Great Dragon Fantasy, The: A Lacanian Analysis Of Contemporary Chinese Thought

A Lacanian Analysis of Contemporary Chinese Thought

Guanjun Wu

• Publisher: WSPC
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9789814417938
• Topic: Biowissenschaften
• Subtopic: Wissenschaft Allgemein

China has undergone a unique path of development in the post-Maoist era. Especially, the last decade witnessed China's rapid rise to economic wealth and superpower status vis-à-vis the severe developmental predicaments of the West (financial crises, socio-political turbulences, etc.). This book analyzes how the leading Chinese thinkers understand China's prosperity and rapid development today, and whether there is any hidden mechanism that has been playing a crucial role of forming contemporary Chinese thinkers' shared passionate endeavor of resuscitating classical Chinese ideas, and thus shows how the fervor for discovering “essential characteristics” of Chinese thought reveals a hidden psychological mechanism.

Contents:

• The Fantasmatic Narrative of Contemporary Chinese Thought
• Descendants of a Blurry-Eyed Dragon
• New Enlightenment as Modernization
• “Traumatic” Encounters with Postmodernism
• Liberals and New Leftists as “Discursive Enemies”
• China's New Nationalism and Its Obscene Core
• Narrating the Fantasmatic Past: Ancient and Recent
• Traversing the Fantasy

Readership: Academics, professionals, Sinologists, advanced undergraduate and graduate students interested in China studies.

Chapter 1

“Descendants of a Blurry-Eyed Dragon”

The Dragon That Lost Its Glory

By the late 1980s, a pop song called “Descendants of the Dragon” (Long de chuanren) had arguably become “the best-selling pop song ever marketed in China. Everyone knew the words.”¹ Hou Dejian, the former Taiwanese pop star who wrote the song in the late 1970s, left Taiwan and went to live in mainland China in the early 1980s. This led the Taiwanese Government to ban his music. But in 1989, after the purge of the Tiananmen student protest movement in which “Descendants of the Dragon” became something of an anthem, Hou was expelled by the Chinese government back to Taiwan for his active participation in the movement. The lyrics of “Descendants of the Dragon” contain the following three verses:

In the far east, there’s a river;
Changjiang (Yangtze River) is its name.
In the far east, there’s another river;
Huanghe (Yellow River) is its name.
Although I haven’t seen the beauty of Changjiang,
In my dreams I’m often sailing in its waters.
Although I haven’t heard the roar of Huanghe,
In my dreams I often see its strong waves.

In the ancient east flies a dragon;
Zhongguo (China) is its name.
In the ancient east resides a group of people;
They are all descendants of the dragon.
I grew up beneath the feet of the great dragon,
I’m a descendant of the dragon.
With black eyes, black hair and yellow skin,
I’m forever a descendant of the dragon.

It was one hundred years ago on a quiet night,
The deep dark night before the great changes.
The bursting rumble of guns and cannons broke the peace of the night.
What was besieged was a cowardly sword.
After so many years, the guns and bombs are still rumbling;
So many years and so many years more.
Great dragon, great dragon, please rub and open your eyes.
For now and ever more, open your eyes.
Great dragon, great dragon, please open your eyes.
For now and ever more, rub and open your eyes.²

Zhongguo, the “middle kingdom,” has long been symbolized as the “(great) dragon” (ju long). “Descendants of the dragon” and the “sons and grandsons of the dragon” (longzi longsun) are idiomatic expressions in Chinese that remain popular to this day. As a traditional symbol for China, the dragon (long) in traditional Chinese culture is clearly not the image of the monstrous dragon in Western mythology. Rather, the Chinese long is a beneficent, immortal, omnipresent, and unconquerable beast, capable of plunging into watery depths, and soaring aloft to the highest heavens.³

According to Sima Qian’s Historical Records (shiji), Confucius once said to his disciples that:

Of the bird, what I know is that it can fly; of the fish, that it can swim; of the quadruped, that it can walk. An animal that walks can be caught in a net; one that swims can be caught with a line; one that flies can be caught with an arrow attached to a wire. But of the Dragon, I can know nothing: supported by the wind and the clouds, it rises in to the sky… (Quoted in François Jullien 1995: 155)

The Chinese idea of the dragon, according to the influential philosopher and sinologist François Jullien, “symbolizes a dynamism never visible in concrete form and thus [is] unfathomable.” It is the “Void” in the human world and the “Beyond” of the mundane order (Jullien 1995: 151, 161–162). Thus, the dragon in Chinese culture is regarded as an infinite, quasi-divine being, representing the highest good and sovereign power, to form a symbolic bridge between the Heaven and human beings. In short, it functions as a figurative representation of Dao or Tian-Dao (The Way of Heaven) in the popular culture. Thus, in the following, I will represent the dragon using the capital letter D for it shares the same cosmic importance as Dao and Heaven.

