed by Inagaki Riichi, Naval Paymaster Lieutenant and Tokyo Imperial University graduate, who had visited Sydney as a student in 1938 and had aspirations to join the diplomatic service. Captured a couple of months before Matsushima, Inagaki too felt that a large number of “hooligan type” Japanese had migrated to China after finding Japan too “hot” for them (ATIS 1943a). As for the native peoples of occupied territories, Matsushima considered that they should be regarded as the equals of Japanese and felt that they were being well treated (ATIS 1943b). Inagaki was a little better informed, and said that he understood that Malays and the people of the Netherlands East Indies were favourably disposed towards the Japanese, but wondered whether their attitude might change once they discovered that the civilian supplies they had grown accustomed to receiving from the British and the Dutch would no longer be forthcoming (ATIS 1943a). First Class Private Ikedo Tomoichi, who had run a retail cosmetic business in Nagoya, suggested that some of the native people in New Guinea preferred Japanese to Australians. He told of how a fellow Japanese prisoner of war had spoken of having been sheltered by natives and given bananas (ATIS 1942). As for the Axis Nations, all three of the captured Japanese 90

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disagreed with Hitler’s idea of German racial superiority. Ikedo argued that whereas the Emperor was a descendant of the Emperor Jimmu, Hitler had only been a lowly corporal and hardly warranted worship in the same way as the Emperor (ATIS 1942). Despite the varied backgrounds of these three Japanese servicemen, there is an interesting consistency in the ideas about the enemy articulated in their interrogation reports. Others, however, defy such easy categorisation. Sergeant Andrew William Robb, alias Sakai Shigeru, was captured in September 1944. He was only 22, and a resident of Kobe. His father was Scottish, and his mother half-Japanese and half-English. When his father died of tuberculosis at the age of 42, Robb was adopted into his mother’s family and took the name Sakai Shigeru, becoming a Japanese subject. He was forced to join the Japanese Army as a translator and interpreter. According to Sakai, American fire power and “armour” were greatly respected, but the individual soldier was not. He stated that: “Australian soldiers were masters of jungle warfare and hand-to-hand fighting, particularly with grenades and bayonets. They considered them ‘devils”’ (ADVATIS 1944, 4). It is clear that the Japanese could not imagine a multi-racial enemy. Asians and indigenous people appear to have had an unclear status, neither friend nor quite foe, but were seen as people whose co-operation could be elicited by a variety of means. Some Australians, too, shared this uncertainty, and this was reflected in their wariness in mobilising Asian- and indigenous Australians during the war. While it is easy to characterise the Japanese in terms of a hegemonic masculinity related to bushidô, the reality was more complex, with differences in men linked to class, sexual orientation and social setting. In Japanese encounters with the enemy on the battlefield, race was another factor, one that variously helped to engender a sense of awe, feelings of inadequacy or ideas of superiority.

In the brothel Masculinity is about both the power of men over men, and the power of men over women, as can be seen in the treatment of the “comfort women”. As Fukuzawa Yukichi, the nineteenth-century intellectual and proponent of Westernisation, found, in Japan “every individual is in one capacity the victim of coercion, while in another capacity he metes out coercion to his fellow-men. He both suffers and perpetrates oppression” (Murayama 1969, 18). The oppression of women has been a significant part of being a man in Japan, and the wartime use of women as sex slaves shows the extreme forms that this oppression could take. Brothels and the battlefield were both sites for the production of gender. The involvement of the Japanese state illustrates the close relationship between the construction of masculinity in Japan and the needs of the state. During the Pacific War, Japanese masculinity was linked strongly to physicality, and both men and women suffered greatly as a result. What is of interest to us here is the 91

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role of cross-cultural sexual encounters, and the role of race, ideology and religion in those episodes that have been reported. Jan Ruff-O’Herne, a women of Dutch-Indonesian background, has written of her wartime internment in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Java (RuffO’Herne 1994, 77–85). In February 1944, she was taken to Semarang, the capital of central Java, and kept in a large colonial-style house-cum-brothel called “The House of the Seven Seas”. Ruff-O’Herne was then 19 years of age (Tanaka 2002, 74). She was kept in the house with six other young Dutch women for over three months. These women were expected to provide sexual services for Japanese officers, some of whom could speak a little English. The whiteness of the women marked them as special, and high-ranking Japanese officers paid the brothel for the privilege. Each of the women was given a Japanese name based on the name of a flower, providing their clients with a sense of false intimacy for an encounter that was an act of rape. As RuffO’Herne plainly writes, “because we were virgins, prices were high on opening night” (Ruff-O’Herne 1994, 80). A large, fat, bald Japanese officer paid for her and threw her on the bed of her room. He stripped her and ran his sword slowly up and down her naked body. He then raped her. Since the publication of Ruff-O’Herne’s book, there has been a growing literature on the involvement of the Japanese military in sexual slavery from the time of the Shanghai Incident in early 1932 through to the end of the Second World War (Tanaka 1999, ix–x; Korean Council for Women 1995; Hicks 1995; Yoshimi 2000). Thousands of women were imprisoned in some 2,000 “comfort stations” in territories under Japanese control. It is estimated that around 80 per cent of the “comfort women” [ianfu] were Korean (Tanaka 1999, xii). Others were Filipina, Taiwanese, Indonesian, Burmese, Dutch (like Ruff-O’Herne), Australian and Japanese. It is estimated that some 200,000 women were forced to engage in sexual activity with Japanese military personnel under this system (Yoshimi 2000). The justification for the establishment of the “comfort stations” was that they would prevent the rape of local inhabitants by Japanese soldiers and would also serve to prevent the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases. This strategy did not work. Rape came to be viewed as one of the benefits of military life (O’Brien 2000), a necessary evil to ensure that men were able to perform on the battlefield (Hikosaka 1991). In Yoshimi’s words, women became “tools for the management of the sexual desires of military personnel” (Yoshimi 2000, 199), a form of recreation. The exploitation of the “comfort women” is an example of masculinity, racism and nationalism at their worst (Tanaka 2002, 4–5). There were parallels between the violation of a European woman’s body and domination of the West. While such behaviour is in no way excusable, Tanaka (1999, xi) does point out that Japanese soldiers had no designated periods of leave or limits on their tours of duty. The brothels were effectively the only place Japanese soldiers could go when away from their duties. Suzuki Yoshio, a former Sergeant Major in the Japanese Army who was stationed in China, remarked when interviewed by 92

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representatives of the International Commission of Jurists that by 1944, when it was clear that Japan would lose the war, many Japanese soldiers had grown numb and had no feelings towards anything. It was in such a state that they could “commit acts of brutality without feeling any sense of remorse” (Dolgopol and Paranjape 1994, 130). We must beware of attributing such acts of sexual violence to all Japanese fighting men. Ruff-O’Herne (1994, 97–101) singles out one Japanese man for praise. A slightly built man called Yodi visited the brothel for two weeks, buying her services for the entire night each time he visited. This provided her with some respite from being raped by other Japanese. He used the time to play cards, noughts and crosses, and other games with her, and was very ashamed of what the Japanese had done to her and the other women. Yodi was Christian and had lived for some time in the United States. For him, religion and cultural background created cleavages between his sense of morality and that of his Japanese friends, who laughingly chided him for visiting the brothel so often and staying all night.

In love John Dower, in his important history Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, writes of how Japan was, after the war, “locked in an almost sensual embrace with its American conquerors” (Dower 1999, 23). The changed relationship saw an emasculation of Japan’s military forces, and of the Emperor himself, who first visited General Douglas MacArthur on 27 September 1945 at the US Embassy in Tokyo. Photographs of the meeting show the Emperor standing alongside the bulk of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers. We have seen how both the Emperor and the enemy influenced the way in which Japanese soldiers saw themselves on the battlefield. When the two came together in Tokyo, the powerful message was that it was folly for the Japanese to have thought they could defeat such a towering foe. The unemotive face of the Emperor in the photographs reveals little (Schaller 1989), but MacArthur was apparently so moved by the Emperor’s acceptance of defeat and wartime responsibility that he wanted to kiss him on the cheek (Igarashi 2000, 30). The meeting represented a marriage between the two countries, with Japan cast as the bride. The Allied Occupation of Japan marked a turning point for narratives and representations of Japanese masculinity. Nowhere can this be seen better than in the story of Sakai Saburô, said to be Japan’s greatest fighter pilot. His life and wartime experiences are described in Samurai! (1957), which was written by Sakai himself with the help of Martin Caidin and Fred Saitô. Unlike the narratives discussed earlier, this autobiography is suffused with love. The jacket sleeve declares how Sakai’s story is one revolving around “love for the sky”, and his “sad sweet romance” with his wife Hatsuyo. The frontispiece shows a photo of a casually clothed Sakai, cigarette in his left hand, hands on his hips, smiling at the 93

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camera, and standing in front of his plane at Hankow Air Base in 1939 – a photo that would have been inconceivable in a publication in either Japan or the United States during the Pacific War. Sakai’s face seeks to engage the viewer in a friendly gaze, in line with the mood of US–Japan relations at the time of the book’s publication. While it would be easy to dismiss the account as Cold War propaganda, this story is revealing in how it seeks to provide “for the first time an intimate look into the ‘other side”’ (Sakai 1957, 10), without causing affront to its predominantly US readers. It does so by portraying Sakai as a Cold War warrior, who declares that: “[I]f Japan needs me, if Communist forces press too closely against our nation, I will fly again” (Sakai 1957, 16). Sakai’s ancestors, the book proudly declares, were among the Japanese forces who invaded Korea in 1592 (Sakai 1957, 19). Even in Sakai’s account, it is evident how Japanese soldiers and seamen embodied values inscribed by a harsh, military culture. By undergoing training and becoming a naval pilot Sakai was, however, able to achieve a high degree of social mobility and become a national hero, despite having been born to a poor rural family. It was only by being in the Navy that Sakai was able to even contemplate marrying the daughter of a professor, and to form a close friendship with an officer of much higher social status, Lieutenant Sasai Junichi, a graduate of the Japanese Naval Academy. Although there was a strictly enforced hierarchy in the Navy, Sasai ignored such divisions and helped to nurse Sakai through an illness, when his group of pilots was being transported by merchant freighter from Bali to Rabaul and many became sick. In the book, Sakai recalls how “[e]very now and then I opened my gaze into his, clear and compassionate. His friendliness and ministrations pulled me through the worst of the voyage” (Sakai 1957, 105–6). Twenty-seven years old and unmarried, Sasai put the welfare and health of the pilots under his wing above almost all else. In a particularly poignant scene, Sasai and Sakai say farewell, with hands locked together and tears flowing down Sakai’s face (Sakai 1957, 238–9). Towards the end of the book, and at the close of the Pacific War, Sakai marries his cousin Hatsuyo, not the professor’s daughter. On hearing the Emperor’s order to surrender, broadcast on 15 August 1945, Sakai frantically returns home to his new wife Hatsuyo, and they cling to each other, unable to speak. He describes how they looked at each other and how a light dawned in her eyes. “‘You-you will never have to fight again!’ she whispered. ‘It is all over now. Never, never again!”’ (Sakai 1957, 375). Hatsuyo throws away her dagger, the one she had prepared to kill herself with should her husband die. Their bodies no longer belonged to the Emperor but to each other. Bushidô and ritual suicide were a thing of the past. In this postwar account of Sakai’s wartime experiences, written for a Western audience, the Japanese pilot is transformed into a loving husband and comrade, one whom even Americans could admire. After the war, Japanese masculinity underwent further transformations. US culture was a major influence on this process. 94

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Men like Sakai were akin to “iron filings in a magnetic field, these figures operated within, were aligned to, the forces of patriarchy so instrumental in shaping the conceptual tools necessary for the assumption of empire” (Carter 1996, 16). Before the war, the iron filings pointed to the Emperor, but in the Cold War world they were increasingly turned towards the United States.

The last samurai Authors such as Mishima Yukio (1925–70) criticised the materialistic nature of postwar Japan, where education and cultural attainment were emphasised over martial valour. He mourned the change. Both cultural attainment and “the sword” (with all its phallic connotations) were aspects of the lives lived by many men. In a way, Mishima sought to restore this balance by reviving the Japanese nationalism of the past. He died doing so. Prior to committing suicide, Mishima organised a retrospective exhibition of his life’s work (some twenty major novels, thirty-three plays, and other writings) (Ikeda 1974, 1) at the Tobu Department Store at Ikebukuro in Tokyo on 12–19 November 1970. He divided the 45 years of his life into four rivers: writing, theatre, body and action. These rivers flowed into what he called The Sea of Fertility, his final series of works (Scott-Stokes 1974, 122–3). In many ways, Mishima can be described as the last samurai, someone who sought to cultivate both bun and bu. That modern Japanese men no longer sought to fulfil samurai ideals was a source of sadness and indignation for Mishima (1977). He cried “Tennô Heika banzai!” [Long Live the Emperor!] three times before committing ritual suicide [seppuku] samurai-style on 25 November (Ikeda 1974, 1–2). He was aided by a member of his private army, known as the Tatenokai [Shield Society], which he had established a few years before.

Conclusion The Emperor had long been “a device for focussing the energies of all Japanese toward a single goal” (ATIS 1944b, 7). The sense of self for Japanese men from the Meiji period on was tied to the Emperor. In wartime, it was through images of Mt Fuji and brightness that the military effort was bolstered. The battlefield and encounters with the enemy served to disorient Japanese soldiers, shifting the racial and cultural reference points on which their ideals of manhood were based. In defeat, Japanese men were emasculated, and it was through economic activity as “salarymen” [sarariiman], that they sought to regain their dignity and rebuild their sense of confidence and self. This would not be without problems (Igarashi 2000). We have seen that the military model of Japanese masculinity is insufficient to explain the behaviour of Japanese men on the battlefield. In the postwar period, the image of the Emperor as a man of science nicely highlights the change in emphasis from military valour and uniform to cultural attainment 95

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and the laboratory coat. The Emperor legitimated his status by invoking respect for bun over bu, or wen over wu. Japanese soldiers were transformed into salarymen and factory workers who worked for the nation in a different context. Business suits and uniforms hid bodies; physicality became less important. Although the wartime ideal may have emphasised the soldier rather than the scholar, in defeat the tables were turned. The ideal man in Japan has embodied both. Like the relationship between tradition and modernisation, the relationship between the ideals of cultural attainment and military valour seems to be a dialectical one; one that we can only hope will be ultimately harmonious.

References Abe, Ikuo, Kiyohara Yasuharu and Nakajima Ken. 2000. Sport and physical education under fascistization in Japan. InYo: Journal of Alternative Perspectives (June), online at http://ejmas.com/jalt/jaltart_abe_0600.htm. ADVATIS (Advanced Allied Translator and Interpreter Section). 1944. Interrogation Report no. 14, PW No. 51-J-10382: 4, AWM (Australian War Memorial) 56, 4/1. ATIS (Allied Translator and Interpreter Section). 1942. Interrogation Report no. 40. Official PW No. JA 145082, ATIS Serial: 58: 8. Captured 10 December, AWM 55, 6/1. ——. 1943a. Interrogation Report no. 54. Official PW No. JA 145379, ATIS Serial 95: 10. Captured 21 January, AWM 55, 6/2. ——. 1943b. Interrogation Report no. 53. Official PW No. JA 145431, ATIS Serial 94: 11. Captured 8 March, AWM 55, 6/2. ——, South West Pacific Area, GHQ. 1944a. Self-immolation as a factor in Japanese military psychology. Information Bulletin no. 144, April. AWM 55 [12/53] part 1: 5. ——. 1944b. The Emperor cult as a present factor in Japanese military psychology. South West Pacific Area Information Bulletin no. 14, part 2 (21 June), AWM 55, 12/53, part 3. ——, South West Pacific Area, GHQ. 1944c. The warrior tradition in Japanese military psychology. Research Report no. 76, part III, 30 October, AWM 55 [12/53], part 4: 3. ——, South West Pacific Area, GHQ. 1945. Prominent factors in Japanese military psychology. Research Report no. 76, part IV, 7 February, AWM 55 [12/53] part 5. AMPO–Japan Asia Quarterly Review, ed. 1996. Voices from the Japanese women’s movement. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. Bellah, Robert M. 1983, 1999. Cultural identity and Asian modernization. In Cultural identity and modernization in Asian countries: Proceedings of Kokugakuin University Centennial Symposium, ed. Institute for Japanese Culture and Classics. Tokyo: Kokugakuin University. Online at http://www.kokugakuin.ac.jp/ijcc/wp/cimac/index.html. Berger, Maurice, Brian Wallis and Simon Watson. 1995. Introduction. In Constructing masculinity, ed. Maurice Berger, Brian Wallis and Simon Watson: 1–7. New York: Routledge. Burkman, Thomas W. 1995. The Geneva spirit. In Nitobe Inaz™ : Japan’s bridge across the Pacific, ed. John F. Howes: 177–214. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Carter, Paul. 1996. The lie of the land. London: Faber & Faber. Chaney, David. 2002. Cultural change and everyday life. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave. Cipris, Zeljko (Jake). 1996. Imperial radiance in the 1930s war literature. Abstracts of the 1996 annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, Inc., 11–14 April, Honolulu, Hawai’i.

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Cohn, Bernard S. and Nicholas B. Dirks. 1988. Beyond the fringe: The nation state, colonialism, and the technologies of power. Journal of Historical Sociology 1, no. 2: 224–9. Cook, Haruko Taya and Theodore F. Cook. 1992. Japan at war: An oral history. New York: New Press. Davis, Darrell William. 1996. Picturing Japaneseness: Monumental style, national identity, Japanese film. New York: Columbia University Press. Davis, David L. 1978. The evolution of bushid™to the year 1500. Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia 13: 38–56. Dolgopol, Ustinia and Snehal Paranjape. 1994. Comfort women, an unfinished ordeal: Report of a mission. Geneva: International Commission of Jurists. Dower, John W. 1986. War without mercy: Race and power in the Pacific War. London: Faber & Faber. ——. 1999. Embracing defeat: Japan in the wake of World War II. New York: W.W. Norton. Dyer, Henry. 1905. Dai Nippon, the Britain of the East: A study in national evolution. London: Blackie & Son. Foster, Susan Leigh. 1995. Choreographing history. In Choreographing history, ed. Susan Leigh Foster: 3–21. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Gilmore, Allison B. 1998. You can’t fight tanks with bayonets: Psychological warfare against the Japanese army in the SouthWest Pacific. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Gluck, Carol. 1985. Japan’s modern myths: Ideology in the late Meiji period. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Harootunian, Harry. 2000. Overcome by modernity: History, culture, and community in interwar Japan. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hicks, George L. 1995. The comfort women: The sex slaves of the Imperial Japanese Forces. St. Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin. Hikosaka Tai. 1991. Dansei shinwa. Tokyo: Komichi Shobô. Horii, Major-General Tomotarô. 1942. South seas march song. ATIS Interrogation Report no. 9, 16 October, AWM 56, 6/1, Appendix C. Igarashi, Yoshikuni. 2000. Bodies of memory: Narratives of war in postwar Japanese culture, 1945–1970. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ikeda, Matthew S. 1974. Yukio Mishima: A study of personal metamorphosis. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Chicago. Keene, Donald. 1971, 1981. Appreciations of Japanese culture. Tokyo: Kodansha International. Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, ed. Keith Howard, trans. Young Joo Lee. 1995. True stories of the Korean comfort women. London: Cassell. Lock, Margaret. 2002. Twice dead: Organ transplants and the reinvention of death. Berkeley: University of California Press. Louie, Kam. 2002. Theorising Chinese masculinity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Mishima, Yukio, trans. Kathryn Sparling. 1977. Yukio Mishima on Hagakure: The samurai ethic and modern Japan. London: Souvenir Press. Morris-Suzuki, Tessa. 1995. The invention and reinvention of “Japanese culture”. Journal of Asian Studies 54, no. 3: 759–80. Morton, Leith. 1985. A dragon rising: Kusano Shinpei’s poetic vision. Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia 17: 39–63.

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——. 1991. Translator’s afterword. In Mt Fuji: Selected poems: 1943–1986, Kusano Shinpei, trans. Leith Morton: 89–91. Rochester, Michigan: Katydid Books, Oakland University. Murayama, Masao. 1969. Theory and psychology of ultra-nationalism (1946). In Thought and behaviour in modern Japanese politics, Masao Murayama, ed. Ivan Morris: 1–24. Tokyo: Oxford University Press. Nitobe, Inazô. 1900, 1905, 2002. Bushidô: The soul of Japan. Tokyo: Kodansha. Obata Nagashige (director), filmed by Shigeo Hayashida, under supervision of Army Armoured Corps Headquarters. 1943. Fuji ni chikafu: Shônen senshahei kunren no kiroku. Tokyo: Nihon Eiga Shinsha. War film no. 7, 58 minutes. O’Brien, Suzanne. 2000. Translator’s introduction. In Comfort women: Sexual slavery in the Japanese military, Yoshimi Yoshiaki, trans. Suzanne O’Brien: 1–21. New York: Columbia University Press. Ôoka Shôhei. 1952, 1967. Furyoki. Tokyo: Sôgensha/Shinchô Bunko. ——, trans. Wayne P. Lammers. 1996. Taken captive: A Japanese POW’s story. New York: John Wiley & Son. Oshiro, George M. 2002. Foreword. In Bushidô: The soul of Japan, Nitobe Inazô: 8–17. Tokyo: Kodansha. Powles, Cyril H. 1995. Bushido: Its admirers and critics. In Nitobe Inazô: Japan’s bridge across the Pacific, ed. John F. Howes: 107–18. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Roden. Donald. 1995. Toward remaking manliness. In Nitobe Inazô: Japan’s bridge across the Pacific, ed. John F. Howes: 133–56. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Ruff-O’Herne, Jan. 1994. 50 Years of silence. Sydney: Editions Tom Thompson. Russell, John G. 1996. Race and reflexivity: The black other in contemporary Japanese mass culture. In Contemporary Japan and popular culture, ed. John Whittier Treat: 17–40. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon. Sakai Saburô, with Martin Caidin and Fred Saitô. 1957. Samurai! New York: E. P. Dutton. Schaller, Michael. 1989. Douglas MacArthur: The Far Eastern General. New York: Oxford University Press. Scott-Stokes, Henry. 1974. The life and death of Yukio Mishima. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. 1995. Gosh, Boy George, you must be awfully secure in your masculinity. In Constructing masculinity, ed. Maurice Berger, Brian Wallis and Simon Watson: 11–20. New York: Routledge. Shillony, Ben-Ami. 1981, 1991. Politics and culture in wartime Japan. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Shimazu, Naoko. 2001. The myth of the “patriotic soldier”: Japanese attitudes towards death in the Russo-Japanese War. War and Society 19, no. 2: 69–89. Silverberg, Miriam. 1995. Advertising every body: Images from the Japanese modern years. In Choreographing history, ed. Susan Leigh Foster: 129–48. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Stoler, Ann Laura and Frederick Cooper. 1997. Between metropole and colony: Rethinking a research agenda. In Tensions of empire: Colonial cultures in a bourgeois world, eds Ann Laura Stoler and Frederick Cooper: 1–58. Berkeley: University of California Press. Swinton, Elizabeth De Sabato. 1995. Russo-Japanese War triptychs: Chastising a powerful enemy. In A hidden fire: Russian and Japanese cultural encounters, 1868–1926, ed. J. Thomas Rimmer: 114–32. Stanford: Stanford University Press/Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press.

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Taki Kôji. 1988. Tennô no shôzô. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Tanaka, Yuki. 1999. Introduction. In Comfort woman: A Filipina’s story of prostitution and slavery under the Japanese military, Maria Rose Henson: ix–xxi. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. ——. 2002. Japan’s comfort women: Sexual slavery and prostitution during World War II and the US occupation. London: Routledge. Vlastos, Stephen. 1989. Opposition movements in early Meiji, 1868–1885. In The Cambridge history of Japan, Vol. 5: The nineteenth century, ed. Marius B. Jansen: 367–431. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Weiner, Michael. 1996. Racialized identities in Japan. Abstracts of the 1996 Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, Inc., 11–14 April, 1996, Honolulu, Hawai’i: 277. Yoshimi, Yoshiaki, trans. Suzanne O’Brien. 2000. Comfort women: Sexual slavery in the Japanese military. New York: Columbia University Press.

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6 SPORT AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF MASCULINITY IN THE JAPANESE EDUCATION SYSTEM Richard Light Introduction In 1990, I began working as a full-time rugby coach in a Japanese university competing in the Kansai (West Japan) University A League. I spent the first year settling into the new environment and avoided making major changes to training. Each day before training I met with the senior players to plan the session. We had a very successful year and, buoyed by this, I set out to fully implement Australian approaches to training and playing rugby in the following year. After all, I reasoned, Australia was a leading rugby power with a highly efficient coaching system and innovative approaches to play. This was confirmed for me by Australia’s victory in the 1991 Rugby World Cup. The year’s preparation for the championship season included a tour of Australia where the team was coached by members of the national team, the Wallabies, as well as coaching in forward play by a member of the Wallabies squad for the two months leading up to the opening games in the Kansai A League University Rugby Championships. The team, however, was soundly beaten in the first game and, lacking confidence in their preparation, had a very poor season. The next year was marked by increasingly poor performances by the team and increasing friction between the senior players and myself. It was not until reflecting later upon what was eventually a disappointing three years for me that I began to realise the significance of culture in sport. I had been blindly unaware of the cultural transformation that sport undergoes, the ways in which it can operate as a form of cultural practice, and the culturespecific form that masculinities assume. I had failed to realise that the resistance to Australian training methods and ways of playing were rooted in a culturespecific form of masculinity that guided traditional training and tactics. After three years at the university, I worked as a teacher at an academically elite high school in Osaka where I also coached the rugby team. Taking a more culturally sensitive approach I experienced the most enjoyable few years of my career as a coach. Initially driven by these personal, pedagogical problems I have spent the

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past six years conducting research and writing on the social dimensions of sport in Japan. The bulk of this work has focused on the body and the social construction of masculinity. It is on this work, and my own experiences of coaching university and high-school rugby in Japan, that I draw for the following discussion of sport, culture and the construction of masculinity in Japanese schools and universities. Following on from feminist research, work on the construction of masculinity has rightly identified the importance of young men’s corporeal experiences in school sport for the formation of their masculine identity (see for example Connell 1983; 1989; Light and Kirk 2000). The work of Bob Connell, a leading figure in studies on masculinity, highlights both the multiple, class and culture-specific forms that masculinities assume and the centrality of corporeal experience to their formation. Given the absence of other markers of masculine status such as fatherhood and income-earning status, physical ability and bodily appearance assume particular significance for boys and young men. Over the past decade or so, studies of the role of sport in the construction of masculinity have highlighted the need to account for the dynamic inter-relationships between gender, class and culture. This suggests that studies of the construction of gender across diverse cultural settings offer an ideal means of highlighting the culturally specific and distinct forms that masculinities assume. Despite this, the bulk of research on sport and the construction of masculinity to date has been conducted in Western settings. There is a paucity of studies on the construction of masculinity through sport in cultural settings other than those in the West. In setting out to redress this gap in the literature, this chapter draws on data generated from research on rugby, as practised in Japanese schools and universities, to examine the ways in which particular styles of playing rugby act to reproduce a hegemonic and culture-specific form of masculinity. It also draws on my experience as a rugby coach and full-time resident in Japan over a six-year period and my experience of practising karate over twenty-five years.

Culture, sport and embodied masculinity Most research on the social construction of masculinity in Asian cultures has focused on the ways in which particular forms of masculinity are constructed through discourse. Indeed many chapters in this book provide fascinating insights into the way in which particular forms of masculinity are constructed through a wide range of discourses ranging from Qing dynasty writings in China to Japanese manga [comic books] and contemporary literature on men cooking. While this chapter also analyses discourse to some degree, it focuses on the ways in which a hegemonic form of masculinity is reproduced through the bodily practices that constitute participation in school and university rugby clubs.

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Our bodies are the somatic products of social engagement over our lives. They are imprinted with, and constantly communicate, social and cultural meaning. Both culture and culture-specific forms of gender are manifested in the range of ways in which we use our bodies, their size, shape, and the way that we adorn them. Ways of walking, eating, gesturing, bathing and even sleeping convey messages and meanings that vary from culture to culture. Both culture and gender are embodied through the corporeal dimensions of engagement in social and cultural practice. Robert March notes that the Japanese move and use their bodies differently from Westerners (March 1996, 74). He provides the example of the speed and dexterity with which they use their hands in such common activities as using chopsticks, wrapping presents at a department store or doing origami in kindergarten (March 1996, 74). These cultural differences in the use of the body are not genetically inherited. They are learnt through dayto-day cultural life, and research on sport has shown it to be an important site where both culture and gender are embodied. The work of prominent sociologist Pierre Bourdieu suggests that the body plays an active role in the production and reproduction of culture. Bourdieu (1984) sees the body as the point at which culture and social structure are manifested and produced. He identifies sport as a significant area for the reproduction of culture and existing social relations. This notion of embodied learning is central to the analysis of how ways of playing high-school rugby act to produce and reproduce a hegemonic, culture-specific form of masculinity. When learning to play sports, the individual’s performance initially involves conscious and deliberate effort. As the sports player develops into an expert performer his/her responses and actions become embedded in the body to bypass the scrutiny of conscious thought. During the regulated manipulation of the body that typically characterises sports training and participation in games, far more than sporting skill, postures and responses are learned. By continuous work on, and with, the body within particular social or cultural contexts the social structures within which the individual engages are embedded in what Bourdieu calls the habitus. This refers to the individual’s set of dispositions and inclinations that are developed over his or her life and structure social action. The habitus is developed over time through engagement in the range of practices that make up social life. Everybody’s habitus is different but those who move through similar social contexts develop a similar habitus. Through young men’s engagement in sport within particular social and cultural contexts the social world within which they engage in corporeal practice is embedded in the body. Constructed over time, the habitus is “durable” and operates to structure, yet not determine, social action. It is not fixed but it is not easily changed. Bourdieu’s concept of habitus provides a means of circumventing the problematic Cartesian, mind–body dualism that typically plagues sociological analyses. This presents a particular problem for Western analyses of Asian culture where human existence is conceived in more holistic ways. The work of “hard-core” postmodernists suggests that only those who live within the unar102

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ticulated assumptions upon which culture is based can really understand it. In many ways this implicit, lived knowledge is what Bourdieu refers to as habitus. The habitus allows people to develop a “practical mastery” of their cultural environment. Bourdieu’s approach recognises and accounts for the limits of structuralist theory but avoids the difficulties involved with relativist social analyses. Apart from some specific attention to the body’s role in the production of gender in The Logic of Practice (Bourdieu 1990, 66–79), Bourdieu has only recently in his book Masculine Domination (2001) given serious consideration to the social dynamic of gender. However, the appropriation of his conceptual tools provides a powerful means of highlighting the central role that the body plays in the construction of gender. If gender is theorised as a social structure or as a form of embodied capital, Bourdieu’s analytical tools can illuminate the ways in which particular bodily regimes act to embody particular forms of culture- and class-specific forms of masculinity (Light and Kirk 2000). When young men play a particular style of rugby they are communicating social and cultural meaning. In many ways this operates much like other forms of cultural expression, although sport tends to be far more conservative and reproductive than other forms. It rarely operates as a form of resistance in the way that art, dance or literature can. Sports such as rugby and baseball can operate as forms of cultural discourse that subconsciously confirm and reinforce a conservative, culturespecific and hegemonic form of masculinity. At the same time, using and experiencing the body in particular ways acts to embed that same form of masculinity deep into the habitus of the young men who are playing. Both of these processes contribute to the maintenance of the hegemony enjoyed by a form of militaristic masculinity that is increasingly challenged by alternative versions of being a man in a rapidly changing and fracturing society. As much of Connell’s work shows, boys learn that, while there are different ways of being a man, some ways are more culturally valued and more powerful than others. Connell explains how these different forms of masculinity exist in relationships of dominance and subordination, and how they can be complementary or competing. Borrowing from Gramsci’s (1971) notion of cultural hegemony, Connell’s concept of hegemonic masculinity refers to forms of masculinity that dominate to the extent that they become unquestioned and are taken as “common sense”. Culturally exalted forms of masculinity are dynamic and change over time, and it is essential that hegemonic forms of masculinity such as that identified here are understood as historical constructs.

Social analyses of game style and tactics Connell suggests that despite the significant advances in research on gender over the past two decades we still know relatively little about the development of masculinity (Connell 1998, v). He calls on researchers to adopt innovative approaches that can contribute to the expansion of our understanding of 103

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masculinity and gender relations. In regard to social analyses of sport in general, Giulianotti argues that, despite the lack of research in this area to date, social analyses of game style, tactics and aesthetics offer a valuable means of exploring the social and cultural meanings of sport (Giulianotti 1999, 127). I suggest that the analysis of game style and tactics in sport also offers a means through which we might further our understanding of how particular forms of masculinity are produced and reproduced through young men’s engagement in sport within different cultural settings. With the exception of Majors’s (1990) study of black basketball players’ “cool” game style as an expression of culture-specific masculinity, tactics, game style and aesthetics of play are yet to be empirically examined as sites for the expression and production of masculinities.

Rugby union football in Japan Rugby has been played by the Japanese for over a century and has formed a central element in school curricula over that time. Rugby was played among foreigners in Yokohama and Kobe in the late nineteenth century, and was first taken up by Japanese players when introduced into Keio University in 1899. It experienced significant growth during the liberal 1920s but, as with most Western sports, its practice was discouraged by the militarist government of the 1930s. After the Pacific War, rugby and the other Western sports became important elements in the curricula of schools and universities, where they have been practised within the club system as extracurricular activities. The profound and rapid political, social and economic change that characterised the Meiji era (1868–1912) in Japan forced the Meiji leaders to develop new and effective strategies for the maintenance of social cohesion and the development of national identity. The mass education system, introduced in 1872, provided a pivotal means of developing and disseminating homogenous culture and a sense of national identity (Passin 1980, 62). As Roden’s historical research on imported sport in Japan shows, baseball in particular played a significant role in the dissemination of dominant, samurai culture. The samurai classes only constituted 5 per cent of the pre-Meiji population and yet their cultural values were successfully promoted as the values of all Japanese (Passin 1980, 153). At the same time a militaristic form of masculinity concerned with respect for order, self-control and loyalty derived from the samurai classes was embedded in the practice of team sports. The practice of these sports adapted from the West has historically been guided by the militaristic masculinity of the samurai classes combined with appropriated notions of “manliness” embedded in Western sport. The postwar period also saw the emergence of company rugby, and versions of media-sport as a commercial commodity have begun to reshape sport in contemporary Japan. Over the last ten years company rugby in Japan has rapidly embraced the global form of the game. The better teams have attracted top-level international players and coaches, and most strong teams regularly tour 104

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overseas. This “internationalisation” has seen a decrease in a distinctly Japanese style of play at this level. University and high-school rugby has, however, been more insulated from the effects of globalised sport and it is here that rugby still clearly functions as a form of cultural practice. It is also in schools and universities that sports such as rugby and baseball continue to operate as central elements in an education system that has, since the Meiji Restoration, functioned to disseminate and maintain homogenous culture (Light 2000). The analysis of game play here begins with an examination of the interplay between culture, masculinity and games style. This is followed by the identification of particular aspects of play in which Japanese high-school and university game style most differed from that practised in an equivalent Western setting such as Australia. The areas identified can be seen as features of play that are distinctively Japanese. The analysis draws on data generated from a video analysis of the quarter-finals of the 1996 All Japan University Rugby Championships and a study conducted over 1997 and 1998 on the social dimensions of rugby at a Tokyo high school. It also draws on field notes that I kept while coaching university and high-school rugby in Japan from 1990 to 1996.

Culture and game style in Japanese school and university rugby The chairman of the Japan Rugby Union, Shiggy Kono, has identified a number of characteristics of Japanese rugby that are salient to this chapter: The typical Japanese is adept at the individual tasks of the game – handling, kicking, tackling and running – and in practice he looks formidable. Unfortunately, he does not always show such competence in the match. Japanese teams also excel in combined manoeuvres which they practise repeatedly until the actual carrying out of the play is virtually error free. Once again, though the performance is better on the practice field than in the match players tend to continue to apply what they have studiously learned even when the opposition have read their intentions – which of course, often spells disaster. (cited in Greenwood 1986, 3) Here Shiggy Kono identifies the characteristics that most distinguish Japanese rugby from that of Western rugby-playing nations. Kono identifies a reliance on patterns of play and a lack of what he calls “on the spot judgment”. He suggests that this is a result of the way players are trained in “patterned rugby”. I would take his observation a little further and suggest that the weaknesses he noted and the other features identified here can be connected to the influence of a hegemonic culture. More specifically, I would argue that these can be seen as the manifestation of a conservative, culture-specific and hegemonic form of masculinity. 105

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University and school rugby games in Japan are invariably won through superior endurance, tenacity and collective power rather than through guile or “tricky” play. Certainly victories secured through the display of superior will, endurance and single-minded commitment are most valued as these qualities are valued markers of Japanese masculinity. My research on school rugby in Japan indicates that this approach is widespread, and has much in common with the practice of martial arts (Light 1999a; 1999b). The unvaried nature of training and the perfecting of set forms and patterns of movement through repetition to the point of exhaustion in rugby parallel traditional approaches to the practice of martial arts. Training in traditional martial arts is aimed at repetition to the point where responses and movement bypass the conscious mind to achieve a state of mushin [no mind]. The aim is to reach a state of spiritual and physical harmony through repetition of physically and mentally testing movement patterns: “When the ultimate perfection is attained, the body and limbs perform by themselves what is assigned to them with no interference from the mind” (Suzuki 1959, 74). Particular ways of playing, and the training associated with them, act to embody a culturespecific form of masculinity. As Bourdieu’s work suggests, particular ways of using the body are shaped by the immediate cultural context. These bodily practices in turn mediate between the habitus and the social world within which players live. Members of a Tokyo high-school rugby team, referred to here by the pseudonym Tokyo High School (THS), articulated a belief that their style of play was not in the mould of seishin style that focuses on the development of inner strength through demanding physical training. They saw the traditional seishin approach as out-dated. All of those involved with the club saw their approach as more tactically oriented. Compared to the stronger, academically low-level schools it was. However, when compared to, for example, typical Australian approaches, their training was repetitive and demanding, and game tactics were predictable. During the national championships the team based much of their attack on kicking the ball high behind the opposition defence and charging through to pressure the receiver. This resulted in several dangerous counter-attacks in the final, and it was clear that the opposition had devised strategies to counter this tactic, but THS persevered with the tactic. While the players could see the limits of traditional training and playing, many of them also felt that it built the strength of character that they saw as necessary to win games. One of the qualities most valued by the players was gaman, the ability to endure, tolerate difficulty and persevere: The most important thing that rugby has taught me is gaman. Yes, my gaman is much stronger. The training you do every day is hard, it’s tiring and it tests you but you do it. It doesn’t matter how hard it is, you do the best you can and you build up your gaman. (Interview with high-school rugby player, Tokyo, November 1997) 106

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The discourse surrounding practice at THS expressed a view of faith in spiritual strength as out-dated and at odds with what the players saw as their modern approach to play, and yet its powerful influence was evident in the emphasis on strength, endurance and tenacity in games. In the lead-up to the final, several players admitted that the concept of spiritual strength [seishin ryoku] was, in fact, important to them: [S]eishin [human spirit] is not that important but…all fifteen players in the team think that seishin is very important. Tackling huge guys coming at you, going into violent rucks is scary. I think that if you ask anyone they’ll tell you that seishin is important. (Interview with high-school rugby player, Hanazono, January 1998) This culture-specific approach to playing rugby tends to marginalise the intellectual dimensions of games and emphasise winning through spiritual superiority. The players and staff at THS felt that their emphasis on staying calm and their thinking in games differentiated them from other teams, but when the chance arose they also wanted to express their moral worth as a marker of masculinity. During the early stages of the national championships when they were sure of winning, they took the opportunity to display their physical superiority, and the importance of this is made clear by one of the players: “When you score tries you have to cross the enemy’s line and show your strength. It shows your dominance so tries have more meaning than goals” (Interview with high-school rugby player, Tokyo, December 1997). The following section identifies and examines particular features of game style and tactics in high-school and university rugby that are characteristically Japanese and, I suggest, are manifestations of a culture-specific form of masculinity. The features identified are game pace, patterned play and particular versions of bodily aggression and violence. This is followed by an examination of the culturally specific relationship between the individual and the group, and the way in which it shapes game style and tactics. Game pace During six years of coaching rugby in Japan I accompanied two high-school teams and one university team on tours of Australia. During those tours the aspect of Japanese rugby that drew the most comment from Australians was the sustained speed at which games were played. After one game played in Brisbane, a rugby official commented that: “There’s no problem with their stamina, mate. They play at a million miles an hour for the whole bloody game. They only know one speed – flat out. They’re certainly fit buggers” (Interview with rugby official, Brisbane, July 1991). The frenetic pace at which Japanese teams typically play is seen to test the opposition’s stamina and its capacity to organise defence quickly. It is implicitly seen as a test of moral strength and collective will. There 107

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is generally little variation in attacking tempo and there are few examples of teams intentionally controlling the pace of the game by slowing it down to their advantage when appropriate. Forwards run to form scrums and lineouts to restart play after infringements even when it might be tactically astute to slow the game down. When a penalty is awarded to a team, they have the option of kicking the ball out on the full to gain ground while maintaining possession by receiving the throw into the lineout. This option invariably ensures maintenance of possession while advancing twenty to fifty metres into the opposition’s territory. This potential advantage is, however, typically sacrificed in favour of a quick restart of play from a tap kick. This is aimed at lifting the pace of the game to keep pressure on the defending side. While this differs from team to team, it is the way most young Japanese men prefer to play. The All Japan High-School Rugby Championships are played at Hanazono, East Osaka. In 1997, leading up to the national championships, a very successful high-school team in Tokyo was confident of winning its regional qualifying championship, and this offered the players the opportunity to play the way that they preferred. During the Tokyo metropolitan championships, they very rarely kicked for touch, almost always taking the chance to attack immediately from a tap kick [chongeri]. When they played at Hanazono, where victory was less assured, they typically chose to kick for touch. The “quick tap” is a very common tactic in Japanese rugby, but is only used sparingly in Australia and can be seen as an empirical indicator of a culture-specific form of masculinity at work. Maintaining pressure through a rapid restart in preference to the soft option of kicking for touch, or for goal, is implicitly understood to be an indicator of guts, courage and commitment. These are seen as manifestations of force and are preferred to what could be seen as more clever, but less masculine, play. The need to win in ways that demonstrate and confirm “spiritual” and moral strength was made explicit in a semi-final game at the 1997/8 national highschool championships. A strong rugby playing school was trailing by one point with only five minutes of time remaining. The team spent this last five minutes of the game within 10 metres of the opposition goal line, continually charging with committed forward attacks. On several occasions they were awarded penalties but, despite being in a position to kick a penalty goal, quickly took the tap kick to resume their aggressive charges. When the full-time whistle went they had lost and collapsed on the ground in tears. Had they kicked a goal they would have won, but it seemed to be more important to win in a way that showed guts and courage, and could be seen as a manifestation of moral strength. This tactic not only allows teams to maintain a high-paced attack but also to play in an aggressive and physical manner through which they can test the opposition’s physical and moral strength. Japanese teams are invariably very fit and capable of playing high-paced games from beginning to end. For teams to develop such fitness they must, and do, endure long training sessions daily for eleven to twelve months of the year. This requires the perseverance, commitment and single-minded effort that is so 108

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valued in Japanese society. These are the traits needed to succeed in the highly competitive world of education and in the corporate world, and are culturally valued qualities. They are also qualities that high-school rugby players nominated as indicators of the masculinity to which they aspired. When asked what type of men they most admired, boys in the winning team at the 1997/8 All Japan High-School Rugby Championships all identified qualities associated with single-minded determination in striving to achieve long-term goals. They nominated men who set firm long-term goals and who could endure and overcome hardships to achieve them. The characteristics of the masculinity that they all admired were also characteristics of their approach to training and the style of play that they preferred to adopt. The following is a clear example of the masculinity valued by the boys in the team: The sort of man I admire is someone who can stick at one task and not give up or slack off in his effort, no matter how hard it gets. Doing a variety of sports or anything is okay and probably interesting but it takes strength to stay with one thing and put the effort in every day. It’s good to be skilful or clever at something but constantly putting in the effort on one thing is what I respect the most in a man. (Interview with high-school rugby player, Tokyo, November 1997) Although the qualities admired by young men playing rugby in Japan are also valued in other societies such as Australia, they assume far more significance in Japan. Victory achieved through superior fitness, strength and commitment operates as an implicitly understood marker of culturally exalted moral qualities associated with the concept of seishin ryoku [the power of the human spirit]. Patterned play It is the patterned, prearranged forms of play that are most suitable for the expression and cultivation of culturally valued traits in Japan. The cultural traits of attention to detail and striving for perfection as well as an onus on memorisation and conformity at the expense of creative, critical individual thinking also characterise much of Japanese education. Such an approach receives regular criticism within Japan and there are signs that things may change. The same emphasis on conformity, memorisation and perfection of known patterns that prevails in education also characterises the way that school and university rugby teams play and practise. The training in traditional martial arts such as kendô, karate and kyûdô [archery] clearly illustrates the culturally dominant, Confucian-derived notion that one perfect form exists for each technique. The correct form is modelled by the sensei and emulated by the students. The martial arts, most of which now have a sporting form, explicitly articulate the values of the samurai through the promotion of bushidô [the way of the warrior] as a guiding set of behaviours that have 109

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historically had a significant influence on the practice of imported sports. The heavy physical contact of rugby, the threat to individual bodily welfare, and the warlike nature of it as an invasion game make it particularly amenable to the values of bushidô. Within Western cultures the analogy between the rugby playing field and the battlefield has formed a constant theme over the past century. It was certainly not lost on the Victorian/Edwardian public schools as ideals of Christian manliness gave way to muscular militancy leading up to the First World War. In July 1916, British troops “kicked off ” a rugby ball prior to the first charge at the Somme to begin a contest in which 57,470 men lost their lives (Mangan 1996). Similarly, rugby in Japan has been strongly influenced by the martial values of the pre-Meiji samurai classes. Aggression and violence Rugby is a heavy physical contact game based on the invasion of territory. It is, essentially, an aggressive, combat sport. The hyper-masculinity that typically characterises New Zealand rugby and Canadian ice hockey is often expressed in violence outside the formal rules of the sport. In these settings, it is not only accepted but also often celebrated as a marker of culturally valued masculinity. Punching is penalised but is invariably condoned as a marker of masculine character in Western settings such as Australia. According to Australian Rugby Review, the highlights of the 1996 Bledisloe Cup game in Brisbane were Matt Burke’s try and 60 minutes of Wallaby dominance “helped by Michael Brial’s defiant standup stoush [fist fight] with All Black centre Frank Bunce” (Brooks 1996, 22). The interpretation of acceptable violence in Japanese rugby is markedly different from that in Australia. Hegemonic masculinity demands sacrifice and violent use of the body without consideration of personal welfare, but this must be done strictly within the formal rule structure of the game. “Rough play” in Japanese rugby is dealt with severely by referees. More significant here, though, is the informal code of behaviour accepted and internalised by the players and expected by the rugby community. While there is a comparative dearth of “punch ups” and intimidation in Japanese rugby they do occur. However, they are not generally seen as a marker of masculine status or a sign of character, but as a weakness of character where a player could not control his violent urges for the good of the team. In post-match media interviews with captains and coaches of teams in the 1995/6 national university championships and the 1997/8 highschool championships, discourse focused on attitudes and “character” built through hard training. There were frequent references to clean rugby but there was little mention of technical analysis. Norbert Elias’s (1978) notion of violence as assuming expressive or instrumental forms allows us to differentiate between rule-legitimated aggression and violence that transgresses the rules and the ethos of the game. When players use their bodies in violent ways that are legitimated by the rules, they are performing instrumental violence that is considered and controlled. If a player acts emotion110

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ally by punching, kicking or displaying other behaviour that transgresses the rules, this can be seen as expressive violence and an indication that he has lost control of his emotions. Although there are exceptions, there are relatively few examples of illegal violence in Japanese rugby, and most players I interviewed articulated a belief in the need for self-control. This is illustrated by the response of one player in a strong high-school team when asked how he would react to being punched during a game: Of course you’d like to get some revenge but if you do and get punished you punish your own team-mates. The best way to get revenge is to play well against them. That’s the best way but naturally it’s difficult to control yourself and sometimes you might step on them if you get the chance.…I can put up with it. Of course I might want to hit back and I might occasionally step on someone in a ruck but I’m not that sort of player. (Interview with high-school rugby player, Tokyo, December 1997) While players are expected to risk injury and suffer for the good of the team by using their bodies in aggressive ways, they are expected to show strength in controlling their inner emotions. This acts to communicate and confirm dominant cultural values to larger communities of practice and to embody culture and a particular form of masculinity. The habitus of the players and the social field within which they live and practise are mutually constituted through the specific physical experiences that make up membership of a school or university rugby club. It is through this process that a hegemonic form of militaristic masculinity linked to pre-modern samurai classes is reproduced. The relationship between the individual and the group The discourse surrounding THS games emphasised the group over the individual. In a group-oriented society this is not surprising. Individuals were not singled out for praise or criticism in post-game analysis, and all of the players identified deeply with the team and the school, as is evident in the following comment by one of the players: There is more satisfaction in all the team being part of the effort to cross the enemy line than just one player kicking a goal. It’s great being part of a successful movement in a game. If I pass the ball and someone scores then I took part in scoring, just like the guy who passed the ball to me. If I score I get to cap off the efforts of the whole team. (Interview with high-school rugby player, Tokyo, November 1997) Engagement in rugby at THS promoted subordination of the self to the good of the team as a valued masculine trait. Highly patterned play required group 111

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cohesion and promoted group consciousness. It also tended to restrict individual play. If a player were to break from the pattern and fail then he would feel deep responsibility for letting down his team-mates. Even if it were successful, such action would be seen as selfish and would not be valued as it might be in an Australian team. The players at THS seemed to enjoy remarkable autonomy, and the coach typically backgrounded himself in decision-making. Power, however, operates differently in Japan, where the exercise of authority is diffuse and often perceived as benevolent. “Friendly authoritarianism” encourages the individual to internalise a common value system that emphasises order and control (Sugimoto 1997, 245). This is developed through the organisation of social life into small groups that feature strong interdependence between group members, intragroup surveillance, and intense competition with other groups. Members of social groups such as school rugby clubs share responsibility for decision-making and performance, and this places restraints on the individual. Credit for achievement is shared but so is failure, and this encourages mutual surveillance. The internalisation of control is reinforced by the intimate interdependency within groups and the intense competition between groups. Deviant behaviour that might threaten the group’s success in competition attracts what Foucault (1977) refers to as the “critical gaze” of the group and of the whole society. This acts as a normalising force that controls behaviour. At THS this acted to prevent departure from a culturally dominant approach to play that stressed achieving victory through collective spiritual strength as displayed through physical superiority. The masculinity valued and expressed in play at THS displayed an emphasis on spiritual strength as manifested in psychological and physical endurance and collective effort. This is beautifully captured in a player’s explanation of what rugby means to him: What I enjoy most is when we have a lot of pressure on our defence, we all pull together and defend our line as one. When our line is threatened but we all combine and nobody lets them through. If we let them over the line then we fail as a team and if we fail as a team then we fail as individuals.…This is the real meaning of rugby. (Interview with high-school rugby player, Tokyo, December 1997)

Gaman: obligation, loyalty and self-control While this chapter has focused on a hegemonic and militaristic form of masculinity there is no suggestion that this is the Japanese masculinity. As the work of Connell (1995) so clearly shows, there are multiple forms that exist in differing relationships of dominance, subordination and compliance. Drawing on my research on masculinity and sport in Japan and my personal experience of working as a rugby coach there for six years, I would suggest that although the form of masculinity discussed here is hegemonic, it is increasingly challenged by 112

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alternative and competing ways of being a man in contemporary Japan. Indeed, informants in one study of high-school rugby felt that the masculinity they valued was increasingly becoming “unfashionable”. They felt that their form of masculinity was “old fashioned” and not popular with Japanese girls. The players’ discourse reflected a concern with a perceived decline in “traditional”, “real” masculine values in contemporary Japanese society: Japanese men are not as manly [otokorashii]. They follow whatever is the latest fashion and the trends have not been at all masculine. You might be a really manly sort of guy but it’s difficult to show it much. If everyone around you is not being masculine then it’s difficult to stand out alone as the only manly one. Being manly is not popular now. (Interview with high-school rugby player, Tokyo, December, 1997) Although some girls at the school at which this study was conducted had told me that the rugby players were kakko ii [“cool”], the players themselves all felt that their form of masculinity was not valued by women. This seemed to further fuel the sense of self-sacrifice that they saw as an essential part of being a real man. They said that “rugger men” were not fashionable or trendy and that most Japanese girls did not find them attractive. One player said that rugby players were not popular with girls: “They [girls] don’t like big strong men with thick necks and smelly, sweaty bodies.” The players recognised that theirs was a form of masculinity that was increasingly out of touch with modern youth culture in Japan. The masculinity of “big strong and smelly” rugby players certainly lies in stark contrast to the masculinity of the pale, slight boys wearing eye make-up and carrying expensive designer handbags in Shinjuku. This is perhaps a version of the “wen” masculinity discussed by Kam Louie and Yiyan Wang – the masculinity of the white-skinned and physically weak Chinese literati. The high-school rugby players seemed to feel that they were sacrificing popularity with girls to uphold the ideal of being a “real” man in Japan. They felt that sportsmen should not be distracted by girls, and their perceived unpopularity with girls seemed to operate as another marker of their masculine status. In the world of school and university sport in Japan, prominent sports such as Japan’s national game, baseball [yakyu], are seen as “the shrine of fighting spirit” and the “ultimate crucible of youth” (Bornoff 1992, 106). Sports such as rugby and baseball – in particular – are seen as a “temple of purity” (Bornoff 1992, 106) in which young men are expected to show absolute commitment to the team and the school or university in order to develop total control over any “selfish” urges that might conflict with the execution of their duty as team members. This, as Bornoff (1992, 106) contends, extends to developing and displaying the strength of character to resist association with members of the opposite sex. During my three years as head coach of the university rugby team referred to earlier in the chapter, this was a prominent theme among the players. 113

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Unlike comparable rugby teams in Australia, there was no discussion of sexual exploits and no masculine status to be gained within the team from “scoring” with women. Just as Japan’s most famous samurai, Miyamoto Musashi, stood under a freezing waterfall to chill his feelings towards a woman in the sixteenth century, young sportsmen in Japan must not be distracted by feelings for girls. To fall in love or to show affection to a girl would display weakness. It is generally expected that sportsmen such as “rugger men”, baseball players or martial artists such as judoka [judo players] are driven by obligation, loyalty and self-control. Yet these are values that are increasingly out of favour with the youth of contemporary Japan. Other chapters in this book have identified a wide spectrum of Chinese and Japanese masculinities, ranging from soft to hard, which have been valued differently across time. Kam Louie suggests that, within the Chinese context, the binaries of wu [military, hard, warrior] and wen [literary, expressive, sensitive] offer a useful means of analysing Chinese masculinities. This also offers a means of situating the form of masculinity embedded in, and reproduced through, sport and the martial arts in Japanese schools and universities. It is tempting to suggest that bu and bun might offer a similar oppositional binary in Japan. However, these terms are more associated with the pre-Meiji ideal of striking a balance in samurai education between martial training and the study of literature or art that is contained in the notion of a balanced education through bun bu ryodô [literature/knowledge and martial prowess/physical, both ways]. If we were to view the masculinities identified in this book as constituting a spectrum from soft/wen to hard/wu, the masculinity practised in Japanese rugby would certainly lie at the wu end of the spectrum. It is historically linked to the militaristic values of the samurai classes in pre-modern Japan, and sport has played a significant part in its reproduction over the past century and a half. It displays an emphasis on toughness, power, dominance and self-sacrifice balanced against the cultural value attached to respect for order, loyalty, duty and selfcontrol. In discussing the construction of another type of Japanese “warrior”, the corporate warrior, Romit Dasgupta’s chapter on manga representations of Japan’s “sarariiman” describes an ideal of masculinity that resonates with that of the “sporting warrior” in Japan. The qualities displayed by Kintarô in “Sarariiman” are precisely those of the samurai as represented in samurai dramas on Japanese television. The qualities promoted in samurai movies and Sarariiman are those of courage, coolness in the face of danger, loyalty, honour, tenacity and gaman. As Tomoko Aoyama suggests, the financial power of the sarariiman can be seen as a form of postwar wu/bu. This allows us to see the clear parallel between the hegemonic masculinity embedded in the practice of sport and martial arts and the corporate masculinity constructed through manga. The masculinity identified here has much in common with hegemonic forms in other cultures but is, at the same time, culturally specific. The ways in which the masculinity identified here is most differentiated from that which characterises Western game style are tied into ideals of self-control and the notion of 114

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gaman. There is no exact translation of this concept in English but it generally refers to the ideals of tolerance, endurance, perseverance and control of personal desire. As other chapters in this book show, these are all highly valued personal qualities in Japanese culture. Kam Louie’s chapter suggests that they are also valued male traits in Chinese culture.

Conclusion This analysis of game play in Japanese high-school and university rugby illuminates the ways in which a particular form of masculinity is reproduced through ways of playing and game tactics. Research on the construction of masculinity through school sport (Connell 1983; Light and Kirk 2000) shows how specific types of physical experience contribute to the construction of particular forms of masculinity. Through their physical and discursive experience of rugby the social world within which young Japanese men live is embedded in their bodies and comes to constitute their habitus. The form of masculinity embodied in this way is thus particular to the cultural and social environment within which the sport is practised. This draws useful attention to the significance of the extended and regulated manipulation of the body that is characteristic of sport for the social development of young men. Japanese schoolboys committed to highly competitive sports typically experience at least six years of constant, year-long, daily training in rugby, baseball, soccer or any of the martial arts practised at schools. Sport thus forms a consuming concern in the lives of many adolescent men and plays a profound role in the social construction of a culture-specific form of masculinity. Work on the social construction of gender in both Western and Asian settings has productively focused on the ways in which it assumes particular forms that are socially constructed through discourse. Such views of the body tend to focus on how society invades and shapes the body to give it particular meaning. In focusing on discourse such analyses often neglect the corporeal means through which gender is constructed. In such analyses the body becomes lost in discourse. The work of Bourdieu (1984; 1990) and Mauss (1973) illuminates how bodies are central to the production of culture. They are also central to the construction of masculinity. Research on sport and school-based physical education in a range of cultures has highlighted the significance of such physical experiences for the development of young men’s gendered identity. Sport forms a pivotal site for the construction of masculine identity, and is interwoven with the development of cultural identity. Sport is not merely a reflection of culture but is an active agent in its production and reproduction. Viewing sport as a form of cultural practice encourages recognition of it as an important site for the construction of masculinity in Asian settings. However, research on the social construction of masculinity in Japan and other Asian cultures has, to date, neglected the significance of the body’s engagement in 115

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sport within such processes. Empirical examination of the ways in which forms of masculinity are constructed through the regulated manipulation of the body within the institutions of schooling, the military, factories and corporate settings would make a valuable contribution to the literature on Asian masculinity. By studying the social dimensions of sport we can come to understand the complex and intermeshing processes through which particular forms of masculinity are constructed, and the central part that the body plays in this. The important role that sport plays in the construction of Asian masculinities is yet to be reflected in a growth of literature in this area. I hope that this chapter might make some contribution to rectifying this oversight.

References Bornoff, Nicholas. 1992. Pink samurai. London: Grafton. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. London: Routledge. ——. 1990. The logic of practice. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ——. 2001. Masculine domination. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Brooks, Michael. 1996. The year in review. Australian Rugby Review 1, no. 9: 22. Connell, Robert. 1983. Which way is up? Essays on class, sex and culture. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. ——. 1989. Cool guys, swots and wimps: The interplay of masculinity and education. Oxford Review of Education 15: 291–303. ——. 1995. Masculinities. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. ——. 1998. Foreword. In Where the boys are: Masculinity, sport and education, eds C. Hickey, L. Fitzclarence and R. Mathews: i–vi. Geelong, (Victoria), Australia: Deakin Centre for Education and Change. Elias, Norbert. 1978. The history of manners: The civilizing process, Volume 1. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Foucault, Michel. 1977. Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. New York: Vintage. Giulianotti, Richard. 1999. Football: A sociology of the global game. Cambridge: Polity Press. Gramsci, Antinio. 1971. Selections from prison notebooks, eds and trans. Q. Hoare and G. Nowell-Smith. London: Lawrence & Wishart. Greenwood, J. 1986. Think rugby: A guide to purposeful team play. London: Block. Light, Richard. 1999a. Learning to be a “rugger man”: Media constructions of high school rugby in Japan. Football Studies 2, no. 1: 74–89. ——. 1999b. Regimes of training and the construction of masculinity in Japanese university rugby. International Sports Studies: The Journal of the International Society for Comparative Physical Education and Sport 2I, no. 2: 39–54. ——. 2000. A century of Japanese rugby and masculinity: Continuity and change. Sporting Traditions 16, no. 2: 87–104. Light, Richard and David Kirk. 2000. High school rugby, the body and the reproduction of masculinity. Sport, Education and Society 5, no. 2: 163–76. Majors, Richard. 1990. Cool pose: Black masculinity and sport. In Sport, men and the gender order, eds M. Messner and D. Sabo: 109–14. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

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Mangan, J.A. 1996. Games field and battlefield: A romantic alliance of verse and the creation of militaristic masculinity. In Making men: Rugby and masculine identity, eds J. Nauright and T. Chandler: 140–57. London: Cass. March, Robert. 1996. Reading the Japanese mind. Tokyo: Tuttle. Mauss, Marcel. 1973. Techniques of the body, trans. B. Brewster. Economy and Society 2: 70–87. Passin, Herbert. 1980. Society and education in Japan. Tokyo: Tuttle. Roden, Donald. 1980. Baseball and the quest for national identity in Meiji Japan. American Historical Review 1: 511–34. Sugimoto, Yoshio. 1997. An introduction to Japanese society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Suzuki, Daisetz T. 1959. Zen and Japanese culture. Tokyo: Tuttle.

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7 CREATING CORPORATE WARRIORS The “salaryman” and masculinity in Japan Romit Dasgupta Introduction When I ask students in the Japanese studies courses I teach at an Australian university about their image of the “typical” Japanese male, I am invariably presented with the figure of the “salaryman” [sarariiman in Japanese], or kigyô senshi [“corporate warrior”] – the “everyman” of Japan who through the decades of “Japan Inc” bore the Japanese economy on his shoulders, and who is increasingly seen today as the victim of the same economy. The figure of the salaryman conjures up a mental picture of a neatly groomed, middle-aged, grey-suited, briefcase-carrying, white-collar male office worker who leaves his home in the suburbs early each morning, commutes in an overcrowded train to some faceless downtown office block, and ends the day by lurching drunkenly back to the suburbs on the last train after a drinking session with colleagues or clients. Given that my students’ actual contact with Japanese masculinity in Australia is more likely to be with a bleached-haired, sun-tanned, young working holiday backpacker or language student, the persistence of this salaryman stereotype does not accord with their reality, or the reality of many young Japanese males themselves. Yet, as the students’ responses seems to indicate, the salaryman has come to embody all Japanese masculinity. Indeed, at the level of official and popular discourse this particular way of being a male has been seen as something of an ideal. This discourse of masculinity may be regarded as the dominant or hegemonic form of masculinity, one that is culturally privileged and has power over other less culturally sanctioned masculinities (Beynon 2002, 16, 17; Connell 1995, 77–81). Moreover, it also came to be regarded as some kind of inherent characteristic of Japanese “national culture”. This view became especially entrenched in official and popular discourses pertaining to Japan over the decades of high economic growth through the 1960s and 1970s, and continues to exert a lasting influence on perceptions of Japanese masculinity. Yet, while there is a substantial body of literature that focuses on the salaryman (e.g. Vogel 1971; Rohlen 1974), what has been largely missing is an analysis of the

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salaryman as a gendered construct, a manifestation of a culturally privileged, hegemonic masculinity created and recreated through socioeconomic and cultural institutions and practices. In this chapter, I will discuss the emergence of the salaryman model as the dominant discourse of masculinity in Japan in the second half of the twentieth century. In particular, the chapter seeks to locate the origins of salaryman masculinity within the specific historical conditions of the industrial-capitalist project that was embarked upon by the Japanese nation-state from the late nineteenth century. The second half of the chapter draws attention to the instruments of state and society – family and peer socialisation, education, the employment system, consumer culture, mass media and other popular culture outlets – through which this discourse of masculinity was (and continues to be) disseminated and reinforced. In order to better appreciate the complex and sometimes contradictory nature of this process I focus on specific “instruments” of inscription, such as employment training manuals for young male entrants to the workforce, and popular culture media such as manga [comics] and magazines. These, as my discussion highlights, act as sites for both the inscription of the hegemonic discourse and, not infrequently, resistance to it.

Salaryman masculinity: demarcations and delineations Arriving at a precise definition of the term “salaryman” can be difficult. At its narrowest, the term refers to salaried white-collar male employees of privatesector organisations, typically characterised by such features as life-time employment, seniority-based salary indexing and promotions, and a generally paternalistic concern for the employee on the part of the company in return for steady, diligent loyalty to the organisation (Dasgupta 2000, 192). However, large chunks of the workforce have always fallen outside the orbit of this model. First of all, despite the reality that women have always participated in the labour force in Japan, and have made significant, albeit largely unacknowledged contributions to Japan’s industrialisation process, they were by-and-large excluded from the benefits of this employment system. Furthermore, even large sections of the male labour force – part-time workers, blue-collar workers, day labourers, and even white-collar employees of smaller concerns – fell outside the parameters of this model (Roberson 1998; Cheng and Kallenberg 1997). In reality, however, the term “salaryman” has wider applications, including non-private sector and non-white-collar employees within its orbit (Miller 1995). The salaryman/kigyô senshi [corporate warrior] figure in many ways embodied the notion of the Japanese male as the archetypal heterosexual husband/father and producer/provider. The inscription of the hegemonic discourse of gender onto individuals commences early on in childhood, when, as Robert Smith observes, “the words 119

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otokorashii [manly, masculine] and onnarashii [womanly, feminine] are applied to demeanour, activities, interests and preferences…what is deemed appropriate to one sex is by definition inappropriate to the other” (Smith 1987, 3). This process of dissemination and inscription occurs through diverse formal and informal channels – family socialisation, interaction with peers, formal education, discourses and actual practices within the employment system, popular culture media, and so on. Even though this is an ongoing process, the need to inculcate the values underpinning salaryman masculinity becomes particularly urgent once the individual male makes the transition from (non-productive) student to productive responsible adult [shakaijin] upon entering the workforce. Both society in general and organisations in particular place considerable emphasis on “marking” the significance and gravity of this transition, through induction ceremonies and training courses aimed at instilling the associated work and lifestyle values and expectations.

Modernity, the nation-state and salaryman masculinity While it was only in the post-Second World War decades that the salaryman became unquestionably associated with the embodiment of hegemonic masculinity, the origins of this particular discourse of masculinity may in fact be traced back to forms of masculinity in currency during earlier periods of Japanese history. Thus, certain values that were associated with the bushidô code of the governing samurai elite during the feudal Tokugawa period (1600–1868) – such as duty, loyalty, self-sacrifice, and mental and physical endurance – would go on to underpin subsequent discourses of hegemonic masculinity, including the early rudiments of salaryman masculinity, during the succeeding Meiji period (1868–1912). The new Meiji regime initiated an ambitious state-sponsored project of modernisation and nation-building, as a means of strengthening Japan against the growing military dominance of Western colonial powers in East Asia. The success of this enterprise hinged upon compliance with an official, prescriptive discourse of gender and sexuality – the empire needed compliant, productive workers and soldiers of its male citizens and “Good Wives, Wise Mothers” [ryôsai kenbo] of its female citizens (Sievers 1983, 110, 111), the two sides of the binary linked through monogamous, heterosexual marriage and the notion of family centred around the husband–wife domestic pairing. Accordingly, both official and popular discourse, working through institutions such as the military, the legal system, the education system, and official and semiofficial popular culture media, worked to inculcate and reinforce these hegemonic ideals of masculinity (and femininity). At the same time, other preMeiji discourses of masculinity that had been socially visible, such as discourses of nanshoku/shudô centred on male same-sex love, were regarded as backward feudal leftovers, and hence antithetical to the “civilised morality” of the modernising state (Pflugfelder 1999, 146–53). It was within the above ideological 120

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framework that the rudiments of an urban, white-collar, middle-class masculinity began to emerge, alongside the more common contemporary forms such as the discourse of masculinity centred on the new conscript-based military, rural masculinity, and forms of “elite” masculinity such as those in elite high schools (see Roden 1980). Although the term “salaryman” [sarariiman] itself appears to have been coined and popularised in the years following the First World War (Umezawa 1997, 4), its antecedents can be traced back to the gekkyû tori [monthly salary recipient] of the early Meiji decades, and even the koshi-ben [a somewhat demeaning term for low-ranking samurai bureaucrats who had been reduced to dangling a lunch-box – bentô – instead of a sword from their waists – koshi] of the late Tokugawa years (Kinmonth 1981, 277–80; Umezawa 1997, 4–6). By the Taishô and early Showa periods (roughly corresponding to the interwar decades) not only had the term salaryman replaced the earlier gekkyû tori, it had also come to embody – for better or for worse – the “New Japanese Male”; to his supporters the embodiment of a new, modern, industrialised, urban Japan, and to his detractors all that was wrong with the new urban middle-class culture. This period of Japanese history – often referred to as the “flowering of Taishô liberalism” – witnessed the surfacing of the varied tensions and contradictions of modernity, as divergent discourses of “Japaneseness” competed in a socioeconomic climate characterised by growing inequality, tension and flux. Possibly more than in previous (and subsequent) periods, concerns about “new” articulations of gender and sexuality were a noticeable feature of these discourses. There was a sense of anxiety and “moral panic” in discourses surrounding masculinity. In particular, the foppish, dandy figure of the “Modern Boy” [mobo] was the site for the articulation of many concerns about the corrosive effects of modernity on traditional notions of masculinity. Thus, even as early as 1916, the editor and publisher Sohô Tokutomi accused young men of not possessing any “unifying sense of character, settling instead for divergent shades of materialism, anguish, debauchery, and colorless nonchalance” (Roden 1990, 45). However, co-existing and intersecting with these discourses of concern and moral outrage at the “feminisation” of masculinity (and corresponding “masculinisation” of femininity) was a societal fascination with androgyny and gender ambivalence as embodied in figures such as the female actors who played the part of the dan’yaku/otokoyaku [male role] in the all-female Takarazuka troupe, or the nimaime male movie actors who specialised in playing the role of the weak, indecisive, even effeminate male support opposite a strong, domineering female character (Roden 1990, 47–9; Robertson 1998). On the surface, there may appear to be little in common between the emerging discourse of salaryman masculinity (which appeared to conform to the requirements of the ideology of the modernising nation-state) and the ostensibly non-conformist mobo masculinity. Yet I would argue that, in many respects, these two forms of masculinity intersected and overlapped with each other far more than they did with other contemporary dominant/visible discourses of 121

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masculinity such as the aggressively masculine discourses of military masculinity or rural masculinity, or even the more militant working-class masculinity of labour activists (see Mackie 2000a, 187–9). Both the salaryman and the modern boy were quite clearly products of urban modernity. No doubt, many from the ranks of the mobo went on to become salarymen, just as many moga [“Modern Girls”] would have taken up the dutiful wife/mother role upon marriage. As was the case with the mobo, these years saw the emergence and circulation, in both the scholarly and popular press, of various discourses relating to the figure of the salaryman, albeit couched more in terms of social class or lifestyle than in reference to the salaryman’s masculinity. The academic literature – reflecting the growing influence of Marxist theory – often tried to fit the salaryman within the framework of social class or in terms of lifestyle analysis (for instance, social commentator Sôichi Ôya’s analysis of the salaryman and his lifestyle [Ôya 1981, 90–101]). Treatments of the salaryman included Hajime Maeda’s popular 1927 novel (and subsequent sequel) Sarariiman monogatari[Story of the salaryman], and cartoonist Rakuten Kitazawa’s popular manga depicting Sarariiman no tengoku [Salaryman’s Heaven] and Sarariiman no jigoku [Salaryman’s Hell]. The latter consisted of such things as commuting on “jam-packed” trams at peak hour, being gossiped about by colleagues, and having to work late at the end of the financial month, while Salaryman’s Heaven included business trips, a walk with the typist, and long weekends (Kitazawa Rakuten Kenshô Kai 1973, 124–5). Magazines like the monthly Sarariiman revolved around the daily concerns of a salaryman’s life. Significantly, as will be discussed in the following section, these popular culture representations also served an important prescriptive and reinforcing function – how to “correctly” perform salaryman masculinity, in terms of work, consumer habits, deportment and lifestyle patterns. Despite the growing visibility of the salaryman as representative of urban, middle-class masculinity in these years, it was only over the decades following the Second World War that the salaryman became the overarching embodiment of hegemonic masculinity, as alternative/competing masculinities such as the soldier and farmer were neutralised as a consequence of Japan’s defeat and subsequent social and economic transformations. Indeed in many senses the salaryman, as reflected in the term kigyô senshi [corporate warrior] that was used to describe the salarymen who supposedly bore Japan’s “Economic Miracle” of the 1950s and 1960s on their shoulders, appeared to replace the soldier as the new masculine ideal. Ironically, the representative of postwar military masculinity, the Self-Defence Force, does not really figure in imaginings of idealised masculinity. There were several factors at work here. Rapid industrialisation from the 1950s was accompanied by an expansion of white-collar labour. Increased urbanisation and rising urban land prices led to the distancing of homes from workplaces, accentuating the public/private dichotomy. Moreover, the trend towards smaller, nuclear families in the postwar years, coupled with the rapid 122

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diffusion of household durables such as vacuum cleaners, refrigerators and washing machines, resulted, ironically, in women’s roles focusing on motherhood and child-rearing, sharpening the distinction between private/female and public/male (Uno 1993). Foregrounding the “standardisation” of the salaryman discourse were socioeconomic changes that were made tangible, just as modernity was in the 1920s, by being embodied in, and performed through, the everyday practices of work, leisure, home life and the public life of citizens (see Mackie 2000a). In other words, the emergence of the discourse of salaryman masculinity as the culturally privileged/pervasive hegemony was inextricably linked to the production and dissemination of the products – in particular, consumer products – the production of which underpinned the postwar “Economic Miracle”. The salaryman-centred nuclear family came to be both the target, and the symbol, of all the catch-phrases of the 1960s and 1970s – the “3 Treasures” (washing machine, vacuum cleaner, black and white television), “3 Cs” (car, colour television, cooler [i.e. air conditioner]), “3 Js” (jet [i.e. holiday overseas], jewels, jûtaku [own house]), “mai-hômu” (own home, with the implication of privatised lifestyles) and “mai-kaa” (own car, implying mobility, consumption of leisure), to name just a few (Ivy 1993; Kelly 1993; Tobin 1992).

Recreating and resisting salaryman masculinity through popular culture It was in the above context that the salaryman emerged as the postwar “archetypal citizen” who was not only “the model worker…[but] also…the model for Members of Parliament and the bureaucracy” (Mackie 2000b, 247). Typically he would be middle class and often university educated, entering the organisation in his early-twenties upon graduation from university. Once within the organisation, he would, as highlighted earlier in this chapter, be expected to display qualities of loyalty, diligence, dedication and self-sacrifice. Everything about the salaryman embodies these values: his behaviour, deportment (white shirt, dark business suit, lack of “flashy” clothing and accessories, neat hairstyle), consumer habits (for example reading certain types of magazines), even his verbal and body language. Moreover, his success (or lack of it) would be premised not only on workplace conduct, but also on his ability to conform to the requirements of the hegemonic discourse – to marry at an age deemed suitable, and once married to perform the appropriate gender role of husband/provider/father (see Ishii-Kuntz 1993; Kelly 1993, 208–15). On one level, sites of popular culture serve to produce and reproduce the hegemonic discourse – for instance Christine Yano in her discussion of popular music in the 1920s and 1930s notes the role electronic media played in the construction of the “modern nation” (Yano 1998, 250). This applies in the case of salaryman masculinity too, as shown by the popularity of various popular culture media – manga, magazines, television programmes, films, 123

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novels, “pop-management” style self-improvement manuals and books – revolving around the salaryman and his lifestyle. A significant proportion of these also function as an important means of instruction – particularly for younger men who are still in the process of making the transition from earlier, pre-shakaijin [adult] forms of masculinity – in how to correctly perform salaryman masculinity both within and outside the workplace. The self-improvement publications are probably the most specifically instructional and prescriptive, as indicated by their titles, which make no effort to conceal the ideological agenda. Thus we have Otoko wa ni-jû dai ni nani o subeki ka [What men need to do in their twenties] (Suzuki 1997); Otona no “otoko” ni naru hachi jû go ka jô: Kachô Shima Kôsaku kara kimi e [Eighty-five points for becoming an adult “male”: From Kachô Shima Kôsaku to you], by the author of an extremely popular manga series revolving around the life of its salaryman hero, Kôsaku Shima (Hirokane 1996); Irasuto shakaijin toshite no shintoku: Shinnyû-shain kenshû shiriizu [Illustrated rules for adults: New employee training series] (Keiei Shoin 2000); Shakaijin no tessoku 2001 [Iron-clad rules for adults 2001] (Inoue et al. 2001); Tadashii shanai no arukikata [Walking (i.e. negotiating your way) through the company correctly] (Matsui 1998); and for the boss or supervisor of the new shakaijin, 90 nichi de shinjin o senryokuka suru shinyû-shain kyôiku manyuaru [A 90-day training manual to strengthen new employees’ battle potential] (Mizui 1991). The topics addressed by these (and other) instructional guides show a predictable commonality. All revolve around the themes of needing to learn how to perform corporate masculinity through the appropriate work- and body-reflexive practices. Although many of these instructions would apply equally to female employees, these manuals are quite obviously out to target male employees; hence my deliberate use of the pronoun “he” in the discussion that follows. It should be pointed out that there are also equivalent publications for the new salaryman’s female counterpart, the OL (Office Lady). The information/instruction/guidance in these manuals covers both the individual’s work lifecourse (i.e. from the point he enters the company as a shinnyû sahaiin), and his workday (i.e. from the time he arrives at work each day). For instance, Keniichi Suzuki’s What Men Need to Do in Their Twenties gives the reader a variety of lifestyle and work-related advice. The former ranges from tips such as ensuring that you choose your friends carefully as friendships made in your twenties will stay with you for life (Suzuki 1997, 94), to making sure that your table etiquette is correct (90). He also gives his young (presumably) male reader a host of tips related to the “ideal” kind of marriage. The reader is warned against getting married from mere attraction (128), and told that, once married, he should not treat marriage as an extension of his single life. Playing around as if unattached may lead to the wife being neglected, which would cause her pain (149). Moreover, he suggests that sex should be for creating a family and recommends finding a partner who thinks likewise (145). Apart from these more personal bits of advice, he also gives more work-specific tips such as making sure you arrive at work at least fifteen minutes early and making sure you do more 124

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work than your workplace peers, as the most shameful thing for a man is to be branded a stupid/useless individual (119). He also stresses that as a new employee starting at the very bottom of the corporate ladder, the word “no” should not exist in a new entrant’s vocabulary, and that he should happily accept whatever work comes his way (115). Apart from the work-specific and lifestyle-related guidance they offer, these manuals place great emphasis on projecting the appropriate image through clothing, deportment, verbal language and body language. The Iron-Clad Rules for Adults 2001 referred to earlier is a good example, covering most of these embodying practices through the use of attractive colour and black-and-white illustrations, eye-catching captions, and easy-to-read text. Thus, the reader is instructed, with the aid of visuals, about the appropriate protocol and body language for different situations: suddenly realising that a senior executive is standing next to you while waiting for the elevator; greeting same-age colleagues; welcoming a client and showing him (and I use him deliberately) into the waiting reception; or the correct way to exchange business cards (Inoue et al. 2001, 22, 23, 46). The use of correct spoken language is similarly emphasised – for instance, the importance of the correct greeting/expression for each situation (e.g. the five basic “golden greetings” of the workplace [21]); the correct telephone language (including proper body language: correct posture, not smoking while talking, making sure your necktie is not slack) (37–9); and the distinctions between honorific language [keigo] and everyday speech (25–7). Deportment and grooming are also integral to this inscription. In fact, their importance is indicated by the fact that this is the very first topic covered (the reader is told in no uncertain terms that the correct style is the key to creating a favourable impression on bosses and clients [6]), and the use of colour photographs and visual images (in contrast to the other sections that only use monochrome images). Virtually every aspect of dress and appearance is considered. The appropriate styles for different situations (work, formal occasions, weekends) with matching accessories and budget checklist are presented – the section on the “Off-Style Course” for weekend wear, for instance, warns readers not to dress down in case they bump into their boss downtown. Readers are instructed in the proper way of tying a necktie, told about cosmetic products they should or should not use, warned against dyeing their hair brown, and entreated to keep certain indispensable items handy (nail clippers, breath freshener, hair comb, pocket tissues). Just to be certain a check-list diagram is provided that goes through points like checking your hairstyle (short and neat, and no dandruff), making sure your shoes are polished (because both clients and bar hostesses begin with the shoes when judging a person’s worth), your trousers pressed, and that you are wearing a white dress-shirt (of which you should possess at least six; striped or coloured shirts are only appropriate if you have been working for a number of years and have confidence in your ability!) (Inoue et al. 2001, 18, 19). The importance of correct appearance and deportment as a determinant of success (or lack of) in attaining the hegemonic ideal can be 125

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gauged by the number of works that focus exclusively on clothing, with titles like Jiten: Dekiru otoko no fukusô-jutsu 110 no hôsoku [Dictionary: 110 rules on the art of dressing for the successful man] (Kawaki 1998) and Otoko no fukusô-jutsu: “Erabu” “kiru” “migaku” “musubu” no kihon oshiemasu [Dressing skills for men: Teaching the basics of “choosing”, “wearing”, “polishing”, “tying”] (Ochiai 2000). Despite the very visible presence of this genre of “how-to” manuals, probably more important in terms of influence are magazines and manga [comics] that target the salaryman. There are numerous magazines of varying quality aimed at a salaryman readership; of these, publications such as Popeye, Bart, Gainer and Big Tomorrow are geared towards a younger twenty/thirty-something readership. Although the four magazines have different approaches and styles of presentation, there are certain common themes, revolving around visual and printed instructions and guidance, found in all these the publications. There is also a remarkable overlap with the issues addressed in the manuals discussed above – the information presented in these magazines also includes hints about personal grooming and appearance (choosing appropriate suits, ties, bags, accessories, and the proper way to “dress for business”) and instructions about workplace conduct (the correct way to exchange business cards, the proper way to talk to clients over the telephone, how to be more time-effective at work). As in the manuals, the instructions are extremely detailed, with plenty of visual support. Big Tomorrow, for instance, carries a tear-out supplement on being more efficient at work – the supplement in the May 1998 issue covered a day in the life of a young salaryman, giving hints on everything from massaging your face first thing in the morning (in order to look fresh), to tips on being more efficient at work, English expressions you need to know in case you take a call from overseas, quick exercises you can do at your desk, and even tips on avoiding a hangover if you go out drinking with colleagues or clients (Big Tomorrow, May 1998). The June 1998 issue of Gainer included a three-page feature on preventing halitosis, which contained every imaginable piece of advice, from tongue-scrapers to the best pills and lozenges to counteract bad breath (Gainer, June 1998, 100–2). Another aspect of these magazines is the instruction and advice they give about “correctly performing heterosexual masculinity”. For instance, the June 1998 issue of Gainer (95–9) provides advice on the “do’s-and-don’ts” of dating an older woman, and the June 1998 issue of Big Tomorrow contains a very explicit step-by-step “guide” to successful “car-sex” (the introductory blurb informs the reader that “a car is a ‘mobile love-hotel”) (191–5). Although most issues of Big Tomorrow (and, to a lesser extent, the other publications) carry similar graphic “guidance”, the magazine is not a “soft-porn” publication; the emphasis is on providing the reader with “serious” information. Interestingly, the monthly publication of the 1920s and 1930s, Sarariiman, which was referred to earlier, also contained features (with only black-and-white visual support) that instructed readers on similar matters, ranging from correct deportment and workplace conduct to the etiquette involved in “modern dating”. 126

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It is also worth noting that whereas the magazines that represent these discourses of corporate masculinity share some common elements with magazines such as Bidan, Men’s Non-no, Fine Boys and Hot Dog, all of which target younger, pre-shakaijin males who are yet to enter full-time work, there is one significant point of difference. Both groups of publications share the same instructive layout, telling readers what is and is not appropriate in terms of behaviour/dress/consumer habits, whether for salarymen or teenagers. Where they differ is in the realm of (readings of) sexuality. Whereas magazines such as Men’s Non-no often allow for ambiguous, non-heterosexual readings in the visual images they present, the salaryman magazines are insistently and aggressively heterosexual, both in terms of the images they portray and the information they provide. The message that is conveyed is quite explicit – to be successful at performing hegemonic masculinity, one needs to successfully perform (or present the outward appearance of performing) heterosexuality. The appearance of heterosexual sobriety on the part of producers in society is crucial for hegemonic masculinity; for non-producers (such as teenage males), although desirable, it is not as urgent a requirement. The above analysis of the employment manuals and magazines seems to highlight the importance of the body of the young (or not-so-young) male shakaijin, as both a site for the inscription of hegemonic masculinity, and, through repetitive enactments of the bodily-reflexive practices that constitute and represent hegemonic masculinity, an agent for its continued circulation (see Connell 2000). An ideal example of a popular culture embodiment of this hegemonic discourse of masculinity may be seen in Sarariiman Kintarô [Salaryman Kintarô]), the salaryman hero of an immensely popular manga, which originally appeared in serialised version in the manga periodical, Yângu janpu [Young Jump], and was subsequently published separately in twenty-five volumes (Motomiya 1999/2000). In addition to a CD-ROM version, a computer game and its own Internet home page, Sarariiman Kintarô was made into a successful television serial (with sequels) and into a feature film. In many ways Sarariiman Kintarô resembles other salaryman manga and novels, particularly Kachô Shima Kôsaku, (which subsequently became Buchô [“director” rather than mere “manager”] Shima Kôsaku), which was mentioned earlier. Behind the popularity of the manga and television versions of both lay the characters of Kintarô and Kôsaku. However, unlike Kôsaku, who by-and-large conforms to the expectations of respectable salaryman masculinity, Kintarô is simultaneously the embodiment and the antithesis of all that is implied by salaryman masculinity. On the one hand, he is a junior high-school drop-out and a former member of a biker gang [bôsôzoku], who by a quirk of fate ends up working for the head office of a large corporate organisation, in the process being transformed into the ideal of respectable salaryman masculinity, someone who willingly puts the interests of his fellow employees before his own. But he does not lose his pre-salaryman masculinity either, bringing it to the surface when required. In many senses the character of 127

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Kintarô represents the synthesis of the idealised attributes of several disparate (and often mutually hostile) discourses of masculinity in the body of one individual – rural, working-class, impulsive brute strength (which he does not hesitate to inflict on villains, often members of biker gangs, who keep materialising), raw (hetero-) sexual attraction, co-existing with the diligent, conscientious responsibility generally associated with the middle-class, urban, salaryman masculinity. In many respects, Salaryman Kintarô fits perfectly with Connell’s assertion that “in order to stabilise the gender order as a whole” hegemonic masculinity needs “exemplars who are celebrated as heroes” (Connell 2000, 84). Yet ironically this aggressively idealised figure of Kintarô ends up as little more than a caricature. Moreover, the fact that such aggressively idealised popular culture portrayals are necessary may in fact serve to highlight the instability and ambiguity in the hegemonic discourse. In this respect, spaces of popular culture may operate not only as sites for the inscription of the dominant discourses (as with the pop-management type manuals and magazines, or even the figure of Kintarô), but may also be the site for the challenging of these very discourses. Thus, the flip-side of the “ideal citizen” representation of salaryman masculinity is alternative readings that depict the salaryman not as a figure of awe and respect, but rather as a figure of ridicule. Starting with prewar portrayals such as the depictions of Salaryman Heaven and Salaryman Hell mentioned earlier, numerous manga and television comedies have depicted the salaryman as weak and insipid. Frederick Schodt, for instance, describes the typical hero of such manga as “a middle-class everyman known in Japan as the hira-shain, or rank-and-file employee…[who is] married to an ugly woman, dreads going home, and hangs his head low after being scolded by his boss” (Schodt 1986, 112). On a more serious level popular culture has always worked simultaneously to consolidate the hegemonic discourse, and to destabilise it (or at the very least to present alternate readings) – one example is the much-loved hero of the Tora-san series of movies, which revolve around the experiences of an ineffectual, bumbling, warm-hearted “country-bumpkin” type figure. If anything, Tora-san embodied the very antithesis of hegemonic masculinity. Significantly, the first movie of the series, entitled Otoko wa tsurai [Men have it tough], was made in 1969 during the glory days of salaryman masculinity (see Buruma 1984, chapter 12; Schilling 2000).

The JTB man The contradictions embodied in the idealised figure of the salaryman are brought out in an illustrated pocket guide published by the Japan Travel Bureau (JTB), entitled the Illustrated “Salaryman” in Japan. This guide is part of a series that aims to “familiarise” non-Japanese with aspects of Japanese “culture”. As recently as 1996 (well into the economic slowdown and the accompanying unravelling of the Japan Inc. model), the seventh edition of the guide very deliberately presented the salaryman as a national cultural icon. Its Foreword entreats 128

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readers who are “tired of fragmentary or over intellectual reports of Japanese business…[to] take a stimulating journey into the…world of the salaryman”, a journey that readers are assured is “guaranteed to deepen…understanding and enjoyment of Japan”. The same Foreword informs us that the salaryman is “a special brand of worker unique to Japan”, and that “it is a historical fact that salarymen and the companies they work for have been the driving force behind the economic rise of postwar Japan” (JTB 1996, 3). The main text of the JTB guide opens with a caricature of the “typical” salaryman – a bespectacled “Mr Everyman” with a neat, “seven-three” (parted at the side) haircut, dressed in a dark blue or grey suit with a white dress shirt, carrying a briefcase in one hand and a rolled up newspaper in the other. Above the illustration there is a short explanatory paragraph that informs us that the term salaryman “is a word coined in Japan, used to refer to all white-collar workers who receive a salary” (JTB 1996, 10). On the facing page we are told, once again by means of illustrated examples, what a salaryman’s appearance should not project – colourful, flashy attire, overly fashionable hairstyle and clothes, long hair, moustache, sunglasses, Japanese dress (as this would supposedly “scare all customers away”!) (11). Further on, the reader is informed of the various categories in which the salaryman may be classified, according to generational difference, external appearance and/or career potential. Generational categories include, for instance, the “workaholics” in their fifties who live for the company (“the company is a battlefield for them”), as opposed to the “newcomers” in their twenties who “are an enigma to the older generations”) (89). Classification by external appearance encompasses the unmarried “rankand-file type”, the “middle-management type” who always “wears a harried expression and has no time to worry about fashion or other non-essential concerns”, the “executive type” who has survived the challenges of middle management and made it into upper management, and is consequently “brimming with confidence”, and the “researcher type” (who is good at his job but lacks social skills!) (88). The career potential categories contrast “Mr Elite” who goes straight home after work to study for in-house tests with “Mr Normal”, who stops off “for a drink or two” after work and finds “his furious wife has locked him out” when he staggers home at 1 a.m.! (44). Subsequent pages take us through a range of topics that cover virtually every aspect of the salaryman lifestyle: his daily schedule (surviving rush hour on crowded trains, morning pre-work meetings, pre-work callisthenics, overtime work, after-work drinks to “let off steam”); leisure activities (typically “masculine” activities such as Pachinko, Mahjong and betting at horse races); training programmes for new entrants; features of corporate culture (organisational structure, business etiquette, non-work related aspects of company life, transfers, retirement); down to matters relating to his relationship with his wife and family (in-house marriage between a salaryman and an OL, the “dangers and temptations” the wife is subject to due to the monotony of being left alone while her husband is at work, steps the wife can take to alleviate 129

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this boredom) (JTB 1996). The picture that emerges from this is of a carefully delineated discourse of gender (as embodied in the salaryman and the OL counterpart he will ideally choose as his partner), and what is required, in terms of behaviour, values and lifestyle choices to fall within the scope of the hegemonic ideal. However, in addition to these deliberate projections of the salaryman as an “ideal” of masculinity, many representations – including the JTB pocket guide discussed above – also draw attention to the negative aspects of this discourse of masculinity. Thus, the JTB guide does not mince words in the following statement about the health of the salaryman: “Salarymen suffer from lack of sleep and hangovers, rarely exercise, eat irregularly, have a poor nutritional balance, and are heavy smokers. In short, it is a miracle they are alive at all” (JTB 1996, 136). The illustration that accompanies this grim appraisal has arrows pointing to various parts of the salaryman’s body, with the accompanying ailments: headache from hangover, lungs that hurt from chain smoking, stiff shoulders, haemorrhoids (from long hours of sitting at the desk), gonorrhoea or other sexually transmitted diseases for “those who fool around too much”, liver damage from excessive drinking, and so on (136). Elsewhere, in a section entitled “A Salaryman’s Joys and Anxieties”, we are informed about some of the travails of the salaryman’s work: demotions, transfers, stress from work piling up, getting a smaller bonus than a colleague (JTB 1996, 130–1). In “Salaryman Blues” (132–3) we are led through the various lifestyle burdens and tribulations that accompany this father/provider model – problems with recalcitrant children, the possibility of his wife’s, or his own, unfaithfulness, the burden of being financially responsible for aged parents, home loans that extend for a lifetime, and so on. All in all, the depictions of the salaryman send out mixed signals – acclamation juxtaposed with denigration. As we have seen in our earlier discussion of popular culture representations of the salaryman, this contradiction is integral to the construction and circulation of the hegemonic discourse.

Decline of the salaryman The contradictions centring on salaryman masculinity (indeed on the whole discourse of gender within which it was situated) began to become pronounced from the mid-1980s. Various social, economic and cultural factors that accompanied Japan’s transition to a late-capitalist society worked in combination to highlight the inherently unstable nature of this culturally privileged, apparently immutable discourse. For instance, sectors that had previously been relatively unimportant within the economy – such as tourism, fashion, media and communications and education services – began to occupy an increasingly important place. Significantly, these were areas of employment where the emphasis was less on those attributes traditionally associated with solid, respectable corporate masculinity, and more on individuality, flair and creativity. 130

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At the same time, as the economy slid into recession, and as one scandal or bankruptcy after another became a feature of the same corporate culture that had long been given credit for Japan’s “success”, subscribing to the salaryman model became even less appealing. Indeed, from the corporation’s point of view, the features of the system upon which (ideologically, at least) salaryman masculinity was premised – such as permanent employment and seniority-based promotions – became increasingly difficult to sustain. For large numbers of middle-aged males who suddenly found themselves without a job, the issues went beyond simply the loss of employment – their very identity as father, as provider, indeed as male was being called into question. One outcome of the combination of these forces has been an overall questioning and problematisation of masculinity as a construct, in a way that would probably have been difficult to conceptualise as recently as the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1990s, various men’s groups (often with links to feminist groups or other grassroots social movements) were established, drawing attention to the personal and social costs of hegemonic masculinity. These groups have become increasingly important as providers of community education and support services in relation to issues pertaining to masculinity. There has also been a veritable “boom” in publications that deal with issues of masculinity (and gender in general) since the mid-1990s, both in the mainstream media, and in new spaces of popular culture such as the Internet (Dasgupta, 2003). All of these developments have allowed for a greater range of “voices” to be heard, and the “other” masculinities that have always existed in the shadow of the hegemonic masculinity have become more visible – one such example is the emergence of gay male masculinity as a possible lifestyle alternative for some men (McLelland 2000; see also McLelland’s chapter in this volume). At same time, as the popularity of figures like Sarariiman Kintarô would indicate, the tenacity of the hegemonic discourse cannot be underestimated. As Robert Henke, in a discussion of the apparent “softening” of the masculine image in popular culture representations observes, such apparently “progressive” changes in masculinity may in fact work towards “recuperating patriarchal ideology by making it more adaptable to contemporary social conditions and more able to accommodate counterhegemonic forces, such as liberal-feminist ideology and gay/lesbian politics” (Henke 1990, 245). Perhaps Henke’s cautious assessment should be kept in mind when discussing the apparent unravelling of salaryman masculinity.