For these reasons, as Jullien argues, the “Dragon motif” of dynastic China — from the Qin era (221–206 B.C.E.) to the Qing era (1644–1911) — became symbolic of imperial rule, indicating the legitimate rule of Tianxia (all under Heaven). The national flag of the Great Qing Empire (used officially since 1888), the first national flag in China’s history, is named “Yellow Dragon Flag” (huanglong qi) — a flag with a blue Dragon on plain yellow background, with a red pearl at the upper left corner. While yellow has long been the royal color of Chinese emperors (the legendary first emperor of China was known as the Yellow Emperor or Huangdi), the Dragon has been a symbol of the imperial power and strength (in Chinese culture a flaming pearl is frequently shown together with the Dragon, representing wealth, good luck, and prosperity).⁴ Thus, in dynastic China the Dragon was a reference to the Emperor, the Son of Heaven (tianzi) and, by extension, his empire; political legitimacy was understood in terms of acknowledging the Son of Heaven as “the true Dragon,” reflected in the traditional saying — zhenlong tianzi (a true Dragon as the Son of Heaven). This means that the legitimate Emperor, symbolized as a true Dragon, is supposed to bring about a harmonious congruence between the ways of society and the Way of Heaven. Owing to its significance in the political symbolism of dynastic China, using the Dragon to refer to someone other than the reigning emperor or to a regime other than the ruling house was regarded as treason. According to recent literary studies, it was only from the early Republican era onwards that the traditional symbolism of long became adapted to represent China as a civilization.⁵ Of course, this Dragon motif is also the cultural reason that many contemporary Chinese male movie stars feature the character long in their stage names, such as Li Xiaolong (known in the English speaking world as Bruce Lee and also as Lee Siu Loong), Zun Long (John Lone), Cheng Long (Jackie Chan), Di Long (Tommy Tam Fu-Wing), Shi Xiaolong (Ashton Chen), Liang Xiaolong, and so on. The use of the character long in the names of these movie stars implicitly engenders a sense of being the “master” (often, the “master” of Chinese martial arts).

Since the late 1970s, traditional symbols like the Dragon, the Yellow River, the Yangtze River and the Great Wall have gradually replaced the symbols of Marxism–Leninism. The symbolism of the Maoist era such as the Little Red Book has long been commercialized. To many Chinese, the song “Descendants of the Dragon” that has become highly popular since the 1980s is a celebration of their historical and cultural uniqueness. That is, the song is about being Chinese. The lyrics of the song explicitly carry a dense agglomerate of national pride — “China” is (the name of) the great Dragon, and the Chinese people today are still the descendants of the Dragon. The song also suggests that China was once and will be again a great civilization, as long as it awakens to its true nature. The figure of the Dragon is used to suggest an eternal, quasi-divine being, which indicates the greatness of the Chinese civilization. The expression that “we are descendants of the Dragon” thus reflects a deep longing for a Chinese identity imagined as whole and consistent. Hence, an old nationalistic theme, drawn on the Republican use of the Dragon to symbolize Chinese civilization, is revived in Hou’s song. We should note that this return to traditional themes effectively bypasses Mao Zedong and the revolutionary images of the Maoist era.

One of the most interesting characteristics about this song is that it was originally written by an artist who was born in Taiwan. Hou Dejian offers three reasons in the lyrics as to why he, as well as many Taiwanese, should be considered as legitimate “descendants of the Dragon”: First, as he puts it, Hou grew up “beneath the feet of the Great Dragon,” a reference to his birth in Taiwan, an island to the southeast of mainland China (thus the Yangtze River and Yellow River are not far away...). Second, Hou writes of sharing the same genetic features with people living in mainland China — “black eyes, black hair and yellow skin.” Hou’s lyrics emphasize the importance of the shared cultural memory of people living in Taiwan and mainland China in the form of historical events that happened “a hundred years ago on a quiet night.” Hou is referring to the Western military invasions of China during the Opium Wars (1839–1842). He also implies, through lines such as “after so many years, the guns and cannons are still blaring,” that things still remain somewhat unchanged even in the present — because China is still not fully itself in a world dominated by the West. The strong sentiments of racial belonging in Hou’s song, to a large extent, are produced by recalling historical humiliations inflicted on China since the Opium Wars. Thus, the song encourages the people of Taiwan and mainland China to work towards the common aim of awakening themselves: because their shared history is one of defeat and humiliation, they must reclaim the power of the “Great Dragon.”