Conclusion There is no denying that the salaryman has played a significant role in influencing representations of postwar Japanese masculinity. Moreover, as the example of my students’ responses with which I opened the chapter would indicate, it continues to do so. Yet, as noted in the Introduction, there has been a general lack of recognition of the salaryman as a gendered construct. 131

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This chapter has attempted to address this shortcoming in the literature by focusing on the salaryman as a form of masculinity situated in specific historical sociocultural, economic and political conditions, out of which it emerged as the hegemonic masculinity in postwar Japan. It has also sought to draw attention to the stresses and contradictions inherent in (any) hegemonic discourse, by focusing on spaces of popular culture such as magazines and manga that may act simultaneously as sites for both disseminating and reinforcing the hegemonic discourse, and for parodying and subverting it.

References Beynon, John. 2002. Masculinities and culture. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press. Big Tomorrow. July 1998. Kanjiru kaa-sekkusu kyôshû manyuaru [A manual for enjoying car-sex]: 191–5. ——. May 1998. Shigoto no dandori-jutsu omoshirosugiru nana-jû-san no kotsu [Seventy-three really interesting tips to organise your work]: 93–9. Buruma, Ian. 1984. A Japanese mirror: Heroes and villains of Japanese culture. London: Jonathan Cape. Cheng, Mariah Mantsun and Arne L. Kallenberg. 1997. How permanent was permanent employment? Patterns of mobility in Japan, 1916–1975. Work and Occupations 24, no. 1: 12–32. Connell, R.W. 1995. Masculinities. St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin. ——. 2000. The men and the boys. St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin. Dasgupta, Romit. 2000. Performing masculinities? The “salaryman” at work and play. Japanese Studies 20, no. 2: 189–200. ——. 2003. Cybermasculinities: Masculine identities and the internet in Japan. In Japanese cybercultures, eds Nanette Gottlieb and Mark McLelland. London: Routledge. Gainer. June 1998. “Kôshô yobô.kea” gudzu [Items for preventing bad-breath]: 100–2. ——. June 1998. “Toshi-ue onna” no miryoku to shinjitsu [The facts about and charm of dating “an older woman”]: 95–9. Henke, Robert. 1990. Hegemonic masculinity in thirtysomething. Critical Studies in Mass Communication 7, no. 3: 231–48. Hirokane Kenshi. 1996. Otona no “otoko” ni naru hachi jû go ka jô: Kachô Shima Kôsaku kara kimi e [Eighty-five points for becoming an adult “male”: From Kachô Shima Kôsaku to you]. Tokyo: Kôdansha. Inoue Hiromi, Kazuo Koike, Kyôji Tanaka and Kenji Matsuoka. 2001. Shakaijin no tessoku 2001: 21 seiki o ikinuku bijinesuman no shin-jôshiki [Iron-clad rules for adults 2001: New common-sense for the businessman to survive the twenty-first century]. Bessatsu Takarajima, no. 578. Tokyo: Takarajima-sha. Ishii-Kuntz, Masako. 1993. Japanese fathers: Work demands and family roles. In Men, work, and family, ed. Jane C. Hood: 45–67. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. Ivy, Marilyn. 1993. Formations of mass culture. In Postwar Japan as history, ed. Andrew Gordon: 239–58. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Japan Travel Bureau (JTB). 1996. Illustrated “salaryman” in Japan. Japan in your pocket! JTB illustrated book series, no. 8, seventh edition. Tokyo: JTB Nihon Kôtsû Kôsha Shuppan-jigyô Kyoku. Kawaki Jun. 1998. Jiten: dekiru otoko no fukusô-jutsu 110 no hôsoku [Dictionary: 110 rules on the art of dressing for the successful man]. Tokyo: Chûô Keizai.

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Keiei Shoin, ed. 2000. Irasuto shakaijin toshite no shintoku: Shinnyû-shain kenshû shiriizu [Illustrated rules for adults: New employee training series]. Tokyo: Keizai Shoin. Kelly, Andrew. 1993. Finding a place in metropolitan Japan: Ideologies, institutions, and everyday life. In Postwar Japan as history, ed. Andrew Gordon: 189–216. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Kinmonth, Earl H. 1981. The self-made man in Meiji Japanese thought: From samurai to salaryman. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kitazawa Rakuten Kenshô Kai, ed. 1973. Rakuten manga shû taisei: Taishô-hen [Compilation of collected Rakuten manga: Taishô collection]. Tokyo: Gurafikku-sha. Mackie, Vera. 2000a. Modern selves and modern spaces. In Being modern in Japan: Culture and society from the 1910s to the 1930s, eds Elise K. Tipton and John Clark: 185–99. n.p.: Australian Humanities Research Foundation. ——. 2000b. The dimensions of citizenship in modern Japan. In Citizenship and democracy in a global era, ed. Andrew Vandenberg: 245–57. Houndsmill, UK: Macmillan Press. McLelland, Mark, J. 2000. Male homosexuality in modern Japan: Cultural myths and social realities. Richmond, UK: Curzon. Matsui Takahiko. 1998. Tadashii shanai no arukikata [Walking through the company correctly]. Tokyo: KK Besutoserâzu. Miller, Laura. 1995. Introduction: Looking beyond the sarariiman folk model. American Asian Review 13, no. 2: 19–27. Mizui Masaaki. 1991. 90 nichi de shinjin o senryokuka suru shinyû-shain kyôiku manyuaru: riidaa no tame OJT puroguramu [A 90-day training manual to strengthen new employees’ battle potential: An OJT programme for leaders]. Tokyo: PHP Kenkyûsho. Motomiya Hiroshi. 1999/2000. Sarariiman Kintarô [Salaryman Kintarô] manga series vols 1–25. Tokyo: Shûeisha. Ochiai Masakatsu. 2000. Otoko no fukusô-jutsu: “Erabu” “kiru” “migaku” “musubu” no kihon oshiemasu [Dressing skills for men: Teaching the basics of “choosing”, “wearing”, “polishing”, “tying”]. Tokyo: Hamano Shuppan. Ôya Sôichi. 1981. Ôya Sôichi Zenshû [Collected Works of Ôya Sôichi], volume 2. Pflugfelder, Gregory M. 1999. Cartographies of desire: Male–male sexuality in Japanese discourse, 1600–1950. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Roberson, James. 1998. Japanese working class lives: An ethnographic study of factory workers. London: Routledge. Robertson, Jennifer. 1998. Takarazuka: Sexual politics and popular culture in modern Japan. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Roden, Donald. 1980. Schooldays in imperial Japan: A study in the culture of a student elite. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. ——. 1990. Taishô culture and the problem of gender ambivalence. In Culture and identity: Japanese intellectuals during the interwar years, ed. J. Thomas Rimmer: 37–55. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Rohlen, Thomas P. 1974. For harmony and strength: Japanese white-collar organization in anthropological perspective. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Schilling, Mark. 2000. Into the heartland with Tora-san. In Japan pop! Inside the world of Japanese popular culture, ed. Timothy J. Craig: 245–55. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. Schodt, Frederick. 1986. Manga! manga! The world of Japanese comics. Tokyo: Kôdansha International. Sievers, Sharon L. 1983. Flowers in the salt: The beginnings of feminist consciousness in modern Japan. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

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Smith, Robert J. 1987. Gender inequality in contemporary Japan. Journal of Japanese Studies 13, no. 1: 1–25. Suzuki Kenji. 1997. Otoko wa ni-jû dai ni nani o subeki ka: “ningen no kihon” o mi ni tsukeru tame ni [What men need to do in their twenties: For the purposes of mastering “the basics of human” (life)]. Tokyo: Daiwa Shuppan. Tobin, Joseph J. 1992. Introduction: Domesticating the West. In Re-made in Japan: Everyday life and consumer taste in a changing society, ed. Joseph J. Tobin: 1–41. New Haven: Yale University Press. Umezawa Tadashi. 1997. Sarariiman no jikakuzô [Salarymen’s self-images]. Tokyo: Minerva Shobô. Uno, Kathleen S. 1993. The death of “good wife, wise mother”? In Postwar Japan as history, ed. Andrew Gordon: 293–322. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Vogel, Ezra F. 1971. Japan’s new middle class: The salary man and his family in a Tokyo suburb. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Yano, Christine R. 1998. Defining the modern nation in Japanese popular song, 1914–1932. In Japan’s competing modernities: Issues in culture and democracy 1900–1930, ed. Sharon A. Minichiello: 247–64. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.

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Part III TRACING LIVES

8 RETHINKING MALE SOCIALISATION Life histories of Japanese male youth Futoshi Taga After Japan’s defeat in the Second World War, democratisation and modernisation were promoted by the Allied Powers, and Japan witnessed a period of “miraculous” economic growth from the 1950s. During this period, the terms sarariiman [from the neologism “salaryman”, meaning “the salaried, white-collar employee of a private-sector organisation”] and sengyô-shufu [full-time housewife] came to comprise the hegemonic discourse concerning gender (Dasgupta 2000). In a public opinion poll conducted in 1972 (the subjects of the study discussed in this chapter were born at around this time), over 80 per cent of respondents of both sexes agreed with the sarariiman/sengyô-shufu gender division of labour: “husbands work outside the home, and wives are responsible for the housekeeping” (Sôri-fu Kôhô-shitsu 1998). By the 1990s, however, a range of social changes, from the spread of feminist thought to economic recession, had begun to undermine this clear-cut gender division. Although such changes resulted in some discussion and reappraisal of men and masculinities (Ichikawa 1992; Ito 1993; Menzusentâ 1996), research to date on male socialisation in Japanese academe has not focused on this topic. Against the background of the recent changes in the social environment in which masculinity is being reconsidered and becoming less certain, this chapter will explore aspects of the conflicts that young Japanese men face in their search for an adult masculine identity. It will consider questions such as: In what areas do these young men experience conflict, and how do they deal with it? Is their masculine identity threatened, stable or in flux? In the opening section, I will provide an overview of the recent social conditions pertaining to men and masculinity in Japan. The second section is devoted to a reconsideration of the perspectives and methodologies of research on men’s gender formation. The following section will explore various aspects of men’s gender formation, based on four case studies of middle-class young men who differ in the extent to which they have experienced conflict over their gender identity and the degree to which their gender identity had stabilised at the time of the study. In the final section, I will summarise the findings of this study and discuss the problems that remain for further research on Japanese masculinities. 137

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It will first be necessary, however, to define the key terms used in this discussion. By “gender formation”, I refer to the process through which one acquires knowledge about gender differences and allows oneself to be bound by a gender identity. I do not use the terms “sex-role socialisation” or “gender-role socialisation”, which connote static social structures and social determinism, but prefer to use “gender formation” to imply the variability of gender relations as they are affected by individual initiative. The term “gender identity” as it is used in this study does not refer to “core gender identity” (Stoller 1968). It refers instead to the subjective sense of self with regard to one’s gender – how one answers questions such as “What type of man am I?” or “What should I do as a man?” Although I use the term “identity” with an emphasis on its subjectivity, the exploration of identity here is not limited to the consideration of one’s “inner self ”. According to Erikson, the feeling of having a personal identity is based not only on “the perception of the selfsameness and continuity of one’s existence in time and space”, but also on “the perception of the fact that others recognize one’s sameness and continuity” (Erikson 1968, 50). Identity is thus a contact point between self and society. The term “gender ideology” as it is used in this chapter refers to ideologies concerning gender. The typical conflict of gender ideology that I found in the case studies detailed below was that between “sexism” on the one hand and “feminism” or “anti-sexism” on the other. The formation of a subjective identity is prefaced by our commitment to an ideology, for we can define others and ourselves only when we take a certain ideological point of view. Conflicts between contradicting ideologies are therefore likely to lead to a conflict in the definition of self and other for the individual.

Fluctuating masculinity in contemporary Japan In light of Connell’s (1987; 1995) three-fold model for the analysis of gender relations – production relations, emotional relations and power relations – masculinity under the sarariiman/sengyô-shufu regime may be characterised as breadwinning, heterosexuality and domination over women. As the breadwinners, Japanese men have been required to take a job and marry in order to “become men” [ichininmae ni naru]. Such a division of labour underpinned male dominance both in the workplace and in the home. In the workplace, male employees have been encouraged to become involved in the corporation and be more extensively engaged in managerial work, while female employees generally undergo corporate training that underlines their future familial role, have no chance of promotion and perform work mainly in support of the male employees (Ogasawara 1998; Shire 1999). At home, the Confucian ethic has often reinforced the idea of the male as breadwinner. The husband is accustomed to demanding the services and attention of his indulgent wife in an authoritarian manner in what is referred to as teishu kanpaku. This phenomenon was considered the normal practice at least until the 1970s (Salamon 1975). 138

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Even though the salaryman model still has a powerful influence on the perception of masculinity in Japan, its hegemony has been threatened by recent economic and demographic changes that have called into question the necessity of male breadwinning and domination over women. The recent economic recession and the collapse of the system of corporate safeguards that ensured long-term employment for many workers have served to increase the uncertainty of the future for many men. The increasing incidence of karôshi [death from over-work] and suicide among men as a result of work-related anxiety has prompted a reappraisal of Japanese men’s working style and conditions (Kashima 1993; Fuyuno 2001). At the same time, increases in life expectancy have created senior salarymen who have previously only lived for their work, and who are at a loss about what to do during their “second life” after retirement (Itô Kimio 1996, 55–74). The increasing number of female employees has put men’s position as sole breadwinner at risk as well as fuelling expectations that men will also participate in housework. In addition, the rapid growth in the elderly population has increased the likelihood that both men and women will be required to take care of an aging parent or spouse (Harris et al. 1998). A series of government policies aimed at creating a danjo-kyôdô-sankaku-shakai [gender equal society] has also undermined the legitimacy of male dominance and the gender division of labour (Osawa 2000). The Japanese government legally recognised the need for male parental leave in 1991, and men were encouraged to participate in childcare in order to stop the birth rate from declining.1 In a similar vein, the Law of Equal Employment Opportunities for Both Sexes was enforced in 1997 and the Law against Domestic Violence was introduced in 2000. In light of these social changes, negative images of salarymen have come to the fore: “Sarariiman as beleaguered and routinized, forever cogs in someone else’s wheel, are common images in the popular culture” (Allison 1993). Ogasawara (1998) found that female employees tended to resist control at work more than male employees, despite their structural inferiority. According to a case study of a Japanese security company conducted by Shire (1999), male employees are encouraged to align their individual attitudes and behaviour with company goals through company socialisation, and the seeming lack of male resistance to such socialisation may be understood as the consequence of the pervasive and effective control mechanisms directed at male employees. Kestern (1996) argues that karôshi is a result of “hyper devotion” to the company rather than a “hyper competitive” orientation. These imply that salarymen are motivated by a personal identification with company and management goals, which forms an integral part of their status and identity as salarymen – an identity that is now under threat. Likewise, in the home, the status of salarymen as husbands and fathers is increasingly ambivalent, and their teishu kanpaku behaviour is coming to be seen as problematic and unsupportive (Salamon 1975). As a result of the prevailing custom whereby husbands hand their salaries over to their wives, along with the 139

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“fatherless household” syndrome where males have spent most of their time at work or associating with their colleagues, we now see a situation in which more discretion in domestic management lies with the wife. In line with the popular saying of the 1980s – “husbands should be healthy and out of the home” – in many cases salaryman husbands/fathers tend to have only guest status in their families (Kersten 1996). Public attitudes are also changing in response to such trends. Public opinion polls show that an increasing number of Japanese are gradually beginning to disagree with the gender division of labour (see Figure 8.1). At the same time, men’s movements that aim to explore and question assumptions about socially defined masculinities have become more common (Oyama and Otsuka 1999). One such group is the “Men’s Centre Japan”, which was established in Osaka in 1995 (Menzusentâ 1996). In addition, Otoko no Fesutibaru [men’s festival], the annual national conference that aims for a solution to men’s problems and the networking of men’s groups, has been held each year since 1996 (Menzusentâ 1997). By the 1990s, stereotypes regarding the salaryman were being treated as a thing of the past (Okamoto and Sasano 2001). While the gender division of labour and men’s dominance over women have been reappraised, heterosexual marital relations have rarely been reconsidered. Despite some recent books dealing with homosexuality (Vincent et al. 1997; Yajima 1997; McLelland 2000; Itô Satoru 1996), transsexuals (Torai 1996) and intersexuals (Hashimoto 1998), non-heterosexuals have tended to be the object of ridicule and have been derided in both popular culture and the mass media. This can be seen in the fact that, in the late 1990s, only around 5 per cent of unmarried people aged from 18 to 34 stated that they had no intention of becoming heterosexually married during their lifetime (Kôsei-shô 1998, 59).

Research on men’s gender formation In the United States, Komarovsky (1976) explored the dilemmas of masculinity in the 1970s by interviewing male college seniors. Her work threw light on a range of conflicts between “traditional” manliness and the new ideology of gender equality. Japanese academics, however, have tended to neglect the gender formation of men.2 While Itô (1992) has used popular culture to argue that young Japanese men in the 1980s faced difficulties in their efforts to find a new model of masculinity, the nature of the conflict they experienced has remained unclear. There seem to be two main reasons for the lack of attention to the conflict faced by boys and young men in Japanese studies on gender. The first is methodological. Much past research has focused on the process by which individuals are socialised into the sexist social structure.3 This approach assumes the powerful influence of “socialisers” on individuals as the helpless “socialisees”. Such researchers have focused on family environment, the mass media and the educational system as the predominant socialisers. For example, a mother’s employment and a father’s participation in housework are argued to 140

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Figure 8.1 Response to “men should go out to work; women should take care of the home” Source: Sôri-fu Kôhô-shitsu 1998.

have an effect on a child’s attitude towards the gendered division of labour (Taga 1992). Sarariiman and sengyô-shufu are the typical roles in which married couples are portrayed on television (Muramatsu and Gössmann 1998). The education system, too, inculcates sexist attitudes, not only through the formal curriculum and textbooks (Itô et al. 1991), but also through the “hidden curriculum” flagged by teachers themselves (Mori 1989; Miyazaki 1991). In contrast to those scholars who assume a monolithic, sexist social structure, however, some researchers have claimed that school culture should be regarded as a complex system in which sexism and anti-sexism are syncretised (Kimura 1990; Ujihara 1996). This approach has tended, though, to avoid any close analysis of individual subjectivity. 141

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The second reason for neglect of this topic relates to the level of concern about men and masculinities. As Kühne (1996) has argued within the framework of German feminist “herstory”, men have been seen as seeking to dominate women and have been viewed as outsiders who were not deserving of study. This analysis is equally valid when applied to Japanese research on gender formation (Taga et al. 2000). In the face of fluctuating gender relations, some researchers in the 1990s began to focus on the conflict that young women experienced over their roles at work and home (Ochi et al. 1992; Inoue et al. 1994) and their diverse lifecourses (Yoshihara 1995; Nakanishi 1998). In contrast to the focus on women and femininity, little attention has been paid to men and masculinity, perhaps because men are seen as less likely to experience such dilemmas (Amano 1980). Indeed, such an assumption seems to be generally valid. The roles of Japanese men do not appear to have changed as much as those of women. For example, it was found that in the early 1990s, while women with full-time jobs performed over 4 hours of housework each day, their husbands did only 21 minutes (Sômu-chô Tôkei-kyoku 1991). However, despite such disparities, traditional notions of masculinity are declining in legitimacy, and many Japanese men have experienced a crisis of gender identity. On the basis of the above discussion, this study explores the gender formation of young Japanese men, focusing on the conflicts they have experienced concerning gender. By examining their life histories, I will endeavour to explain the types of conflicts that they have experienced, the ways in which they have coped with these conflicts, and the diverse lifecourses that have been shaped by both their living conditions and their responses to them. The examples discussed in this chapter have been selected from a set of case studies that were used to investigate the gender formation of Japanese men (Taga 2001). In collecting the data, I adopted a semi-structured interview methodology in which interviewees freely responded to open-ended questions (Marcia 1966). Between 1995 and 1999, I interviewed twenty-three young men, focusing on the conditions of their everyday life (family, neighbourhood, school, friends, mass media, etc.), their opinions on masculinity and femininity, and their evaluations of themselves as men, from early childhood to the present day. I tape-recorded all conversations, transcribed them, and finally framed their life histories through an attempted reconstruction of their self-narratives. All subjects were born between the late 1960s and the early 1970s, and graduated from, or were studying at, higher educational institutions at the time of the interview. I chose such similar subjects because I wanted to investigate various types of gender formation under similar living conditions, and because I reasoned that middle-class young men were likely to be most affected by the undermining of sarariiman masculinity. Subjects were recruited through my personal connections and therefore did not necessarily represent the norm of middle-class young men. Nonetheless, it is hoped that the examination of their life histories will provide an appropriate basis for rethinking and exploring men’s gender formation in Japan. 142

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In order to examine the gender formation of the subjects, I drew upon Marcia’s (1966) frame of reference. Marcia defined two criteria for judging “identity status” in adolescence: (1) whether or not the subject has experienced an “identity crisis” through which he or she engaged in an active investigation and selection of ideology; and (2) whether or not he or she is now committed to a certain ideology. By combining these two criteria, he elicited four types of “identity status”: moratorium, identity achievement, identity diffusion and foreclosure. In line with this approach, I examined the cases studies based on the two criteria. While Marcia’s original method focused on occupational choice, religion and political ideology, I focused on ideologies concerning gender and definitions of masculinity. Although I will present four cases in the next section, one of which is considered to typify each of Marcia’s four types, the main purpose of these case studies is not the classification of the cases themselves, but an examination of the process of gender formation in a variety of individuals. By studying their life histories, we will explore their definitions of masculinity, the ideologies that have underpinned these definitions, and the “significant others” (Gerth and Mills 1953) who have transmitted these definitions and ideologies to them and sustained them. We will also consider the kinds of conflict each subject has confronted and how he has responded to and coped with them.

The case studies In crisis: Haruo The expansion of their social milieu during adolescence often means that individuals come across ideologies that they have not previously encountered in their family life and experience a conflict. In a climate where the “traditional” gender division of labour and male domination are being reconsidered, some adolescents encounter feminist/anti-sexist attitudes that conflict with the sexist ideology that they regarded as the norm. As a result, they experience a crisis in their gender identity. Haruo (all names are pseudonyms), who was a senior student at university at the time of the interview, was in a state of crisis with regard to his gender identity, and was engaging in an active search for new definitions of masculinity. Haruo took “traditional” masculinity for granted during his childhood. He grew up in a family comprising both parents and a younger sister. His father was a company employee who was not involved in housework or childcare. Haruo found him distant and difficult to approach. However, Haruo says that he was strongly influenced by his maternal grandfather, who was a retired martial arts instructor and lived with Haruo and his family when he was young. According to Haruo, the grandfather had an “old-style” masculine bearing. His mother, who helped with the family business, was inclined to treat family members differently according to their gender. She only expected his younger sister to help with the housework. In his infancy, Haruo played “mummies and daddies” with girls. He 143

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disliked playing violent games with other boys, and was sometimes bullied by them. He began to learn karate when he was in kindergarten, though, became physically strong, and the bullying stopped. In his primary and junior highschool days, he felt strongly that boys should be “tough in fights” and “diligent at study”. Being a man was “being a winner”, “being powerful” and “popular with girls”. As far as he was concerned, all of these definitions of masculinity were in accord with each other. At the time, he felt able to preserve a “traditional” masculine identity. Haruo’s attraction to women during adolescence, however, made him face some new and contradictory definitions of what it was to be a man, and he began to question his own view of masculinity. In particular, when he thought about the type of girl he liked in his high-school days, he realised that he had preferred non-traditional types of girls, those who were “getting good grades”, “cheerful” and “spunky”. He also realised that men were expected to not only be powerful but also be gentle. With these realisations, he became unsure about the definitions of masculinity/femininity that he had subscribed to, and started to doubt essentialist distinctions between the sexes. After entering university, he fell in love with a career-oriented woman with considerable academic ability, even though he still approved of the gender division of labour. This experience caused him to rethink the validity of traditional gender roles and the division of labour, and he began to think that if there were women who could play an active part in the “masculine domain”, men could also play an active part in the “feminine domain”. He came to the conclusion that he might share the housework if he married a working woman. Faced with these conflicts, Haruo has not established a definite “policy” regarding the division of labour in a household. He has no active intention to do housework after marriage, but feels that the way labour will be divided within his future household will depend on whether or not his future wife has a career. My share of the housework will depend on whether my partner works or not. If she works, we will share the housework equally. Supposing that she gets a part-time job, I will do a little less than her. And if she has no career at all, I will entrust the housework to her. At the same time, he is still struggling to adopt a subjectively appropriate definition of masculinity per se. Although he realises that there are many women with successful careers, he considers career success to be perhaps the only absolute measure of masculinity. He therefore hopes to get a job that he considers to be worthwhile, and to occupy a high position in his field. I think being masculine is very important in my life. But now, if asked what exactly masculinity is, about all I can come up with is “working feverishly”. 144

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I think there was a tendency for men to be expected to work feverishly. After all, men are often measured by their career, such as how much money they earn or what position they occupy within their company. Despite his clear definition of masculinity as “career success”, Haruo was not in a position to adopt a distinct masculine identity and was in a state of crisis. At the time of the interview, he was in the process of job-hunting, and had yet to find full-time employment. Identity transformation: Kenji While some adolescents struggle with a gender identity crisis, others overcome this crisis and re-establish a definite identity during their school days. Although Kenji had experienced a crisis regarding the “traditional” masculine identity during his mid-teens, he had managed to become recommitted, this time to a feminist ideology, and had almost re-established his identity at the time of the interview when he was a senior at university. Like Haruo, Kenji took the gender division of labour and male dominance for granted during his childhood. He grew up in a family consisting of his parents and an elder brother. His father, who was a company employee, approved of the concept of danson-johi [a Confucian doctrine that promotes respect for men and the subservience of women, which in today’s climate approximates “male chauvinism”] and performed no housework whatsoever. Since his father left for work early in the morning and came home late at night, Kenji hardly saw him during his infancy. His father was so strict that Kenji only felt attached to his mother, who was a housewife. His mother and a maternal uncle who lived in the neighbourhood shared childcare duties.4 Until the middle of his high-school days, Kenji took “traditional” gender relations for granted and was little concerned about gender issues. He considered a girlfriend “to be an accessory”, and that “women are naturally introverted”. These concepts were consistent as far as he was concerned, and he was able to feel a sense of definite masculine identity. Like Haruo, however, Kenji experienced a crisis of masculine identity due to his love for a woman. In his final year at high school, a relationship with a career-oriented, self-assured young woman made him face an identity crisis that shook the foundations of his perception of his own masculinity and made him reappraise his sexist gender ideology. At first he was surprised by his girlfriend’s opinions and behaviour because she was very different from his image of women. Over the course of their relationship, however, Kenji began to accept his girlfriend for what she was and had come to recognise her as “an equal partner” by his first year at university. Now he approves of women working outside the home and is concerned about discrimination against women in the workplace. 145

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I think that there is nowhere women are at a greater disadvantage than in the workplace. Even with civil servants, for example, although female workers are allowed to keep working after marriage legally, I hear that they are expected to quit informally. I also hear that taking parental leave is recommended for women but not for men. Taking this sort of discrimination into account, I must say that I sympathise with women. I like career women, and I don’t think that men have any right to deprive women of a career. He says that these new opinions were mainly, but not entirely, the result of his girlfriend’s influence. The relationship led him to form an anti-sexist viewpoint, and when he began to observe society from this perspective he became aware of sex discrimination in society and made a conscious effort to commit himself to an anti-sexist ideology. He considers that he was also influenced by acquaintances at work who provided him with information about discrimination against women, and by US films that portray active working women. From his comments, however, we can see that his “conversion” did not progress smoothly: Well, I don’t think I have entirely succeeded in getting rid of my sexist ideology. I think I should accept an egalitarian ideology from my heart, and I have tried to change the way I think. But I think that at the bottom of my heart I am still fundamentally sexist. As for his share of the housework, he said: “Of course, it would be comfortable for me if my partner performed all of the housework. But that would not be fair. I would like to share at least some part of the housework fifty-fifty.” And to the question “How would you feel if your wife were to earn more money or occupy a higher position than you?”, he answered: “Of course, that would not be easy to accept, but I don’t reject the possibility either, so I think I should accept it. Indeed, some women have a high level of ability. So, it’s natural.” One may assume that, while experiencing the conflict between the sexism that he had taken for granted since his infancy and the anti-sexism with which he had been confronted after starting a relationship with his girlfriend, he is trying to restructure his masculine identity in order to achieve an egalitarian partnership with her. While Haruo is experiencing an identity crisis, Kenji is about to come to a new masculine identity that has been redefined from an anti-sexist viewpoint. This is because his girlfriend, who is now the “significant other” for him, approves of his commitment to anti-sexism. Identity diffusion: Akira In a social environment in which contradicting gender relations co-exist, some experience conflict concerning gender not as a crisis in which they come up 146

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against a groundbreaking ideology but as a diffusion of identity. Akira, who was a senior student at university, had developed only a diffuse awareness of masculinity since his childhood, although he had no experience of a gender identity crisis. He was not really interested in defining masculinity; nor did he have any memory of actively trying to be masculine. His attitude to his career is ambivalent. On the one hand, he is envious of women because they need not always have a career. On the other hand, though, he cannot imagine that, as a man, he could live a life without a career. He is also unsure whether a life without a career would be really fulfilling. Now I think I don’t have to get just any job if I can live from day to day. But, at the same time, I think I have to get a job, because my parents and people around me would look down on me if I didn’t have a job. But recently I think I wouldn’t have to work if I were a woman. Some of my female classmates say that they will quit their jobs after marriage. I envy them! But I’m not sure that I long for a life without a career. It’s not always good to stay at home all the time. His attitude to the assignment of outside work and housework is also ambivalent. He does not like housework very much and would like to avoid doing it after marriage if he could, but he believes that he will have to help at home if he marries a working woman. He is not concerned about forcing his partner to work but feels that it would be economically beneficial. To the question, “Will you perform housework after marriage?” he answered: I’ll do it just in order to help my wife. If she has a career, I’ll do a half share of it. Anyway, husbands have to at least help their wives with housework – that’s just the way things go these days. It can be assumed that Akira’s parents have had some influence on his complicated attitudes. He grew up in a nuclear family with parents and an elder brother. His mother was a housewife at first, but took up full-time employment when Akira was in junior high school. This may have led him to form an ambivalent view of women going out to work. His father, who was a public servant, performed no housework and almost no childcare, so it is possible that this led Akira to be averse to housework himself. The fact that he does not have a steady girlfriend is also likely to affect his attitudes. In Kenji’s case, he formed a definite opinion about his likely postmarital situation on the strength of close ties with his girlfriend. Akira, who doesn’t have an intimate partner, is not able to determine his attitude to the allocation of outside work and housework. In other words, his decision will depend on whom he decides to marry, and will only be determined when his choice of partner is made. In fact, Akira tries to cope with the conflict over the gender division of labour by considering the problem to be personal rather than social, and by 147

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putting off answering the question until he marries. Although this kind of stance looks very passive, it can also be seen as one of the strategies used by male youths to adapt to conditions where gender relations are changing, largely as a consequence of changes in women’s attitudes. Consistent identity: Tadashi Even in a social environment in which sexism and anti-sexism are in conflict with each other, some individuals manage to maintain a consistent definition of masculinity and preserve a stable gender identity. Tadashi has never experienced any crisis of gender identity, and was committed to a sexist ideology at least up to the time of the interview. Here we will consider his life to adolescence, even though at the time of the interview he already had a career and had been married for about two years. Male dominance and the gender division of labour were the unquestionable norm in Tadashi’s family, which consisted of nine people: paternal grandparents, three paternal aunts, parents, an elder brother and Tadashi himself. The family home adjoined a Buddhist temple. His grandfather, as chief priest, maintained absolute authority over the household. His father, who was a highschool English teacher and a priest at weekends, formed a master–apprentice relationship with his elder brother who was the temple heir. His father was involved in the care of the children but never performed housework. His mother helped in the temple. The women of the house used polite Japanese when talking to the men.5 The social milieu of his neighbourhood and school influenced Tadashi’s attitude to masculinity. His family lived in the old downtown area in the middle of a big city. In this traditional neighbourhood, people believed that “men are wild and rough”. His elementary school had a male chauvinist atmosphere. He went to a well-known boys’ junior high school, and then to one of the most famous public high schools in the prefecture, which had once been a boys-only school. Tadashi reports that the climate of these schools influenced him considerably: At that time, I started taking the view that the more girls entered the school, the more the atmosphere and culture of the school would be destroyed. I don’t mean that the social order of the school is destroyed exactly but rather that these old-established schools and universities don’t exactly suit women, since they were built for boys and men. For them to accommodate women, the social climate or atmosphere of the school had to be destroyed. I felt this very strongly at the time. Martial arts also influenced Tadashi’s attitude. He took part in karate and kendô [the Japanese art of swordsmanship] from junior high school until university. At that time, his motto was that of a famous martial arts practitioner: “Being born a man, you should be strong”. He says: 148

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I am proud that I have learned “what a man is” from the world of kendô and karate. We learned about this sort of thing through experience: experience that the lads who hadn’t done kendô and karate were never able to share. These experiences gave us a perspective different from anything that we might have picked up through something like the mass media. On the other hand, he had almost no close social contact with girls. This would have reduced the need for him to rethink his definitions of masculinity and gender relations. At that time, girls were objects to look at from behind and say “Ooh, nice!” or to look at in adult magazines and say “Ooh wow!”, but not to have contact with in everyday life. There was no way that kendô and karate were going to teach me anything about girls. I had no source of information about girls other than the mass media. So I was somewhat indoctrinated by the magazines and other such media. As a result I came to view women as idealised but alien objects. Tadashi never questioned the gender division of labour, or even doubted the norm of male dominance and the concept that “men should be strong”. His gender identity, underpinned by a sexist gender ideology, had never been destabilised. When he was seeking a marriage partner, one of his ideals was to choose a partner for whom he felt that he did not need to change. He reported that his wife “affirms the old-style division between men and women”. She gave up her career after marriage and now dedicates herself to housework and child rearing. As a consequence of the circumstances described above, Tadashi has been able to preserve a stable gender identity. This is partly because the ideological message and the definitions of masculinity that he perceived in his social surroundings were, to him, in accord with each other. That, in turn, is partly because he chose a wife who accepted his sexist ideology.

Conclusion The previous section examined various processes in the gender formation of Japanese youths. This final section will summarise the findings from this study, and go on to discuss the possibilities for further research on Japanese masculinity. The cases examined above are significantly different from the images of men’s gender formation that have been portrayed in previous studies. Earlier studies have neglected men’s experience of conflict. Here, by taking into account fluctuations in gender relations and examining male subjectivity, we have confirmed aspects of gender identity formation among young, middleclass men. 149

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First of all, this study confirmed that some young men experienced conflict about their masculinity. Some wondered how a husband should share paid work and housework with his wife, some questioned the validity of male dominance over women, and others were in the process of rethinking the definition of masculinity. The experiences of these subjects imply that the definition of masculinity and the gender ideology circulating around them are not monolithic, but rather contradictory and diverse. The second distinctive finding relates to the various ways in which each subject dealt with his conflict. In contrast to earlier research that emphasised the powerful influence of socialisers and the passivity of socialised individuals, this study shows how subjects avoided or battled with conflicts relating to gender and tried to re/construct their gender identity by negotiating the definitions of masculinity with others or by reflecting upon masculinity themselves, in some cases consciously. Haruo tried to conquer his conflict and to achieve a stable masculine identity, regarding a successful career as the most masculine achievement. Kenji, too, tried to overcome his conflict, by converting his sexist views to anti-sexist ones, and preserving his partnership with the girlfriend who had initially raised these conflicts in him. Akira attempted to overcome his conflict by avoiding commitment to any ideology before marrying or finding a steady girlfriend. Tadashi avoided confronting any such conflict by choosing a wife who agreed with his sexist beliefs. Third, despite the similarity in social class and academic background of the subjects of this study, their gender formation histories vary. Haruo experienced a crisis of gender identity in his mid-teens and now battles to overcome it. Kenji also experienced a crisis, but has almost overcome it and restructured his masculine identity. Akira has not experienced a crisis of gender identity so far, and has only a diffuse awareness of his definition of masculinity. Tadashi has never experienced a crisis over gender and has preserved a stable gender identity along with a “traditional” sexist ideology. We might regard this last case as the typical course that gender-role socialisation has taken, but the former three cases depict very different images of men’s gender formation. An additional and unexpected finding of this research relates to the impact of romantic love on the gender formation of men. Haruo and Kenji, who had been committed to a sexist ideology since childhood, both experienced an identity crisis as a result of falling in love with a woman who acted as the conduit for anti-sexist views. On the other hand, Tadashi, who had no steady girlfriend before meeting his wife, did not experience a crisis. For Haruo and Akira, the attitude of their future partner was the crucial factor in determining their own attitude towards relations between men and women. It is not easy to convert from one ideology to another in a short space of time, especially when one has been committed to that ideology since early childhood. To do so, it is not enough merely to know the alternative ideology; rather, it is necessary to internalise it at an affective personality level (Parsons 1964, 29). Since romantic love is accompanied by strong affection, it is likely to be a motivating force towards the 150

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internalisation of alternative ideologies. Compared with women and non-heterosexual men, heterosexual men, who occupy the dominant position in society in terms of gender and sexuality, seem to have little chance to independently reconsider the dominant forms of gender relations. We may conclude that romantic love is one of the most influential life events for heterosexual men, and prompts the reconsideration of gender relations and their own masculinity. Some of the subjects in this study experienced conflict and reappraisal of their masculinity as expected, but the extent of their reappraisal was limited. While rethinking the validity of the gender division of labour or of male domination over women, most of these men took for granted that they would have a job and get married in the future. Among the twenty-one subjects of this study who seemed to be heterosexual, only one student had no interest in getting married. One of two subjects who confided their homosexuality hoped to marry and have children. Even Haruo, who envied women for what he perceived to be their lack of need to find a career, could not realistically imagine his life without a career. The ideology that identifies taking a job and marriage as the criteria for “becoming a man” seems to be valid not only for middle-class young men but also for working-class youth. Through his ethnographic research on bôsôzoku [Japanese motorcycle gangs], Satô (1984) points out that, compared with their Western counterparts, one of the characteristics of Japanese motorcycle gangs is that members engage in delinquent behaviour only for a limited number of years during their adolescence. He argues that the concept of bôsôzoku is one of the socially available means of providing masculine identity to lower-class men in their late teens who cannot devote themselves to either work or study. After “graduating” from such reckless behaviour and making a transition to the next life stage in which they get a job and provide for a family, these men look back on such behaviour as the indiscretions of youth. Such a transition is not possible, however, without favourable economic conditions. In light of the recent recession, there is no guarantee that these youths will continue to make such a transition in the future. After examining these case studies, it seems fair to conclude that, despite the reappraisal of “traditional” masculinity, “career” and “marriage” remain the ideological cornerstones of the hegemonic discourse of masculinity in Japan. How and why this ideology remains in force and whether or not it will change in the near future must await further research.

Notes 1

2

A poster and television advertisement put out by the Ministry of Health and Welfare became topical in 1999. In both, the former husband (a popular dancer) of Namie Amuro (Japan’s most popular female singer at the present time) cradled his child, saying, “A man can’t be called a father unless he takes part in raising his child.” For analyses of the trends in studies of gender formation and “gender and education”, see Kanda et al. (1985), Amano (1988), Mori (1992), Nakanishi and Hori (1997) and Taga et al. (2000).

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3 4 5

For example, Parsons and Bales (1956), Chodorow (1978), Deem (1978) and DuruBellat (1990) were popular. It is rare in contemporary Japan for an uncle to participate so actively in the care of his nephew/niece. Although it would be extraordinary among young couples for a wife to speak to her husband in polite Japanese, this is not unusual among older couples.

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Itô Yoshinori, Masako Owaki, Tatsuko Kamiko and Mutsuko Yoshioka. 1991. Kyôkasho no naka no danjo sabetsu [The sex discrimination in school textbooks]. Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Kanda Michiko, Atsuko Kameda, Nobuko Asami, Masako Amano, Yumiko Nishimura, Naoko Yamamura, Takako Kimura and Mayo Noguchi. 1985. “Josei to kyôiku” kenkyû no dôkô [The direction of research on “women and education”]. Kyôiku shakaigaku kenkyû 40: 87–107. Kashima Takashi. 1993. Otoko no zahyôjiku: Kigyô kara katei shakai e [The configuration of men: From business to home and society]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Kersten, Joachim. 1996. Culture, masculinities and violence against women. British Journal of Criminology 36: 381–95. Kimura Ryôko. 1990. Jendaa to gakkô bunka [Gender and school culture]. In Gakkô bunka: Shinsô e no pâsupekutibu [School culture: Profound perspectives], eds Akira Nagao and Hiroshi Ikeda: 147–70. Tokyo: Toshindô. Komarovsky, Mirra. 1976. Dilemmas of masculinity: A study of college youth. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. Kôsei-shô. 1998. Kôsei hakusho [White Paper on Health and Welfare]. Kühne, Thomas, ed. 1996. Männergeschichte-Geschlechtergeshichte: Männlichkeit im Wandel der Moderne. Frankfurt/Main: Campus. Marcia, James E. 1966. Development and validation of ego-identity status. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 3, no. 5: 551–8. McLelland, Mark J. 2000. Male homosexuality in modern Japan. Richmond: Curzon. Menzusentâ, ed. 1996. Otokorasisa kara jibunrashisa e [From manliness to selfness]. Kyoto: Kamogawa Shuppan. ——, ed. 1997. Otokotachi no watashi sagashi [How are men seeking their new selves?]. Kyoto: Kamogawa Shuppan. Miyazaki Ayumi. 1991. Gakkô ni okeru “sei yakuwari no shakaika” saikô: Kyôshi ni yoru seibetsu kategorii no shiyô o tegakari to shite [Reconsideration of “gender role socialisation” at school: Sex categorization]. Kyôiku shakaigaku kenkyû 48: 105–23. Mori Shigeo. 1989. Sei yakuwari no gakushû to shitsuke kôi [The learning of gender role and child discipline practice]. In Shitsuke no shakaigaku [Sociology of child discipline], ed. Shôzan Shibano: 123–55. Kyoto: Sekai Shisôsha. ——. 1992. “Jendaa to Kyôiku” kenkyû no suii to genkyô: Josei kara jendaa e [Transition and today’s trends in research on “Gender and Education”: From “women” to “gender”]. Kyôiku shakaigaku kenkyû 50: 164–83. Muramatsu Yasuko and Hilaria Gössmann, eds. 1998. Media ga tsukuru jendaa [Constructing gender in mass media]. Tokyo: Shinyôsha. Nakanishi Yûko. 1998. Jendaa torakku: Seinenki josei no shinro keisei to kyôiku soshiki no shakaigaku [Gender truck: The sociological approach to the career formation of female youth and educational institutions]. Tokyo: Tôyôkan Shuppan-sha. Nakanishi Yûko and Takeshi Hori. 1997. “Jendaa to Kyôiku” kenkyû no dôkô to kadai: Kyôiku shakaigaku, jendaa, feminizumu [Recent and future studies on “Gender and Education”: Between sociology of education and feminism]. Kyôiku-shakaigaku Kenkyû 61: 77–100. Ochi Yasushi, Eiji Kikuchi, Takao Kato and Keiko Yoshihara. 1992. Joshi gakusei bunka no gendaiteki isô: Joseinai bunka to joseisei no ryôgisei no shiten kara [The contemporary aspect of women university students’ culture: Intra-gender differentiation of women and the ambivalence of femininity]. Tôkyô Daigaku Kyôiku Gakubu kiyô 32: 119–46.

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Ogasawara Yûko. 1998. Office ladies and salaried men: Power, gender, and work in Japanese companies. Berkeley: University of California Press. Okamoto Tomochika and Etsuko Sasano. 2001. Sengo Nihon no “sarariiman” hyôshô no henka [Changes in representations of “Salaried Men” in postwar Japanese newspapers]. Shakaigaku hyôron 52, no. 1: 16–32. Osawa Mari. 2000. Government approaches to gender equality in the mid-1990s. Social Science Japan Journal 3, no. 1: 3–19. Ôyama Harushiko and Takao Ôtsuka. 1999. Nihon no dansei undô no ayumi 1: Menzuribu no tanjô [On the history of men’s movements in Japan 1: The birth of Menzuribu movement]. Nihon jendaa kenkyû, no. 2: 43–55. Parsons, Talcott. 1964. Social structure and personality. New York: The Free Press of Glencoe. Parsons, Talcott and Robert F. Bales. 1956. Family: Socialization and interaction process. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Salamon, Sonya. 1975. “Male chauvinism” as a manifestation of love in marriage. Journal of Asian and African Studies 10, no. 1/2: 20–31. Satô Ikuya. 1984. Bôsôzoku no esunogurafii [The ethnography of bôsôzoku]. Tokyo: Shinyôsha. Shire, Karen A. 1999. Socialization and work in Japan: The meaning of adulthood of men and women in a business context. International Journal of Japanese Sociology, no. 8: 72–77. Sômu-chô Tôkei-kyoku. 1991. Shakai seikatsu kihon chôsa [General research on social life]. Sôri-fu Kôhô-shitsu, ed. 1998. Gekkan yoron chôsa [Monthly public opinion poll], April. Stoller, Robert, J. 1968. Sex and gender. New York: Science House, Inc. Taga Futoshi. 1992. Hahaoya no shûrô to kodomo no seibetsu-yakuwari-ishiki no keisei [Mother’s employment and child’s consciousness of gender roles]. Kyushu Kyôiku Gakkai Kenkyû Kiyô 19: 79–86. ——. 2001. Dansei no jendaa keisei [The gender formation of men]. Tokyo: Tôyôkan Shuppan-sha. Taga Futoshi, Kiyotaka Kasuga, Takahide Ikeda, Yumiko Fujita and Yoko Ujihara. 2000. “Jendaa to Kyôiku” kenkyû ni okeru “hôhô-ishiki” no kentô [Consideration of the ideological viewpoints of the studies on “Gender and Education”]. Kurume Daigaku Bungakubu Kiyô, Ningen Kagaku Ka Hen 16: 41–80. Torai Masae. 1996. Onna kara otoko ni natta watashi [Myself as a woman who became a man]. Tokyo: Seikyûsha. Ujihara Yôko. 1996. Chûgakkô ni okeru danjo byôdô kyôiku to sei sabetsu no sakusô: Futatsu no “kakureta karikyuramu” reberu kara [The complexity of gender equality and sexism in junior high school: Two “hidden curriculum” levels]. Kyôiku-shakaigaku kenkyû 58: 29–45. Vincent, Keith, Takashi Kazama and Kazuya Kawaguchi. 1997. Gei sutadiizu [Gay studies]. Tokyo: Seidosha. Yajima Masami, ed. 1997. Dansei dôseiaisha no raifu hisutorii [Life histories of male homosexuals]. Tokyo: Gakubunsha. Yoshihara Keiko. 1995. Joshi daigakusei ni okeru shokugyô sentaku no mekanizumu: Joseinai-bunka no yôin to shite no joseisei [Job selection of women university students: Femininity as a factor of intra-gender differentiation]. Kyôiku shakaigaku kenkyû 57: 107–24.

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9 THE COOKING MAN IN MODERN JAPANESE LITERATURE Tomoko Aoyama The image of the male professional chef as purveyor of culinary perfection is by no means new, but the cooking man has never before quite enjoyed the profile that he does in contemporary media and popular culture. His amateur counterpart, the “new-age sensitive guy” cooking for his own pleasure or for his friends, lovers and family, and the whole notion of food preparation as part of a cultural construction of masculinity, are quite recent phenomena. This chapter will look at men’s cooking in Japanese literary texts: through an examination of representative texts written in the second half of the twentieth century, it hopes to trace various changes in the construction of masculinity from the postwar period to the present, postindustrialised period. At the outset we need to remind ourselves first of the traditional neglect of food and eating in literature, and also of the broad social changes that have affected the perception of male cooking. The significance of drinking in the construction of Japanese masculinity is, as it is in many other cultures, indisputable. Drinking has played a vital role in a variety of traditionally male-dominated situations, ranging from religious rituals, business dealings and political negotiations to “body-building” and the victory celebrations of sumô wrestlers. There is no doubt that drinking is as important to bu [wu, physical/martial force], as to bun [wen, knowledge, literacy, intellectual power]. In literature, regardless of genre and period, there is no lack of examples of drinking as an integral part of the Japanese masculine tradition. In contrast, the role of eating, as many have pointed out (Kaikô 1982, 129–30, 139; Ogi 1985, 230–1; Maruya 1996, 223–6), and as is evident in a number of idioms and proverbs,1 seems to be much more limited; for centuries it was regarded as vulgar and unmanly – unless one was in the profession of cooking – to talk about food, let alone about the pleasures of eating or preparing it. With a few exceptions, when food or eating appears in fiction written in the first half of the twentieth century, it is treated as a marker of class, cultural or gender division (Aoyama 2000). If a cup of sake inspires and bonds masculinity, a bowl of rice in prewar literature seems to embarrass, disturb and divide men. After the defeat in the Second World War, food was no longer a taboo topic in Japan: it was no longer regarded as shameful and unpatriotic to complain about 155

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food shortages or to express the desire to eat. It was not until the mid-1950s, however, that eating and cooking for pleasure rather than simply to keep body and soul together began to attract public attention. It is in this period that the early examples of the “cooking man” emerge in literature. Until then, cooking was regarded as women’s business, unless it was carried on at a commercial/professional level, and the few prewar examples of culinary essays were written by professional or semi-professional chefs. By contrast, the new interest in food involved a much wider range of writers and a much larger audience, and obviously had its roots in the economic recovery and the dramatic change in values in the decade after the war. The old wartime slogan “Want Nothing till Victory” was soon to be replaced by the “Consumption is a Virtue” of the 1960s and 1970s. If military power formed the prewar Japanese bu, it is highly tempting to regard economic power as the core of postwar bu. In accordance with rapid economic growth, Japanese dietary patterns have changed remarkably. While the typical media comment regarding the Japanese diet of the 1950s and 1960s seems to be that it was far inferior to that of the West, especially in terms of protein intake, in the 1970s media discourse began to recognise the superiority of traditional Japanese food based on vegetable dishes (Murakami 1999, 279). This new confidence in the traditional diet, combined with a consciousness of the strong Japanese economy and the yearning for a re-evaluation of traditional values and national identity, however, did not stop the national dietary pattern from moving away from the traditional. With increasing consumption of meat, milk and dairy products, and fats, the Japanese dietary pattern began to incorporate, and to depend on, imported ingredients and culinary techniques. It must also be noted that, as in many other countries, an increasingly urbanised, busy lifestyle lent itself to instant, frozen, fast and takeaway foods as well as to eating out. All of this prepared the way for the so-called gourmet boom of the 1980s, which emphasised that delicacies were not just for the rich and the elite but were now available to anyone on an average income. The phrase “Class B gourmet”, which is faintly reminiscent of a category of war criminal, was coined to indicate the supposedly egalitarian quest for accessible good food. At the same time, however, “Class A” cooking attracted a much bigger audience through television and the popular press. A television programme called Ryôri tengoku [Cooking paradise; broadcast 1975–92], for example, showcased the most expensive, most sophisticated cuisine, the kind of food totally inaccessible to and impractical for ordinary people (Murakami 1999, 290). Hundreds of “Class B” and “Class A” gourmet books have been published, targeting a wide audience. Another notable change in this period was the popularisation of the cooking man. In 1975 a television commercial for instant noodles, “I cook” (spoken by a young woman), “I eat” (spoken by a young man), was withdrawn after protests from feminist groups. Only two years later an association for men’s cooking was established (Murakami 1999, 291). The name of this association, Danshi Chûbô ni Hairô Kai, is a parody of the traditional phrase danshi chûbô ni iru bekarazu 156

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[men should not go into the kitchen]. By 1980 the cooking man was neither a rare species nor necessarily a professional (i.e. Class A) chef. He appeared almost everywhere – in television, manga, film and literature. Against this background, however, there has been criticism of the damage and dangers inherent in such a seemingly innocuous consuming passion. Questions have been raised about food safety, environmental issues, control and manipulation by the media, and the discrimination and exploitation hidden behind the gourmet euphoria (Aoyama 1999). Books advocating simple healthy food or the good old taste of bygone years have been produced and consumed in large quantities. Men’s cooking, too, has been questioned, joked about and modified. From this brief outline of the postwar changes in attitude towards food a series of questions arise about the “cooking man” and his masculinity. First, how did Japanese men, as the writers and readers of postwar texts dealing with food, cope with the defeat of the prewar and wartime image of masculinity, the image that may be regarded as bu without bun? Second, how do their texts reconcile the traditional disdain for food with the idea of cooking and eating for pleasure? How do they construct the image of masculine cooking? Does, and if so how does, that construction relate to various literary and cultural traditions? What is the balance of bun and bu in this construction? How have women reacted and responded to this construction? And finally, what direction does the cooking man take in the postindustrialised, postmodern environment? I shall seek answers to these questions by looking at some of the representative texts written after the war, including food essays, recipe books by writers and works of fiction in which male cooking plays an important role. Although our primary focus is on the literary representations of cooking man, where appropriate we shall look sideways at other genres such as film and manga.

Food and masculinity after defeat, or the Confucian teachings of Cantonese cooking Let us begin our discussion with one of the pioneers of postwar men’s food writing, Kyû Eikan (Qin Yonghan). The fact that he is not Japanese but Chinese, and that he has a successful business background, seems to suggest an important aspect of the formation of postwar cooking man. Born in Taiwan in 1924, Kyû graduated from Tokyo University in 1945 with a degree in economics, and worked as a businessman in Taiwan and Hong Kong. He moved permanently to Japan in 1954, and the following year he won the most prestigious Japanese popular literature award, the Naoki Prize. He is better known today, however, as the author of a series of bestselling books on food, comparisons of Japanese and Chinese, and business management. The first and most well known of these books is entitled Shoku wa Kôshû ni ari [The best food is in Canton; first serialised in a gourmet magazine from late 1954 and published in book form in 1957], which introduced the postwar Japanese reader to the subtleties of Cantonese cooking. 157

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Several factors were key to the commercial success and critical acclaim this book enjoyed, and these will help us find answers to questions about the masculinity of the cooking man. The depth and authenticity of Kyû’s culinary and intercultural knowledge and experience are obvious key factors. Important also is that he was free both from the Japanese war guilt and from the traditional Japanese disdain for food and money as base and impure, something that must have appealed to the Japanese audience of the mid-1950s. In addition, his respectable educational background and his extremely advanced literacy in Japanese and Chinese languages and cultures, both classical and modern, high and popular, must have reassured the reader of a continuity with the best of Eastern tradition. Each chapter of the book is replete with references and allusions to classic Chinese poetry, Confucian texts, legends, proverbs and historiography, as well as to modern Japanese literature and the occasional Western text. He certainly set the pace as cooking man with knowledge (i.e. wen/bun), which strongly suggests continuity with the past. That this past is not the immediate past of wartime but the more remote historical past is vitally important in terms of dealing with, or in fact avoiding, the painful and embarrassing memories of defeat. Equally significant are Kyû’s qualifications and credibility in business and financial matters, which, as suggested already, may be regarded as a postwar version of wu/bu. Knowledge and experience of cultures other than the Japanese have always been vital ingredients in men’s food essays and gastronomic fiction. In the few existing examples of prewar food writing, the tendency was to admire Western civilisation, especially that of the French. Chinese cuisine was also the focus of some texts, texts that were not usually meant for a general audience but rather for specialists and connoisseurs. While maintaining a reassuring continuity with tradition, Kyû’s text questions the superiority of Western cooking and emphasises the frank, down-to-earth, sensible and inclusive nature of Cantonese cooking. Kyû knows how to attract the male Japanese audience. His book begins with the popular male dream of living in a Western house, eating Chinese food and marrying a Japanese woman. If he immediately adds that, of the three, the second would be most important to him and his compatriots, he takes care to assure his implicitly male audience, who may still be struggling to reconstruct the country’s economy as well as their own wounded masculinity, that they are indeed in an enviable position in terms of the third ideal. Comparison of the three cultures – Western, Chinese and Japanese – appears again and again. For instance, the Japanese, according to Kyû, eat with their eyes, and Westerners eat with their nose, while the Chinese eat with their mouth (Kyû 1996, 31). His criticism of the West, especially the United States, must have also appealed to an audience experiencing the US occupation and the sudden and enormous influx of US culture. In that sense, it was a harbinger of the nihonjinron [discussion of Japanese “uniqueness”] that was to flourish in the 1970s. 158

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In order to present this version of nihonjinron, Kyû uses analogy, synecdoche, metaphor, contrast and many other traditional Chinese rhetorical techniques. For example, the Chinese, in Kyû’s view, are more disciples of the “realists” Confucius and Mencius, while the Japanese behave more like followers of the “romantic” Laozi and Zhuangzi (Kyû 1996, 139). While the first of these two major philosophical traditions is likened to steamed rice, the latter is compared to rice wine, implying that the “romantic” Japanese are more interested in drinking than in eating. This kind of rhetoric, combined with the frequent use of allusion, is more obvious evidence of continuity; it is the basis of traditional Japanese masculine and official writing, borrowed from Chinese and developed and maintained, if with some modifications, over centuries, even after the modernisation of written Japanese after the Meiji period. Furthermore, what Kyû suggests as the difference between the Chinese and the Japanese does not give one superiority over the other, but indicates that they are both made from the same ingredient, rice. Kyû’s view of Confucian teaching as practical rather than repressive or oppressive may have somewhat surprised his audience, which was getting used to postwar “democracy”, which tends to regard Confucianism as feudalistic. The association of the Japanese with Laozi must have had a soothing effect on Kyû’s audience, as it was remote and inoffensive, quite unlike Shintôism, bound up with recent memories of its close association with military aggression. Kyû’s opinion does contain criticism of the Japanese, but avoids mentioning wartime atrocities or any other painful memories. Moreover, the analogy of ChineseConfucianism-rice, though presented half jokingly, seems particularly suited to the didactic (“how to”) nature of this book on food. Although his tone is softened, or made more palatable, so to speak, by his wit and humour, this “cooking man” teaches his audience not simply how to cook pork, vegetables, noodles and so on in the Cantonese style, but also how to deal with life, how to make the most of it – without being prey to guilt, an inferiority complex or “romantic” illusion. In his discussion, however, the author makes sure that his lessons will not offend the already wounded Japanese masculinity; after all, it is neither ignorance nor aggression but “romanticism” that Kyû gently criticises in Japanese men.

Global wandering and the construction of masculine cooking This bilingual and bicultural cooking man was followed by several Japanese cooking men of letters. Among them Dan Kazuo (1912–76) seems to have been the first. Like Kyû, Dan studied economics at Tokyo Imperial University, although he joked that what he studied in his university days was “home economics” and “drinking” rather than economics (Dan 1993, 360). Despite their shared and equally strong interest in food (and their personal friendship), the writings of Kyû and Dan are completely different, and their difference 159

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seems, curiously, to confirm Kyû’s view of the Chinese as practical and the Japanese as romantic. Dan started writing in the 1930s, while still a student and under the influence of the Nihon Rôman-ha, the Japanese Romantic school. Literary recognition came only after the war. He was awarded the Naoki Prize in 1950, five years before Kyû won the same prize. Because of his close association with writers such as Dazai Osamu (1909–48) and Sakaguchi Ango (1906–55), and because of his colourful personal life, he is often labelled a member of the “libertine” school [Burai-ha]. He is best remembered now as a writer of autobiographical fiction and a series of food essays and cookery books, and perhaps also as the father of actress Dan Fumi. Here I shall discuss mainly the first of his cooking books, Dan-ryû kukkingu2 [Cooking in Dan style; first serialised in the Sankei shinbun in 1969], and some of his autobiographical fiction. Cooking is presented in Dan’s writing, regardless of its genre, as a masculine activity. He emphasises its dynamic and muscular aspects, and rejects domestication and formality, an emphasis that would be handed down to the popularised cooking man’s discourse of the late 1970s and 1980s. Dan was certainly a pioneer of robust and adventurous male cooking. In Dan-ryû kukkingu he declares that nothing is more enjoyable than food shopping (Dan 1996, 11). Both food and shopping have traditionally been regarded as women’s business in Japan. Dan makes them masculine partly by extending the quantities involved. Like many other “cooking men” (e.g. Miyoshi 1990, 87–102), he prefers, almost obsessively, cooking a whole fish, a whole carcass or at least a large chunk of meat to dealing with already cleaned, filleted and sliced pieces. Like other “cooking men”, he despises cooking instructions that talk of “half a tablespoonful of such and such” and “simmering for so many minutes”. The unspoken (and at times articulated) point is that such pitiful cooking habits are those of modern middle-class housewives. This muscularisation/masculinisation of cooking is also closely connected to global wandering. Dan called himself a “global cook” [sekaiteki ryôrinin),3 and drifted around both in Japan and in the outside world in pursuit of food bought at local markets and cooked according to methods he learned from the locals. One of his collections of food essays is entitled Bimi hôrôki [A record of gastronomic wandering (1973)] and introduces local specialties in Japan from Hokkaidô to Kyûshû, and from more than a dozen different countries in four continents. Dan points out the importance of open-mindedness and adaptability in his global wandering and cooking. This can certainly be read as a critique not only of women’s domestic cooking but also of traditional Japanese masculinity as represented by his father. Dan’s long cooking experience began at the age of nine, when his mother left her husband and children. His father, a school teacher, was completely ignorant of cooking, but, in order to hide the “family disgrace” from his colleagues and neighbours, he refused to employ a housekeeper or a maid. There is an interesting contrast between Dan’s father and Kyû’s, who was, according to his son, an enthusiastic eater, drinker and cook 160

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(Kyû 1996, 17).4 Without such a role model, and literally “fed up” with the takeaway meals available in a small town in Kyûshû in the early 1920s, the young Dan had to learn cooking by himself so that he could feed the family. Daily cooking for the family, however, seems to have been confined to those early years in Dan’s life and to a few years from mid-1945. A few months before the end of the war he returned from China5 to find his first wife seriously ill with tuberculosis, which was later to spread to her intestines. This latter period of his domestic cooking is documented in his autobiographical work in two parts (both included in Dan 1993), Ritsuko sono ai [Ritsuko, her love (1950)] and Ritsuko sono shi [Ritsuko, her death (1950)]. The emphasis in these texts, however, is more on the difficulty of finding food in the last few months of the war and immediately after its end than on cooking itself. While the first-person narrator of Ritsuko is clearly a devoted husband and father, ready to endure all the physical, emotional and financial difficulties that this entailed, his longing for freedom and wandering is also evident. Despite his genuine love for his dying wife and their toddler son, this longing becomes stronger and stronger. Only the death of his wife releases him from the unwanted domestic ties and restrictions represented by his irrational and demanding mother-in-law: Part II of Ritsuko closes with the father and son having a very simple picnic on a sunny spring day, skylarks singing overhead, rice balls placed on top of the box containing his wife’s bones. Awareness of happiness, despite family tragedy and various difficulties, is evident in the description of the widower’s cooking in Dan’s later novel Kataku no hito [The man of a burning house (1975)]. The narrator-protagonist Katsura Kazuo6 recalls the time when he was living in a small Buddhist temple on a mountain in Kyûshû with his 3-year-old son. “Not that I wanted seclusion,” says the narrator, “the country was devastated7 and my wife was dead. The whole of Japan was in chaos. No one, not even relatives, would take me in” (Dan 1981, vol. 1, 36). Katsura’s income was extremely limited: translations of Tu Fu [Du Fu] poems and a few stories brought him just enough to avoid starvation. Every day he cooked for his son and himself – mostly vegetables and tôfu, but once a week he went down the mountain to buy six sardines, and cooked them guts and all. This would be their luxury food for two days. It seems quite symbolic that cooking man escaped death and destruction thanks to the wen of Tu Fu (and the traditional source of protein tôfu) on a mountain far from the madding crowd.8 Just as he learned cooking by himself in his boyhood, he read and deciphered the classic Chinese poems without the aid of a dictionary. All he had was his own intelligence and judgement. This kind of self-reliance is an important characteristic of the postwar cooking man. It is connected to resourcefulness and resilience in the face of chaos and destitution on the one hand; but it is also inseparable from yet another element in the “romantic” Japanese masculinity, the cult of solitude. Dan’s cooking man may cook for his family, for his lovers and friends, and even for strangers in a strange place, but ultimately he cooks for himself. The narrator-protagonist of Kataku no hito prepares a feast, with a big plate of oysters, 161

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a salad of endive and carrot, stewed tongue, and wine – all for himself, as he left his family (his second wife and several children) years before, and his lover has just left him. Could it possibly be that I have been too deeply accustomed since my boyhood to cooking and eating on my own?…This long-term habit may have separated me from any lasting intimacy with any specific woman. Memories of a certain period seem to me nothing but a secret history of my various solitary cookings, drinkings and eatings, somewhere on the earth, all alone. This strange history of solitary eating may have always excluded me somehow from domestic union and the atmosphere of home. It is not that the family rejects me but that I reject them. In other words, I seem to continue to drift aimlessly, in pursuit of singular eating. (Dan 1981, vol. 2, 248. A similar passage is found earlier in the novel, vol. 1, 138) Solitude, travel and drinking are important ingredients in many literatures, including classical Japanese and Chinese poetry, and the shishôsetsu, modern autobiographical fiction that has been regarded as the core of modern Japanese literature. Notably, solitude in Dan’s texts is juxtaposed with a series of love affairs; in this pursuit of women, however, the reader senses a kind of misogyny, yet another familiar element in many modern novels. Despite the emphasis on the self-reliance and resourcefulness of cooking man, he is aware that his wandering, drinking and womanising would not be acceptable in respectable society. In the novel, drunk and depressed in a cheap New York hotel room, Katsura attempts to, or pretends to, kill himself. Suicide, of course, is yet another familiar topos in modern Japanese literature, represented by Dan’s friend Dazai and several other major male writers. Towards the end of the novel the reader finds that this cooking man suffered from a serious stomach ulcer ten years before and that the symptoms, which never completely disappeared, now seem to have become more threatening – making him think of cancer. Illness and confession are, again, important elements in Romantic literature and in the shishôsetsu. The seemingly carefree, robust, unconventional, roaming chef is thus connected in many respects to the literary tradition.9

The significance of wen in global wandering The global wandering of cooking man continues with younger Japanese writers. Kaikô Takeshi (1930–86), who is perhaps one of the most noted gourmands among postwar Japanese writers, travelled widely around the world, eating all kinds of exquisite foods as well as survival foods in places like wartime Vietnam. Kaikô is also well known for his passion for fishing, which further extended his global wanderings. As in the cases of Kyû and Dan, the importance of wen is 162

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clearly marked in Kaikô’s writing and in his wanderings. Allusion to classic and modern texts from the West and the East appear frequently; but Kaikô’s use is often more ironic or parodic, or both, than reverential.10 Wen may function as a practical tool of communication in global wandering. Many of Kaikô’s texts depict communication between the narrator or the protagonist and an Asian man through writing in Chinese or quoting wellknown Chinese literary texts (Pollack 1992, 218–19). While this works with a Chinese Vietnamese, and the Japanese traveller is accepted as a fellow Asian, his knowledge of Western literature, which is just as significant in his texts as Chinese and Japanese texts, does not work in the same way. The validity of his acceptance as an Asian is also questionable; the language used in the “written dialogue” between a Vietnamese Buddhist monk and the Japanese protagonist in Kagayakeru yami (first published in 1968; translated by Cecilia Segawa Seigle as Into a black sun) is, after all, a simulacrum of literary Chinese (Pollack 1992, 215–16). A brief digression seems necessary here. Japanese literacy in the Chinese classics lay at the core of the “masculine” wen tradition. According to Kôno Kensuke (1998, 23–5), classical Chinese [kanbun] in Japanese secondary education was already declining at the beginning of the twentieth century, after the victory in the Sino-Japanese War. This decline accelerated after the Second World War to the point that kanbun is now on the verge of extinction in the school curriculum in order to give priority to what are regarded as practical communication skills. Ironically, this “communication”-oriented education makes written communication with fellow Asians as depicted in Kaikô’s texts more and more difficult. The decline of the kanbun tradition is captured by film director Ozu Yasujirô in Sanma no aji [literally, The taste of the mackerel pike (1962); translated in the subtitled version as An autumn afternoon]. In this film an old man nicknamed Hyôtan [gourd, played by Tôno Eijirô], who had been a kanbun teacher in a prestigious secondary school before the war, is now running a cheap raamen11 shop in a back alley of a working-class suburb. This old and powerless man of wen is contrasted with his ex-students, who are all successful in their businesses and professions, and are accustomed to eating and drinking at much better places than his humble noodle shop. The old teacher/cooking man is impressed with the delicacies and abundant drinks at a reunion to which his ex-students invite him, which is held at a respectable Japanese-style restaurant that one of them owns. A particularly revealing scene, and one of the most celebrated moments in the entire Ozu corpus, occurs during this reunion. The old man asks what the delicious food he is eating is. When told that it is hamo [a sea eel], he writes the character, the fish radical and “rich”, in the air with his chopsticks. As one of his ex-students comments later, the old teacher knew the word and the character but had never had a chance to taste this delicacy before. Furthermore, the noodles he cooks are not very good, according to one of his customers. His wen is thus lacking in substance as well as in practical knowledge and techniques. Also obvious is his lack of postwar wu – economic power. 163

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It is no surprise, then, that Kaikô, who belongs to a generation even younger than the students of the Old Gourd of the film, can only present a simulacrum of wen, despite his erudition. As Pollack (1992, 213) points out: Kaikô’s greatest dilemma, and so Japan’s, is to have to decide which of the two [i.e. Asian and Western] perspectives represents his own, and the answer to this dilemma – both and neither – is no easier to live with than the problem. After a careful analysis of two of Kaikô’s novels of global wandering, Pollack arrives at this interesting conclusion: If Kaikô believes in anything at all, it appears to be the humanity one discovers in doing simple, harmless things. He has an almost Taoist faith in the lowly and even the useless, and a Taoist’s profound distrust of great ideas and elaborate technology. (Pollack 1992, 226) This “almost Taoist” trait Pollack speaks of in Kaikô is not quite the same as that which Kyû found in the Japanese and which I related to Dan, and yet it seems to indicate certain common elements in the two Japanese cooking men Dan and Kaikô, who belong to two different generations. How Kaikô presented his belief in “humanity” and his “distrust of great ideas and elaborate technology” in fiction will be discussed shortly. Cooking man’s outward movement and his nomadic aspirations seem to suggest two things about his masculinity. First, there is an aversion to everyday domesticity, which is in these texts strongly associated with women. Cooking man’s expeditions are motivated by a desire to escape mundane life and its commitments. However extensive or extraordinary these expeditions may seem, they are in accord with the literary [wen] tradition of solitary wandering. Second, such nomadic movement, which may involve physical danger and great financial burden, is normally possible only for men with some power and privilege – as an established writer, as a renowned fisherman, as a successful player in the advanced economy, or as someone who is somehow exempt from ordinary social codes. For all of these reasons cooking man’s global wandering is an unambiguously masculine topos, which combines wen and wu in various ways that reflect that particular stage of postwar or postmodern sociocultural expectations.

Cooking man loves guts: the recipe for wu If a nomadic lifestyle characterises the masculinity of cooking men in postwar Japanese literature, their partiality to giblets and all kinds of entrails seems to be another notable characteristic, which clearly indicates a tendency towards wu. 164

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The love of offal may be based on gastronomic reasons. As one renowned prewar professional chef Uotani Tsunekichi (1894–1964) writes in Mikaku hôraku [The pleasure of gastronomy; first published in 1936], seasoned connoisseurs seem to prefer offal to the best cuts of meat (Uotani 1991, 137).12 If foie gras represents the pinnacle of French delicacies, fish guts seem to be its Japanese equivalent. Another Class A gastronome from the prewar period, Kitaôji Rosanjin (1883–1959), believes that fish guts, especially those of bream, sea eels, filefish, blowfish, angler, eels and cod, taste far better than poultry or any other animal offal (Kitaôji 1980, 95; see also Uotani 1991, 140–2). In some cases, as in that of blowfish, guts and blood contain toxins, and advanced culinary techniques are required. Eating poisonous food may be regarded as a proof of gourmandise, wealth and courage. It should also be noted that some believe that blood and entrails enhance sexual potency. The postwar cooking men are well aware of this Class A gourmet tradition. Their emphasis, however, is on the subversive (and yet, as we shall see, inclusive) aspect of offal eating. For this reason animal offal appears more often than dainty fish guts. In Kaikô’s novel Nihon sanmon opera [The Japanese threepenny opera; first published in 1959]13 offal is used as a metonymy for the power of the Apaches, a mixture of social outcasts who drifted from Korea, Okinawa and various parts of Japan into a low-class part of Osaka in the immediate postwar period. Some were brought to Japan by force as labourers, while others are illegal immigrants. Many have criminal records, which vary from petty theft and illegal Communist activities before and during the war to murder. They make a living by selling scrap metal taken illegally from what they call the Sugiyama mine, the huge wreckage of an arsenal.14 It is a tricky and physically demanding business, as it involves conflicts with the authorities as well as crossing a river full of toxic mud and fumes. The actual transport of the heavy scrap metal is done by strong adult men, but all other members of the Apaches, including women, children and people with severe disabilities, have some role to play, something to contribute to this operation. The protagonist of this Beggar’s Opera is called Fukusuke by everyone, but no one knows his real name or background except that he is a Japanese. Halfstarved, with no family, friends or possessions, he is invited to join the Apaches in exchange for a place to live and their speciality food, offal. As Yomota Inuhiko notes in his brief but insightful commentary on this novel (Yomota 1993, 181), Fukusuke’s meandering journey to the Apache quarters is depicted at the beginning of the novel with the metaphor of the digestive system: like an indigestible substance, Fukusuke goes from the stomach to the intestines, and then back to the stomach. Fukusuke and his fellow Apaches are indeed the offal of society – despised and discarded – and yet they can be powerful digestive organs that “eat” scrap metal.15 Cooking man in this story is a Korean called Gon. He has a large, sturdy body and a grotesquely ugly face. Unlike his compatriot and the leader of the group, Kim, who is an eloquent speaker of the Osaka dialect, Gon hardly 165

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utters a word. Instead, he silently and diligently works with his bulldozer-like muscles on the “mine” by night (i.e. he “eats” metal), and feeds his Apache comrades with offal and his special sauce by day. Thus the half-starved Japanese Fukusuke is saved by the shrewdness of Kim and the “delicacy” of Gon.16 Yomota (1993, 182–3) notes that Gon’s fare is not authentic Korean cooking but a combination of Korean barbecue and the Japanese way of eating raw fish dipped in soy sauce, a combination born of necessity and developed by “those who had to live between the two cultures”. As he adds, this kind of cooking is usually called “horumon” or “tonchan” in slang: the former deriving (contrary to popular belief) not from “hormone” but from the Osaka dialect horu mon [things to discard], and the latter from the Korean for “excrement ⫹ entrails”. Offal has been the subject of a number of sociological studies of food in the West, as it has been regarded as repugnant in many cultures. Vialles identifies two types of logic concerning meat: a “zoophagan” logic that acknowledges the living in meat and a “sarcophagan” logic that prefers to divorce meat from its living origins (Vialles 1994, 127–8, cited in Lupton 1996, 120). Kaikô and many other postwar cooking men clearly take the zoophagan view in their celebration of the living in offal and offal-eating. This can also be regarded as a criticism of obsession with culinary and ethnic purity, and of prejudice associated with that obsession. In his advocacy of offal, Dan writes: In our pursuit of a neat and clean cuisine, the Japanese have been accustomed to wasteful ways of eating, discarding important and tasty parts. This is partly because the taking of the life of animals was forbidden for centuries: we have forgotten real ways to eat animals and poultry.…Before I begin my recipe, I urge you all to abandon your prejudices. (Dan 1996, 24) The implications of offal-cooking include gender issues, too. To the above passage Dan adds an episode where a mother and her young daughter visited him. He recounts how he served them offal stew and the little girl really enjoyed it, to the perplexity of her mother. Dan concludes the episode with these words: “Prejudice tends to be planted by the mother, quite unconsciously, in her children” (Dan 1996, 24). This is, one has to say, typical male discourse. Dan is by no means an advocate of ryôsai kenbo [good wife, wise mother]; in Kataku no hito there are several female characters who are much more independent and resourceful in their global wandering than the male narrator/protagonist. Nevertheless he seems to believe that women are responsible for the education of their children and that they are less open-minded than men. He declares that he himself was completely free from prejudice about whatever food he was offered during his global wandering (Dan 1976, 349), that is, of course, while he was away from his children. 166

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Whether or not Dan was completely unprejudiced is not the issue here, but, as Mennell (1985, 310–16) points out, offal “is a good example of the changeability of objects of repugnance”. Although his examples are limited to Europe and North America, he illustrates the cultural variety and historical change of feelings towards offal, and also suggests “a scale of feelings about offal, with objects in ascending order of repulsiveness running from liver through kidneys, tongue, sweetbreads, brains and tripe to testicles and eyes – or something like that”. In Japan, as we have seen, fish entrails (totally missing from Mennell’s Western-based “scale”) were already recognised as gourmet food before the war. As one of the younger cooking men Shimada Masahiko (1998, 23–4) remarks from his own experience, however, fish guts may be appreciated as a delicacy by drinking men but not normally by children. In Satô Haruo’s famous poem entitled “Sanma no uta” [The song of the mackerel pike (1921)], a child gives the guts of a mackerel pike from her plate to her mother’s lover.17 This is not because the girl dislikes him but because she likes him and knows that he likes the guts. As for animal offal, it was more or less completely absent from the traditional Japanese diet. Since the war, its position seems to have somewhat improved in Japan. While beef and pork offal, especially the less popular parts on Mennell’s scale, cannot be regarded as popular or prestigious food, chicken livers and other offal are common enough – thanks to the popularity of cheap drinking and eating places such as yakitori bars and “Korean barbecue” restaurants, as well as to the 1980s boom in chicken offal hotpot. Kaikô’s story of the Apaches was written long before the hotpot boom, but after the Japanese had emerged from the immediate postwar struggle for food and reconstruction. Whereas Kyû’s and Dan’s texts reassure the reader that the elite wen tradition is still valid in postwar Japan, Kaikô’s emphasises a new kind of wu, the will and skill of marginalised people for survival. Offal works as a powerful metaphor in this text simply because it is regarded as repugnant. The most obvious example is pig’s womb, which in many cultures would be regarded as too grotesque to be food. It does not appear on Mennell’s scale. It is, however, every Apache’s favourite because of its delicate taste as well as its supposedly strong effect on the eater’s physical and sexual powers. While the “iron-eating” Apaches appreciate its real value and taste, the majority of Japanese at the time, and even now, generally reject the idea that it is edible at all. What offal symbolises is not simply the vitality of the outcast; it can also be regarded as a “visceral” antipathy toward middle-class complacency, which erases the bitter memories of war, starvation and destruction, and continues its discrimination against marginalised people. Gon’s offal nurtures every Apache, of any ethnic or cultural background: it is inclusive but at the same time has the power to subvert both the remnants of prewar Japanese institutions symbolised by the ruins of the imperial arsenal and the postwar equivalents represented by the police, the bureaucracy and the press. Thus the offal in this story not only offers sustenance for the physical labour of digging steel but also encourages and urges the dismantling, if little by little, of the monstrous wartime legacies symbolised by the Sugiyama mine by “eating” its iron. 167

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Women’s response to cooking man’s discourse I have already mentioned issues concerning gender and the strong hints of misogyny in cooking man’s discourse. How have women responded to the image and the discourse of cooking man, both within and outside of cooking man’s texts? The most common reaction of female family members of cooking man seems to be that his cooking and his discourse on cooking bring conflict rather than harmony to the home. As already noted, the masculinisation of cooking is inseparable from the aversion to domesticity. Cooking man usually leaves everyday domestic cooking to his wife. With his encyclopaedic knowledge and advanced techniques, as well as his highly developed taste and firm principles, he tends to criticise her cooking. Dan Fumi, cooking man’s daughter, writes: “My father did not cook all the time; when he was too busy with his work, my mother cooked according to his menu. Whenever he found something unsatisfactory in her cooking, there was a storm” (Dan and Agawa 1998, 100). Dan Kazuo had long been estranged from his family. What Fumi describes here happened either after he returned to his family or during his visits to them. She also mentions that, when he did cook, he was always generous and grand in his shopping and in his use of pots and pans, and invited as many guests as he liked. And it was always his daughters’ job to wash up all the dirty pots and dishes, and clean up the greasy range. Kaikô’s daughter (Kaikô Michiko 1995, 225–6), too, writes about the tension at home, when her mother was cooking busily in the kitchen, and her father, drinking and talking at the table while waiting for the food, became annoyed because his wife only half-heartedly responded to his gastronomic talk. On a less personal note, Kaikô’s wife, the poet Maki Yôko, comments with gentle sarcasm that men’s cooking may well be dynamic, and that it may be justified for men to brag about it as a hobby, a sport, and as art and imagination. She recognises the strong expression of male ego in it (Maki 1995, 13–14; see also Aoyama 1999, 117). But, she adds, while male cooking may pursue absolute gastronomy, women’s cooking seeks relative gastronomy – taking into consideration such things as the eaters’ likes and dislikes, age, and physical and mental condition. Moreover, she concludes, while men’s cooking may make money by pursuing the absolute, women’s cannot, even though it is the latter that feeds the cooking men.18 Another woman who closely observed cooking man and his writing is the critic Kojima Chikako. In her first career (1948–88), as the editor of the major literary magazine Shinchô, she dealt with many writers, including Dan Kazuo. In her memoirs, Dan (called sensei in the text) and his cooking are remembered with warm respect: “What sensei appreciated and discovered in cooking must be the expression or the rekindling of various sensations and emotions that arise from the encounter of human beings with objects” (Kojima 1996, 241–2). She sees his cooking as “a means to maintain his spiritual equilibrium” (239), and never protests against his “prejudice – or insight – that it is hard to teach women the 168

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essence of cooking” (243). While it would be easy to dismiss Kojima’s view as an excessively generous tribute to the deceased cooking man or even as a complete capitulation to cooking man’s discourse, it seems much more important to recognise her own contributions and achievements as a devoted and gifted editor, which is exactly what Kurahashi Yumiko (1996, 269–70), despite her total rejection of Dan’s writing, acknowledges. Indeed, without Kojima’s tireless and professional support and assistance, Dan could never have completed Kataku no hito during the last period of his life, spent in a hospital bed. If other cooking men may not have been as dependent on editors, it seems true that their texts could not have been written without the support – be it reluctant or eager – of women. Some of these comments by women who had close contact with cooking man overlap with what Murakami Motoko (1999, 291–2) writes about men’s cooking in her study of media representations of food and eating. She fears that while children watching a man talking about the pleasure of cooking on television may conclude that cooking can be enjoyable for men, they may also get the message that men’s cooking is just a hobby and that things like dishwashing are not included. Murakami also points out that men’s cooking in the late 1970s media did not yet include more sober issues – such as cooking by elderly men living alone.

Postmodern cooking man Partly as a response to these women’s voices, cooking man began to adjust his discourse. Tamamura Toyoo (1999) emphasises in Menzu kukkingu nyûmon [An introduction to men’s cooking; originally published in 1985]19 that cooking is not a hobby but a practical necessity. The book therefore includes illustrated instructions in basic cooking skills as well as in the importance of cleaning up. In its 1999 edition Tamamura adds that now perhaps it is young women who need such basic instruction and that he might consider a new title for a future edition (Tamamura 1999, 236). Similarly, composer Miyoshi Akira claims in the 1990 revised edition of his 1979 cookery book20 that his book does not exclude a female readership. If the postwar cooking man tended to abhor middle-class domesticity and the ordinary suburban lifestyle, some postmodern cooking men seem to try their best to amend or modify this tendency. Novelist Shimada Masahiko (b. 1961), for example, claims to be a “suburban househusband”, and entitles his cookery book Kôgai no shokutaku [The suburban dining table]. He cooks for his family every day – except when he is on his global wanderings in Russia, Jamaica, Tunisia, Finland and the like. He writes that his domestic cooking began when his wife went on strike after a period of cooking for him without a single word of praise (Shimada 1998, 20). His global wandering, on the other hand, seems to satisfy his curiosity, which may be somewhat stifled by suburban life (167–72), as well as his desire for “gastronomic masochism” (26). Notably, his book begins with the 169

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statement that his extreme food dislikes of his childhood and adolescence have been cured by two things. And these are the two recurring elements in cooking man: travelling and drinking. For the post-babyboomer writer, cooking, writing and travelling are nothing but pastimes to cope with the tedium of suburbia – or at least he has to say this, rather than pretend to believe in some serious political or ideological cause. Perhaps the most popular example of new-age super-cooking man is Ueyama Tochi’s manga series Kukkingu papa [Cooking papa]. The protagonist, a sturdy, bigjawed, middle-aged salaryman, cooks not for his own sake but for the happiness of everyone, including his family, colleagues, friends, friends’ friends and the reader, without jeopardising his masculinity. His passion for food is as strong as that of earlier cooking men, and his culinary knowledge and techniques seem as deep and wide as those of his predecessors. What makes him different from the cooking men we have seen is his gentle and caring nature, which is an integral part of his cooking. This gentleness, however, is never mistaken for femininity in this manga. Quite apart from the obviously masculine physique of the protagonist, we see in his cooking many of the traits of masculinisation discussed above, such as the zest and the quantity. This masculine figure with knowledge and skills, however, is also presented as a comic and quite ordinary figure with innocuous weaknesses. The acclaimed writer of children’s literature, Haitani Kenjirô (b. 1934), also presents several examples of caring cooking men. The protagonist of a story called Kimi wa dakkusu sensei ga kirai ka [Don’t you like Mr Dachs? (first published in 1981)] is a primary-school teacher. His income is low, and his appearance is far from impressive–74 kg, 162 cm, with short legs, and with the nickname of Dachs (short for dachshund). Mr Dachs’s unconventional style of teaching creates a rapport with his pupils and changes their attitude towards each other. One of the episodes concerns a cooking lesson, which, according to the Ministry of Education curriculum, should be given to year five students. Mr Dachs ignores such rules and guidelines, and decides to teach his year four class how to cook miso soup properly. This decision comes when one of the girls tells him her mother’s method: boil water, put in a generous amount of MSG, then some miso, tôfu and spring onions, and finally more MSG (Haitani 1986, 102). In his cooking lesson Mr Dachs, who usually moves very slowly, displays hidden speed and alacrity. Furthermore, during this lesson the children realise, without being told, that the true aim of the cooking lesson may be to recognise the skills and the caring nature of a girl who is one of the weakest students in the class and an easy target for bullying. She can chop up spring onions far better than anyone in class because, Mr Dachs casually mentions, she does this kind of work (and many other kinds) all the time, as she has to prepare meals and look after her little brothers and sisters in place of their mother who is in hospital. Thus the clownlike Mr Dachs is indeed an ideal father/teacher in disguise. His caring aura reaches not only the bullied, marginalised and disabled children but also the bullies. 170

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If Mr Dachs does not strike one with his masculinity, the father of the protagonist in Shôjo no utsuwa [The vessel of a girl (1989)] clearly does, reminding us of many of the qualities of earlier romantic cooking men, but at the same time emphasising the new caring aspect. Throughout the novel he is referred to as otoko, “the man”, whereas his teenage daughter, Kasuri, and her mother and his ex-wife, Mineko, are called by their names. Unlike the awkward and apparently undistinguished Mr Dachs, this “man” is a successful artist with cultural sophistication and open-mindedness. He is depicted as socially respectable, though unconventional, and sexually attractive. Cooking is one of the many pleasurable things that he has taught Kasuri and now shares with her during her occasional visits. In contrast, Kasuri’s mother, who has never been particularly interested in cooking, is far from content with her successful academic career or with the love affairs she has had since the divorce. Gastronomic achievement is not the prime aim of the father–daughter pair, however; they would rather spend time talking to each other while cooking something simple like steak and salad than on preparing elaborate dinners. Cooking man thus seems to have found a happy solution for the problem of solitude; while he lives alone in his studio apartment, he is regularly visited by his daughter, girlfriend and many others. The ideally understanding and attractive father, however, does have some vulnerability; deeply wounded by a false accusation of plagiarism, he disappears, leaving something that looks rather like a suicide note. But the “man” is traced by his daughter and the novel ends happily, though with the suggestion that problems will never cease as long as one lives. If Ueyama’s and Haitani’s sensitive cooking men seem too good to be true, there are a number of postmodern examples of cooking man in his ordinary and humble guise. Indeed one characteristic of postmodern cooking man seems to be his pursuit of the discourse and rhetoric of Class B, C or even D cooking. This is exemplified in the cookery books of manga artist Shôji Sadao (b. 1937). Instead of the grand manifestos of the 1970s cooking men, Shôji-kun,21 the paragon of the ordinary, declares that “men’s cooking has to satisfy the four conditions: no fastidiousness, no labour, no techniques as such, and no formality” (Shôji 1984, 7). These attributes, especially the first three, are exactly what previous cooking men criticised in housewives. While earlier cooking men depended heavily on allusion to the classics, Shôji-kun’s text is full of colloquial conversation, slang, onomatopoeia and manga illustrations. He is not afraid to include numbers and measurements such as “one and a half teaspoonfuls”, “chopped into 2 cm pieces”, “roast for 20 minutes at 350 degrees” and so on. He also has no compunction about reporting the disastrous results of his cooking experiments. In short, his cookery book is much more basic, user-friendly and comic than its predecessors. Another prominent thread seems to be the parody of cooking man’s discourse. This can be done on any level – Class A, B or below. Shiina Makoto (b. 1944), who is yet another global wanderer, presents the monologue of a 171

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pathetically unskilled and petty-minded cooking man in his short story ‘Shinjitsu no yakiudon’ [The true fried noodles; first published in 1984, in Shiina 1987, 9–35]. Unlike the protagonist/narrator of Kataku no hito, this man cooks not for himself but for his wife. Through his sloppy monologue the reader realises that she left him four months before and that she is coming back for a final talk with him. The narrator, however, thinks that he can still win her back. The dish he cooks is simple fried udon noodles with meat (no offal) and vegetables. There is nothing special or exotic about this dish, and as it is just for two people; the quantity is small, quite unlike Dan’s cooking. Neither are his culinary skills advanced; indeed he cannot even do simple tasks without some problems. Even though he believes that the dish is his speciality and that it is his estranged wife’s favourite, the reader knows that she will neither enjoy the food nor return to him. A parody of Class A/B cooking man’s recipes is found in Shimizu Yoshinori’s (b. 1947) short story, ‘Bugaroncho no Runowaaru-fû marukero-shu ni’ [Bugaroncho à la Renoir in marukero wine; first published in 1986]. Bugaroncho is supposed to be a kind of European poultry, and marukero is a fictitious wine made on a fictitious Mediterranean island Marukero from the fictitious fruit atamanda. Renoir is neither the painter nor the film director but, it is claimed, the chef of Marie-Antoinette. This spurious naming is only one of many parodic devices Shimizu employs. He superbly caricatures the allusionladen Class A food writing, only his is filled with deliberate anachronism, mismatch, impossible episodes, obsessively detailed and/or totally fictitious descriptions. This light, humorous writing, however, does include some criticism – directed against men’s cooking itself. This is supposed to be a recipe for “simple and dynamic male cooking” (Shimizu 1990, 146), but the narrator often contradicts himself. While maintaining that the pleasure of food does not require any difficult lectures, that is exactly what he gives. He also comments that, generally speaking, men are much more timid and conservative than women, although they “say brave things and look as if to challenge new things” (Shimizu 1990, 153). He extends this thesis to eating: women are much more adventurous with food they have never tasted before, while men tend to stick to their pathetically small comfort zone based on their “mum’s taste”. Then this cooking man confesses, remarkably like Shimada, that there were many things he could not eat. Like Shimada, he adds that drinking cured this; only in his case it provided a momentary “Dutch courage” that made him forget the fear or dislike of that particular food. Shimizu’s text, written twelve years before Shimada’s cookery book, thus seems to parody not only what was already written but also what was to come. Shimizu’s story presents men not only as timid but also as garrulous: the narrator, like the one in Shiina’s story, never stops talking, meandering from one anecdote to another. This is in direct contradiction to the stereotypical image of laconic Japanese masculinity presented in popular samurai and yakuza films as well as in advertising such as “Otoko wa damatte Sapporo Biiru” [If you are a man, drink Sapporo Beer without a word].22 172

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We have seen here the rise and the gradual transformation of cooking man in the second half of the twentieth century. Men’s cooking, presented initially as a masculine activity with its outward mobility and its obsession for quantity and quality, has attracted acclaim as well as criticism. While it has a strong tendency to maintain or revive the wen tradition in the new context of postwar society, it also claims its difference from pre-1945 nationalism. To early cooking men, the memory of wartime was an important and sensitive issue, which some carefully avoided in their writing, while others insisted on revisiting in many different ways and forms. While cooking man’s global wandering and offal dishes have gained wider currency, the claim about the superiority of men’s cooking has been modified or withdrawn. One way this has been done is to include women and children in cooking man’s discourse and stories, while another popular method has been parody. There are many other issues and texts concerning cooking man that have been omitted from this survey. Space has not permitted discussion of, for example, men’s vegetarian cooking as represented by novelist Mizukami Tsutomu (b. 1919). Neither have I mentioned another prominent tendency in food essays – to return to, or at least revisit, the “good old taste” of an earlier period, be it Meiji, Taishô, Edo or some more remote or recent past.23 There are also many other parodies of cooking man’s writing. It would be interesting, too, to compare the image of cooking man in men’s texts with that in women’s writings such as those by Okamoto Kanoko and Kôda Aya. Other interesting areas would be non-Japanese cooking man24 and homosexual or bisexual cooking man25 in contemporary Japanese fiction. My hope is that this discussion has succeeded in initiating consideration of the complex, and still vibrant, phenomenon that is cooking man’s literature.

Notes 1 For example, “bushi wa kuwanedo takayôji” [literally, “the samurai uses a toothpick even when he hasn’t eaten”]. In other words, “a man of honour is never concerned (or even if he is, he never shows it) about mundane matters such as food”. This can further be interpreted that an honourable man would rather live in poverty and starve than abandon his pride. At the same time, however, it can be used to deride or at least tease the impracticality and lack of political and economic power behind such pride. 2 Like many other loanwords, kukkingu sounds more modern and lighter than the Japanese word ryôri. Thus the title of the ‘Iron Chef ’ television series Ryôri no tetsujin emphasises its hardcore, serious, Class A tendency, while Ueyama Tochi’s manga Kukkingu papa indicates its friendly, non-threatening aspect. 3 See Dan Tarô 1998, 18. Dan Tarô (b. 1943) is the eldest son of Dan Kazuo. 4 Although Kyû’s father was not a professional chef like the father in the Taiwanese film Eat, Drink, Man, Woman, his culinary knowledge and passion seem just as advanced as those of the father in the film. 5 He was neither a soldier nor a war correspondent in the ordinary sense; sent by a publisher, he travelled extensively in China, extending the initial, though vague, plan of three months to nearly a year (Dan 1993, 13–64). 6 The name is an obvious disguise of Dan Kazuo. This kind of transparent disguise was a convention of shishôsetsu [the I novel].

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7 This is an allusion to Tu Fu’s famous line. 8 Indeed even in his 1944–5 wanderings in China, there were moments of joy and pleasure, appreciating the beauty of mountains and lakes, familiar from classical poetry and paintings, alone or in company with newly acquainted Chinese men of letters (Dan 1993, 45–57). 9 There is a remarkably similar confession by the narrator about his gastric problem in Kaikô Takeshi’s collection of food essays, aptly titled Saigo no bansan [The last supper]. See Aoyama 1999, 123. 10 Before achieving literary recognition as a writer of serious fiction in the mid-1950s, Kaikô worked in the PR section of the whiskey company Kotobukiya (now Suntory) and wrote brilliant advertising copy. While there is nothing new in the close connection between writing and drinking, his successful career as a copywriter seems to foretell the beginning of a new age known as the postmodern. Parodic use of preceding texts may be regarded as a sign that he was a forerunner of the postmodern. 11 Raamen is “Chinese-style” noodle soup, which is the subject of Itami Jûzô’s film Tampopo. In the early 1960s shina soba [Chinese noodles] or its derogatory variation chan soba was used. 12 Uotani was a famous chef and tea master. He became a Zen priest around 1940. Hôraku is originally a Buddhist term for the pleasure of a pious and virtuous life. 13 The title is modelled on Brecht’s Dreigroschenoper. As some critics have noted, Kaikô’s novel bears no relation to Takeda Rintarô’s 1932 novel of the same title (Sasaki 1971, 289–90; Tatsumi 1998, 259). 14 The Apaches actually existed in postwar Osaka. Kaikô heard about them in Tokyo from a friend in September 1958, and spent a few weeks in October in his home town Osaka, researching this novel. See Tanizawa 1992, 181–2. 15 “Eating steel” is Apache slang for their operation of stealing scrap metal. See Tatsumi’s examination of the theme of iron-eating man in a series of literary and manga texts (Tatsumi 1998, 33–62). 16 Kaikô actually uses the word “derikashii” to describe Gon’s highly developed sensibility. Kaikô 1991–2, vol. 2, 373. 17 Kaikô Takeshi (1982, 135–38) cites this poem in full as one of the few examples of food playing a central role in (prewar) modern Japanese literature. English translation of the poem is included in Kirkup 1978, 36. For a discussion of this poem as an example of food marking a relational division, see Aoyama 2000, 160. 18 In relation to “feeding” cooking man, it may be worth noting that, before Kaikô gained literary recognition, Maki had been the provider of the family income. 19 For this title Tamamura uses the Chinese characters for danshi chûbôgaku, which is his coinage for “a study of men’s kitchen” (i.e. cooking), but specifies their reading in katakana as menzu kukkingu. The modernity and lightness of the term kukkingu as opposed to ryôri (mentioned in note 2 above) are further emphasised and made into a kind of parody by combining kukkingu with another katakana word, menzu, and by showing the old-fashioned Sino-Japanese word chûbô, which, with the suffix gaku, usually used for serious academic studies, creates a humorous contrast with the almost frivolous katakana reading. 20 Miyoshi changed the title of his book from Otoko no ryôri gakkô [Men’s cooking school] to Otoko, ryôri ni tsukiru, which is a pun on the idiom otoko-myôri ni tsukiru [the fortunate lot of men]. While the new title connotes even more strongly that men’s cooking is superior to women’s, with a comma between otoko [men] and ryôri [cooking], the title implies “men’s ultimate pleasure: cooking” rather than the absolute superiority of men’s cooking. 21 This, written in katakana, is the name of the pathetic protagonist in Shôji’s salaryman manga series.

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22 Popular commercial from 1970, with film star Mifune Toshirô. See the newspaper advertisement reproduced in Ishige 1999, 309. 23 The most well-known example of this is a series of essays by the popular historical novelist/playwright, Ikenami Shôtarô (1923–90). 24 Hisuiro (1999) by Tô Amei (or Tang Yaming), for example, is a novel in the form of thirty-nine letters written by a Chinese student to his Japanese lover, whom he meets at the Chinese restaurant where he works and seduces with his cooking and other charms. Like Kyû Eikan, this cooking man protagonist presents his own nihonjinron. The narrator/protagonist of David Zoppetti’s Ichigensan (1996) is another cooking man, even though cooking plays a much less important role in this novel than in Tô’s. 25 For example, Ekuni Kaori’s Kirakira hikaru.

References Aoyama, Tomoko. 1999. Food and gender in contemporary Japanese women’s literature. US–Japan Women’s Journal, no. 17: 111–36. ——. 2000. The divided appetite: Eating in the literature of the 1920s. In Being modern in Japan, eds Elise Tipton and John Clark: 154–69. Sydney: The Australian Humanities Research Foundation/University of Hawai’i Press. Dan Fumi and Agawa Sawako. 1998. Aa ieba kô kuu. Tokyo: Shûeisha. Dan Kazuo. 1976. Bimi hôrôki. Tokyo: Chûô Kôronsha, Chûkô Bunko. ——. 1975, 1981. Kataku no hito, 2 volumes. Tokyo: Shinchôsha, Shinchô Bunko. ——. 1993. Ritsuko sono ai, sono shi. Tokyo: Shinchôsha, Shinchô Bunko. ——. 1996. Dan-ryû kukkingu. Tokyo: Chûô Kôronsha, Chûkô Bunko. Dan Tarô. 1998. Kô-“shoku” ichidai otoko. Tokyo: Shôgakukan, Shôgakukan Bunko. Ekuni Kaori. 1991. Kirakira hikaru. Tokyo: Shinchôsha, Shinchô Bunko. Haitani Kenjirô. 1986. Umi ni namida wa iranai. Tokyo: Shinchôsha, Shinchô Bunko. ——. 1992. Shôjo no utsuwa. Tokyo: Shinchôsha, Shinchô Bunko. Ishige Naomichi, ed. 1999. Kôza shoku no bunka, volume 5, Shoku no jôhôka. Tokyo: Ajinomoto Shoku no Bunka Sentaa. Kaikô Michiko. 1995. Jamu no tsubo kara tobidashite. Tokyo: Shûeisha, Shûeisha Bunko. Kaikô Takeshi. 1982. Saigo no bansan. Tokyo: Bungei Shunjû, Bunshun Bunko. ——. 1991–2. Kaikô Takeshi zenshû, 22 volumes. Tokyo: Shinchôsha. Kirkup, James, trans. A.R. Davis, ed. 1978. Modern Japanese poetry. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Kitaôji Rosanjin. Hirano, Masaaki, ed. 1980. Rosanjin midô. Tokyo: Chûô Kôronsha, Chûkô Bunko. Kojima Chikako. 1996. Mishima Yukio to Dan Kazuo. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobô, Chikuma Bunko. Kôno Kensuke. 1998. “Kokugo” kyôkasho no naka no nashonaru hisutorii. In Nashonaru hisutorii o koete, eds Komori Yôichi and Takahashi Tetsuya: 19–34. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press. Kurahashi Yumiko. 1996. Kaisetsu: Henshûsha no diguniti. In Mishima Yukio to Dan Kazuo, Kojima Chikako: 265–70. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobô, Chikuma Bunko. Kyû Eikan. 1996. Shoku wa Kôshû ni ari, revised edition. Tokyo: Chûô Kôronsha, Chûkô Bunko. Lupton, Deborah. 1996. Food, the body and the self. London: Sage Publications. Maki Yôko. 1995. Oishii hanashi tsukutte tabete. Tokyo: Bungei Shunjûsha, Bunshun Bunko.

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Maruya Saiichi. 1996. Kaisetsu. In Shoku wa Kôshû ni ari, Kyû Eikan, revised edition: 223–9. Tokyo: Chûô Kôronsha, Chûkô Bunko. Mennell, Stephen. 1985. All manners of food: Eating and taste in England and France from the middle ages to the present. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Miyoshi Akira. 1990. Otoko, ryôri ni tsukiru [first published in 1979 under the title Otoko no ryôri gakkô]. Tokyo: Bungei Shunjûsha, Bunshun Bunko. Murakami Motoko. 1999. Masu media to shoku. In Kôza shoku no bunka, ed. Ishige Naomichi, vol. 5, Shoku no jôhôka: 278–92. Tokyo: Ajinomoto Shoku no Bunka Sentaa. Ogi Masahiro. 1985. Kaisetsu. In Danryû kukkingu, Dan Kazuo: 230–6. Tokyo: Chûô Kôronsha, Chûkô Bunko. Pollack, David. 1992. Reading against culture: Ideology and narrative in the Japanese novel. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Sasaki Kiichi. 1971. Kaisetsu. In Nihon sanmon opera, Kaikô Takeshi: 289–94. Tokyo: Shinchôsha, Shinchô Bunko. Shiina Makoto. 1987. Ka. Tokyo: Shinchôsha, Shinchô Bunko. Shimada Masahiko. 1998. Kôgai no shokutaku. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobô. Shimizu Yoshinori. 1990. Kokugo nyûshi mondai hisshôhô. Tokyo: Kôdansha, Kôdansha Bunko. Shôji Sadao. 1984. Shôji-kun no “Ryôri daisuki!”. Tokyo: Shinchôsha, Shinchô Bunko. Tamamura Toyoo. 1999. Menzu kukkingu nyûmon. Tokyo: Chûô Kôronsha, Chûkô Bunko. Tanizawa, Eiichi. 1992. Kaisô Kaikô Takeshi. Tokyo: Shinchôsha. Tatsumi Takayuki. 1998. Nihon henryû bungaku. Tokyo: Shinchôsha. Tô Amei. 1999. Hisuiro. Tokyo: TBS Britannica. Ueyama Tochi. 1988. Kukkingu papa, volume 10. Tokyo: Kôdansha. Uotani Tsunekichi. 1991. Mikaku hôraku. Tokyo: Chûô Kôronsha, Chûkô Bunko. Vialles, Noelie. 1994. Animal to edible, trans. J.A. Underwood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Yomota Inuhiko. 1993. Bungakuteki kioku. Tokyo: Goryû Shoin. Zoppetti, David. 1996. Ichigensan. Tokyo: Shûeisha.

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10 DESIRE AND MASCULINITY AT THE MARGINS IN GU CHENG’S YING’ER Simon Patton Introduction: desiring subjects In their ground-breaking article on Chinese masculinity, Kam Louie and Louise Edwards advance an account of the broad specific features of Chinese masculinity based on the guiding principle that “Chinese masculinity has evolved in a historical and cultural context that required no inspiration and gained no benefit from comparisons with the West” (Louie and Edwards 1994, 148). Louie develops this insight in Theorising Chinese Masculinity, in which he presents an expanded account of Chinese male identity in terms of the wen-wu [literary–martial] paradigm. This paradigm is characterised by biological and cultural features, and offers what might be described as alternative normative roles – those, to put it simply, of soldier and scholar – for subjects that identify themselves as male. The role that discourses of femininity play in the construction of Chinese masculinity within a structure of gender relations has been taken up in more detail by feminist critics seeking to account for and address gender inequalities in contemporary Chinese society. Important in this regard is the work of Lu Tonglin. Her 1995 study Misogyny, Cultural Nihilism, and Oppositional Politics examines the relationship between masculine and feminine subject positions as demonstrated in the literary texts of xianfeng or “avant-garde” authors writing in the mid- to late 1980s. Lu clearly discerns a “prevailing misogynistic discourse” (Lu 1995, 20) that exploits the feminine in order to shore up a masculine preoccupation with – and anxiety over – “’potency”. Furthermore, for Lu, the female body functions within this schema as “a locus on which male subjects attest their power – either benevolently or malevolently” (Lu 1995, 16). In this sense, the frequently violent and degrading language used to summon the female in masculinist literary representations implicitly supposes the vital relationship masculinity has to femininity. But while the masculine defines itself largely in terms of the female “other”, it disavows in the same moment all trace of dependency in this interconnection and insists on (mis)recognising itself as a self-sufficient identity. 177

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The work done by Lu leads the way to a more psychoanalytical – as distinct from biological and cultural – understanding of the properties of the male and its function within a global system of social “encoding”. In other words, the masculine as a form of subjectivity can be categorised in terms of psychic qualities that involve a distinct response to psychoanalytical concepts such as desire.1 Desire, I will argue, is of great importance in any discussion of subject formation since, in line with the thought of French theorists Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, subjectivity can be understood as a social structure constituted to channel or encode impersonal desire in socially acceptable ways (ways acceptable to a specific power structure). In Masculinity Besieged, Zhong Xueping notes that the twentieth century marks the “genesis of Modern (Chinese) desire” (Zhong 2000, 28) and that the post-Mao period in Chinese history has witnessed, in a double movement, both the return of the “subject of sexuality” (in literary and cinematic representation) and the search for new cultural identities (Zhong 2000, 46, 59). It is this psychoanalytical dimension that I would like to explore here in order to complement the biological, cultural and feminist perspectives already covered in other work on Chinese masculinity. In general, the above studies address masculine subjectivity in its conservative and negative guises. For this reason, the contemporary Chinese poet Gu Cheng (1956–93)2 offers a significant test case for an understanding of Chinese masculinity in its experimental and socially radical aspects: Can subjectivity be fluid? Multiple? Identified with more than just a social field? Gu Cheng, a leading exponent of the so-called “new” or “obscure” poetry written in China in the late 1970s and early 1980s, was intensely preoccupied with the topic of subjectivity throughout his writing career – not as a normative ideal to which to aspire but as a condition for greater human freedom. As early as 1981 he is quoted as writing: “When a poet has used new poetry and a new aesthetic conscious to break down old habits, he attains a new life for himself and his readers, a renewed perception of self and the world” (Sun 1981, 58), and towards the end of that decade he praised the Daoist philosophy of Zhuangzi for its evocation of a realm in which the human gained access to “inexhaustible play” [wujin de youxi] on a cosmic scale (Gu 1988). In other words, Gu Cheng’s interest in masculine subjectivity could be interpreted in terms of what Kaja Silverman has described as a “male subjectivity at the margins”, a non-normative masculine subject “that does not search for the coherence of the ego, that is not threatened by the ‘unbinding effects’ of the death drive, and that is, above all, capable of embracing its own marginality” (cited in Zhong 2000, 85). Approaches that treat masculinity primarily as a site of cultural normality or as the source of female oppression run the risk of overlooking its (flawed) revolutionary energies, not to mention the significance such masculinity holds for the broader issues of subjectivity, social control and liberational politics. My focus here is on a book-length prose text entitled Ying’er written by Gu Cheng in the final year of his life and only published after his suicide in 1993. The significance of this text for Chinese masculinity is three-fold. First of all, 178

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given its juxtaposition of numerous divergent masculine subject positions, Ying’er sheds light on contemporary formations of Chinese masculinity. Second, the importance of femininity in Gu Cheng’s later thinking – in particular, the idealisation of the feminine as an abstract “essence” – and the diverse representations of femininity in Ying’er offer insights, I believe, into the complex role femininity plays in the constitution of (heterosexual) male subjects and the perverse origins of male misogyny. Third, Ying’er contains certain very tentative hints as to what a psychoanalytical model of contemporary Chinese masculine subjectivity might look like. What the above aspects all share is an engagement with desire – not simply the Freudian “libido” or sexual energy, but a force of ludic fluidisation that “causes the current to flow, itself flows in turn, and breaks the flow” (Deleuze and Guattari 1989, 5).

Background 1: “psychic distance travelled” Gu Cheng’s preoccupation with subjectivity is demonstrated in his repeated references to the topic in a body of statements on the practice of poetry. While content at the outset of his career to accept Bei Dao’s dictum that poetry “must begin from the self ” (Mang et al. 1978, 61), Gu Cheng’s thinking on the subject moved progressively towards more radical models that emphasised fluidity and an enlarged sphere of action. In order to better appreciate what Gu Cheng attempts to do in Ying’er, I would like to give a brief overview of the poet’s thinking on subjectivity and gender, including his late interest in “the eternal feminine” [yongheng zhi nüxing]. Gu Cheng first announced his interest in subjectivity with a brief statement published in 1980. “I believe,” he wrote, “that this new poetry is new because a self [ziwo] emerges in it, a self possessing the characteristics of modern youth” (Gu 1980, 52). More specifically, the main feature of this “new self ” was an assertive individuality: “It believes in its wounds, believes in its own brain and nervous system” (Gu 1980, 52). Alongside this emphasis on autonomy, there is also an expansive impulse at work that transforms the collective identity typical of Maoism into an assembly of individualities: His [i.e. the new self ’s] life is not one alone by itself. He lives in the midst of the life of all those that have become conscious of the self.…He loves himself, loves to become a self, to become the self of humanity, and for this reason he falls in love with all other peoples, races, lives, nature. (Gu 1980, 52) This vaguely pantheistic sentiment, which may derive from Gu Cheng’s reading of Walt Whitman, is further developed in one of a fabulous series of brief sketches collected under the title “Random notes on the study of poetry” (1981) 179

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in which he writes: “I was once as curved as the tusks of the mammoth, I was once as innocent as the leaves, I was once like one of those floating creatures, insignificant but happy” (Gu 1995, 896). While remarks of this nature suggest that Gu Cheng’s masculinity coincides with the wen or literary aspect of Louie’s paradigm, there is already evidence here of a curious desire to identify beyond the human realm. Gu Cheng’s initial faith in his “new self ” was shattered in the mid-1980s. Retrospective accounts of this crisis are written in a patently mystical vein, but what they all amount to is a realisation of the fixity of normative subjective positions and their largely exterior and coercive nature. For example, in an important document entitled “Third remarks on poetry” (1987), Gu Cheng compares himself to Lorca’s mute boy: “Federico Garcia Lorca said: ‘The mute boy is searching for his voice, which was stolen by the cricket king’. I started to look for my own stolen voice” (Gu 1990, xiii). The externality of this consciously modelled subjectivity is fully realised in a passage contained in the “Third remarks”: All kinds of cultural phenomena played encores inside of me. I became a stage.… At that moment, I saw myself…as an insect pinned to a board with its legs dancing. I realised that my biggest mistake was wanting to be a poet, grabbing a heap of concepts but forgetting myself. (Gu 1990, xviii; translation modified) Gu Cheng’s reaction to his discovery of the rigidity implicit in conventional subjectivity is largely formulated in terms borrowed from traditional Daoist philosophy. A succinct explanation of this new phase in his thinking is presented in “New remarks on poetry” (1988). Here, the poet provides a concise account of what appears to be a kind of fluidisation of the subject. His aim is to “rediscover” a principle of “endless transformation” [bianhua wuduan], which he considers to be a neglected pole of Daoist thought. This he refers to as wubuwei (which roughly translates as “there is nothing that cannot be done”), a term he deploys – despite its double negative – to refer to a positive play of gratuitous transformations. Although gender is not mentioned here at all, the figure of the ethereal male sage is dimly discernible behind all this – “flying with the clouds, riding the sun and moon, travelling beyond the four seas” (Gu 1988). I think it is interesting to note in passing Gu Cheng’s use of this enduring Daoist paradigm as the basis for a model of Chinese marginal male subjectivity, a paradigm only indirectly related to Louie’s wen-wu dyad. This is not altogether surprising. As Louise Edwards has noted in her study on men and women in the Qing dynasty, the “flexibility of gender and sex in Daoism provided a path towards a singularly male religious enlightenment” (Edwards 1994, 49). In the 1990s, Gu Cheng developed his “fluid” subject along unexpected lines. In an essay entitled “From self to nature” (1992) he denigrates his early preoccu180

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pation with the new self as a reaction to Western cultural fashions. He also criticises the ideal conception of nature associated with his notion of wubuwei: All this was imaginary. In reality what I encountered was an even more terrible destructiveness.…Most important of all, in nature I discovered that my fundamental essence [benxing] was not, as I had imagined, something that belonged to Heaven [tian] or to myself. It was blind, crawling around madly like an ant, like an octopus with its tentacles dancing, it never stopped. (Gu 1992b, 7) This line of thought is pursued in the more substantial “The aimless ‘I’ – Outline of a philosophy of nature” (1993), an extraordinary document filled with references to Daoism, Buddhism and classical Chinese poetry. Here, Gu Cheng defines his aimless subjectivity as being beyond convention and morality: Aimlessness is quiescent and transcends individuality, but the aimless ‘I’, which is free, possesses an individuality the freshness and rawness of which is difficult to imagine. This is because he [i.e. the liberated individual] has already extricated himself from all goals and concepts, as well as from the concepts of life and death. The standards of human existence – and the moral consciousness that corresponds to them – have nothing to do with him. (Gu and Xie 1993, 214) In this period, he also revealed a growing interest in questions of masculinity and femininity. The key text for this interest is a dialogue with the eminent sinologist Marián Gálik entitled “Faust • The Dream of the Red Chamber • Maidenliness” (1992), a discussion that centres on the importance of representations of femininity in the works by Goethe and Cao Xueqin (a writer whose representation of masculinity is discussed in great detail by Cuncun Wu). Taken with Goethe’s notion of “the eternal feminine”, Gálik asks Gu Cheng whether he believes in an “eternal masculine”. Gu Cheng answers in the negative, citing the well-known line from The Dream of the Red Chamber to the effect that “the pure essence of humanity was all concentrated in the female of the species and that males were its mere dregs and off-scourings” (Cao 1980, 407). Gu Cheng then proceeds to elaborate a highly rarefied account of what he understands by femininity: I knew that this feeling for the feminine [nüxing] had nothing to do with either girls or with women. She was something extremely subtle and difficult to describe in words, pure, without demands, not a gendered mode of living but a state of mind [xinjing]. (Gu and Xie 1993, 154–55) 181

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It is this abstracted femininity – a category that played absolutely no role in his earlier conceptions of subjectivity – that is so central to Ying’er.

Background 2: “a box marked G” In Yiyan Wang’s discussion of Jia Pingwa’s Defunct Capital–a novel about a novelist – she notes the way that his contemporary representation of masculinity maps onto the subjectivity of the “talented scholar” [caizi], that epitome of the wen aspect of conventional Chinese masculinity. As Wang points out, the masculine identity of the novel’s protagonist derives not from any physical features but from that other indicator of maleness: writing. It is precisely Zhuang Zhidie’s mastery of the written medium, his ownership of the language, that further endows him with political, financial and sexual advantages. At the same time, however, there is a fascinating tension between the predicament of the fictional writer who is eventually led to abandon his literary career and the real-life writer of fiction who achieved a great succès de scandale with his 500-page opus. A comparable tension is apparent in Gu Cheng’s Ying’er (published, coincidentally, in the same year as Defunct Capital), a poetic text about a suicidal poet.3 These two texts may contain evidence of a crisis in Chinese masculinity, but I would like to suggest that the most important function served by this trope of “incompetent” masculinity is to highlight what might be called the mastery effect of certain forms of writing. Depicting a lack of competence on the part of a major character within a text is a device employed precisely to accentuate the powers of textuality and of authorship. To take this speculation a step further, and to broaden the discussion momentarily beyond the Chinese context, I would like to draw on Kaja Silverman’s discussion of the psychoanalytical role of mastery and its relationship to linguistic prowess. Silverman points out that masculinity possesses an “ideological alignment with mastery” (Silverman 1992, 61), a comment that suggests that coherence – a self-mastery in the first instance, and a (consequent) outward mastery in the second – functions at the psychoanalytical level as a defining feature of (Western) masculinity. From the evidence presented at numerous points by Louie, it is quite clear that mastery (or “self-control”) is also a prominent quality of both the literary and martial male types encompassed by the wen-wu dyad (Louie 2002, 61, 66). At the same time, this alignment with mastery makes the masculine vulnerable to what Silverman describes as “unbinding effects” – effects that include traumatic incidents that undermine the provisional integrity of the personality (such as the soldier’s experience of war), as well as the more elusive operations of intra-psychic forces of the kind Freud referred to as the “death drive”. From this psychoanalytical perspective, the practice of literary writing can be understood as both an attempt to master threats to the ego (even if these “threats” are imaginary rather than actual) and an effort to increase the scope of male mastery by opening it up to precisely those forces that would undo it. It is as if the writer 182

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deliberately sought to relinquish control only to reassert it at higher and more “creative” levels. This appears to be the case when we turn to Ying’er. It should first of all be noted that the literary status of Ying’er is problematised by certain textual features and by the circumstances in which it was published. That is to say, there is evidence in Ying’er of a deliberate attempt to blur the boundaries between autobiography and fiction. Gu Cheng’s actual murder of his wife Xie Ye and subsequent suicide took place on 8 October 1993 on Waiheke Island in New Zealand. The manuscript based on this event was published in November by two publishing houses using different versions. This identification between the text and real-life events is supported by an intricate network of references within Ying’er, by the use of what appear to be “found letters”, and by the device of an anonymous narrator who attempts to unravel the puzzle of the protagonist G’s (= Gu Cheng’s?) “disappearance”. Apart from the horrific circumstances surrounding the composition of Ying’er and its publication in China, the most striking feature of this text is its heterogeneity, a feature signalled explicitly in the text by means of the device of the box of envelopes: In the box there were five envelopes altogether. The handwriting was G’s. Written on the first envelope were the words “Ying’er’s Letters”. It was empty, there wasn’t a single letter in it. Placed inside it, however, was a Xinjiang dagger the hilt of which was inlaid with glass diamonds. I took it out of the envelope. It had patterns of copper-inlay on it. On the second envelope were the words “confession”. It was crammed full of material that G had written to a person by the name of “Lei” – I guessed that was C. Here the handwriting was very poor, so much so that I was in the end unable to read everything. The third envelope was marked “Romantic Feelings” [fengqing]. This was an account of the love – sexual love, even – involving G and a girl by the name of Ying’er. The association of G with this episode was something I simply could not believe. There were several drawings drawn on the cover of the fourth envelope, and inside there were also a number of drawings. He referred to some of these in his recollections. Unexpectedly, in amongst these pictures there were a dozen or so letters posted from the island to the city of B. The last envelope mostly contained pieces of narrative fiction and prose sketches. Some of the stories I had already heard before. (Gu and Lei 1993, 17) The stylistic diversity of the text – its transgeneric nature – is also greater than that implied by the categories of the box marked G. In addition to the conventional sections that deploy a generally unremarkable language (for example in passages devoted to everyday life, in the more routine of the “letters”, and in many of the short narratives), Ying’er is remarkable for the relative explicitness of its erotic descriptions, the floating hallucinatory force of its dream sequences, the bizarre 183

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quality of its religious fantasies and the saccadic rhythms of those sections in which the language of the text enacts a form of “madness”. These diverse styles are matched by the divergent subjectivities presented in the text. Ying’er is as polysubjective as it is polyphonous. This polysubjectivity is present, on the one hand, in the range of authors with a hand in the text: the authorial double Gu Cheng/Lei Mi (“Lei Mi” was the pen-name of Xie Ye, Gu Cheng’s wife) named on the cover of both versions, the anonymous narrator, the letters by various correspondents. On the other hand, it is most conspicuously present in the different versions of masculinity on prominent display. It is as if Gu Cheng in Ying’er brings together all the subjects that he has tried to formulate in his writing along with others that seem explicitly opposed to them (for example the subject of sexuality) in a final staging of his aimless, unfixed subjectivity. The accumulated shock-effect of the contents of Ying’er – and its powerful heterogeneity – are factors that seem calculated to produce a sense of disorientation. Confronted with the contents of G’s box, the anonymous narrator confesses his bewilderment: “but when I opened that cardboard box, the standards I normally applied in my judgments were all of a sudden stood on their head” (Gu and Lei 1993, 17). Yet despite this explicit insistence on confusion at all levels of the text, Ying’er can be read as a virtuoso exercise in covert literary control, an exercise that is present in the structure of the text, as well as in its proliferation of linguistic styles, masculinities and passages of incoherence, all of which converge at last on a point that embraces contradiction: This synthesis of understanding and madness terrified me. Someone who could comprehend his own madness and absurdity, and at the same time put all this rationality at the service of his madness to push life step by step to its outer limit was already more than merely insane. He was the devil! (Gu and Lei 1993, 117)

Text 1: multiple masculinities There is evidence in the Chinese tradition of what might be called serial identity, a mode of (masculine) subjectivity that seeks to overcome the limitations of fixed social subject positions by means of a circulation within a series of possible “roles”. It is clear that Gu Cheng found traces of a cosmic serial identity in the ancient Daoist philosophy of Zhuangzi: “Its transformations are gratuitous – now a butterfly, now a chu tree” (Gu 1988). Jonathan Chaves, in his article “The expression of self in the Kung-an School’, discusses a late Ming-dynasty version of such mobility in his description of “the carefree man” who “considers every available role in contemporary Chinese society…as an aspect of his own self, or rather he claims for himself the freedom to move at will among those roles, without being limited by their ordinary restrictions” (Chaves 1985, 149–50). The multiple masculinities of Ying’er can be viewed as an extreme form of this serial 184

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identity, multiplying divergent male subjectivities in an effort to highlight the artificiality and performative aspects of normative self-construction, and to suggest the expanded freedom of the serial mode. It is possible, I think, to isolate three major masculinities in the text, although it should be pointed out that the first of these is largely assumed and operates as a background against which Ying’er mobilises its transgressive forces. I call these three masculinities the incompetent, the erotic and the diabolical. At a superficial level, these three masculinities are presented in such a way as to accentuate their mutual discontinuity (i.e. they seek to defy any reduction to a single identity), but, as I hope to show, they share significant common – albeit highly abstract – features at the broadly psychoanalytical level. It should also be noted that they conform to a certain evolutionary logic (roughly corresponding to the early, middle and late phases of the poet’s writing), but are to some degree juxtaposed in Ying’er to create a sensation of “free” circulation. Incompetent masculinity refers to the subjectivity that Gu Cheng was best known for in real life, at least in the early part of his career. It is specifically a literary identity and is therefore comprehended within Louie’s wen-wu dyad, although the rejection of sexuality in Gu Cheng’s self-representation is not entirely typical of the wen male type. This masculinity stresses an impracticality with regard to everyday social life; such ineptness is, however, inversely correlated to a poetic sensibility that responds to the delicate beauty of “dreams”. This corresponds closely to the binary of career-masculine-Self and creativefeminine-Other outlined by Edwards; in other words, “incompetence” here signifies a rejection of normative “competent” male roles (Edwards 1994, 43). Concomitant with this apparent infantilisation is a marked tendency to maternalise the feminine. In the introductory framing section to part one of the text, the anonymous narrator (who, as a kind of “Mr Average”, is, I believe, meant to recapitulate commonly held perceptions regarding Gu Cheng) reminds his readers that: if G’s wife went out, G would head straight for his room and stay put there. G’s reliance on his wife C reached astonishing proportions. Never mind matters such as money, keys, and official documents – these were all handled by his wife; he even had to ask for his wife’s help when it came to writing letters, finding socks to put on when going out and getting dressed. (Gu and Lei 1993, 13) Needless to say, the erotic masculinity presented in Ying’er, and of which there is barely a trace in his previous literary output, comes as an enormous shock. As I have already suggested, this shock is the result of a deliberate manipulation produced in the text by means of the device of the anonymous narrator who at the outset (re)establishes Gu Cheng’s incompetent masculinity in the minds of the text’s readers. What I call the erotic here involves two important aspects. The 185

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first of these is graphic sexual description, the frankness of which is comparable to that of other male writers of contemporary Chinese fiction such as Su Tong, Mo Yan and the Jia Pingwa of Defunct Capital: The shadow cast through the window by the giant tree fern [da yinjue] fell across her body, overlapping with the darkness of her sex [yinbu], whose parted hairs were, however, motionless. This was a luscious fruit, a girl, this was how I reminded myself. (Gu and Lei 1993, 70) From examples of this kind, it is obvious that explicit depiction of the female body functions as a textual alias for visuality – it is a “translation” of the visual sense into language. At the same time, visuality seems to play a prominent role in so-called normal (heterosexual) male sexuality (to be discussed further in the next section). The second aspect relates to the issue of misogyny and involves a disturbing aggressive element within Gu Cheng’s representations of masculine eroticism. While it should be noted that male visuality itself has a tendency to dismember the female body into articulated (isolated yet linked) erogenous zones, aggression in Ying’er is a far more active quality: “But when I got wild, she became submissive and responded enthusiastically. She liked to imagine herself trussed up, dragged up to the hill, dominated by a more powerful body, destroyed, moaning helplessly, all the better to display her girlish weakness” (Gu and Lei 1993, 46). Here again, it is possible to read this representation of aggression as a repudiation of incompetent masculinity. Queerest by far is Ying’er’s diabolical masculinity. This identity was first announced by Gu Cheng in his late theoretical writings from the 1990s and, as I have suggested in the section on the poet’s evolving thinking on subjectivity, involved a marked sense of amorality. In ‘The aimless “I” – Outline of a philosophy of nature’, for example, he describes the freedom of his natural subject in disconcerting terms: “He could live a long, peaceful life or die a violent death; he could be a man of knowledge, a madman or a fool. He might be overflowing with love for all living things or be nothing more than a voracious beast” (Gu and Xie 1993, 215). However, it is only in Ying’er that this subject assumes a specifically demonic identity. In many passages in Ying’er, the protagonist G refers to himself as mogui, a term that can be variously translated as “devil”, “demon” or “monster”.4 That this diabolical masculinity is meant to embody positive, liberating qualities can be gleaned from this account of the anonymous narrator’s sinister enlightenment: For the first time ever, I looked at my own life through a strange pair of eyes, this novel perception terrified me, it was like a kind of devilish game that disregarded humanity, that small, sky-blue star twinkling above the large, black palm tree. (Gu and Lei 1993, 123) 186

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Significantly, the diabolical subject’s rejection of the world is also equated with a paradoxical anti-masculinity: “He wanted to exclude everything to do with the external world, all males, the entire masculinised world, society, even reproduction and nature, including himself ” (Gu and Lei 1993, 117). Here, Gu Cheng suggests that masculinity – perhaps because of its close alignment with mastery – is the greatest obstacle to any realisation of a fluid subjectivity based on a circulation amongst serial identities.

Text 2: phantasmal feminine territories I would now like to turn to an intricate question: that of masculinity’s relationship to femininity as represented in Gu Cheng’s Ying’er. For each of the three masculine identities sketched in the preceding section there is a distinctive rapport with a particular representation of femininity, a fact that reinforces the perception that the feminine is an indispensable element in the construction of masculine identity. Beyond this, however, I would like to suggest that a consistent feature of Chinese masculinity as represented in Ying’er is to align femininity with desire and to transform it into a remote, phantasmal quality or impossible ideal. This “structure of masculinity” is immediately apparent when we examine the relationship between incompetent masculinity and femininity, a connection summed up by the word “worship”: Gu Cheng was not only an eccentric in everyday life, but also thoroughly perverse in his psychology of love. He was unable to free himself from the remote and estranged worship of womanhood [nüxing] of his youth, his desires were intense, but he hated his desires, he loved his wife but [at the same time] was forever hurting her. He felt a sense of inferiority, believing males [nanzi] to be dirty [wuzhuo], while girls [nühai] were pure flowers from heaven. He had no way of realizing his love, thus making him fantasise about the love between girls. (Gu and Lei 1993, 5) Actually, this worship [chongbai] is a mode of abstraction, but what is less obvious is the way in which this abstraction conceals a very palpable sense of revulsion. There is a complex play of subjects and objects here, a complexity reminiscent of the kind found in psychoanalytical accounts of “screening” and “mirroring”. The worship of womanhood entails not only a powerful disorientation characterised by withdrawal and alienation, but also a “hate for male desire”, a sense of male “inferiority” realised in the specific sensation of impurity. True to the logic of reflection, however, it is the woman who is actually being held responsible for these severe disturbances to male ego boundaries: it is she who provokes such undesirable stimuli despite her status as a revered object. What is detestable is not the male subject’s “unclean” desire for woman but the feminisation of his desires as desiring-production, as a flow of affective intensities. 187

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Worship functions as a screen for this male horror. In Male Fantasies, Klaus Thewelweit writes that masculine exultation of the feminine is simply another form of violence against women: adoration-oppression (Thewelweit 1987, 284). At the same time, this adoration-oppression is self-directed in the way it ties up the male subject’s desire in a puritanical circuit of loathing and attraction in which desire becomes permissible only to the degree that its real, sexual-relational function is removed. Interestingly, a similar kind of abstraction takes place for the masculine subject even when there is contact with a real sexualised female body. As already noted, there is a strong visual element to Gu Cheng’s eroticism, and it is this reduction of the female body to the status of spectacle that reveals most clearly the phantasising tendencies of male subjectivity. The erotic descriptions contained in Ying’er make constant reference to female convulsion, and I think it is this feature that equates descriptions of female sexual responsiveness with a kind of mastery of male egoboundaries. Klaus Thewelweit writes suggestively of the phenomenon of male stiffening as a defence against the threatening aspects of female sexuality (the socalled “fear of castration”) (Thewelweit 1987, 197–201). In Ying’er, what is presented is not the rigidity of the male body but its antithetical reflection: the convulsive quality of the female body. Here are just a few examples from the text: Your imagination never stops growing, growing, horribly growing. You even see the rise and fall of her sensitive body at night. (Gu and Lei 1993, 39) my love rose up again and again, tender, crude [culi], or following the waves of your rising and falling. (Gu and Lei 1993, 49) At that time, my heart was so silent, I was watching her rise and fall, like the waters of the sea. (Gu and Lei 1993, 53) It was as if I was already very familiar, she began to receive my rising and fallings, wave-making risings and fallings filled with desire. (Gu and Lei 1993, 54) Her gentle lower belly rose and fell delicately, but there in the place where it drew near to the mound, it took on an ample beauty, revealing that slightly indented feminine cleft, pear-like. (Gu and Lei 1993, 70). From these examples it should be clear that the convulsive quality of sex is essentially gendered: it is rarely associated with the male body (I have only found one other reference in addition to the example noted above). How is this asymmetry 188

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to be explained? I would like to suggest, in sympathy with Thewelweit, that such a spectacle is gratifying to the male subject precisely because it allows him to master the intensities of (his own) sexuality by projecting them onto the female body. In a way, the defensive of the male stiffening reaction is displaced by this opposite reaction of flowing associated with the female body; nevertheless, the stiffening is still present in the act of watching or, at least, in textual representations of such watching. Rather than participate in the experience of plenitude offered by sexual activity, the male subject – of both sexuality and the act of writing about it – retreats to a rigid point of view from which to observe (the fixed regard). For this reason, observation could be said to operate as a form of male preservation. In the case of Gu Cheng’s diabolical subject, there is a return to the worshipful stance of his incompetent masculinity, yet it is a worship that further incorporates the specular characteristic of his erotic male identity: I love because I desire, and also because I’m terrified. I’m frightened that the world will take them away, if a girl is touched [peng], my heart shudders, because her heart is mine.… I have erred right from birth. From birth there are certain things that excite a person, certain things they find moving, when the girls are together, the atmosphere is moving. To be loved makes me grateful, I hope she loves the temperate frigidity in my heart, I don’t hold out much hope for her loving me as a man, I would like us to shine on one another to drive away the shadows. Because the flames of desire cannot be repressed, there is no chance of me ever being saved. All I can do is dream of a life of being able to see [yizhong kandejian de shenghuo], seeing them together. (Gu and Lei 1993, 110) This is Gu Cheng’s “kingdom of girls” [nü’er guo], a territory of ethereal femininity accessible to him only as “pure” spectacle (for more detail on this issue, see Patton 1996, 407–9). As in the preceding two instances, the feminine is evoked in relation to masculine desire but only to be instantly repulsed. Even in the case of physical intimacy, there is a strong tendency to exert control of the feminine by means of specularity and overt violence, and to manage desire within circuits of alienation that permit a certain amount of pleasure while warding off any loss of self-mastery.

Conclusion: the land that is not Before I can sketch a very general outline of Chinese masculinity along broadly psychoanalytical lines, I need to deal briefly with the role of desire in the configuration of masculine subjectivity. According to Deleuze and Guattari, desire (or desiring-production as they call it) can be thought of as a 189

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force of “pure multiplicity” that is pre-personal and pre-individual (Bogue 1996, 89). Because the social field, largely through the medium of conventional subjectivities, encodes this theoretical desiring-force in socially useful ways, human beings are not generally cognizant of this “uncoded” desire – contact with it is harmful to stable ego boundaries. In Gu Cheng’s work, however, we can gain a glimpse of this incomprehensible realm of plenitude. The most striking description of it occurs in connection with Gu Cheng’s diabolical masculinity: It was only at this time that I realised that I saw nothing with my usual way of seeing things, it was only when that evil spirit [xieling] attacked me that I opened up another eye, I saw life, rocks, trees, they struggled and laboured in long-drawn-out time, they demanded nakedly, they clutched at the hand[s] of the earth, a force which cracked the layers of rock apart, ignorant and unaware, passionately dancing in the air, never stopping even for a second, watching me intently, scattering all about me. All this was instantaneous, our lives, the paths we open up, this neat[ly stacked] firewood, properly-nailed houses. We are forever wanting to fix our lives within the scope of the comprehensible, like keeping a sheep enclosed in a fold, like keeping water in a dam.…We have virtually conquered everything we can touch, causing [these things] to calm down, to serve as our domestic animals. We have made endless roads that encircle the globe, we could spend our entire lives simply going from one petrol station to another.…All this we have accomplished, but we are without means to truly satisfy the expectation in our hearts. This [expectation] is an infant; it is also an untamed beast, ignorant and unaware, and it wishes to leave all this behind for that savage world full of demons [jingling]. (Gu and Lei 1993, 126). This extraordinary passage is possibly Gu Cheng’s clearest statement of the connection between the damming up of desire and the need to formulate a mode of being capable of flowing beyond prescribed boundaries. The logic here is reminiscent of that displayed in his vision of the convulsed female body: an intimation of plenitude provokes a strong, negative response, a feeling of malevolence. On the other hand, in accounts written in 1987 of the time he spent in a remote village during the Cultural Revolution, Gu Cheng describes an entirely benign experience of plenitude: I felt everything changing, as if I were treading on piano keys, every step producing an unexpected note.…When the river lapped its far bank, I felt it lap my heart as well, like the hand caressing my injured knee. Everything was me. (Gu 1990, xii) 190

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Regardless of the particular tonality of the experience, I would like to suggest that subjectivity as a global phenomenon is first and foremost a relationship to unchannelled desire. Louie makes some suggestive remarks concerning the relationship between the yin-yang theory so pervasive in traditional Chinese philosophy and the wen-wu dyad (Louie 2002, 9–15). It is almost as if the latter reproduces the mutuality/polarity of the former only to introduce asymmetry that functions as a basis for a hierarchic structure of gender. This line of reasoning finds an interesting parallel in the thinking of Klaus Thewelweit. For Thewelweit, the gender relations engendered in masculinist societies reproduce the (distorted) relationship of subjectivity to desire: “In patriarchy…that desiring-production of the unconscious has been encoded as the subjugated gender, or femaleness” (Thewelweit 1987, 432). In other words, a system of gender reconfigures the primary human unconscious relationship to desire as a hierarchy of mastery and dominance. Mastery or self-control, as a fundamental feature, is demonstrated in Ying’er in two prominent ways. First of all, it is present in the male’s relationship to experiences of plenitude: via the medium of literary writing, the male subject is able to approach socially uncoded desire without being overwhelmed. Furthermore, since, according to Thewelweit, femininity functions as a tamed substitute for free-flowing desire, mastery is also prominent in the relationships that Gu Cheng’s literary masculinities construct with the feminine. In the three instances of masculine subjectivity outlined already, the male construes femininity as a phantasmal territory: the object of an “estranged worship” (incompetent masculinity), of a sexual-specular-textual consumption (erotic masculinity), of an autosadistic, abstract-virginal fantasy (diabolical masculinity). What is the function of this phantasising impulse? It is precisely to contain and to endlessly defer an open experience of desire/the feminine within non-threatening circuits. On the basis of the foregoing remarks, we can enumerate four fundamental constituents of Chinese masculinity as exemplified in Gu Cheng’s text: • •

•

A realm of PRE-SUBJECTIVE DESIRING-PRODUCTION that serves as a foundation for all subjective formations; A STRUCTURE OF GENDER that encodes this desiring-production and its relationship to human consciousness as “masculinity” (mastery, stable identity) and “femininity” (flowing desire, fluid subjectivity); A PHANTASMAL FEMININE TERRITORY that simultaneously channels unconscious desire, permits the restricted release of sexual pleasure, and exhausts unencoded desire by locking it up in unrealisable project(ion)s.

To these three, which define in general terms a socially-sanctioned version of masculinity, we can add a further property that is conspicuous in Gu Cheng’s 191

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“masculinity at the margins”: SERIAL MASCULINITY. This final property represents an attempt to modify the fixity of conventional mastery-inspired masculine subjectivity by multiplying its identifications and to emulate – albeit in a characteristically punctual male fashion – the subjective flows associated with a repressed experience of the plenitude of desire. In conclusion, what is most important about this model is that it views Chinese masculinity as a set of relationships (with desire, with a structure of gender, with unreal femininities) rather than as a collection of “interior”, self-defining qualities.

Notes 1

2 3

4

It is vital at the outset to distinguish Deleuze’s conception of desire from associated notions such as “pleasure”. Several comments included in the volume Dialogues make it clear that pleasure from a Deleuzean perspective is seen as a form of interruption, whereas desire is creative of a type of continuum or sustained network: “In speaking of desire we were no longer thinking of pleasure and its festivals. Certainly pleasure is agreeable; certainly we move towards it with all our might. But in its most attractive and indispensable forms, it comes rather as an interruption in the process of desire as constitution of a field of immanence.” Further clarification is provided by the following remark: “The three misunderstandings of desire are relating it to: lack or law; a natural or spontaneous reality; pleasure or, above all, the festival. Desire is always assembled and fabricated, on a plane of immanence or of composition which must itself be constructed at the same time as desire assembles and fabricates.” In the context of this paper, I regard masculine subjectivity, its objects and its “mastery projects” as elements of a Deleuzean desireassemblage. See Deleuze 1987, 99,103. For a general introduction in English to Gu Cheng and his work, see Gu 1990. For more detailed accounts, see Patton 1991, Patton 1999a, Patton 1999b and Patton 2001. For an introduction in English to Ying’er, see Li Xia 1998. Throughout this chapter, I have made use of my own translations from the Zuojia version of Ying’er. However, I found Li Xia’s English translation of the Huayi version, published as Ying’er: The Kingdom of Daughters by Projekt Verlag (1995), to be an indispensable guide on many points. For a very interesting account of Gu Cheng’s late thinking on gender, see Gálik 1994. There has been some confusion over the most appropriate way to translate such terms (gui is another word belonging to this series and one regularly translated as “ghost”). Marián Gálik has expressed the opinion that words of this kind carry an unambiguous negative charge (Gálik 1994, 136) and I very much agree with him. The presence of patently Biblical imagery in Ying’er lends weight to the argument that the term mogui is to be understood within the Christian dichotomy of good and evil. One telling example occurs in the extremely incoherent section entitled ‘Broken Chapters’ early on in the text: “This is not something between one person and another, it is God allowing the Devil [mogui] to help you. For this reason there is The Internationale and Hitler” (Gu and Lei 1993, 29).

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References Bogue, Ronald. 1996. Deleuze and Guattari. London and New York: Routledge. Cao Xueqin. 1980. The story of the stone, vol. 1, trans. David Hawkes. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Chaves, Jonathan. 1985. The expression of self in the Kung-an School: Non-romantic individualism. In Expressions of self in Chinese literature, eds R.E. Hegel and R.C. Hessney: 123–50. New York: Columbia: Columbia University Press. Deleuze, Gilles and Claire Parnet. 1987. Dialogues, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam. New York: Columbia University Press. Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari. 1989. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and schizophrenia, trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem and Helen R. Lane. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Edwards, Louise P. 1994. Men and women in Qing China: Gender in The Red Chamber Dream, Leiden: E.J. Brill. Gálik, Marián. 1994. Gu Cheng and Xie Ye: Contemporary Chinese poets who died too early. Asian and African Studies 3: 116–19. Gu Cheng. 1980. Untitled statement included in “Qing tingting women de shengyin”. Shitansuo 1: 52–3. ——. 1988. Xin shihua [New remarks on poetry]. Wenyi bao 23 April: n.p. ——. 1990. Gu Cheng: Selected poems, eds Seán Golden and Chu Chiyu. Hong Kong: Research Centre for Translation, CUHK. ——. 1992a. Fushide • Hongloumeng •·Nü’erxing (Faust • The Dream of the Red Chamber • Maidenliness). In Muchuang: Gu Cheng Xie Ye haiwai daibiao zuopin ji, Gu Cheng and Xie Ye, 1993: 151–60. Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe. ——. 1992b. Cong ziwo dao ziran [From self to nature]. Xianggang wenxue, no. 108: 4–8. ——. 1995. Gu Cheng shi quanbian [Gu Cheng: The complete poetry], ed. Gu Gong. Shanghai: Shanghai sanlian chubanshe. Gu Cheng and Lei Mi. 1993. Ying’er. Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe. Gu Cheng and Xie Ye. 1993. Muchuang: Gu Cheng Xie Ye haiwai daibiao zuopin ji [Gravebed: A collection of representative works written outside China]. Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe. Li Xia. 1998. Gu Cheng’s Ying’er: A journey to the West. Modern Chinese Literature 10: 135–48. Louie, Kam. 2002. Theorising Chinese masculinity: Society and gender in China. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Louie, Kam and Louise Edwards. 1994. Chinese masculinity: Theorising wen and wu. East Asian History, no. 8: 135–48. Lu Tonglin. 1995. Misogyny, cultural nihilism, and oppositional politics: Contemporary Chinese experimental fiction. Stanford, NY: Stanford University Press. Mang Ke, Ling Bing, Bei Dao, Yang Lian and Xiao Qing. 1978. Da-fu: shiren tan shi [Responses – Poets on poetry]. Jintian 9: 61–2, 60. Patton, Simon. 1991. Premonition in poetry: Elements of Gu Cheng’s Menglong aesthetic. The Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia22–3: 133–45. ——. 1996. The unbearable heaviness of being: Gender, sexuality and insanity in Gu Cheng and Xie Ye’s Ying’er. Modern Chinese Literature 9, no. 2: 399–415.

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——. 1999a. An intimate estrangement. In Essays, interviews and unpublished material of Gu Cheng, 20th century Chinese poet: The poetics of death, ed. Li Xia: 199–227. Lewiston, Lampeter and Queenston: Edwin Mellen Press. ——. 1999b. Notes toward a nomad subjectivity: The poetics of Gu Cheng (1956–1993). Social Semiotics 9, no. 1: 49–66. ——. 2001. The forces of production: Symmetry and the imagination in the early poetry of Gu Cheng. Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 13, no. 2: 134–71. Silverman, Kaja. 1992. Male subjectivity at the margins. New York and London: Routledge. Sun Shaozhen. 1981. Xin de meixue yuanze zai jueqi [The rise of new aesthetic principles]. Shikan 3: 55–8. Thewelweit, Klaus. 1987. Male fantasies. Cambridge and Oxford: Polity Press/Basil Blackwell. Zhong Xueping. 2000. Masculinity besieged. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

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Part IV GLOBAL MASCULINITIES

11 MALE GENDER IDENTITIES AMONG CHINESE MALE MIGRANTS Ray Hibbins

Hegemonic masculinity(ies) – an adequate concept? In a recent exploration of the possible links between globalisation and masculinity(ies), Connell (1997) speculates about the changes in hegemonic masculinity. He refers in earlier work to the contest in the ruling classes of the capitalist world between professional/managerial and entrepreneurial/authoritarian masculinities (Connell 1985/6, 7) and in his later article to how, with the creation of global markets, corporations become multinational and take on the forms of masculinity that are hegemonic among their managers (Connell 1996, 60). The argument continues that the crucibles of new forms of hegemonic masculinity are the globalisation of finance, the deregulation of markets and the growth of corporate empires outside the control of any government (Connell 1996, 61). Such processes, he suggests, bring with them a hegemonic masculinity that is calculative, sensual and uprooted from kin and locality (Connell 1996, 61). Connell provides a number of rather tenuous examples from India, Java and Brazil to demonstrate how the spread of metropolitan culture and metropolitan institutions impacts on local gender orders, but he qualifies this with an argument that the outcome of globalisation is not necessarily that Western masculinities are cloned on the periphery (Connell 1996, 60). In a more recent work (Connell 2000) he suggests that transnational business masculinity is not completely homogeneous and refers to a Confucian variant, based in East Asia, and a secularised Christian variant, based in North America. The former has a stronger commitment to hierarchy and social consensus, while the latter shows more hedonism and individualism, and greater tolerance of social conflict (Connell 2000, 54). Nevertheless, in a strong and persuasive discussion, Chan argues that in the United States Chinese men are excluded from the elite, hegemonic group simply because hegemonic masculinity seeks to define itself against men of colour, fuelling its need to constantly reinvent or reimagine a homogenous patriarchal identity to protect its own network of power (Chan 2001, 9). Further, he 197

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emphasises that in order to understand the various forms of male identity it is necessary to situate marginalised masculinities in the context of disempowerment from the hegemonic model of masculinity (Chan 2001, 14). Asian American men, for example, have limited access to political decision-making processes, and little say in educational policies, corporate/executive managerial decisions or constructions of particular stereotypes of Asian American men in the entertainment industry. In many respects, however, Chan fails to see the diversity of male gender identities and the heterogeneity among Asian American men. The notion of hegemonic masculinity itself needs to be problematised. It is frequently equated with dominance, patriarchy and heterosexuality. It is as if we do not have a definition of masculinity that is not already hegemonic. Rogoff and Van Leer argue that if we don’t relentlessly dismantle the boundaries of culture, we may find that our studies leave us stranded in hegemony, not “speaking to” the topic but “speaking for” it (Rogoff and Van Leer 1993, 748). If we fail to problematise the concept of hegemonic masculinity it may become like a benchmark concept that because of its potential ethnocentrism could stereotype all types of masculinities. This would lead us to ignore diversity and heterogeneity, eliminate the possibility of different types of hegemonic masculinities across different cultures, and undermine the potential or actual power of marginalised and subordinated masculinities. Cornwall and Lindisfarne (1994, 20), for example, argue that different hegemonic masculinities are imposed in different contexts by emphasising certain attributes such as physical prowess or emotionality over others; and different hegemonic masculinities produce different subordinate variants. They warn of the need for contextualisation and stress the importance of considering where, among interacting groups, power lies and where contestation, accommodation, resistance and negotiation might occur.

Migration and male gender identities: some empirical studies Despite the importance of Asian men as illustrations of marginalised masculinity in the West, relatively little research has been undertaken on constructions of male experiences during and after the migration process (Willis and Yeoh 2000; Chambers 1991). The following section provides a brief survey of the literature on the effects of migration on Asian and other non-Anglo-Celtic males. Much of the research on male gender identities among men who have migrated tends to focus on particular traits and dimensions of masculinity rather than on the effects of the migration and settlement processes. Further, the influence of the diaspora on these constructions of gender identity receives little attention. In summary, research on this area has the following characteristics: • •

It is quantitative, using psychometric scales based on Western concepts, and focuses on the changing division of labour (Chua and Fujino 1999); It is sometimes longitudinal and quantitative (Harris 1995); 198

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•

• • • •

It focuses on particular types of families and the changing power dynamics within them (Shahidian 1999; Tam 1999; Hondagneu-Sotelo and Messner 1994); It refers to particular stereotypes – e.g. “nerds” – and notions of marginalisation and subordination (Cheng 1999a and b); It focuses on the centrality of work and economic considerations in male perceptions of status (O’Donnell and Sharpe 2000); It refers to the influences of unemployment or downgrading of occupational status of Chinese men on associated family dynamics (Ip 1993); It has generally been conducted in North America and to a lesser extent in Britain and Australia.

Typical of the work from North America is that undertaken by Chua and Fujino (1999), which uses psychometric scales to measure differences in expressions of masculinity and how males negotiate gender expectations among college-age Asian Americans, immigrant Asian males and white American males. It also considered the perceptions of immigrant women of the gender characteristics of the men. The authors developed a concept of “flexible” masculinity in which Asian American men did not view their masculinity in opposition to their femininity. The binary is assumed but never analysed in cultural terms in this research. The US-born Asian men appeared to link their masculinity with certain caring characteristics and a willingness to do domestic tasks (Chua and Fujino 1999, 391). It is of interest for this chapter that the recently arrived Asian immigrant men rated themselves lower on attractiveness, power and caring than did other categories of males. Also, while white men considered masculinity to be a highly important component of who they were, this was not so for US-born Asian men and was less so for migrant Asian men. Only the US-born Asian men said they would do domestic tasks. There was no clear consensus among the immigrant men about their group profile (Chua and Fujino 1999, 407). Other work in North America using quantitative, longitudinal methods (Harris 1995) reports that Asian men experience the stress of cultural adaptation particularly where they are unemployed. Using slightly different methodology, Ip (1993) reached similar conclusions about the vulnerability and fear of unemployment among Asian migrant males. Harris also concluded that younger Asian men were rebelling against traditional male values and establishing new forms of masculinity. According to Harris (1995), differences in social class background did not result in great differences in terms of males’ messages that set expectations for how men ought to behave. Adopting a reductionist approach, Harris found that the individual will construct his own gender identity that contains characteristics acquired from the dominant culture, his subculture and his own unique experiences (Harris 1995, 181). An important collection of migration research focuses on the changing power relations between husbands and wives where males are separated from their families for a period of time (Tam 1999; Hondagneu-Sotelo and Messner 199

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1994; Hondagneu-Sotelo 1992; Shahidian 1999; Ip 1993). Focusing on Mexican males, Hondagneu-Sotelo and Messner point to the importance of social class and dependence on the dominant politico-economic system to the marginalisation of particular groups of men and thence to constructions of masculinities. They demonstrated how spousal negotiation replaced patriarchal exertions of authority, and also to the increasing responsibility for some of the household work assumed by the Mexican men. There was greater equality within these immigrant families associated with changes in the women’s and men’s relative positions of power (Hondagneu-Sotelo and Messner 1994, 212). In a study of Hong Kong immigrants in “astronaut” families in Australia, Tam (1999) established that the absence of males in the family meant a change in the power relations between women and children, as mothers were expected to make more important decisions for the family in their new environment. This increased their power and status within the family. Ip (1993), on the other hand, has indicated that the loss of social status of some Chinese males in Australia is associated with the downgrading of their occupation after migration. The trauma of unemployment among these men has contributed to dissatisfaction, and has led to family tensions where there is an increasing dependence on spouses and family (Ip 1993, 66). In a study of Iranian immigrant families in Canada, Shahidian (1999) concluded that immigrant men and women selectively mix and match “traditional” norms and values with “modern” options to improve their position in the contested domains of gender and sexuality. Among upper middle-class Iranian immigrants, Shahidian found an increasing emphasis on individuality at the expense of the community as the focus of reference. Further, for the individual migrant neither the ethnic community nor the host community is all-constitutive or all-restrictive. The migrant is exposed to a diversity of social milieux through which they must weave their social and cultural identity in the new environment (Shahidian 1999). Some research in the United States on both recently arrived and long-term resident Asian American and Asian men addresses the issues of stereotypes and notions of hegemonic, subordinated and marginalised masculinities. According to Cheng (1999a) Asian and Asian American men are often stereotyped as “nerds”. He argues that class comes into play in this stereotype, and is associated with their over-representation in technical fields such as accounting, engineering and computer science (Cheng 1999b). The marginalisation of Asian and Asian American men as nerds is an example, Cheng argues, of the complex relations between sex, gender, sexuality, race, religion, coloniality and class (Cheng 1999b, 305). This marginalisation is exacerbated by the typical representation of Asian American men as physically smaller than Euro-American men. Cheng sees this as an example of the inferiorisation of Asian men by hegemonic masculinity, using physical size as a measure. In terms of sexuality, Asian American men are depicted as asexual. Moreover, in a bipolarised gender-role culture, asexuality is regarded as highly deviant, even more “deviant” than homosexuality (Cheng 200

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1999b, 305). This is another example of how hegemonic masculinity uses “difference” to retain dominance. For Cheng (1999b), suggestions by EuroAmericans that Asian American and Asian men’s gender performance is inferior have been internalised by many Asian and Asian American men. Chan (2001, 13) argues that Chinese American men have been represented and perceived as powerless and non-sexual within the social order. Further, he contends that Asian American men are given a false choice: either they emulate American notions of masculinity or accept the fact that they are not men. This, he suggests, burdens Asian American men with a need to prove their manhood (Chan 2001, 156). The research in North America and ethnographic studies elsewhere (Cornwall and Lindisfarne 1994) point to hegemonic, subordinate and marginalised variants of masculinities. Further, as Connell (2000) argues, different forms of masculinity exist together, and the hegemony of any given form is constantly subject to challenges. Conflict over leadership in the arenas of business and politics may be influenced by these variations. The research on Chinese male migrants in Australia discussed in this chapter explores some of these variations with respondents who have work experience in multinational corporations in various locations in the East and West. It is in the economic and occupational structure of a culture increasingly driven by economic considerations that teenage boys from white, African Caribbean and Asian backgrounds in London seek various models of masculinity (O’Donnell and Sharpe 2000, 87). O’Donnell and Sharpe found (2000, 81) that Asian boys in particular had a strong interest in higher-status vocational courses and careers in technology and business. Their masculine identities were interwoven with their aspirations for success and status (O’Donnell and Sharpe 2000, 82). The Australian research on the Chinese male migrants discussed here focuses on the respondents’ aspirations in life as well as career, in addition to their interests in employment and education. It also considers their perceptions of their workplace social environments, the qualities of their heroes, and whether they consider that a “global man” is emerging in multinational corporations.

The Chinese in Australia Chinese migrants came to Australia and North America as part of the large influx of people seeking their fortunes during the gold rushes. They lived in “bachelor” societies and were subject to racism and violent behaviour by predominantly hegemonically masculine Anglo-Celtic males. They were infantalised and emasculated, and were perceived as a threat to local women and employment (Murphy 1993). Constructed as “other”, they were a perfect foil for the big-spending European groups. As they moved away from gold mining to take up employment in laundries, restaurants and market gardens they were seen as a threat to the employment of women, and were heavily discriminated against. 201

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Over time and particularly during the world wars, Chinese migrants were subject to a variety of immigration restriction acts as well as the White Australia Policy, which persisted into the early 1980s. Access to white-collar jobs for the first generation of immigrants was severely limited (Ip 1993, 58). While family ties, economic skills and humanitarian and refugee considerations were the main basis of entry, during the 1980s there was an increasing emphasis on the economic advantages of immigration to Australia (Wu et al. 1998, 391). This gave rise to a points system of entry that saw the emergence of skilled or professionally qualified independent migrants, many of whom were entrepreneurs who brought capital and other economic resources (Ip et al. 1998, 348). The Chinese male migrants discussed in this paper are part of this cohort. While the first Chinese migrants came from southern mainland China, more recent groups have come from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore. The Chinese diaspora in Australia has been described as diverse, made up of “sojourners”, “dragons”, “lost souls” and “astronauts” (Giese 1997). Sojourners were thought to be only temporary residents who would eventually return to their home country. Lost souls were usually older Chinese people brought to Australia by their children, or either unable to return or uncertain about returning to their home countries. Dragons were the economically, and sometimes politically, successful Chinese who were leaders in the Chinese community. Astronauts were those families in which the husbands lived in Taiwan, Hong Kong or elsewhere in Asia while their spouse and children remained in Australia. Males in these situations argue that employment is more readily available in Chinese home territories and there are greater opportunities there to accumulate wealth quickly.

Australian masculinities For many Chinese male migrants without prior migration experience, arrival in Australia leads to a culture shock as they are exposed to multiculturalism and diverse representations of masculinity in popular culture. The central variant of masculinity seems to focus on the pub, sport and beach culture (Edgar 1997; Connell 1987). Moore argues that Australian male imaging is bound up with the ANZAC legend, sport (particularly the lifesaver movement), media images and consumerism (Moore 1998b, 2). For Moore, Australian masculinities are competing, contradictory and mutually undermining (Moore 1998b, 2). He argues that dominant colonial Anglo-Celtic manhood and masculinity were constructed against the image of a multiple “other”: women, recent immigrant males and non-Caucasian males (Moore 1998a, 43). Further, he suggests that while hegemonic discourses of masculinity may suppress subordinate variations they can never totally censor them (Moore 1998b, 2). More importantly, he argues (1998b, 2) that non-Western codes of masculinity may cast doubt on the inevitability of the gender polarity that is at the heart of the modern Western gender system. This challenge to male dominance has been exacerbated by the 202

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nuanced sexual and gender politics of the last few decades, which has established the shifting nature of gender relations (Moore 1998b, 11). It is into this fluid, changing and shifting gender dynamic that Chinese male migrants have been implanted. The dominant Australian masculinity appears to emphasise sporting prowess, the ability to consume alcohol, sexual conquest and heterosexuality. In general, the culture seems to Chinese males to be more physical, emphasise bodies and be sexually open. Women seem more independent, and children are expected to save money for those consumer items they desire rather than have them provided by parents. These male migrants witness a male culture that appears to be racist and homophobic, in a setting where the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is given prominence in the media. This paradox is extended when they realise that a culture that prides itself on being multicultural is, institutionally and in terms of value orientations, predominantly monocultural, i.e. Anglo-Celtic.

The empirical study This study of forty Chinese male migrants aimed to explore the effects of migration on (re)constructions of male gender identity. The males in the research came from a number of countries of origin but were part of the Chinese diaspora in Australia. Data was collected using in-depth, semi-structured interviews that resembled guided conversations characterised by reciprocity between interviewer and respondent. Follow-up interviews were conducted to cross-check responses, seek clarification or expand on ideas raised earlier. Data were analysed using the qualitative software program Atlas/ti, which allowed for various levels of coding, memoing and the development of conceptual networks. A qualitative methodology was adopted throughout.

The sample The men in the study varied in age between 19 and 57 years, in duration of settlement between 2 years and 45 years, in previous migration experience and in sexuality. Some of the males were married to Chinese women and others to non-Chinese women, and most married couples had children. Other males were single and heterosexual, while some were gay. Most of the informants were of middle to upper-middle socioeconomic status and were professionals – e.g. engineers, academics, employed in IT, hospitality or importing-exporting. This sample is representative of the recent cohort of Chinese migrants to Australia.

Some methodological issues In keeping with a grounded approach that adopts a critical constructionist theoretical position, the chapter will introduce the voices of the respondents early in the discussion in order to provide a subjective account of the lived experiences of 203

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the informants. Concepts such as gender identity, masculinity and hegemonic masculinity were not introduced to the interviewees, and, where such words were used by the respondents, clarification was sought. No attempt was made to operationalise these concepts prior to the interview even though the researcher was informed by Connell’s work (1987) on hegemonic, subordinated and marginalised variants of masculinity. Throughout the interviews, the researcher engaged in a critical inner dialogue concerning these and related concepts such as sex, gender, identity, sexuality, the “other”, difference and hybridity. The issue of migration is equally important in this study, and it is explicitly recognised that there is a need in migration research for investigations of men’s migration experiences and the social construction of masculinities (Willis and Yeoh 2000, xx). Further, cognizance was given to the cultural bias inherent in such concepts as masculinity, and the pre-eminence of gender in research on non-Western males. For Chinese males, for example, gender identity may be given much lower priority in life than class, ability to accumulate wealth, or social networks and connections (Brownell 1995).

Selected themes from the study In the following section the themes of Chineseness, the importance of hard work and education, the secondary nature of sport and recreation, sexual “conservativeness”, and friendships will be introduced through the voices of the Chinese males in the study. Inevitably several of the themes have axial and open codes in common – e.g. insularity, relationships with father and mother, and relationships with wife and other women. These themes were inductively developed and grounded in the primary data from the interviews. Chineseness Perhaps this core idea was the most central in the sense that it included traditional values and behaviours that have persisted into the present lives of the informants, and that influence their thoughts and social actions. For many males this included a degree of asceticism and a lack of desire to express feelings. I don’t show great emotion. Chinese men keep feelings in their hearts maybe forever. I keep my feelings to myself and try to deal with problems. (RZ) [Y]ou have to find solutions for yourself. You have to plan your life ahead…the male is the centre of the family. And they’re supposed to solve their problems. They’re not supposed to give problems to their families, particularly they will keep problems from their children. (C97) For this particular male, retaining status in the family was important for men, as was keeping “face”. 204

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Chinese men um just can’t afford to, you know, lose their, their credibility as the as the head of the family…they need to demonstrate to their children that they are [a] useful person who can really protect and make a living for the family. (C97) The issue of being sole provider, protector and guardian in their families was central to these Chinese males. [N]ormally the man, the man is expected to support the family. If you don’t do that you’ll become, you lose everything. Your…reputation. (A) It is the father’s responsibility to work outside and mother stay at home and look after the children…in my opinion I work and it is my own responsibility to support the whole family. (W) The man…is mainly the centre of the family…for the Chinese family…for my family and also the family of my friends the same. Man is the centre. (W) This particular respondent emphasised the division of labour in the household whereby women were expected to look after the children and perform the domestic tasks. This point of view was typical among the respondents. Also hinted at was the power of the male and the family hierarchy with the patriarch at the top. Duration of settlement in Australia or age of the male informant did not have a significant influence on this attitude. For example, a relatively young respondent, who had migrated to Australia during his primary-school days, was married to a woman with two undergraduate degrees and had two young children, which was not atypical of these men. I am the one who make more money than her, I don’t want her to make money for me. I want me to make money y’know.…I mean if I can make her happy, she look after the kids we live together, we trust each other. (M) The centrality of the family and respect and honour for older persons (particularly males) were referred to by the majority of the respondents as a central feature of Chinese life. [W]ork hard, and study hard and do everything well and honour to others. I keep feelings to myself…yes sometimes…sometimes you keep it inside. My father is more, more powerful in family…the family is very important…to share together with your family it is important. (PW) [R]espect for older people…respect for everyone who deserve it…look after their own brother and sister…keep the family together…family connections still very strong…no yelling at your parents um absolute obedience. (CM) 205

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In short, the main indicators of Chineseness suggested by the male migrants were the centrality of family, connectedness, respect for age, power and authority of the patriarch, the father as sole provider, protector and guardian, non-expression of feelings and emotions by men, social order, and giving and maintaining “face”. Implicit in many of these is the importance of hard work and education. The importance of hard work and education This theme was frequently raised in connection with the emphasis on sport and leisure in Australia and the perceived lack of emphasis on hard work among Australians. Further, hard work and educational achievement were viewed as instrumental in the accumulation of wealth and status. [Y]ou have to work hard and I expect you to do better, something like that. Study is central…to getting a good job. I work hard but I don’t play hard. I think that’s my lifestyle. (PC) It’s quite true in a sense that um, um Chinese people will work very hard, cause I did work very hard when I came here.…a lot of Australians are a little bit backwards in regard to hard work. (S) [E]nergies were put into work and business and they didn’t care about sport, because sport didn’t make money. (CM) An important “marker” of their manhood for these Chinese migrants is therefore their ability to achieve educational success, work hard and accumulate wealth that will enable them to be the sole provider in the household. Unemployment is anathema to them. Um, they (unemployed Chinese men) feel like, ya know, they feel kind of useless. They’re not, they’re not the breadwinner of the family, y’know and that degrades them. (S) I think he had to “eat a lot of humble pie”. He lost face you know. Ah…I think it would be traumatic and affect people from my culture. (CM) Oh unemployment, that’s very serious problem too. Everybody will treat you like dirt. Very bad man. Yes, because ah normally the man, the man is expected to support his family. If you don’t do that you’ll become, you lose everything. Your…reputation. Reputation. And social position now. (A) The centrality of education was a prominent theme in the lives of all of the respondents. This was so even where their parents had left school at primary level. Educational achievement was sufficiently important to the parents of the respondents for them to administer physical punishment when it was not evident. 206

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While some of the respondents were less severe on their offspring, there was some evidence of pressure being placed on children. Education was seen as a valuable resource, but it was also associated with Confucian values of obedience, control and discipline. [O]nce you’ve got knowledge in your head it’s there forever until your life is ended here. It is knowledge. It is really part of, I guess, um the enthusiasm that Confucian knowledge…is power.…those people who can become um important are people who ah have knowledge. (BT) Most respondents placed so much importance on educational achievement that they deferred all associations with the opposite sex until they had graduated and established themselves in a career. In at least one case this meant changing schools. I do not want to know all of the girls. I must concentrate on studying. So I stop going to the um, to the co-educational school. Only boys school. (W) In some of the respondents’ families emphasis was placed on the education of boys (particularly the eldest son) because it was expected that girls would become employed to support the family and would eventually be supported themselves by a male and another family through marriage. The importance placed on educational success and achievement meant that sport and recreation were gradually de-emphasised. The secondary nature of sport and recreation While most of these Chinese male migrants played sport or engaged in recreational activities in primary and secondary school, very few played sport competitively. Most of the informants emphasised the social importance or diversionary aspects of participating in sport or recreation. My attitude towards sport is ah it’s a leisure sort of thing, it’s something of a diversion ah, because you can’t really sort of study all the time so you want to do something different. (DI) But that’s not accepted. I mean according to traditional Chinese point of view, they think sport is no good, they think just a hobby or leisure but not a job. (C-W) Some of the respondents expressed amazement at the emphasis placed on sport in secondary schools and at the status given to those males who were good at sport. 207

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Here I understand there are kids, that compete against each other in sports but ah academically it seems that they don’t care that much. No, it’s very different from Asian society. (PIN) Sport was very important and the school captain has to be a sports person.…sportsman of the week will get an award…created certain messages.…prizes…certainly weighted heavily toward all sports people…sports heroes. (CL) Some of the respondents who had migrated to North America prior to more permanent settlement in Australia discovered that sports participation was a way of becoming popular among their male peers, and, more particularly, with females. Ah, I would have to say very important (the role of sport).…it seems like if you, you can play sport and you are very good at it you can be very popular, and make your life a bit easier. No, I hadn’t known sport before America. (X) Participation in sports was perceived to be a “blokey” thing, and conversing about sport seemed to dominate male conversation. Some respondents emphasised that games like tennis and table tennis were seen as “sissy” by non-Chinese males. Where sport was perceived to be important and sporting heroes such as Jackie Chan, Michael Chang and Michael Jordan received adulation, it was more for their ability to accumulate wealth than for their physical capacities. Some informants believed that directors of companies and chief executive officers of large corporations were more important to young Chinese males than sporting heroes. The notion that blood was spilt on the boardroom floor rather than on the sports field, and that masculinity was displayed in the stockmarket rather than in the stadium, was emphasised by these Chinese male migrants. Some respondents believed that the relative lack of Chinese sporting heroes was a factor in the lack of emphasis on sport among Chinese males. Sexual “conservativeness” The notion of “conservativeness” is used advisedly here because of its potential for cultural bias. “Conservative” is used in the sense of the importance placed on sexual potency and the delay in sexual activity. Most of the male migrants had deferred sexual activity until they had completed their educational qualifications and established themselves in a career. [Y]ou don’t have sexual relationship before a marriage. Chinese people are very conservative. (FC) And that (sexual relations) occurred when you were married. (K-T) [S]exual relations with your wife…after marriage. (PW) 208

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There was a belief among some men in the study that sexual activity prior to marriage is more frequent among the younger generation of Chinese men and women, both in the home countries and in the diaspora. I think it’s getting more and more what you call it…common.…I think is about 15% or so ah girls under 16 years old have sex. (ET) Sexually very conservative when young, but it’s very different today. (RZ) Many of the Chinese males referred to noticing the openness in relationships and the public expression of physicality when they first arrived in Australia. Some contrasted the private nature of sexual matters for Chinese people with the public demonstrativeness of non-Chinese. Younger males referred to the emphasis on sexual performance and potency among non-Chinese males, and to the pressure to make sexual conquests as a measure of masculinity at school. [N]one of us really want to have sexual relations with any girlfriends in high school.…everyone like pressure each other you know even though no one want to do it themselves. (CT) This is high school. You are supposed to enlarge the number (of sexual conquests) by ten digits or something. That happened for everyone just a little bit to have popularity.…if you talk like that in Taiwan…people think you are dickhead…they don’t care. So people don’t show it that way. (CT) Some of the respondents referred to not talking about sexual matters in public, and to the reluctance of governments to be more open about the need for sex education. [D]on’t talk about sex in the public…no big deal. (DI) In the Chinese way. No you never you never know, you never tell anyone if that happens. (CT) Those respondents who had experienced sexual relations prior to marriage were generally those who had migrated overseas to study, were gay, or indicated that they were exceptions in their society. I had sexual relations in the USA. Ah I think if I was in Taiwan it would be much different. Ah, but at that time when I was in US, I had been very Americanised. (X) Fairly early. At that stage I think I’m ahead. Ah it [sexual relations] is not seen as very common I think. I think I’m a bit too early. (TON)

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The gay Chinese males in the sample were more inclined to be sexually promiscuous and to have had sexual relations much earlier and across ethnic boundaries than their heterosexual peers. They emphasised the importance of physical attractiveness and appearance in their choice of sexual partners. While they were critical of the cultural immaturity of non-Chinese males, and of their consumption of alcohol and unfit bodies, they preferred Anglo-Celtic males as partners for status and prestige reasons among the Asian community. Gay males tended to enjoy the company of females who they believed perceived them to be non-threatening, and interested in shopping and fashions. Like their heterosexual peers, however, they wanted to be the protectors and guardians of women. Chinese gay men were more inclined than others to be circumspect in their social milieu and physical locales because of their fear of racism and homophobia, especially near Australian pubs and some nightclubs. The gay Chinese males in this research displayed qualities associated with sexual performance, physical attractiveness and well-cut bodies. These resonate with some of the markers of more hegemonic variants of masculinity among non-Chinese males in Australia. This emphasis on sexual performance might not be a result of the migration experience, but might rather be a more global marker in the gay culture (Jackson and Sullivan 1999). On one hand, these gay respondents who had close friendships with women because of their similar interests resembled their heterosexual peers who wanted to be the guardians, protectors and providers for women. The issue of “coming out” was not significant in the lives of these gay males, as they generally believed that the notion was a construction of the Western world. Their sexuality was only revealed to close friends, and not to their parents, who they believed wanted them to provide them with grandchildren (sons). Most of the gay males had a closer relationship with their mother than with their father. Only upon maturity in most cases did gay males develop a reasonable relationship with their fathers. Friendships The Chinese male migrants in this study referred to several types of friendships. These included same-sex friendships, opposite-sex friendships, multiethnic friendships and monoethnic friendships. The majority of respondents had monoethnic friendships irrespective of their country of origin, duration of settlement in Australia and previous migration experience. Most of the informants who had migration experience prior to settling in Australia had maintained monoethnic friendships while they were studying overseas. The few exceptions had established friendships with non-Chinese males as part of college fraternities and membership in sporting teams in North America. This peer group subculture promoted the importance of sport for popularity among males and females as well as to increase one’s chances of sexual conquest. One respondent who found himself in this situation referred to this as straying from the more traditional way in which parents expected Chinese males to mix with 210

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Chinese women. He eventually returned to the traditional path. Another respondent who had migrated to New Zealand prior to more permanent settlement in Australia became involved sexually with non-Chinese women and developed friendships across cultures. A further respondent who had been brought up by exceptionally strong females found it difficult to have intimate relationships with Chinese women until much later in life. For many years he viewed Chinese women like kin. In general, friendships were seen as a lifelong commitment and involved sharing and caring. While for the great majority of respondents they were mainly monoethnic, one informant preferred non-Chinese friends because he felt freer in their company. Only one informant referred to the importance of cultivating friendships for instrumental reasons such as their potential usefulness as business connections. For gay male migrants, close friends who were confidants were frequently Asian males or females, but partners or lovers were mainly non-Chinese. There appeared to be some status in having Anglo-Celtic partners, who were generally considered to be higher in the hierarchy than Asian males. Gay males often became involved in friendships with Chinese women because they believed that they had common interests such as fashion and shopping. Where Chinese males became involved in friendships or even serious relationships with non-Chinese women there were frequent conflicts over expectations, particularly in relation to the importance of male friends. Where non-Chinese women emphasised the importance of the romantic dyad over all other friendships, male respondents highlighted the importance of male–male friendships. Males would frequently absent themselves from cross-gender relationships or pay more attention to their male friends when they needed assistance. This often resulted in conflict. This was also commented upon in one case where the couple were both Chinese. Chinese males also experienced difficulty in adapting to the independence of non-Chinese women. This was especially so where they wanted to be provider, protector and guardian, as was customary. This theme was closely linked to Chineseness, and referred to the depth and strength of connectedness between same-sex friends in particular. Many respondents suggested that friendship among non-Chinese people tends to focus on the romantic dyad and that in their relationships with non-Chinese women difficulties had emerged over this difference when male friends had asked for their support. For them, friendship involved total commitment. The feeling toward each other is very important.…we are willing to sacrifice some part of our self and that to me is very important because of course when we enter into the relationship we want to keep it.…I want the relationship forever. (FC) [I]n the West friendship is perhaps something transitory not as permanent…whereas China and Chinese culture friendship is just as permanent in fact I mean throughout…once you’re friends, you’re friends for life.…being a friend entails life commitmen. (DI) 211

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Sometimes, always my fiancé, say that um your friends always important than me. Yeah you always take care of your friends but never take care of me.…once we become a friend I think we should help each other. (A) Same-sex friendships among Chinese males can involve physical contact such as holding hands. Some of the Chinese males indicated that close physical contact among Western males only seems to occur when they are intoxicated. Then, they feel each other up, embrace and even kiss. At other times heterosexual AngloCeltic males would consider such behaviour repugnant, and would adopt homophobic attitudes and behaviour toward it. In the case of opposite-sex friendships, Chinese males experienced difficulties with the independence of non-Chinese females. Consistent with their desire to be providers and protectors of women, Chinese males wanted to pay all expenses when dating. [F]or all Chinese it’s very important that you know when a boy and girl go out you have to buy everything. Even up to marriage a guy is supposed to pay for everything through our whole life. (CT) Some of the male migrants found it difficult to readapt to this tradition after they had terminated relationships with non-Chinese women and begun dating Chinese females. They believed that Chinese girls were more sexually innocent and more dependent on males.

Conclusions Overall, the Chinese male migrants in this study emphasise quite different “markers” of masculinity from Western males. For them manhood is measured by their ability to achieve educational success, accumulate wealth from hard work, be sole providers for and protectors of spouses and children, and maintain a competitive advantage by cultivating connectedness and social networks in the Chinese community. These males downplay sexual potency, sporting prowess and the ability to consume alcohol as measures of male gender identity, considering them to be “markers” of masculinities among Anglo-Celtic males. While Japanese men in general do not appear to highlight sporting prowess as central to their masculinity, Richard Light (in his chapter in this volume) established that a hegemonic and culture-specific masculinity emerged among the Japanese rugby union players that he studied. Masculinity among these players was demonstrated through qualities such as superior endurance, tenacity, power and spiritual strength. All of these qualities are valued among males in traditional Japanese militarist cultural traditions. Among the Chinese gay males sexual attractiveness and performance are emphasised, but these males still experience racism and homophobic attitudes from older adolescent non-Chinese hegemonic 212

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males. Most of the Chinese heterosexual males in this study were opposed to homosexuality but were not inclined to physically violent behaviour towards gay men. There was little evidence among these males of a significant change in attitudes or practices concerning division of labour in the household. Further, irrespective of their age or duration of settlement, married migrant males strongly supported the practice of being their family’s sole provider. When male migrants arrive in Australia there is great potential for them to come across a diversity of different ethnic groups as well as multiple representations of masculinities. Virtually nothing is known about how migrants react to these diverse variants of male gender identity. There is potential for both resistance and submission to dominant variants, but other adaptive strategies such as strategic hybridity or the (de)emphasising of the characteristics of a particular ethnic identity dependent on the context are also possible (Poynting et al. 1997). Contrasted with the markers of Chinese masculinity among these migrants are indicators of dominant variants of masculinity typical of non-Chinese males in Australia – namely, sports participation and knowledge, alcohol consumption, being heterosexual, lack of emphasis on hard work, and emphasis on individuality and independence and sexual potency and performance. One might anticipate that this would pose problems for the Chinese male migrants but this does not appear to be the case. Like many migrant groups, members of the Chinese diaspora tend to remain relatively insular immediately after migration, and tend to remain isolated in ethnic communities despite their duration of settlement. Chinese males therefore interact in monoethnic friendship and family networks, reinforcing many traditional markers of Chinese masculinity. Informants in this study see no need to resist or submit to dominant variants of masculinity. In that sense the patriarchy remains alive and well, and Chinese variants of hegemonic masculinity are retained in their families. The only exception to this pattern is Chinese gay males, whose behaviour in some respects resembles aspects of Western hegemonic masculinity. Like their heterosexual peers they want to be providers for, protectors and guardians of women. By contrast, however, they emphasise the importance of physical attractiveness, fit and well-muscled bodies and an active sex life. Chinese gay male migrants are more often sexually active with AngloCeltic males and have been sexually active from a much earlier age than heterosexual men. Heterosexual males, on the other hand, tend to be sexually “conservative”, and the informants in this study generally deferred sexual relationships until marriage. Because of experiencing racism and homophobic behaviour, however, the Chinese gay males are circumspect in terms of spatial locales and restrict their social milieu. Chan (2001, 20) has argued that Asian American men and Asian American academics in North America need to acknowledge the paternalistic role of men in Asian American families. The present study opens this window slightly. Also explored here is the need to take into account the diversity among Chinese migrant males and the heterogeneity of identities. 213

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The respondents in this study were not interested in modelling their gender behaviour on that of dominant Anglo-Celtic variants. These males were better educated on average than Australian males and were from middle to uppermiddle socioeconomic levels. Generally, unlike male migrants in North American studies, these men were neither unemployed nor economically dependent on the broader social structure. They did consider, however, that unemployment was anathema to Chinese masculinity. A central marker of their masculinity was their ability to be provider for their family. This meant that most of the male informants, irrespective of age or duration of settlement in Australia, were ambivalent about their spouse working outside the home. In some cases, however, economic necessity forced a decision about their spouses being employed. Even when their wives worked it was rare for informants to modify their belief that it was women’s role to look after the children and do domestic tasks. While some of the respondents had employed domestic assistants in their home territories they could not afford to do so in Australia. There was little change to the traditional division of labour, but in the few instances where the males had changed their attitudes and behaviours concerning the gendered division of labour it was sufficiently significant for their spouses to comment on it. Most of the Chinese males in this study had experienced quite a distant relationship with their fathers. Fathers in general worked very hard and, in many cases, some distance from family residences. Rarely was there physical contact between father and son, and fathers frequently administered physical punishment when sons underachieved at school. The fathers of the respondents were heads of their household and the main providers for the family, although in some cases it was necessary for the mothers to work outside the home. The males in this research appeared to be changing their attitudes about and practices with their children. Most wanted closer emotional and physical ties with their children, who in turn expected their parents to take an interest in their recreational activities as well as their education. While these informants impressed upon their children the importance of educational achievement they were less inclined to punish them for poor grades. Most of these males promoted equality between male and female children in terms of education. It is suggested that it is with the next generation of Chinese males that distinctive changes in Chinese masculinity will occur. One might speculate at this point about the emergence of a new masculinity among these Chinese migrants, one that is less severe in many respects than that of their fathers. As acculturation continues with the next generation of Chinese males it will be interesting to see how this new masculinity develops. The notion of masculinity itself was mentioned explicitly by only two of the respondents in relation to their lives as Chinese men migrating to Australia. In these cases masculinity was linked to traits such as displays of the body among Western males or to “blokey” conversations about sport and sexual conquests. Other males tended to talk more about family, hard work and the potential to 214

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accumulate wealth in relation to their roles as men. These were the measures of success as a man. According to Brownell (1995) issues of class, marriage potential and family connections take precedence over those of gender in Chinese culture. How culturally sensitive then is the Western construction of masculinity? The notion of hegemony may well be more portable across cultures than that of masculinity or hegemonic masculinity. If hegemony refers to what is perceived to be the naturally superior or that which is constructed as culturally exalted so that all alternatives are hidden in the shadows, then in traditional Chinese culture the patriarchy is central, and therefore men are dominant. They are wise and must be afforded respect and honour as heads of the family, the clan and thence the state. This appears to be supported by Confucian philosophy, and more specifically the belief that women must obey the state leader, their father and their husband. It was in the area of homosexuality that the attitudes of Chinese male migrants were similar to those of hegemonically masculine Anglo-Celtic males. Heterosexual Chinese males were opposed to homosexuality on religious, medical and sociocultural grounds, but only one respondent displayed strong homophobic attitudes. This same male also had strong sexist attitudes towards women in management, and considered he knew more about Australian football than his Anglo-Celtic neighbours. He was an exception, though, and had lived for a long period in another Western country prior to settling in Australia. Most of the respondents had been unaware of homosexuality until later in life, and knew very few homosexuals. The gay males in the sample felt more comfortable with being homosexual in Australia than they did in their country of birth. Uncertainty about reactions to their homosexuality by police and politico-legal agents in their home territories was of concern. Unlike the male migrants in several other studies (Tam 1999; HondagneuSotelo and Messner 1994; Chua and Fujino 1999; Bottomley 1979; Shahidian 1999; Connell 1987), the Chinese males in this study generally appeared to retain the patriarchy and thence the power in their households. Further, there was no significant change in the household division of labour. One significant difference between the men in previous studies and those in this study was in their level of socioeconomic status. Most males of lower socioeconomic status depended more heavily on the wider social structure and therefore confronted dominant variants of masculinity. Moreover, these studies reported that male migrants negotiated changes in gender roles with their wives. In some of these cases (Hondagneu-Sotelo and Messner 1994; Tam 1999), women and children were separated from the males who migrated to new territories for employment reasons. These males confronted dominant gender forces in their new environment, which usually resulted in their marginalisation, while their wives developed powerful positions as the main decision-makers in the absence of their husbands. In these cases the status of women increased in the eyes of their offspring. 215

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The males who most closely resemble the Chinese male migrants discussed here were recently arrived Asian migrants in a study of attitudes and gender expectations in new Asian American masculinities (Chua and Fujino 1999). Immigrant Asian men were less inclined than US-born Asian men to do domestic tasks, and were less open to sharing household responsibilities. According to Chua and Fujino (1999, 408), Asian American men hold male privilege at the same time as being racially subordinated. However, they suggest that Asian American men are at a critical site for redefining their masculinity, because of their own experience with subordination and because the women’s movement has created the consciousness to challenge patriarchy (Chua and Fujino 1999, 408). These US-born Asian men do, however, rely on their ability to gain economic power in building their masculinity. They do this in a caring manner rather than by being independent, dominant and non-feminine. The authors refer to this as a flexible masculinity – a masculinity that is not viewed in opposition to femininity. Asian American males appear to be more sensitised to issues of gender and gender identity than the Chinese male migrants in Australia, at least in their responses to a number of psychometric scales included in the study by Chua and Fujino (1999). Such items force particular responses and omit subjective accounts of the lived experiences of informants. It is interesting that the authors tend to elide the results for the US-born Asian Americans and the recently arrived Asian Americans only when it is convenient to their argument of a more negotiated flexible masculinity. In other instances the data for these recent immigrants are similar to those for the Australian sample. The data in this study of Chinese male migrants to Australia support a hegemonic variant of masculinity in which the status and power of migrant males is reinforced in family and ethnic community environments. This variant is not an imitation of Western models of hegemonic masculinity. The way in which class, sexuality and ethnicity cross-cut gender demonstrates how hazardous it is to generalise about “male” migrants (Willis and Yeoh 2000), and emphasises the need for more nuanced approaches to gender identity and migration studies. This study points to the importance of context or new location in reinforcing or modifying particular constructions of masculinities, but equally to the importance of tradition. It also emphasises the need for culturally sensitive conceptual, theoretical and methodological perspectives when investigating male gender identities across cultures. The most significant differentiating variable influencing perceptions of masculinity was sexuality. The gay males in the study emphasised the importance of physical attractiveness and sexual activity in their constructions of desirable masculinity, while the heterosexual males displayed a degree of sexual conservativeness compared with their gay peers. While they suggested that the present adolescent and young adult generation of Chinese males may differ from them in terms of sexual experimentation, this group of men had deferred sexual activity until marriage. The only exceptions to this were some respondents who 216

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had prior migration experience as students in North America. There was no indication, however, that sexual potency might now be a marker of masculinity among heterosexual Chinese men. On the other hand, heterosexual males in general referred to the importance of economic indicators in their preferred male gender identity. The importance of hard work, educational achievement, the accumulation of wealth in a well-paid occupation, and being a provider for the family were indicators of economic success and thence measures of masculinity. There appears to be little evidence of change in the importance of economic success as the core element of Chinese masculinity among male migrants. This research on perceptions of masculinities among Chinese male migrants has demonstrated that there are multiple variants of masculinity among the Chinese males in this study. While variants were not greatly diverse they did demonstrate the danger of homogenising and stereotyping masculinities among Chinese male migrants. Futoshi Taga, in his chapter in this volume, points to the diversity of gender identities in the subjective accounts of life histories of young Japanese men. He also emphasises the changing role expectations relating to male gender identities in Japan. These changes have contributed to changing dynamics in families and households, with anticipated modifications to the power of males. Individual males react to these changes in different ways. The present study, echoing Taga’s findings, demonstrates the importance of not generalising from one sample of Chinese male migrants in Brisbane to other male migrants in Australia or elsewhere. Tseen Khoo’s critical analysis in this volume also points to the changing representations of Asian Australian males, and to the diversity of gender identities among these males. It is important to note that the males in my sample tend to be homogeneous in terms of socioeconomic status; future work must therefore incorporate a greater diversity of social class in tapping the rich research vein among males in the Chinese diaspora.

References Bottomley, G. 1979. After the Odyssey: A study of Greek Australians. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Brownell, Susan. 1995. Training the body for China: Sports in the moral order of the People’s Republic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Chambers, Deborah. 1991. Contemporary problems in the study of masculinities: A comparison between Australia and Britain. Working Papers in Women’s Studies No. 2. Sydney: Women’s Research Centre, University of Western Sydney. Chan, Jachinson. 2001. Chinese American masculinities: From Fu Manchu to Bruce Lee. New York: Routledge. Cheng, C., 1999a. On the functionality of marginalized masculinities and femininities: An ethnography on organizational power and gender performance. The Journal of Men’s Studies 7: 415–430. ——. 1999b. Marginalized masculinities and hegemonic masculinity: An introduction. The Journal of Men’s Studies 7: 295–315.

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Chua, Peter and Diane Fujino. 1999. Negotiating new Asian-American masculinities: Attitudes and gender expectations. The Journal of Men’s Studies 7: 391–413. Chuang, Kent. 1999. Using chopsticks to eat steak. In Multicultural queer: Australian narratives, eds Peter A. Jackson and Gerard Sullivan: 29–41. New York: Harrington Park Press. Connell, R.W. 1985/6. Masculinity, violence and war. In War/Interventions, eds P. Patton and Ross Rode: 4–10. Sydney: Interventions Publications. ——. 1987. Gender and power: Society, the person and sexual politics. Oxford: Polity Press. ——. 1996. Politics of changing men. Arena Journal 6: 53–72. ——. 1997. Men in the world: Masculinities and globalization. Paper delivered at the Masculinities: Renegotiating Genders Conference. University of Wollongong. ——. 2000. The men and the boys. St Leonards: Allen & Unwin. Cornwall, A. and N. Lindisfarne, eds. 1994. Dislocating masculinities: Comparative ethnographies. London: Routledge. Edgar, Don. 1997. Men, mateship, marriage: Exploring macho myths and the way forward. Sydney: Harper Row Publishers. Giese, Diana. 1997. Astronauts, lost souls and dragons: Voices of today’s Chinese Australians in conversation. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Harris, I.M. 1995. Messages men hear: Constructing masculinities. London: Taylor & Francis. Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierrette. 1992. Overcoming patriarchal constraints: The reconstruction of gender relations among Mexican immigrant women and men. Gender and Society 6: 393–415. Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierrette and Michael A. Messner. 1994. Gender displays and men’s power: The “new man” and Mexican-American men. In Theorizing masculinities, eds H. Brod and M. Kaufmann: 200–18. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Ip, David. 1993. Reluctant entrepreneurs: Professionally qualified Asian migrants in small business. Asian and Pacific Migration Review 2: 57–74. Ip, David, Chung-Tong Wu and Christine Inglis. 1998. Gold mountains no more: Impressions of Australian society among recent Asian immigrants. In The last half century of Chinese overseas, ed. Elizabeth Sinn: 347–69. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Jackson, Peter and Gerard Sullivan, eds. 1999. Multicultural queer: Australian narratives. New York: Harrington Park Press. Moore, Clive. 1998a. Colonial manhood and masculinities. Journal of Australian Studies 56: 35–50. ——. 1998b. Guest editorial. Journal of Australian Studies 56: 1–16. Murphy, Brian. 1993. The other Australia: Explorations of migration. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. O’Donnell, Mike and Sue Sharpe, eds. 2000. Uncertain masculinities: Youth, ethnicity and class in contemporary Britain. London: Routledge. Poynting, Scott, Greg Noble and Paul Tabar. 1997. Intersections of masculinity and ethnicity: A study of male Lebanese immigrant youth in Western Sydney. Paper delivered at the Masculinities: Renegotiating Genders Conference. University of Wollongong. Rogoff, I. and D. Van Leer. 1993. Afterthoughts…A dossier on masculinities. Theory and Society 22: 739–62. Shahidian, Hammed. 1999. Gender and sexuality among immigrant Iranians in Canada. Sexualities 2: 189–222.

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Tam, Siumi Maria. 1999. Empowering mobility: Female Hong Kong immigrants in Australia. Paper delivered at the Gendered Mobilities in Asia Conference. The Chinese University, Hong Kong. Willis, Katie and Brenda Yeoh. 2000. Gender and migration. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publications Ltd. Wu, Chung-Tong, David Ip, Christine Inglis, Ikuo Kawakami and Karel Duivenvoorden. 1998. Settlement experiences of recent Chinese immigrants in Australia: A comparison of settlers from Hong Kong, Taiwan and China. In The last half century of Chinese overseas, ed. Elizabeth Sinn: 391–422. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

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12 “ANGRY YELLOW MEN” Cultural space for diasporic Chinese masculinities Tseen Khoo Tongue-in-cheek, Sau-Ling Wong declared 1991 the Year of the Asian American Man because of the number of successful literary publications by Asian American men and the appearance of “an especially intriguing cultural artifact” (Wong 1993, 1), the Asia Pacific Islander Men’s calendar that showcased the desirability and virility of Asian men. Her subsequent critique of the calendar and its priorities is a welcome artefact in its own right as Asian male identity and sexuality have been arguably the most under-represented areas in diasporic Chinese and Japanese studies. This is particularly true of representational studies and critiques of cultural production. Diasporic masculinity studies is an area with a growing profile, as demonstrated by both this publication in general and the following chapter in particular. In keeping with the overall focus of this book, this chapter will concentrate mostly on diasporic Chinese and Japanese contexts.1 Ironically, the impetus to write against prominent “patriarchal” structures has led to research in diasporic women’s studies and feminism, and gay and lesbian studies, outstripping examinations of diasporic masculinities. That is, while there is significant overlap in some areas of gay/queer studies and diasporic masculinity studies, there have been few concurrent, overt engagements with both areas. Undeniably, the majority of research in diasporic masculinities is currently taking place in the American context thanks to the momentum of institutionalised Asian American Studies. Research into these particular formations of masculinity has permeated the debates (and their permutations) between and about Maxine Hong Kingston and Frank Chin, critiques of David Mura’s M.Butterfly, and the “invasion” of Hollywood by Hong Kong action filmmakers and stars.2 The increasing publication of works that address diasporic queer and masculinist theory indicates an engagement with long-neglected aspects of Asian–North American society. While statistical and sociological information about the Chinese sojourner population or interned Japanese communities is becoming readily available, the examination of cultural production about these (and subsequent) experiences from specifically masculinist perspectives is at an early stage. This is particularly noticeable in Western regions outside North America.3 220

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Intra-community gender division The title of this chapter is a reference to Kenneth Lee’s article, “Angry yellow men: Exploiting Asian discontent” (1996), which emphasises the importance of recognising strategies of co-option and staged antagonisms – not just towards Asian communities but, in a much more destructive manner, within them. Knowing the strategies of division could prevent these tactics from swamping dialogue about the politics of gender and representations of sexuality. One of the foremost tactics for defusing the mobilisation of racial minorities is pitting groups within the movement against each other, particularly along gendered lines. For diasporic communities, this splitting occurs partly because of the hyper-visibility of the Asian Woman compared with that of the Asian Man. In the histories of Western nations such as Australia and Canada, diasporic Chinese and/or Japanese men are the figurative and material threats to the integrity of perceived Australian- or Canadian-ness. These perceived threats ranged from invasion and contamination scenarios and the enduring fear of the Yellow Peril “stealing jobs” through their cheaper labour, to greedy nouveau-riche, gangster or refugee stereotypes.4 Ironically, these aggressive scenarios of diasporic men swamping and dominating society exist alongside equally hostile representations of them as “feminised” or emasculated Others, completely unacceptable in Western societies. Kam Louie and Jinqi Ling both argue for attention to the differentiated consequences of referring to feminisation or emasculation, with Ling specifically pointing to the men’s “feminised” image as it is conflated with Model Minority traits (Ling 1997, 315).5 Allan Luke describes diasporic men in the West as: hav[ing] all the characteristics of something Other, something more feminine in the normative eye of Western sexuality: slender and relatively hairless bodies, differently textured and coloured skin and straight hair. In Western public representations of masculinity we are defined in terms of absence, lack or silence. In this kind of sexual environment, we are invisible – not present, without a place or ‘name’ in the discourses and practices of white male sexuality. (Luke 1997, 32) I contend that more sophisticated cultural representations of diasporic “masculinity” (and, simultaneously, “femininity”) develop when conditions and hierarchies of nationalism/community are addressed in conjunction with those of gender/sexuality. I deliberately entwine these concepts because “masculinity” in many Western nations is a concept with historical and recurrent definitions strongly influenced by tropes of war and patriotism. This chapter addresses the contexts of diasporic male representation in Australia and Canada, with occasional references to Asian American critique. On this intersected axis of diasporic Canadian and Australian cultural production, the micro-politics of the individual thus inflect the macro-politics of 221

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globalisation and constructions of nationhood. To focus this chapter further, the texts I examine are by diasporic artists who use Western notions of nation and patriotism as points of departure for examining diasporic masculinities and the “place” of Other citizens in these societies. Concentrating on the implications of Western discourse for diasporic communities and individuals highlights the dilemmas faced by those who have spent the majority of their creative lives in Australia, Canada or the United States. In short, what is the sociopolitical context for discussing representations of diasporic Chinese and Japanese men in Australia and Canada? How can readings of these texts diversify, and give depth to, formations of diasporic masculinities? Limited representations of “Asian men” circulate in disparate literary and other cultural discourses in Australia and Canada. Both of these societies and their structures are patriarchal and dominated by Anglo-Europeans, with circumscribed representations of non-whites in mainstream media and publishing channels. The persistent Orientalist image of “Asia” as the feminine to the masculine culture (and proprietorial status) of the “West” contributes to the restricted range of possible contemporary subject positions for diasporic men. Luke’s remarks quoted above assert this lack of a profile, while Australian filmmaker Ayres argues more specifically that: [i]n the heterosexual [Western] world, Asian women are coveted and fetishised. From Suzie Wong to the Singapore Girl to Gong Li, the Asian woman has crossed into Western consciousness, embodying a sexy blend of enigma, suffering and compliance. She is the epitome of femininity.…The same racial stereotype that makes Asian women desirable makes Asian men marginal. (Ayres 1998, 112) Unpacking Ayres’s use of the two-pronged stereotype, I would argue that the ways in which diasporic women are stereotyped are distinctly gender-based. Therefore, their application to diasporic men results in their “feminisation” and, in turn, leads to a version of exotic and “freakish” maleness. This is initially not a process of erasure but certainly of “‘deviant’ masculinities [which] represent a tacit challenge not only to conventional male subjectivity, but to the whole of our ‘world”’ (Kaja Silverman in Savran 1996, 127). Erasure and displacement result from the ensuing rejection of different forms of “maleness” or, indeed, other male forms that signify “difference”. While there are specific issues with the unproblematised (though partly ironic) way in which Ayres invokes images of “Asian women”, his point about the double disempowerment of diasporic men in Western society has validity. Often, the women are considered as “socially paired off or contracted” to the white man (Chow 1995, 9), and most diasporic women’s studies work strives to defuse, counter or work through this configuration. Rey Chow details the way in which women of colour could be considered “object[s] with exchange value” (Chow 1995, 9), and outlines the assumptions of 222

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“women ‘succeeding”’ as necessarily meaning “cheating and laying with the white man, whereas the [coloured] man’s attempts to ‘be white’ are seen as attempts for justice and equality” (Chow 1995, 14–15). The idea that “Asian women” are less problematically included in Western society’s discourses than men are rekindles the gendered clichés of women as acquiescent and unconfrontational, and men as more aggressive and competitive for social space. Inflecting this argument is the prevalence of texts featuring diasporic men desiring and commodifying white women, particularly in North American literature. Discussing certain Chinese American texts, Sheng-Mei Ma configures this “longing for caucasian women” as “the disadvantaged (male) group’s fallacy of assimilation” (Ma 1998, 66–7). This form of bargaining entry on the bodies of women, as described by Gayatry Spivak,6 emphasises the deflection of overt engagement with diasporic men themselves. Embedded in the dynamic is the assumption that white women are the metaphorical keys to gaining entry to Western society, a notion that affirms the reification of women and their circumscribed “femininity” as “icons of national values, or idealized custodians of tradition” (Boehmer 1995, 224). Women’s studies, race and multicultural theory in general, and diversifying national cultural categories have so far accommodated critical studies in diasporic Australian and Canadian cultural production. Most of these, however, do not directly address the complications and representations of diasporic masculinity or the “Chinese/Japanese man”. As noted earlier, critiques that address diasporic masculinity are as yet scattered and often focused on processes of intra-community criticism (for example Chin writing about Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan; Luke examining Tan’s The Joy Luck Club). The overwhelming amount of work on gender politics in diasporic writing is from women’s perspectives and read through feminist frameworks. While this work is necessary in terms of reclaiming and establishing spaces from which diasporic women and their experiences can be expressed or read, it also means that diasporic men are spoken about but effectively silenced in the bulk of the “confessional narratives”. Sidelined by mainstream literary representations of “Asian-ness”, these masculinities are hyper- or under-represented in diasporic women’s texts. The recreation or recovery of a diasporic masculinity could be possible, according to Louie, if the wen/wu dyad was re-cast by diasporic men in these Western contexts. The emphasis for both Australian and Canadian icons of “masculinity” is towards the wu [physical/martial] aspect of manhood such as soldiers, pioneers and sportsmen. One factor that these national icons have in common is their traditional association with – indeed predication by – “whiteness”. The diasporic man’s virtual invisibility on a discursive level has no easy or particular positioning against which he can register resistance or protest. This positioning has led some men in literary circles to attack those who seem to have gained public profiles at their expense. An example of this is the public debates between establishment Asian American writers Frank Chin and Maxine Hong 223

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Kingston.7 While this example occurred in the United States, the tensions along gender lines within the diasporic Australian and Canadian writing communities also arrange themselves around questions of “selling-out” or maintaining community/cultural integrity. In Canada, as in Australia, diasporic women writers are currently “out-selling” their male counterparts for various reasons. These include the appetite of the reading public for confessionals and exposétype books by (mainly) Chinese women authors, many of which incorporate “Confucian” gender exploitation and feudal sexual mores as major parts of the narrative. These stories are often written with the author based in the West. Chow considers this process to be: the National Geographic of the soul – the observation platforms and laboratories in which the ‘perverse’ others – the ‘inmates’ – can be displayed in their ‘non-conforming’ and ‘abnormal’ behavior, in their strangely coded practices and rituals. (Chow 1996, 210) The complicity of authors recounting narratives from without could be read as an example of “buying entry” into Western society: “[i]n so far as confession is an act of repentance, a surrender of oneself in reconciliation with the rules of society, it is also related to community” (Chow 1995, 6–7). For diasporic women authors to be seen to be acceptable, they must apparently physically renounce their “homeland” and symbolically disavow traditional male control – in favour of the Anglo patriarchy in the West. Whether or not this is what their writing is doing, reviewers prefer to read them as most often denying their “own”. Detractors from within their communities choose to (mis)read these women’s texts as an attack on group cultural values. Chin, characteristically bombastic, declares: all of the Asian-American stuff was autobiographies that I despised. All pushing the idea that we’re all victims, all pushing the idea of the Chinese family or the Japanese family in America as dysfunctional. Talking about the big change to become Americanized. That’s the only kind of thing that had ever been published in Chinese America, the White supremacist autobiography saying how fucked up it is being Chinese in America, that it doesn’t work. (Chin 1998, 88) Commentators such as Garrett Hongo saw this division as orchestrated and, in some ways, expected: “[w]hite academics had identified a gender war in mainstream writing, African-Americans had identified one in black writing, and, it seemed, we Asian-Americans had the mimetic desire to define one among our own writers” (Hongo 1995, 19). Further, the ensuing allocations of writers to authentic or unauthentic categories act as a “policing mechanism of the ethnic 224

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culture, governing the range of allowable literary production” (Hongo 1995, 20). This monitoring creates certain fixed types of community expectation/assumption when, on many levels, as Lisa Lowe points out, “Asian American Literature” (and any other body of national literary work) is “an unclosed, unfixed body of work whose centers and orthodoxies shift as the makeup of the Asian-origin constituency shifts, and within which new voices are continually being articulated” (Lowe 1996, 61). This process of community and cultural emergence is occurring in Australia and Canada as literary groups become more active, competitive (for funding) and creative from gradually stabilising political and social bases. Ironically, the stimuli for concentrated activist or artistic work for diasporic writers and critics are often also threats to their validity and roles in society. Chin’s vitriol has a key function in drawing attention to fraught questions of representing community, gender politics and what constitutes an author’s “artistic licence”, but his determinedly simplistic readings of texts by other (female) authors detract from his critical work. While diasporic Asian Canadian and Asian Australian disciplines are in their formative stages, it is useful for them to learn from, and participate in, this context of ongoing debates and fissures. Cultural clichés of the diasporic Chinese and/or Japanese man in Australia and Canada range from the “Yellow Peril” rhetoric that was prevalent in the early gold rush days of both nations to comic, peripheral, asexual figures in literature. This is particularly noticeable in some canonical works that have been studied widely in Australia and Canada. For example, in Australian writer A.B. Facey’s widely studied autobiography, A Fortunate Life, the Chinese cook provides comic relief and a study in alien, eccentric Oriental behaviour. In Canadian author Robert Kroestch’s Badlands, the caricature of Chinaman Grizzly occupies similar semiotic ground. Lien Chao describes Grizzly as “a constant, unchanging alien throughout the novel” (Chao 1996, 339). Chinaman Grizzly is denied a speaking voice, literally, because he is mute and this fact, along with his relations with a Native woman, configures him as closer to “animal” (nature) than “man” (civilisation). The discourse of “Asian men” as the ultimate Others from nineteenth and early twentieth-century literature is exemplified by such “frontier, adventure stories” (Dixon 1995, 118) that “work to centre the nation by narrating the limits of its territory and civility” (Dixon 1995, 119). The diasporic Other occupies these limits, and in fact often is the limit of “civility” and relegated to representing a despotic, corrupt (and corrupting) people. Particularly at the end of the twentieth century, when the “angry white male” backlash was in full force, the already liminal spaces occupied by racial minority individuals in Australia, Canada and the United States were again under threat. In the process of reacting against the society in which they find themselves, whites who consider themselves “victimised” by affirmative action and political correctness manifest their anger as blame. Far from weakening gender bases, however, the eroding of stock perceptions of diasporic men, and their diversifying styles and types, leads textual depictions towards an incompleteness that serves as a much more inclusive, dynamic and 225

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potentially radical field. In these uncertain national masculine spaces, Luke contends that when diasporic Asian males are not being portrayed as “evil or exotic scenery” they may “turn up as non-emotive, repressed and desexed props” (Luke 1997, 33). He is referring here to both the “external” depiction of diasporic men by non-“Asian” writers and filmmakers, and to those by diasporic women. This criticism was raised recently, and often repeated, about the film version of The Joy Luck Club, in which the men are objects of vilification and resentment, often depicted as cardboard characters. This is especially true of the younger male roles in Wayne Wang’s film. The father (an older, widowed male) is presented as asexual and therefore non-threatening. His wife is long dead but still mourned. Viewing these representations as an attack by diasporic women on diasporic men threatens to sink coalitions for racial minority group politics, and is a strategy of “divide and conquer” that focuses only on antagonistic relations. Peter Feng reads Tan’s film/novel as reinforcing the perceived cultural unit of “WMAF (White Male, Asian Female)”, stressing that “in these films, Chinese patriarchy functions mainly to shore up American culture as one in which women can flourish. Romantic relationships with white men provide the freedom that Asian unions would quash” (Feng 1996, 1). The high profile of Tan’s work lends it the dangerous aura of representing “Asian America”, rather than just being one narrative out of many. The tendency to create factional gender oppositions within racial minority groups is a longstanding issue when considering gender representations, one previously argued with reference to Chin’s purposeful dividing of diasporic American artists. African American literary representations of men and women underwent (and are still undergoing) a similar process. Parallels are apparent between the criticism generated by Amy Tan/Wayne Wang’s film The Joy Luck Club and Alice Walker/Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple. Both brought forth accusations of betraying the political cause of the racial minority group to focus on women’s issues or perspectives. Citing bell hooks’s vehement rejection of the novel, Linda Selzer observes that “to many readers of The Color Purple, the text’s ability to expose sexual oppression seems to come at the expense of its ability to analyze issues of race and class” (Selzer 1995, 1). One interviewer even questions whether Walker’s novel has “come to symbolize Black malebashing at its worst” (Whitaker 1992, 1). These reactions to single narrative representations demonstrate the necessity of diverse points of view. The expectation that authors represent an entire community exposes the conglomerating tendencies of hegemonic concepts concerning Other groups. While positive gender role models can prove valuable to communities that lack significant mainstream representation, merely reading representations as “good” or “bad” examples of African American or diasporic “Asian” men does not contribute to dismantling discriminatory structures of gender and race. Breaking down the categories upon which these binary oppositions depend is a tactic often employed by authors who challenge the status quo of gender and national representation, and these challenges often take the form of rewriting masculinity and the structures that govern the male-identified trait 226

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of “patriotism”. For diasporic Japanese and Chinese men, the axes of war and nationalism regularly serve as sociohistorical flashpoints. Eng’s discussion of the contrived demarcation between the Japanese “enemy” and the “friendly” Chinese (Eng 2001, 104–10) exemplifies this process. The changing renditions of Japanese and Chinese men as either “good” or “bad”, given differing economic and political climes, reflects the ambivalent nature of the relationship between Western nations and their “governable” diasporic citizens. In order to examine versions of masculinity and patriotism in diasporic Canadian and Australian cultural production, I now focus on texts by Australians Hou Leong (“An Australian”, 1995) and Brian Castro (Pomeroy, 1990), and Canadians Terry Watada (Daruma Days, 1997) and Wayson Choy (The Jade Peony, 1995). The analysis contends that the ways in which these artists inscribe styles of masculinity and characteristics of national affiliation enable broader, less simplistic renditions of diasporic men but also complicate issues of national loyalty. It is precisely this multiplication of possible masculinities that leads to cogent challenges to structures of nationalism and traditional perspectives on gender politics in racial minority cultural production. The emphasis is on the cultivation of possibilities for diasporic masculinities rather than an attempt to discover or recover a “true” Chinese or Japanese manhood. Pomeroy and Daruma Days are texts in which uncertainties dominate and the elementary re-siting of characters’ affiliations as Australian or Canadian is problematised and almost rejected. Even as they are rejecting current prescriptive styles of patriotism, the novels formulate new possibilities for its expression at the end of the twentieth century. The discussion of the Australian paradigm of masculinity in this section also includes consideration of the possible resistances or interventions in other textual forms such as Leong’s photographic work. Choy’s novel from the Vancouver “Chinatown genre” and the generational cross-section of Chinese Canadian men’s history it depicts are discussed alongside Watada’s short stories.

The Australian expat Pomeroy is Castro’s second novel and focuses on the Eurasian narrator, Jaime Pomeroy. The book presents a rigorous interrogation of Australian masculinity through invocations of expatriate-ness and the complications of Chinese-ness. Pomeroy is an expatriate resident who returns to Hong Kong to report for ID, a local tabloid paper. Castro’s playfulness about ascribed personas surfaces in the telling title of the tabloid, and the gibe also foregrounds the central dilemma of Pomeroy’s character. The novel details how he escapes from the Gold Coast in Queensland because he needs distraction and distance after losing his love, Estrellita, to his best friend, Rory Harrigan. This romantic triangle resembles the Dickensian one of Pip, Estella and her husband from Great Expectations. Pomeroy’s international networks heighten Australian anxieties about the kind of citizens who belong as, already, the contemporary coverage of issues about diasporic groups in Australia focuses on whether “they” could possibly be one of “us”: 227

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[M]oral panics fly around Japanese investment and Asian immigration in the language of patriotism, invasion and the evocation of danger. Here colonization, empire and race resonate with concern about our rightful sphere of influence, and indeed about who we are and who threatens us. (Pettman 1995, 69) Produced within these discriminatory structures and their contradictions, Castro’s writing suggests “that what we do is largely a patchworking process of examining parts, discarding or refreshing some, and patching in or adapting new paradigms” (Deves 1997, 220). Castro’s versions of (Chinese) Australian masculinity revoke “role model” writing and, in fact, seek to unbalance the idea completely by presenting obviously flawed characters with few exemplary qualities. In an interview with Ouyang Yu, Castro configures the male writer’s self as “under construction in a desperate, terrorised way” (Ouyang 2001, 77). A symptom of postmodernity is often the encouragement to read the text as a “dismantling” of sorts, and the deliberate obfuscations and disintegrations in Castro’s writing can be read as retaliations against the imposition of any kind of cohesive, traditional, patriarchal identity. The narrative in the first half of the novel, as in much of Castro’s work, is a study in “expatriate”-ness, exploring situations such as Pomeroy returning from Australia to Hong Kong and mixing with an unflatteringly described group of debauched and insensitive Australian expats. The characters and the plot resonate with urban detective fiction markers: murky underworld allusions, hardened and cynical characters (in this case, mostly journalists), and undercurrents of sexuality and possible liaisons between male and female characters. Superficially, the novel reads as an example of male-dominated, hard-boiled crime fiction where, as Beryl Langer describes, the narrator is “the archetypically Australian ‘smart-arse’ whose quick wit, disrespect for authority, physical toughness, and fondness for a drink gives him both generic and national credibility” (Langer 1996, 239). Typically of Castro’s “heroes”, or more accurately antiheroes, Pomeroy possesses almost all of the traits Langer describes. He is physically capable but outmatched quite a few times in fights; he defies rules but immediately wonders what kind of trouble it will bring; and he manages a detached observer’s perspective until the consequences of involvement overwhelm him with physical realities. Castro’s hero is, ultimately, not very “heroic” at all. Yet he still succeeds in stumbling across most of the clues that lead him to uncover the “mystery” of “Boy” Wong. Castro’s invocation of the overtly masculine, traditionally sexist, and rather white “Mike Hammer” style in the first half of the novel is highly satirical. As he states, “genres imprison you within certain things and unless you jump out and parody them, you’re not really tackling any advancement in writing” (Castro 1997, 8). Accordingly, he creates as the protagonist a mixed-race (Chinese European), somewhat gauche, individual whose scruples are ever-changing. 228

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Pomeroy is an indecisive, non-confrontational man, who appears somewhat incongruously in the tough, masculinised genre of hard-boiled crime fiction. The narrator’s voice is hesitant – more of a bystander than an actor in the novel. In contrast to the universal (male) voice that projects cohesion and certainty, Castro often uses an inconstant narrator whose viewpoints alternate between first person and third person from one paragraph to the next. Discussing Castro’s novels After China and Drift, Ommundsen calls this “a ‘prismatic’ perspective” and argues further that “it is as if Castro…mocks the very idea of ‘identity’ in writing. There is a general sense of loss of origin and centre, and a proliferation of traces” (Ommundsen 1996, 156). In Pomeroy, the narrator is somewhat more integrated than in other works, but Castro’s technique involves the destruction, or at least unbalancing, of narratorial power. This act highlights the possibilities for renditions of Australian “maleness” by its national Others. As Pomeroy enters Hong Kong society (symbolised by the Van Ecks’ reception), he rediscovers familiar groups of Australian expatriates, and uncomfortably identifies himself as one of them: “[their] faces jowled and creased from rainbow-coloured hours in the Barrier Reef sun, too many cigars, anxious phone calls, and cut-lunch sex between beers and races” (43). Yet his closeness and similarity to the Australians is contradicted by his positioning as a returning Hong Kong expatriate. Tellingly, the expatriates Pomeroy refers to at the Van Ecks’ party (from Australia and elsewhere) are all men, referred to in terms of the power they wield in the “colony”. This power is portrayed as racially divided, with the Governor surrounded by the “lesser lights, mere Chinese tycoons, the almost-but-not-quite British” (45). This metaphoric emasculation of Chinese men through colonisation, sidelined from the real power of “whiteness” because of their race, taints Pomeroy’s interactions with the expats even while they are the group to whom he gravitates while in Hong Kong. The portrayal of the expat population there as debauched and grotesque contrasts effectively with Castro’s summation of Australia’s attempts to be “in Asia” as “ludicrous” (Castro 1995, 10). Castro underscores the insularity of Australia as a nation with a parochial population, and sets Hong Kong up as a (still problematic) cosmopolitan enclave. For Pomeroy to represent “Australia” to most of the novel’s characters upsets Australian “myths of nation”, which are “are not only masculinist, but ethnically restrictive” (Langer 1996, 249). Castro continues throughout the novel to present “typical” characters, and then undercuts them with traits of doubt, hypocrisy and tinges of madness. The splintering of Australian-ness and the roles of men in Castro’s cynical and ethnically mixed society highlights the ways in which discourses of masculinity and nationhood cross over. The effect of reading about Pomeroy’s and Rory’s failed dreams is similar to the frustration that stems from their deliberately unsteady renditions of Australian-ness and their bizarre behaviour when it comes to Estrellita. Using the backdrop of the “typical” Australian outback, Castro writes an atypical narrative that erodes concepts of who the Chinese Australian man might be. In fact, Castro seems to focus more 229

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on stressing who the Chinese Australian man is not. As well, his twisting of perceptions in masculinist genres adds another level of critique to the category of “maleness” and disallows simple interpretations of his novels. Castro’s fictional revisions of Chinese Australian masculinity and gender associations erode perceived cohesive images and inform them with his style of inconclusive humanity. This incompleteness and hesitancy defines Castro’s method of presenting images of men who are constantly confused and uncertain about their roles.

Playing with Australian icons The differences between negotiating this mode of characterising Australian and Chinese masculinity in written text and the instantly powerful visual images of Hou Leong expose further the entrenched values of the “Australian man” and his assumed “whiteness”. Leong’s series of photographs entitled An Australian subvert notions of Australian maleness by directly supplanting “white” Australia’s most invoked icons with his Chinese presence. With traditional versions of Australian masculinity dominated by images of the Bushman, the Surfer and the Digger,8 a diasporic Australian man tends to fall into the category of villain more than hero. This is a situation that Leong exploits. He superimposes his own head on many white Australian bodies including Crocodile Dundee, a member of the Returned Services League (RSL) and the Ampol man. The photographs are effective because he not only employs highly recognisable personalities, but also sites his Chinese face in situations that are the most characteristic of Australian male domains: the pub, sporting fields and locker rooms (cricket and rugby), and agricultural shows or rural spaces. In rupturing all-too-familiar representations of “Australian-ness”, Leong makes incongruity work towards emphasising entrenched ethnocentric notions of who is, or can be, considered Australian.9 The photographs place the Asian face in the “centre” of Australian culture, as opposed to the usual “surplus” or supplementary state that multicultural citizens and their texts occupy. His action of appropriating the white Australian male body, too, challenges the hermetic qualities of national icons and, satirically, reverses the exploitation of the Chinese body. There is, however, another way in which these images could operate. For example, if the idea of a Chinese Crocodile Dundee remains comical and an object of ridicule, how does this affect attempts to have the term “Australian” be inclusive of those with Chinese features? The incongruity that makes the work humorous and effective could also reaffirm the boundaries of white Australia and the improbability of Chinese Australian men belonging in these contexts. Further, how far do we still have to go when this humour trades on the absurdity of a Chinese face on Australian icons? The deliberate use of ANZAC10 imagery by Leong fixes on crucial moments in the definition of the “national” and the “masculine” for Australia. The ANZAC soldier myth is a part of the “national self-fashioning” in the “valueadded” narratives of Australia (Johnston 1995, 75). Confronted with Leong’s 230

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Asian face in an Australian army uniform, presumptions about “enemy” and “hero” are twisted together in the one body. The role of the Australian “Digger” (and the Allies in general) is called into question. A more traditional rewriting of Australian history to include the wartime involvement of Asian Australians is Morag Loh and Judith Winternitz’s Dinky-Di: The Contributions of Chinese Immigrants and Australians of Chinese Descent to Australia’s Defence Forces and War Efforts 1899–1988 (1989). This book is one of the few publications to highlight the scarcely documented roles that Asian Australians played in both World Wars. It takes a sociological, oral history perspective. Dinky-Di consists of interviews with different generations of Chinese Australians who served during the wars (including Vietnam and the First and Second World Wars). Several times, the Australian army used special groups of Asian Australian soldiers to infiltrate Japanese or Chinese lines, making the “enemy within” work for them, albeit temporarily and somewhat grudgingly. Harassment and insults in the barracks and during training accompanied this “acceptance” on the front-line, but the opportunity to fight for their country emerges as a defining moment of perceived acceptance for most of the interviewees. Loh and Winternitz have compiled a document that recovers neglected history and personal stories at the same time as it seeks absolution for Asians in Australia as worthy citizens. The emphasis on Asian Australian men’s patriotism indicates an attempt to restore Asian masculinity through proving their bravery and desire to protect the nation.

Canadian internment narratives The move to rewrite wartime history to include Asian citizens is an important step that establishes historical and social legitimacy in Australia and Canada. Having participated in war, Asian citizens hope that this “proves” their right to belong. Loh and Winternitz’s compilation is comparable to the Canadian publications The Dragon and the Maple Leaf: Chinese Canadians in World War II by Marjorie Wong (1994), and We Went to War: The Story of the Japanese Canadians Who Served during the First and Second World Wars by Roy Ito (1992). Both of these works relate the nation-building role of diasporic citizens in the Canadian armed forces. To contrast this empowerment through national participation for Chinese Australians and Chinese Canadians with the denial of citizens’ rights for Japanese Canadians and Japanese Australians during the Second World War is particularly pertinent when discussing the evolution of diasporic masculinities in each country. The hierarchy of “differences” during the war led to over-identifications with being Chinese (and therefore assumed “safe”) and rejection of being Japanese (and therefore open to displacement to inland camps). One type of identification meant possible participation in the war effort, albeit with hostility in some instances, and gaining for the community and the individual a sense of “belonging”. The other relegated whole communities to exile and ignominy as “enemy aliens”, a form of group emasculation as well as disempowerment on an individual level. 231

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The denial of citizenship rights to Japanese Canadians is the background to Watada’s collection of short stories, Daruma Days: A Collection of Fictionalised Biography. Watada presents readers with a wide range of narrators in the discourses of war and displacement within nation. These communities faced many repercussions in their forced role of “enemy alien”. Watada’s compilation is one of the first to meld the evocation of Japanese Canadian internment life and the psychosocial effects of the forced move on the community. Kuan Foo points out that “though the spectre of internment lurks over the entire book, the stories largely concern themselves with the day to day politics of the Japanese community within the camps, the character politics, the community politics, the sexual politics” (quoted in Watada 1998, 2). It is precisely in terms of this interned time, however, that the readings of masculinity and changes in male roles manifest themselves. Watada also discusses and elaborates on the pervasiveness of organised crime syndicates in the creation and maintenance of the internment camps, a part of Japanese community to which Kogawa referred briefly in Obasan.11 Many historical and sociological books document the processes of mobilisation, the seizing of people and property, and eventual internment, but few literary representations have thus far been published. The beginnings of a literary core addressing the social effects of internment on Japanese Canadians is forming around texts like Watada’s, and also works by Kogawa and Sakamoto. Watada’s work is one example of the ways in which detailed prose is “filling the gaps” of internment experience, particularly the roles of men and the consequences of broken family links. Foo contends that the more work from authors like Watada, Kogawa and Sally Ito there is out in the public space, the “better to educate mainstream readers, critics and reviewers to the fact that there is more than this ‘cult of victimhood’ that seems to have developed around the Asian Canadian experience” (quoted in Watada 1998, 5–6). Following the necessary work of reclaiming and assembling that part of Canadian history accomplished by researchers like Muriel Kitagawa, Roy Miki and Maryka Omatsu, most literary versions of wartime experiences follow the historic decision to recognise the injustices of wartime Canadian government actions.12 Possibly the most well-known novel of all these texts, and one that preceded the official announcement of Redress by almost a decade, is Kogawa’s Obasan. Kogawa’s text achieved much when it was published in 1981, not least of which was putting the Japanese Canadian experience back into Canadian national history and exposing the ongoing consequences of the internment period for the scattered Japanese Canadian communities. Having part of Obasan read out in the House of Commons when Redress was announced was a gesture that established internment history as nationally significant, and not just for Japanese Canadians. Uniquely, Watada’s collection addresses the gaps in social perspectives of internment camps, providing stories that have no single voice but instead form a linked series across decades and families. Elaine Kim calls for Asian American studies to move “beyond railroads and internment” (Kim 1995, 11) and, while it 232

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is important for subject matter and styles to diversify, the level of general knowledge about the anti-Asian pasts of Australia, Canada and the United States is still quite low. Perhaps even more insidiously, this kind of material is considered well and truly “historical”, with the contemporary consequences or repetitions unacknowledged. The incidents in Canada are one of the more high-profile instances of recognition for civil rights abuses in the country, and serve as an important precedent for other minority groups (McFarlane 1995, 401). Watada’s stories arrange themselves around the major upheavals in Japanese Canadian social and political life while managing to also address spiritual matters and established superstitions, such as the significance of the daruma doll and the female fox demon. With particular resonance, the daruma doll (after which the collection is titled) indicates a wish that has been made, a sense of hope while waiting for the internment period to be over.13 Watada’s narratives flesh out the often homogenised and faceless communities of the internees in isolated, abandoned towns. The hero figure of the pioneering European settler contrasts strongly with the presence of the interned Japanese communities. Many of the Japanese men served on work-gangs or farms, and were placed in separate camps from their families. The government sited these camps in the British Columbian internal “frontier”, often in old, abandoned mining communities. However, there is a difference, Kyo Maclear argues, between the romanticised portrayals of the interior and the way Watada and others “paint the outback as a politically charged space – where adversaries are less the ferocious elements and impenetrable bush than European settlers and hostile governments” (Maclear 1996, 34). In the case of Japanese Canadians, the “frontier” became a site of exile and shame compared with the heroic, even virile, connotations of conquering the wilderness that traditional Canadian literature presented. The stories involve many overlapping, continuing characters and focus mostly on family relationships ruptured by the internment process. The narratives also go further than previous fictional accounts by providing details of the ensuing physical and psychological problems for some “inmates” associated with camp life and their extreme living conditions. Most significantly for discussions of Asian masculinity, the text addresses the motivations and emotional tones of many displaced men while still writing them in as integral parts of their communities. The inclusion of gangsters in the camps, and the delineation of their role in influencing negative and positive changes in the lives of the internees, is a perspective that has hardly been explored. While the presence of gangsters could be threatening and intrusive, the salvaged empowerment of being part of the gangs lent some men the semblance of dignity and position. The enforced exile of the communities by Canadian authorities revoked citizenship security and any professional alliances people might have had. Belonging to the syndicates was a way to live more comfortably and with a form of respect, although it was at the expense of exploiting the internees around them.14 These groups were powerful enough to establish the terms of internship at some camps, with residents paying 233

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for various levels of accommodation at the sites. At Minto, for example, “[h]ome for Asao and his mother became a ten-by-ten-foot shack that had been dragged from an abandoned mine.…Most internees lived in comfortable cabins with indoor plumbing and electricity since they had bought their way into the selfsustaining camp” (Watada 1997, 83). It is in these situations that class and gender differences in the Japanese Canadian community are exposed and sharply narrativised. The aftermath of internment was severe for all involved, but the ones who were most affected after the War were those whose living consisted of material (confiscated) belongings. The more professionalised or educated families, although stigmatised in postwar Canada, could afford to recover in cities further east like Toronto. One of the most effective symbolic acts that Watada writes into Daruma Days is in the short story, “The brown bomber”, which tells of Toshiro building Lemon Creek’s ofuro.15 The story addresses the issue of racism and hierarchy within the Japanese community and focuses on the Matsuba family. The Canadian government’s classification of them as unacceptable and dismissible (consider the repatriation programme at the end of the Second World War) destabilised community and family relationships. Initially, Toshiro was sent to a roadwork gang, and Kimiko and her mother to Lemon Creek internment camp. Traditional Japanese masculine authority was nonexistent in the face of RCMP officers’ orders, and societal structures were dismantled. Having been stripped of possessions and status, “emasculated” culturally and socially, Toshiro regained some hope and sense of self by rallying his fellow internees to construct a bathhouse for themselves. The helpers on the ofuro project “even chuckled over constructing something so Japanese given their predicament” (Watada 1997, 142). Ironically, while symbolically allowing Toshiro to have a place in society and family again, the ofuro is also the cause of his death by drowning a while later.

Masculinity and Choy’s The Jade Peony Where Watada’s prose serves as another way to address the “blanc-outs” (Maclear 1996, 35) in Canadian national history and within Japanese Canadian cultural and social histories, Choy’s 1995 novel The Jade Peony falls more easily into the “Chinatown” genre of literature. Peony delves into the politics and social interaction in Vancouver’s young Chinatown of the 1930s and 1940s, a subject that has already established something of a tradition (albeit quite young) in Asian Canadian literature.16 Two of the sections are told through the voices of the second and third brothers while the first is related by Only Sister, Jook-Liang. The novel is split into fairly traditional renditions of how “growing up” affected each of the narrators. While not participating in undercutting the processes of masculinity and nation to the extent that Castro knowingly does, nor “recovering” a group as in the case of Watada and interned Japanese Canadian men, The Jade Peony is of particular interest here because of the range of localised 234

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masculine voices to which Choy gives space. Notably, the axes of possible masculinities upon which Choy’s narrators hinge their sections provide a generational, community and societal cross-section of changing effects on gender identities in Canadian history. The first chapter presents Only Sister Jook-Liang’s perspective, focusing poignantly on the relationship between Liang and Wong Suk (Uncle Wong), otherwise known as the Monkey Man. It is through her eyes that his character is given depth, his bachelorhood explained, and the community expectations about his duties rendered ambivalent. Considering his unmarried state, and his assumed lack of other responsibilities, he was seen as the ideal messenger to travel back with a shipment of recovered bones (of long-dead railway workers) to China. His job was simply to accompany them to their final resting place. Wong Suk epitomises the truncated generations in Chinatowns because of government restrictions on immigration and bringing family or prospective brides into Canada. Working for years on the Canadian Pacific Railroad (CPR) trail, he was the typical bachelor-man who ended up alone in a boarding-house. This group of men, on becoming elderly or incapacitated, was cared for mostly by the Chinese Benevolent Association as they had no kin of their own, a consequence of the Chinese Exclusion Act. Lien Chao describes it thus: “the Chinese labourers’ initial separation from their families was institutionally prolonged and hence instigated the formation of the Chinatown ghetto as a kind of replacement for the family” (Chao 1996, 335). Even with the help of this “Chinatown family”, Choy narrates in detail the dire consequences for the bachelor-men when the Canadian government implemented the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1923 on 1 July, Canada’s National Day, a day also considered by Chinese Canadians as the Day of Shame. Choy writes: [i]n the city dump on False Creek Flats, living in makeshift huts, thirtytwo Old China bachelor-men tried to shelter themselves; dozens more were dying of neglect in the overcrowded rooms of Pender Street. There were no Depression jobs for such men. They had been deserted by the railroad companies and betrayed by the many labour contractors who had gone back to China, wealthy and forgetful. There was a local Vancouver by-law against begging for food, a federal law against stealing food, but no law in any court against starving to death for lack of food. (Choy 1995, 17) These details in Chinese Canadian literature serve as a foil for the usually positive stories of immigrant success that make up the bulk of representations. Resolution usually occurs in the form of settling into the new country and gaining financial stability. Thus, Wong Suk’s hunched back and limping walk are fitting physical manifestations to represent the stunted Chinese Canadian 235

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community that resulted from government restrictions applied over many decades. Eng argues for the possibility of reading these resultant bachelor societies as queer spaces that were “institutionally barred from normative (hetero)sexual reproduction, nuclear family formations, and entitlements to community” (Eng 2001, 18). This stimulating take on the otherwise faceless and asexual modes of representing Chinese bachelor communities is one rarely employed. For Choy’s novel, Wong Suk represents the older generation of Chinatown, the sojourners, who considered their time in Canada to be temporary and the journey “home” preferable to dying in new, continually hostile lands. The languages with which Wong Suk communicates also highlight this generational gap, in particular to Liang, who characterises the conversations between her grandmother and Wong Suk as “monkey-talk” (Choy 1995, 26). To her, he epitomises the Old China group and she configures him as the Monkey King in disguise. This classical literary allocation for Wong Suk underscores his authentic Chinese roots, and his dedication to Confucian filial piety, as does his later fulfilment of “duty” by accompanying the recovered bones back home. In epitomising the initial wave of Chinese immigrants to Canada, Wong Suk also represents the old-world patriarchal values and obligations. The way in which Wong Suk leaves a life-long impression on Liang reflects the aim of Choy’s writing about the enclosed world of the early Chinatowns, which is to “[decipher] silent historical documents [and lives]” (Chao 1996, 339). Even in the representation of Wong Suk’s story in this novel, the little-known history only comes to us from the perspective of a few generations on. In writing the lives of the bachelor-men, Choy’s writing debunks the myth of hard beginnings but “worthwhile” endings. For some, life after hard labour on the railways was a forced in-between-ness that resulted in debilitated lives and curtailed hopes. In contrast to his depiction of Wong Suk and the introverted “sojourner” generation, Choy’s next portrayal is of Jung-Sum, the Second Brother in the family. The contrast between the stalled bachelor-men lives in Chinatown and their homeward gazes, and the contemporary confrontations and social opportunities for Jung-Sum as a solidly Canadian-based Chinese boy is sharp. Jung was adopted by Liang’s family after a tragic and violent early childhood where his mother died at the hands of his stepfather. His new older brother, Kiam, protects him at school and later inducts him into the very male world of boxing gyms. From the beginning, the grandmother declares that Jung is “different”, associating him with the moon, or yin, which is traditionally the female essence. In this section, Jung realises that he desires one of his older brother’s best friends, Frank Yuen. Frank is the boxing champion in their circle of friends and, “with his leather jacket half-opened, and his zoot pants tight at the ankle” (Choy 1995, 113), a respected tough with an alcoholic father and a dead mother. The effect of missing, dead or abusive fathers on their sons permeates Choy’s evocations of less than traditional parental/family units in 236

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The Jade Peony. It also adds to reconfigurations of Asian masculinity and manhood beyond the Confucian ideal represented by Wong Suk. While involved in a spur-of-the-moment fight with Frank, Jung has a flashback about his own father beating him with a belt. As a result of being comforted by Frank during this episode, Jung felt that he was “suddenly lit with an unbidden, shuddering tension” (117) and characterised Frank as the sun (118). In representing gayness as a matching of male/female spirits, Choy indulges, to some extent, in the cliché of applying heterosexual norms to a homosexual relationship. Further, Jung only has the flashback because of the extreme emotions he experiences while fighting Frank. The acts of violence seem to induce Jung’s homosexual awakening and the only other time readers are privy to him being affected by Frank’s proximity is when Frank leaves to join the US Marines and his friends hold a party for him. The mateship that Frank extends to Jung transforms into something else. It is, in fact, cast by Jung as a closeness that Frank wants to cultivate (120) but chooses to deny. Frank prefers “to let some darkness gently go” (117) and vanishes into a military life, one that reinscribes the incommensurability of being a “real man” and homosexual as he plays straight and fulfils the heterosexual norms of being a soldier and a good Chinese Canadian citizen. He ends the night of his going-away party with “bawdy song[s] about girls in the back of cars” (121). The realisation of Jung’s sexual identity is scattered across the fabric of his otherwise “normal” life. Choy does not linger on those moments beyond a few tactile images and an obvious lack of resolution or exposure of Jung’s desire for Frank. The merging of discourses of war and heroism in Frank and those of latent desire in Jung create an odd fracturing of the “war sweetheart left behind” narrative. The nature of Jung’s relationship with Frank is briefly acknowledged when Max offers him “deliverance” through telling him to “have courage” (122) as Frank leaves the country. In terms of subversive or radical aspects to these representations, the gay relationship in The Jade Peony exists only as allusion and implicit acknowledgment by Max and by his grandmother. Jung’s sexuality stays submerged, and the challenge for the tightly knit Chinatown community is defused. What is notable in this portrayal of Jung and Frank is that the “relationship” is a same-race one, challenging stereotypes of the Gay Asian Man (GAM) as the least desirable in the hierarchy.

Conclusion The texts discussed in this chapter exemplify the complex task of eroding and reforming versions of “masculinity” by moving away from only answering back to white versions of masculinity. While Pomeroy’s characters actively re-form connotations of masculine identities and question the strengths of Australian affiliations, Leong’s photographs trade more on their juxtaposition of accepted Australian imagery with Other elements. They coalesce in several bodies the possibilities for representing “Asian Australian males”. Their work takes up 237

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Luke’s challenge for diasporic men to occupy the “relatively open place, a gap, a space within which to reconstruct Asian masculinity” (Luke 1997, 34). I would temper Luke’s contention about this “open” space, however, in as much as he compares it to the iconically cluttered white man’s stage without acknowledging the power disparity between the two levels of representation. The significance of the texts examined in this chapter lies not only in their authors’ creation of alternative or complex masculinities but also in their modes of circulation through publication. Recreations have limited effect if they are not dispersed among various audiences, particularly audiences for whom the material is socially and culturally challenging. Fulfilling this role in the Canadian context is Watada’s work in Daruma Days, which offers aspects of masculine representation within the internment camps of the Second World War. It offers insight into the difficulties of adjusting from the relative stability of family and community for Japanese communities in Canada to the uprooted and vilified existence of the internment camps. The invalidation of family bonds and civic rights meant the compromise of family and community authority, completely shifting the terms of relations for men and women within Japanese Canadian groups. The narrative of Toshiro and the ofuro epitomises these conflicted and denied roles, most particularly embodied in his small, poignant victory. In the same way, The Jade Peony interrogates the community/family relations of Liang and Jung, focusing on various fraught times for the Chinese population in Vancouver: the remnants of the bachelor-men population, like Wong Suk, from the days of Head Tax restrictions, and participants in (masculine) nationbuilding activities such as enlisting in the Second World War.17 Watada’s and Choy’s works offer important cross-sections of diasporic men and interrogate their generational, gender influences, as well as focusing on class considerations within their communities. The silence hanging over Jung’s story after Frank leaves for war lingers and raises questions of what is considered an “appropriate” Chinatown narrative. The GAM seems to represent a potent threat on many levels and is not made overt in Choy’s text. Fung quotes Fanon on black men being eclipsed and turned into the penis, and goes on to discuss Asian men’s representation as “desexualized Zen asceticism” (Fung 1996, 183). He questions the allowance for homosexuality in a group that is symbolically without a penis. Accompanying the recent spate of publications and a higher profile for diasporic queer studies are new modes and, perhaps, “rules” of representation. With a page in his Yellow Fever chapbook18 titled ‘Not just a gwm in a yellow skin’, Wayne Yung protests what he perceives to be the prescriptiveness of recent representations: “I’m sick of these new ‘positive’ images of Asian men. Now we’re so empowered that no one can fuck us up the ass anymore. We’re supposed to be so strong, smart, and together. It drives me crazy” (Yung 1996, 3). As argued earlier, it is not a matter of only having better, stronger representations but a proliferation that depletes the power of any one type of diasporic Chinese/Japanese man or 238

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their masculinity. Yung’s lament highlights the fact that the goal of new and recovered representations should not be to dictate but to keep pushing at the boundaries of accepted representations. The works examined in this chapter extend and challenge existing depictions of Asian masculinities and their ability to be read simultaneously as diasporic Australian or Canadian. The erosion of Western national representations of the masculine, and the dismantling of ascribed identities for diasporic men in the texts I examine, serve to diversify the categories of inclusion for diasporic masculinities. The representations of diasporic men through more complex, nuanced characters and images enables, indeed perhaps forces, their necessary mobilisation in changing national and community discourses. The existence of a range of representations offsets the imposition of any one set of values. The multiplication of possible images of who is included in constructions of Australian or Canadian masculinity, and what Chinese or Japanese masculinities can mean, work towards establishing new modes of identification as well as eroding discriminatory stereotypes. In conjunction with national moments like war and internment in particular, this recasting of diasporic Asian men in literature and other contexts ensconces them in the national imaginary while also interrogating existing versions of it. This chapter offers an examination of a sampling of the work circulated thus far. Given the early stages of diasporic Asian studies as a discipline in both Australia and Canada, this is an area with many more avenues to explore and plenty more to be said.

Notes 1 Further use of the term “diasporic” in this chapter refers to “diasporic Chinese and/or Japanese”. 2 A handful of masculinity-focused publications have appeared recently, including David Eng’s Racial Castration (2001), the collection by Eng and Alice Hom, Q&A: Queer in Asian America (1998), and Jachinson Chan’s Chinese American Masculinities (2001). Chinese Canadian Song Cho’s collection Rice: Explorations into Gay Asian Culture and Politics (1998) covers similar social territory to Eng and Hom’s Q&A but provides much-needed Canadian perspectives to break up the US hegemony in diasporic queer studies. 3 Outside the North American context, there are few books that focus on diasporic masculinities. An exception is sections of Kam Louie’s Theorising Chinese Masculinity (2002), a publication that addresses classical and modern Chinese texts as well as diasporic intertextualities such as the Hollywood Bruce Lee/Jackie Chan/Chow Yun Fat phenomenon. In Australia, the work of filmmaker Tony Ayres and photographer William Yang introduces discussions of representing Chinese Australian masculinity and desire, specifically from queer perspectives. 4 See Michael Leach regarding the racial antagonism of socialist and union groups in turn-of-the-century Australia (1997), and K. Victor Ujimoto on Canadian perspectives. Ujimoto, in particular, engages with Peter Li and B. Singh Bolaria’s argument that “racism is not an outcome of cultural misunderstanding, but rather ‘a deliberate ideology designed to justify the unjust treatment of the subordinate group for the purpose of exploiting its labour power”’ (Ujimoto 1990, 224).

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5 Ling states that the term “model minority” “distinguished Asian Americans from blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans during the political ferment of the 1960s because the latter’s back-talking militancy is typically viewed as a sign of male potency” (Ling 1997, 315). 6 Gayatri Spivak argues that the process of entry to “civil society” is a form of gendered admittance with permission “negotiated on the bodies of women” (Spivak 1995, 9). 7 Chin has published many novels (such as The Chinaman Pacific & Frisco R. R. Co. and Gunga Din Highway) and short stories, and was one of the editorial committee for the pioneering Aiiieeeee!! An Anthology of Asian-American Writers. Kingston wrote what are arguably the most studied and influential novels in Asian American literary history, The Woman Warrior, and its companion work, China Men. 8 “Digger” is slang for an Australian soldier. 9 Aside from his own head superimposed on recognisable white bodies to connote a level of incongruity, Leong has also reversed this by merging Princess Diana’s head over the body of a “woman in exotic costume” (cover of Perera 1995). 10 ANZAC is the acronym for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and has become a common term in Australian popular discourse. Most often, use of “ANZAC” bundles together national pride in bravery against the odds, an element of anti-authoritarianism and an assertion of Australian/New Zealand individuality. 11 Teruyo Ueki lists the Morii gang as one of several “disturbing elements” in Kogawa’s depiction of the Japanese Canadian community, stressing that “a closerange view of this small community, of course, reveals that it is not a uniform entity” (Ueki 1993, 6). 12 Kitagawa and Miki collaborated in assembling Letters to Wes, a collection of communications between Muriel and Wes during their internment, which emphasised the activist role that Muriel undertook. Omatsu wrote Bittersweet Passage: Redress and the Japanese Canadian Experience, which further documented the conditions and process of redress, with historical background about the internment procedures. “Internment literature” includes many collections of photographs and interviews with internees, along with a recent project, O-Bon in Chimunesu: A Community Remembered by Catherine Lang, which focused on the return of some “inmates” to their old site of incarceration at Lemon Creek. 13 When the daruma doll is bought, it does not have its eyes. The owner makes a wish and draws in one of the eyes, and, when that wish is fulfilled, must then draw in the other eye to complete the face. 14 In the short stories, Watada relates incidents of vindictive bashings of rivals and “price gouging” at local camp grocery stores (“Kangaroo Court”). The latter habit finally drove the community to oust the “village leader”, or soncho, Isamu Sasaki. 15 The ofuro in Watada’s story is a type of Japanese bath-house, with a tall tub in which one can stand and bathe. 16 The existing Vancouver “Chinatown” literature is good for providing more background and depth to Choy’s novel. Sources include Kay Anderson’s historical text Vancouver’s Chinatown, Sky Lee’s novel Disappearing Moon Cafe, and Denise Chong’s autobiography, The Concubine’s Children. 17 The third section, which I have not detailed here, is that of Sek-lung, the Third Brother, whose narrative encompasses the Chinese Canadian/Japanese Canadian tensions during the Second World War in Vancouver, and the pressures on the communities and individuals at a time of confusing allegiances. 18 A chapbook is a small book or pamphlet of a kind formerly sold by chapmen (merchants, traders, peddlers or hawkers of an itinerant nature) containing popular tales, treatises, ballads or nursery rhymes.

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Ujimoto, K. Victor. 1990. Studies of ethnic identities and race relations. In Race and ethnic relations in Canada, ed. P.S. Li: 209–30. Toronto: Oxford University Press. Watada, Terry. 1997. Daruma days: A collection of fictionalised biography. Vancouver: Ronsdale. ——. 1998. Interview with Kuan Foo. 1998 [cited 1 April 1998]. Available from http://www.vcn.bc.ca/acww/html/body_interview.html. Whitaker, Charles. 1992. Alice Walker: Color Purple author confronts her critics and talks about her provocative new book. Ebony, May: 86–9. Downloaded from Infotrac Searchbank Database, 27 October 1998. Wong, Marjorie. 1994. The dragon and the maple leaf: Chinese Canadians in World War II. London, ONT: Pirie. Wong, Sau-ling. 1993. Subverting desire: Reading the body in The 1991 Asian Pacific Islander Men’s Calendar. Hitting Critical Mass 1, no. 1. Downloaded 30 January 2002. http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~ critmass/v1n1/wongprint.html. Yung, Wayne. 1996. Beyond yellow fever. Vancouver: Pomelo Project.

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CONCLUSION Morris Low

So how meaningful is it to talk of Asian masculinities? It is clear from the chapters in this volume that, in the cases of China and Japan (and their diasporas), shared histories and cultures have provided men in both countries with a pool of gendered constructs that, for better or worse, have shaped their sense of self, and made a man into a man. This can be seen in the use of Chinese characters. While their meaning and the associated concepts sometimes change when transmitted to Japan, in the case of wen and wu or bun and bu, language not only mirrors the world but also actively helps people to construct it. Recent studies of linguistic behaviour suggest that we should be wary of simple classifications, and that while gender plays a part so does age and the life-stage of the speaker (Sturtz 2002). As Chaney has argued, the way something is talked about or represented can quite literally determine discourse in its broadest sense (Chaney 2002, 3). Much interesting work has been done on contesting images of masculinity and the provisional nature of identity. Some of the chapters in this book deal with such issues. Karlin (2002) has written recently of how male fashion in Meiji Japan was seen as constituting one site of the “feminisation” of male culture. The debate he describes shows how political battles have been fought over the ways in which gendered identities have been constructed. Many chapters in this volume examine not only representations of masculinity but also its actual practice, from the historical past to the present day. China and Japan are given roughly equal attention. We need, however, to be aware of the plural nature of Asian masculinities, and it is our hope that this book raises issues that can be explored for men elsewhere in the region and beyond. How specific to time and place are masculinities? Bushidô [the way of the elite samurai] and the concepts of wen and wu have helped to give Japanese and Chinese men a sense of belonging to distinctive cultures. This cultural resource has been co-opted by ordinary Japanese and Chinese to give meaning to their lives. It is not especially meaningful to separate elite and popular visions of masculinity, as the lines are often blurred and one may inform the other. There are, furthermore, universal aspects to wen and wu in the same way that Chinese and Japanese men’s lived experience echoes that of men elsewhere. 244

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On the other hand, sexuality seems to be a historically inflected activity whose context requires careful examination if it is to be understood. As a young gay Chinese entrepreneur in his thirties, Mr Wu, explained: “In China there is a very strong tradition that to be a man you must get married and have a child, so I did” (Rosenthal 2002, 1). Filial piety meant that Mr Wu had to obey his parents’ wishes, so he did. McLelland (2000) has shown that most gay men in Japan, too, are married. Louie has suggested in his introduction to this volume that we can interpret the relative acceptance of homosexuality in China (and Japan) in terms of the importance placed on containment of sexual energy, irrespective of the object of that desire. And, as Brownell and Wasserstrom (2002) point out, sexuality in these countries is not such a site of struggle as in the West. In China, the family has arguably been “the primary site for the production of gender: marriage and sexuality were to serve the lineage…personal love and pleasure were secondary to this goal” (Brownell and Wasserstrom 2002, 32). For many Chinese and Japanese men, such an emphasis on family continues to this day. It is when masculinities are compared that we arguably obtain most insight, as identity is constructed in relation to “others”. The World Cup soccer tournament in South Korea and Japan in June 2002 juxtaposed not only Japanese and Korean male prowess, with the former coming out of the encounter the worse, but also brought the spectre of English soccer fan masculinity running rampant in Japan. Not since the Pacific War had such a cross-cultural encounter occurred. In order to quell Japanese fears, the British embassy in Tokyo produced a two-page pamphlet offering advice on what to expect. It provides a nice analysis of soccer fan masculinity from the perspective of Japanese, as seen through the eyes of the embassy. It is not long ago that Westerners saw Japanese as highly group-oriented, but the embassy now advises that “English supporters behave differently than Japanese fans. They tend to move in groups.…There are a small number of people who…go to games to cause trouble. But real fans hate them” (Belson 2002). This echoes the views of captured Japanese who disowned the “bad” Japanese soldiers who committed wartime atrocities. What happens when Japanese shopkeepers have to deal with noisy, drunk fans? The following reads like advice that the Japanese military might offer to its soldiers: “You might feel frightened by their big bodies and their large numbers. But please don’t view them only as a threat. Be generous and try to understand and share their enthusiasm for soccer” (Belson 2002). Lest the Japanese remember shocking scenes of English soccer fans going wild, they were advised that “[m]ost of the hooligan scenes shown on television took place several years ago. In recent years there have been hardly any problems at club matches or international games” (Belson 2002). This is reminiscent of attempts to persuade Allied war veterans that the Pacific War was long ago, and that they should be more forgiving as Japanese men have somehow changed. This book has attempted to problematise masculinity and understand its complexities. The differing interests of the editors (Louie for China and Low for 245

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Japan) has meant that each has had a slightly different perspective on the issues raised in this book. This is not to say that we have sought to minimise the oppression of men and women by men, and Chinese by Japanese. Anyone who knows the history of China–Japan relations understands that such an exercise is fraught with difficulty. Over ten years ago, Hikosaka Tai (1991) explored the wartime exploitation of the “comfort women” and what it said about Japanese masculinity, but since that time there have been few further studies in this vein. Although there is little available in English on Japanese masculinity, there is a considerable literature in Japanese, mainly by sociologists. Itô Kimio’s book Otokorashisa no yukue [Searching for masculinity] (1993) remains a key text. It raises many issues that continue to be of importance. Futoshi Taga’s Dansei no jendaa keisei [Male gender formation] (2001) lists much of this Japanese literature, and the recent volume edited by Asai Haruo and his colleagues entitled Nihon no otoko wa doko kara kite, doko e iku no ka [Where are Japanese men coming from and where are they headed?] (2001) asks some of the difficult questions about male sexuality and violence. It also examines the issue of Japan’s seemingly “fatherless” society, where men often take little part in the parenting process. This topic has also been discussed by Suzuki Kôji (2000). In attempting to show the diversity of masculine experience and how it can change depending on place and time, there is a danger of forgetting that certain types of masculinity can dominate others. The existing literature has tended to neglect this. We hope that by examining both Chinese and Japanese masculinities in the one volume we avoid the tendency for Asian masculinities to be cast as somehow effeminate or lesser, especially when looked at in the shadow of EuroAmerican maleness. Of course, such perceptions are dependent upon changing power relations, but, when physiques are considerably different, Asian males tend to compare unfavourably. In her pioneering book Women on the Verge: Japanese Women, Western Dreams (2001), Karen Kelsky refers to the “Orientalist discourse of masculinity that places the Japanese/Oriental man as the impotent opposite to the white man as racial icon” (Kelsky 2001, 22). This perception has been particularly dominant in US-Japan relations since the end of the Pacific War, and continues to this day. The long Japanese recession has made Japanese males the object of sympathy and scorn. “From the supermen of a decade ago, Japanese officials are now seen as the world’s slow-learning schoolboys” (Brooke 2002). Japanese men are infantilised in a description reminiscent of US depictions of the Japanese during the war. Amusingly, it is the Chinese who are now in the ascendancy, with Japanese headlines such as “Chinese leader presses Japan to speed reforms: ‘Catch up with global trend”’. It is now the Japanese who are backward, not the Chinese (Brooke 2002). At a time when the Japanese are lacking in confidence, bushidô has again been called on to console Japanese males. Yamamoto Hirofumi’s amusing book Sarariiman bushidô (2001) suggests parallels between the problems experienced by samurai and those of salarymen trying to survive corporate restructuring in 246

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contemporary Japan. But the newspaper Yomiuri shinbun (2001) sees the challenges facing Japanese salarymen as being of a new type that requires a more self-confident type of masculinity to come to the fore. The Japanese academic Ômae Kenichi (2001) has also published a survival guide for Japanese salarymen. In these difficult times, it is not the Chinese but the Japanese who are the “sick men of East Asia”.

References Asai Haruo, Yamasaki Hiroshi, Tashiro Mieko, Sekiguchi Hisashi, Suzuki Masahiro, Kodama Ryoko, Seo Tetsushi, Yuzawa Naomi, Ito Satoru and Murase Yukihiro. 2001. Nihon no otoko wa doko kara kite, doko e iku no ka. Tokyo: Jûgatsusha. Belson, Ken, with trans. Makiko Inoue. 2002. English 101: How to handle a thirsty, bigbodied soccer fan. The New York Times, 2 June: 7. Brooke, James. 2002. Bush to encounter a much less formidable Japan. New York Times International, 17 February. Brownell, Susan and Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom. 2002. Introduction: Theorizing femininities and masculinities. In Chinese femininities/Chinese masculinities: A reader, eds Susan Brownell and Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom: 1–41. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Chaney, David. 2002. Cultural change and everyday life. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave. Hikosaka Tai. 1991. Dansei shinwa. Tokyo: Komichi Shobô. Itô Kimio. 1993. Otokorashisa no yukue: Dansei bunka no bunka shakaigaku. Tokyo: Shinyôsha. Karlin, Jason G. 2002. The gender of nationalism: Competing masculinities in Meiji Japan. Journal of Japanese Studies 28, no. 1: 41–77. Kelsky, Karen. 2001. Women on the verge: Japanese women, Western dreams. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. McLelland, Mark J. 2000. Male homosexuality in modern Japan: Cultural myths and social realities. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon. Ômae Kenichi. 2001. Sarariiman sabaibaru. Tokyo: Shôgakukan. Rosenthal, Elisabeth. 2002. Gays in China step out, with one foot in closet. The New York Times, 12 April: 1, A10. Sturtz, Cindi. 2002. “Uwaki tte iu no wa attemo ii n janai ka”: Japanese men’s conversations up-close and personal. Japanese Studies 22, no. 1: 49–63. Suzuki Kôji. 2000. Fusei no tanjô. Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten. Taga Futoshi. 2001. Dansei no jendaa keisei: Otokorashisa no yuragi no naka de. Tokyo: Tôyôkan Shuppansha. Yamamoto Hirofumi. 2001. Sarariiman bushidô: Edo no kane onna shussei. Tokyo: Kôdansha. Yomiuri Shinbun Keizai Bu. 2001. Dokyumento: Chô sarariiman. Tokyo: Chûô Kôron Shinsha.

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INDEX

abuse, straight men and 62–3 actors 32–4 adolesence 127, 143, 209 adoration-oppression 188 After China (Castro) 229 age, respect for 205–6 aggression and violence 110–11, 139, 186 Ah Q 45 AIDS (Aquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) 59 aimlessness 181 Akira case study 146–8, 150 All Japan High-School Rugby Championships (1997) 108 androgyny 35, 121 “Angry Yellow Men” (Lee) 221 anti-heroes 49–51 ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) 230–1, 240n–10 Aoyama, Tomoko 11 Apaches 165, 167, 174n–14 The Army (film) 88 art 19, 83, 171 Asia Pacific Islander Men’s calendar 220 Asian Americans 198, 199, 216, 220, 224–5 Asian stereotypes 8 Asian women, images of 222–3 Asianisation and hybridity 11–13 Asians, Japanese perceptions of 91 astronauts 200, 202 Australia: Australian masculinities 202–3; Australian-ness 229; expatriots 227–30; Hong Kong immigrants 200; icons, playing with 230–1; soldiers as “devils” 91; stereotypes in literature 225; White Australia Policy 202 An Australian (photographs) 227, 230 Australian Rugby Review 110 Ayres, Tony 222

bachelor-men 235–6 Badi (magazine) 61 Badlands (Kroestch) 225 Ballet 47 baseball 104, 113 “beautiful boys” 61, 64 beauty: and power 35; in romantic fiction 21–5; and virtue 24–5 Beijing 21, 32–4, 43 Bellah, Robert 88 Bessatsu Takarajima (magazine) 65 Big Tomorrow (magazine) 126 biji (source materials) 34 blowfish 165 body and culture 102–3 books for sexual minorities 67–8 Bornoff, Nicholas 113 bôsôzoku (motorcycle gangs) 151 Bourdieu, Pierre 102, 115 boy-actors 21, 32–4, 35 boy-love 61, 64 brightness 85–7 brothels 91–3, 246 “The Brown Bomber” (Watada) 234 Brownell, Susan 215, 245 Buddhism, influence of 44 “Bugaroncho no Runowaaru-fû Marukeroshu Ni” (Shimizu) 172 bullying 144, 170 bun-bu 95–6, 114 bushidô 84–5, 86, 109–10 Bushidô: The Soul of Japan (Nitobe) 84 butterflies 45, 50 Butterfly, Mr. 54–6 caizi jiaren romances 6, 24, 31, 36n–11; see also scholar-beauty romances calligraphy 51 Canada: Chinese Exclusion Act (1932)

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INDEX

235; immigrants as threats 221; internment narratives 231–4; Iranian immigrants 200; stereotypes in literature 225 Cantonese cooking 157–9 Cao Xueqin 19, 24–5, 25–7, 29 careers 12, 144–5, 147, 201 caricatures 225 Castro, Brian 227 Chan, Jachinson 197–8, 213 Chaney, David 84, 85, 244 Chaves, Jonathan 184 Chen Sen 27–8 Chen Yinguan 32 Chen Zhongshi 49 Cheng, C. 200–1 chess 51 Cheung, Charles 72 children 139, 214 Chin, Frank 220, 223, 224, 225 China: ascendancy of 246–7; containment and sexuality 6–8; cultural roots and masculinity 48–9; (mis)engendering 54–6; expatriots 7; and the family 205, 245; female sexuality 8; homosexuality in 6, 7, 32–4, 35, 245; Japanese influence on 10; Japanese perceptions of 158–9; literary tradition 55; modernisation of 54, 55–6; national identity 54–6; “sick men of East Asia” 9, 247; source materials 34 Chinaman Grizzly 225 Chinese Americans 197, 201, 224–5 Chinese Australians: background to 201–2; Chineseness 8, 11, 204–6; expatriots 227–30; friendships 210–12; gay men 210, 211, 215, 216–17; hard work and education 206–7; homosexuality, attitudes to 213; as icons 230–1; literature 224–5; in literature 227–30; methodological issues 203–4; patriarchal system 8; sexual “conservativeness” 208–10; as soldiers 231; sport and recreation 207–8; study of 203–4; as threats 221 Chinese Benevolent Association 235 Chinese Canadians 234–7 Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 46–7 Chinese Exclusion Act (1932) 235 Chinese masculinity 3–6 Chinese sexuality 6–8 Chinese stereotypes 2–3 Chineseness 8, 204–6, 211

Chintatown literature 234–7, 240n–16 chivalry 84 Chow, Rey 222–3, 224 Choy, Wayson 227, 234–7 Chua, Peter 199, 216 Cipris, Zeljiko 85 clothing 125–6 Cold War 94–5 colonialism 10 The Colour Purple (film) 226 “comfort women” 91–2, 246 “coming out” 67, 70–4, 210, 76n–11 communist scholars 45–8 company rugby 104 competing masculinities 88–90, 112–15 Confucianism 5, 6–7, 12, 24, 159; dansonjohi 145 Connell, R.W.: corporeal experiences 101; development of masculinity 103–4; gender relations 138; globalisation 197; hegemonic masculinity 201; on international research 1, 13 consistent identity 148–9 containment and sexuality 6–8 cooking man: masculine cooking 159–62; parodies of 171–2; postmodern 169–73; rise of 156–7; women’s response to 168–9; wu 164–7 Cornwall, A. 1, 198 corporate warriors see salarymen corporatisation 12 CREA (magazine) 61–2 crime syndicates 232, 233–4 cross-dressing 30–2, 32–4, 35, 43; female cross-dressing 32 Cultural Revolution, aftermath of 9 culture: and embodied masculinity 101–3; and game style 105–15; and the salaryman 123–8 cultures compared 158–9 Cuncun Wu 6 Da Vinci (magazine) 59 Dachs, Mr. 170 dan (boy-actors) 21, 32–4, 35 Dan Fumi 168 Dan Kazuo 159–60, 166, 168, 173n–6 Dan-ryû Kukkingu (Dan) 160 Dansei no Jendaa Keisei (Futoshi) 246 Danshi Chûbô ni Hairô Kai 156 danson-johi 145 Daoist philosophy 159, 178, 180, 184 Daruma Days (Watada) 227, 232, 240n–13

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INDEX

endurance 106 enemies 91 “enemy aliens” 232 Eng, David 227, 236 English terminology 67 Equal Employment Opportunities Law (1997) 139 Erikson, Erik H. 138 erotic fiction 22 erotic masculinity 185–6 eternal feminine 181 ethnic minorities research 2 ethongraphic moment 1 eunuchs 8 Europe 83 examination system 21, 24, 25–6

dating advice 126 “death drive” 182–3 death from over-work 139 Defunct Capital ( Jia) 49–51; critisisms of 55–6; and macho males 55–6; sexual description 55; writing and “soft” masculinity 51–4 Deleuze, Gilles 189 deportment 125 desire: and femininity 187–8; misunderstandings of 192n–1; study of 7; “uncoded” desire 189–90 diabolical masculinty 186–7, 190 diasporic queer studies 238–9 Diggs, Robert 13 Dingqingren (Tianhuazang) 23 Dinki-Di (Loh and Winternitz) 231 Dislocating Masculinity (Cornwall and Lindisfarne) 1 division of labour: Asian Americans 199; changes in 137, 138–40, 144, 147; Chinese Australians 205, 214; dansonjohi 145 doctorates 5 Domestic Violence Law (2000) 139 dominance 103, 138, 145, 148 Dôsôkai (tv series) 63–4 Dower, John 93 The Dragon and the Maple Leaf (Wong) 231 dragons 202 Dream of the Red Chamber (Cao) see Honglou meng (Cao) Drift (Castro) 229 drinking, significance of 155 Dutch East Indies 90 eating, role of 155–6 “Economic Miracle” 122–3 education: communication-oriented 163; examination system 21, 24, 25–6; and leadership 5; and national identity 104; sexist attitudes in 141; success in 206–7 Edwards, Louise 3, 19, 32, 177, 180, 56n–3 Eighty-five Points for Becoming an Adult Male (Hirokane) 124, 127 Elias, Norbert 110 embodied masculinity 101–3 Embracing Defeat (Dower) 93 emotional relations 138 Emperor: ceremonial observances of 86–7; and nationalism 84; at surrender 93; visualisations of 82, 85, 87

Fabulous (magazine) 65 Facey, A.C. 225 family, centrality of 205, 245 feet 50 Feihuayong (Tianhuazang) 23 female sexuality 8, 43 feminine territories, phantasmal 187–9 femininity 8, 181, 187–8 feminised male: analysis of 20–1; moral dimensions of 27–30; in romantic fiction 21–5; see also scholar-beauty romance Fengyuexuan Youxuanzi 22 film industry 85–7, 121, 226 fish 165 Fist of Fury (film) 9 “flower guides” 21, 33–4 food: Confucian teachings 157–9; dietary patterns 156; gourmet boom 156–7; as taboo topic 155; see also cooking man foreclosure 143 A Fortunate Life (Facey) 225 Foucault, Michel 112 friendships 62–3, 210–12 “From Self to Nature” (Gu) 180–1 Fuji ni Chikafu (film) 85–7 Fujino, Diane 199, 216 Fukusuke 165 Fukuzawa Yukichi 91 Fung, Richard 238 Furyoki (POW account) 89–90 Futoshi Taga 217, 246 Gai Qi 26 Gainer 126 Gálik, Marián 181

250

INDEX

GAM (Gay Asian Man) 237, 238 gaman 106, 112–15 game pace 107–9 game style, social analyses of 103–4 gangsters in internment camps 232, 233 gay boom 67 gay lifestyle 65 gay media: failures of 65–6; representations of gay men 64–8; varieties of 66 gay men: and marriage 70; media representations of 59, 64–8 gay migrants 210, 211, 236–7 gay rights organisations 67 gaywalker.com (e-zine) 65–6, 71, 76n–21 gei 67, 76n–12 gekkyû tori (monthly salary) 121 gender categories 20–1, 28 Gender (Connell) 13 gender division, intra-community 221–7 gender formation 140–3, 143–9, 198–201; meaning of 138 “gender identity” 138 “gender ideology” 138 gender, theories of 103 German feminist theory 142 Ghost Dog (film) 12–13 Giddens, Anthony 74 “gifted youths and virtuous maidens” see caizi jiaren romances gigong 5 Gilmore, Allison B. 89, 90 Giulianotti, Richard 104 global wandering: and masculine cooking 159–62; and wen 162–4 globalisation 197 Golden Lotus 53–4 Gon 165–6 “Good Wives, Wise Mothers” 120 gourmets 156, 165 Greater East Asia Prosperity Sphere 88 grooming 125–6 group cohesion 111–12 Gu Cheng 7, 178–9, 179–82, 185–7 Guan Yu 7 Guang Weiran 54 Guttari, Félix 189 Guwu Shu’an Zhuren 23 habitus 102–3, 106, 111 Hagakure ( Japanese text) 12 Haitana Kenjirô 170–1 Hajime Maeda 122

halitosis 126 Han dynasty (206 BCE-CE 220) 19, 44, 166 Hanazono 108 hard work and education 206–7 harems 10 Harootunian, Harry 83 Harris, I.M. 199 Haruo case study 143–5, 150 hegemonic masculinity: adequacy of 197–8; aggression and violence 110; challenges to 201; in childhood 119–20; as “common sense” 103; consistent identity 148–9; fluctuating masculinity 138–40; identity transformation 145–6; portability of 215; and sport 101, 105 Henke, Robert 131 “hero” 53 Hibbins, Ray 8 Hikosaka Tai 246 Hirokane Kenshi 124, 127 Hitler, Adolph 91 “Hometown” (Lu) 45 homoerotic novels 27 homophobia 6 homosexuality: in China 6, 7, 35, 245; “coming out” 67, 70–4, 210; in Japan 59, 70–4, 120, 140; and marriage 245; study of 59; terms for 69 Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierette 200 Hong Kong immigrants 200 Honglou Meng (Cao) 19, 24–7, 29, 43, 37n–13 Hongo, Garrett 224 “honourabe” death 84 Horrii Tomotarô 87 housework see division of labour “how-to” manuals 124–6 Hua Mulan 4 huapu (flower guides) 21, 33–4 Huatuyyan (Tianhuazang) 23 hybridisation 11–13 icons, playing with 230–1 ideal masculinity 4–6 identity 143 identity achievement status 143 identity crisis 143–5 identity diffusion status 143, 146–8 “identity status”, types of 143 identity transformation 145–6 ideology, selection of 143 Ikedo Tomoichi 90–1

251

INDEX

Illustrated “ Salaryman” in Japan ( JTB) 128–30 image 125 “Imperial Rescript for Soldiers” 83, 86 impotence 55 Inagaki Riichi 90 incompetent masculinity 185 individuals and the group 111–12 Inoue Hiromi 124 instruction manuals 124–6 “international masculinity research” 1 internationalist vision 13 internment narratives 231–4 intra-community gender division 221–7 Ip, David 199, 200 Iranian immigrants 200 Iron-clad Rules for Adults (Inoue) 124, 125 Itô Kimio 246 Ito, Roy 231 Ito, Sally 232 Itô Satoru 60, 70, 74, 140, 75n–1, 76n–12 The Jade Peony (Choy) 227, 234–7 Japan: army 83; and Asian neighbours 83; books for sexual minorities 67–8; brothels 91–3; bushidô 84–5, 86, 109–10; Chinese influence on 11; classical Chinese 163; “coming out” 70–4; competing masculinities 88–90, 112–15; cultural forms 84–5; defeat of 93, 94; “democratic” roles for men 12; dietary patterns 156; division of labour 137, 138–40, 147; economic growth of 137; enemies, perceptions of 89–91; and English soccer fans 245; English terminology 67; female sexuality 8; film industry 85–7, 121; fluctuating masculinity 138–40; gay boom 60–4, 131; gay net 68–74; gender equal society laws 139; homosexuality in 59, 70–4, 120, 140; hooligan emigrants 90; identity 84; identity crisis 88; invasion by 54; lesbianism 62, 75n–6, 76n–28; literature on masculinities 246; in love 93–5; materialistic nature of 95; media representations of sexual minorities 59–60; military training 86; modernisation of 9, 74, 81, 120–1; nationalism 84; Navy hierarchies 94; occupation of 93; old age 69; power of the state 83; recession 131, 139; religious indoctrination 85;

reproducing masculinities 87–8; romanticism criticised 159; sexual minorities 59–60; soldier images 83; sympathy for 246; Westernisation, attempt to eradicate 89; Westernisation of 8, 11–12, 82–3; see also Emperor Japan Travel Bureau ( JTB) man 128–30 Japanese, as white 88 Japanese Australians 231 Japanese Canadians 231–2 Japanese stereotypes 2–3, 8 Japanese women and white men 8 “Japaneseness” 8, 86, 88, 158–9 Jarmusch, Jim 12 Jia Bayoyu 19, 25–7, 29, 35, 43; bisexuality of 32, 56n–3 Jia Pingwa 49, 55 Jinxiangting (Guwu) 23 Journey to the West 44 The Joy Luck Club (film) 226 June (comic) 61 Jung-Sum 236–7 Kachô Shima Kôsaku (Hirokane) 124, 127 Kaikô Takeshi 162–3, 165, 168, 174n–10 kamu auto (coming out) 67, 76n–11 kanbun (classical Chinese) 163 Karlin, Jason 244 karôshi (death from overwork) 139 Kataku no Hito (Dan) 161–2, 166 Katsuro Kazuo 161 Kelsky, Karen 246 Ken Takakura 48 kendô 86 Kenji case study 145–6, 150 KesternJoachim 139 Khoo, Tseen 7 kigyô senshi (corporate warrior) 118, 122; see also salarymen Kim, Elaine 232 Kimi wa Dakkusu Sensei ga Kirai Ka (Haitana) 170 Kingston, Maxine Hong 220, 223 Kintarô 114, 127–8 Kira Kira Hikaru (film) 62, 63 Kôgai no Shokutaku (Shimada) 169–70 Kogawa 232 Kogayakeru Yami (Kaikô) 163 Koizumi Jun’ichiro 60 Kojima Chikako 168 Kojima Kiyofumi 89 Komarovsky, Mirra 140

252

INDEX

Kôno Kensuke 163 Kono, Shiggy 105 Korea 9 Kôsaku 127 Kroestch, Robert 225 Kuan Foo 232 Kühne, Thomas 142 kukkingu 173n–2 Kukkingu Papa (magazine) 170 kung fu 13 Kurahashi Yumiko 169 Kusano Shinpei 87 Kyû Eikan 11, 157–9, 160 Langer, Beryl 228 Langshi (Fengyuexuan) 22 language 125, 244 Laozi 159 late imperial period (1550–1911) 19, 20–1 Lee, Bruce 9 Lee, Kenneth 221 Lei Mi 184 Leong, Hou 227, 230–1 lesbianism 59, 62, 67, 75n–6, 76n–28 Li Yu 22 Liang Qichao 10 Liangjiaohun (Tianhuazang) 31 Light, Richard 212 Lin Daojing 46–7 Lindisfarne, N. 1, 198 Ling, Jinqi 221 linguistic behaviour studies 244 literary production, quality and morality 55–6 literati 27, 29–30, 35, 50, 51 Lock, Margaret 85 The Logic of Practice (Bourdieu) 103 Loh, Morag 231 lost souls 202 Louie, Kam 4, 19, 42, 177, 191, 221 love 93–5, 150–1 Low, Morris 11 Lowe, Lisa 225 loyalty 113 Lu Tonglin 177 Lu Xun 10, 45 Lü Yuan Conghua (Qian) 30 Luke, Allen 221, 226, 238 LUST (website) 68–9 Ma, Sheng-Mei 223 Macarthur, Douglas 93 macho males 46–7; rise of 48–9, 54

Maclear, Kyo 233 Maki Yôko 168 Malays 90 male beauty see feminised male Male Fantasies (Thewelweit) 188 male form, representations of 19, 66 Male Gender Formation (Futoshi) 246 “the man” 171 Manchuria 88 mandarin ducks 45 manga (comics) 114, 123–4, 126–8, 170 manliness 28 Mann, Susan 3 March, Robert 102 Marcheti, Gina 13 Marcia, James E. 143 marginalisation 200–1 marriage: advice about 124; and gay men 63–4, 70, 245; teishu kanpaku (authoritarian manner) 138, 139–40; see also division of labour martial arts 5, 7, 86, 109–10, 149 Marxist theory 122 Masato 72 Masculine Domination (Bourdieu) 103 Masculinity Besieged (Zhong) 178 mastery 182, 191 Matsubara Rumiko 61 Matsushima Richihei 90 Mauss, Marcel 115 May Fourth period 9 McLelland, Mark J. 245 McMahon, Keith 6 media representations: of food and cooking 169; gay media 64–8; of immigrants 224–7; mainstream media 60–4, 74; new modes of 238–9; propaganda media 85–7; of sexual minorities 59–60, 60–4 medical policies 83 Meiji period (1868–1912): education 104; “honourabe” death 84; Imperial Rescript 83, 86; male fashion 244; modernisation programme 8, 83, 120–1 Men and Masculinity (journal) 1 Mencius 159 Mennell, Stephen 167 Men’s Centre Japan 140 MEN’S NET JAPAN (website) 69 Menzu Kukkingu Nyûmon (Tamamura) 169 Messner, Michael A. 200 Mexico 200 migrants: and gender identities 198–201;

253

INDEX

“New Japanese Male” 121 new poetry 178, 179–80 “New Remarks on Poetry” (Gu) 180 new revolutionary romance 47 New Zealand 7 “newhalf ” 61 Nihon Sanmon Opera (Kaikô) 165 nihonjinron (uniqueness) 158–9 Nitobe, Inazô 84 no mind 106

as threats 221; and war 231–4; see also Chinese Americans; Chinese Australians; Chinese Canadians; Japanese Australians; Japanese Canadians Mikawa Ken’ichi 61 military aspects of masculinity: competing masculinities 88–90; cultural mix 11; in defeat 93–5; in literary heroes 42, 46, 57n–7; military dress 11, 83; morale lectures 85; training 83, 86; Westernisation of 83; see also prisoners of war; samurai class Miller, Daniel 70 mind-body dualism 102–3 Ming dynasty (1368–1644) 21–5, 30, 33 Mishima, Yukio 11, 95 Misogyny, Cultural Nihilism and Oppositional Politics (Lu) 177 Miwa Akihiro 61, 75n–3 Miyamoto Musashi 113 Miyoshi Akira 169 mobo (modern boy) masculinity 121–2 “Modern Boy” 121–2 “Modern Girl” 122 Moondial (website) 72 Moore, Clive 202 morality 120 moratorium status 143 Morris-Suzuki, Tessa 84 mother figures 50 mother-son relationships 88 motorcycle gangs 151 Mt. Fuji 85–6, 87 Mulan 49 multicultural studies 10 multiple masculinities 184–7 Mura, David 220 Murakami Motoko 169 murders 7 mushin (no mind) 106 music 13, 51

Obasan (Ueki) 232 obligation 114 OCCUR (gay rights ) 67 O’Donnell, Mike 201 offal 164–7 Ogasawara Yuko 139 Okoge (film) 62–3 old age 69 Ômae Kenichi 247 Ommundsen, Wenche 229 onnarashii (feminine) 120 Ôoka Shôhei 89–90 orgasm, witholding 7 Otoko no Fesutibaru 140 otoko (the man) 171 otokorashii (manly) 120 Otokotashisa no Yukue (Itô) 246

Naoki prize 157, 160 the nation, masculinity and 9–11 national identity: in China 54–6; and education 104; and macho masculinity 54 Natsuki 63–4, 75n–7 nature, conception of 181 “nerds” 200 Netherlands East Indies 90 New Guinea 90

Pacific War (1941–45) 86, 88–90, 91 painting 51 parties 65 patriarchy 8, 198, 213, 215 patriotism 227 peasants 46 pen, masculine quality of 53 penis envy 53 People’s Republic of China (PRC) 46 perfection 109–10 Perry, Matthew C. 82 Peter 61, 75n–2 phantasmal feminine territories 187–9 Phillip 73 photographs 230–1 Pinhua Baojian (Chen) 27–8, 34 Pledging Oneself before Mt Fuji (film) 85–7, 88 plenitude 190 Plummer, Ken 73 poetry 87, 178, 179–80 poisonous food 165 Pollack, David 164 polygamy 51 Pomeroy (Castro) 227–30

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Russo-Japanese War (1904–5) 83, 84 Ryoko Otomo 12 Ryôri Tengoku (tv programme) 156 RZA (Robert Diggs) 13

post-war period 104, 167 postcolonial studies 10 postmodern cooking man 169–73 postmodern hybridisation 12 postmodernism 102–3 potency 177 powdering 30 power relations 138 pre-marital sex 208–10 pre-subjective desiring-production 191 prisoners of war 89–91; sex slaves 91–2 production relations 138 propaganda media 85–7 prostitution 33 psychoanalysis 178, 182–3 Qian Yong 30 Qing dynasty (1644–1911): cross-dressing 30–1; femininisation 27; homoerotic novels 27; non-Han rule 44; prostitution 33; romantic fiction 21–5, 28–9 Qingdai Yandu Liyuan Shiliao (Zhang) 34 Queer Japan (periodical) 76n–13 Qui Jin 10 “racial castration” 2 Rakuten Kitazawa 122 rape 92 “real men” see macho males “Regretting the Past” (Lu) 45–6 reproducing masculinities 87–8 retirement 139 Rikugun (film) 88 Ritsuko (Dan) 161 Robb, Andrew William 91 Roden, Donald 81, 104 Rogoff, I. 198 romantic fiction: caizijiaren romances 24, 31, 36n–11; elements of 162; gender representation in 21–5; scholar-beauty romance 41–4, 45–8 root-searching literature 48–9 Ruff-O’Herne, Jan 92, 93 rugby in Japan 104–5; aggression and violence 110–11; characteristics of 105–7, 109; game pace 107–9; girls’ views 113; the individual and the group 111–12; obligation, loyalty and selfcontrol 112–15; patterned play 109–10; in schools and universities 105–15; training 100–1, 105–6, 108 Rushton, J. Philippe 3

Said, Edward 3 Sakai Saburô 93–5 Sakai Shigeru 91 salarymen: caricatures of 128, 129; challenges of 247; classification of 129; decline of 130–1, 139; demarcations and delineations 119–20; division of labour 137, 139–40; heterosexuality of 127; Japan Travel Bureau ( JTB) man 128–30; modernity and the nation-state 120–3; negative aspects of 130, 139; nuclear families 122–3; qualities of 114, 123; representations of 118, 123–8; rise of 95–6 samurai class: cultural values 104; the last samurai 95; representations of 12, 86, 114; status of 84 Samurai! (Sakai) 93–5 Sanma no Aji (film) 163 “Sanma no Uta” (Satô) 167 Sarariiman Bushidô (Yaramoto) 246–7 Sarariiman Kintarô (television, film) 127–8 Sarariiman (magazine) 114, 122, 126 Sarariiman Monogatari (Hajime) 122 Sarariiman no Jigoku (Rakuten) 122 Sarariiman no Tengoku (Rakuten) 122 Sasai Junichi 94 Satô Haruo 167 Satô Ikuya 151 Schodt, Frederick 128 scholar-beauty romances 41–4; communist scholars 45–8 school sport see rugby in Japan schoolboys, attitudes to sex 209 scrap metal workers 165 The Sea of Fertility (Mishima) 95 Searching for Masculinity (Itô) 246 seishin (spiritual strength) 106–7 self-control 113–14, 182, 191 Self-Defence Force 122 self-improvement publications 124, 124–6 Selzer, Linda 226 sengyô-shufu (housewife) 137 separation 199–200 seppuku (suicide) 95 serial masculinity 192 sex-change operations 67 sex-discrimination 145–6

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sex slaves 91–2 sexism 145, 146 sexual attraction and status 54 sexuality: “conservativeness” 208–10; containment and 6–8; and power 43 Shahidian, Hammed 200 Sharpe, Sue 201 Shen Defu 30 Shiina Makoto 171–2 Shillony, Ben-Ami 89 Shimada Masahiko 167, 169–70 Shimazu, Naoko 84 Shimizu Yoshinori 172 Shinichi 73 “Shinjitsu no Yakiudon” (Shiina) 171–2 Shintô 85 shisôsetsu (fiction) 162 Shôji Sadao 171 Shôjo no Utsuwa (Haitani) 171 Shoku wa Kôshû ni Ari (Kyû) 157–8 shopping 160 Showa period 121 “sick men of East Asia” 9, 247 Silverman, Kaja 182 SindBad bookmarks (website) 75, 76n–14 Sino-Japanese War (1894–5) 83 Slater, Don 70 Smith, Robert 119 Soccer World Cup (2002) 12, 245 social outcasts 165 “soft” masculinity”: challenge to 48–9; communist scholars 45–8; critisisms of 49, 55–6; triumph of 41–4; writing, and 51–4; see also feminised male Sohô Tokutomi 121 “sojourners” 202, 236 soldiers see military aspects of masculinity solitide 162 Song of Youth (Yang) 46–7 source materials 34 “South Seas March Song” (Horii) 87 spiritual strength 106–7 Spivak, Gayatry 223 sport: culture in 100–3; and masulinity 12; secondary nature of 207–8; social analyses of 103–4; see also rugby in Japan status: and feminisation 21, 35, 43; identity status 143, 146–8; of samurai class 84; and sexual attraction 43; of “talented scholars” 44 stereotypes 2–3; Asian Americans 200; Asian men 200, 225; Chinese men 8;

Chinese women 8; in film 226; in literature 225 Stoler, Ann 87 straight men, abuse and 62–3 structuralist theories 103 subjectivity 178, 180–1 subordination 103 suburban cooking 169–70 suicide 95, 139, 162 Sukotan (website) 70, 74, 75n–1, 76n–20 Suzuki Kenji 124 Suzuki Yoshio 92–3 Tadashi case study 148–9, 150 Taishô period 121 Taiwan 5, 9 Takarazuka 61, 121 Takashi 73 Tale of Genji (film) 61 talented scholars: communist scholars 45–8; in Defunct Capital ( Jia) 49–51; literati as 50; triumph of 41–4 Tam, Siumi Maria 200 Tamamura Toyoo 169 Tan, Amy 226 Tanaka, Yuki 92 Tang dynasty (618–907) 19 Taoism, influence of 44 teishu kanpaku (authoritarian manner) 138, 139–40 Telling Sexual Stories (Plummer) 73 “The Aimless ‘I’ ” (Gu) 181, 186 theatre: Beijing opera 32–4; gender ambivalence in 61, 121; talented scholars in 43 Theorising Chinese Masculinity (Louie) 4, 12, 177 Thewelweit, Klaus 188, 191 “Third Remarks on Poetry” (Gu) 180 “3 Treasures” 123 THS (Tokyo High School) 106–7, 111–12 Tianhuazang Zhuren 23–4, 31 Tokugawa-period (1600–1868) 86, 120 Tokyo rugby team 108 Tomoko Aoyama 114 Top Notch (website) 69 Tora-san movies 128 transgender individuals: books for 67; media representations of 59; on television 61 transvestism 33, 61 travel see global wandering

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“The True Story of Ah Q” (Lu) 45 Tseen Khoo 217 Ueki, Teruyo 232 Ueyama Tochi 170 “unbinding effects” 182–3 unemployment 199, 200, 206 Uotani Tsunekichi 165 USA (United States of America): Asian men 200; critisisms of 158; gender formation research 140; influence on masculinity 94–5; Japanese perceptions of 89, 91; minority masculinities study 2; see also Asian Americans; Chinese Americans van Gulik, Robert 19 Van Leer, D. 198 Vialles, Noelie 166 violence and aggression 110–11, 139, 186 Wada Akiko 61 Walker, Alice 226 Wang Dachun 47 Wang, Wayne 226 Wang Yangming (1472–1529) 12 Wanli Yehuobian (Shen) 30 war: Asian Australians in 231; competing masculinities 88–90; enemies and friends 227; immigrants in 231–4; reproducing masculinities 87–8 Wasserstrom, Jeffrey N. 245 Watada, Terry 227, 232 The Water Margin 44, 54 We Went to War (Ito) 231 wealth, accumulation of 208 Wei Changsheng 32 Wei Jian 22 wen-wu concept 4–6; and containment 6–7; and cooking 11; and desire 7; dichotomies in 10–11; and global wandering 162–4; and mastery 182; and scholars 42; and soldiers 57n–7; as a style 13; universal aspects to 244; variations on 11; wen, loses lustre 9–10; and yin-yang 191 Western cultures, comparisons with 158 Westernisation: Asianisation and hybridity 11–13; attempt to eradicate 89; launch of 8; turning white 82–3; white and bright 85–7

What Men Need to Do in Their Twenties (Suzuki) 124 White Deer Plain (Chen) 49 White-Haired Girl (ballet) 47 white women 223 “whiteness” 82–3, 85–7, 88, 223 Winternitz, Judith 231 “WMAF” (White Male, Asian Female) 226 women: actors 61; attitudes to men 8; and boy-love stories 166; changing roles of 142; Chinese authors 224; “comfort women” 91–2, 246; and cooking 160, 168–9, 172; in employment 119, 138, 139; in gay media 66; and gay men 62–3, 210; “Good Wives, Wise Mothers” 120; as head of household 200, 215; images of 222–3; in male roles 61; mother-son relationships 87–8; and national symbolism 54; oppression of 91; and patriotism 87–8; as prisoners of war 91–2; sexuality of 8; sexually ambiguous 61; status of 43; trans-sexual role playing 43; wen accomplishments 4 Women on the Verge (Kelsky) 246 women’s studies 223 Wong, Marjorie 231 Wong, Sau-Ling 220 Wong Suk 235–6 working-class characters 46–7 working-class youth 151 World Cup soccer (2002) 12, 245 “worship” 187–8 writing and “soft” masculinity 51–4 Wu, Mr. 245 Wu of the Han 6 Wu-Tang Clan (rap group) 13 Wushengxi (Li) 22 Ximen Qing 54 Yajima Masami 64 Yamamoto Hirofumi 246 Yamamoto Uki 87 Yang Mo 46 Yano, Christine 123 Yellow River 54 The Yellow River Cantata (Guang Weiran) 54 yin-yang 4, 44, 191 Yinger (Gu) 178; “a box marked ‘G’” 182–4; feminine territories 187–9; mastery effect 182; multiple masculinities 184–7; publication of 183; styles in 183–4

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yingxiong (hero) 53 yinsheng yangshui 54 Yiyan Wang 6, 182 Yodi 93 Yomata Inuhiko 165 Yoshimi, Yoshiaki 92 Yu, Henry 2 Yuan dynasty (1239–1368) 44 Yung, Wayne 238–9 Yuval-Davies, Nira 54

Zhang Chuansham 30 Zhang Cixi 34 Zhang Juzeng 30 Zhang Xianliang 47 Zhang Yonglin 47–8 Zhong Xueping 178 Zhu Yingtai 4 Zhuang Zhidie 49–54, 55, 182 Zhuangzi 159, 178, 184 zoophagan logic 166

258