Owing to the popularity of “Descendants of the Dragon,” Hou Dejian received a very warm welcome when he first visited China. In 1983, Outlook Weekly (Liaowang), a politically influential magazine owned by Xinhua News Agency (Xinhuashe), published a special essay to welcome Hou Dejian’s “return” to China. The essay, titled “A ‘Descendant of the Dragon’ Returns to the Homeland of the Dragon,” begins with words of passion:

The heartfelt voice (xinsheng) of all Chinese people can be heard in “Descendants of the Dragon.” Today, this song has already become extremely popular in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and mainland China, as well as in all other places where “descendants of Emperor Yan and Emperor Huang” (Yan Huang zisun) dwell. (Tang Hua and Chen Lian 1983: 14–15)

Though Hou was expelled from mainland China after 1989, his song has not been banned. This is surprising as it was frequently sung by the protesting students on Tiananmen Square in 1989. To this day, it is still highly popular and often sung as part of official or civic festive celebrations. Also, many pop stars such as Tan Yonglin, Wang Lihong, have chosen to record their versions of this song in the 1990s and 2000s.

Expressions such as “rubbing and opening one’s eyes” from the song form part of what Gloria Davies describes as “a Sinophone vocabulary of national empowerment.” A powerful instance of this vocabulary is Mao Zedong’s famous announcement that “The Chinese people have stood up” (Zhongguo renmin zhanqilaile) at the founding moment of the People’s Republic of China. Mao meant that the history of China’s defeat and humiliation was over and that China had regained its power. The popularity of Hou Dejian’s “Descendants of the Dragon,” in this regard, can be seen as a symbolic manifestation of a need to re-invent in the post-Maoist era a “new vocabulary of national empowerment.” Especially, at the time when protesting students sang “Descendants of the Dragon” in 1989, they were opposing the Chinese government and were calling on the government to introduce reforms to strengthen the nation. The song’s call for urgent action — “rubbing and opening one’s eyes” has since become an integral part of the Sinophone vocabulary of national empowerment.

Hou Dejian’s “Descendants of the Dragon” was by no means the only bestselling nationalistic pop song in post-Maoist China. “The Great Wall Will Never Fall” (Wanli Changcheng yong budao) was also very popular in the 1980s. This song shares much of the symbolism of “Descendants of the Dragon” and includes such lines as: “After sleeping deeply for hundreds of years, the Chinese people have gradually awakened. Oh please, open your eyes, and look carefully”; “The Great Wall will never fall, the water of Yellow River will always flow.” It explicitly calls for “China’s resurgence” and states that China “does not look like it has already caught a severe disease.”

The historical theme of China’s former humiliation and defeat in both these songs is intended to urge the Chinese people to attain clearsightedness and to recover China’s lost glory. Another highly popular song “My Chinese Heart” (Wo de Zhongguo xin) asks people to develop a sense of cultural pride. The lyrics state that “Although I wear Western-style clothes, my heart remains a Chinese heart. Every inch of my body has been branded by my ancestors with the stamp of China.” The reference to “Western-style clothes” implies that the Chinese people are still borrowing from the West and that people have yet to fulfill the wishes of their “Chinese heart.” The song “My Chinese Heart,” like the other two songs discussed earlier, also uses such symbols as the Great Wall, the Yangtze River and the Yellow River to represent China. These are symbols of grandeur that project an image of an eternal China. They thus imply that China “will never fall” as long as one continues to remain faithful to China. Another interesting feature worth noting is that these songs were all originally written and sung by Taiwan and Hong Kong pop stars before they became extremely popular in mainland China. In this regard, the sense of cultural pride that these songs convey appears to be shared across the Chinese-speaking world.

As an image, the “awakened Great Dragon” derives from the vocabulary of national awakening of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It has remained popular to this day. In fact, the expression in Hou’s song of “rubbing and opening one’s eyes” echoes the call of the late Qing scholar-official Wei Yuan (1794–1857) that the Chinese should “open their eyes to see the world” (fangyan kan shijie). Wei’s phrase remained popular throughout the twentieth century. It is not surprising that Hou’s song has become so popular since the 1980s, a time when mainland China started to separate itself radically from its Maoist period and undergo enormous social and economic changes.

From 1978 onwards, Chinese intellectuals were able to publish much more of their opinions and concerns. According to the Shanghai-based historian Xu Jilin, the year 1984 marked “the appearance of a public intellectual sphere” owing to the fact that several intellectual groups and organizations were established in that year (Xu Jilin 2000: 173–174). In the enormous number of publications that Chinese intellectuals produced in the mid- to late 1980s as part of what came to be called “cultural fever” or “New Enlightenment,” phrases such as “rubbing one’s eyes,” “awakening,” “opening one’s eyes,” and “seeing with new eyes,” made a frequent appearance. There was also a deliberate attempt to recall the language of the 1920s, or the discourse of May Fourth intellectuals. The term “New Enlightenment” is a direct echo of the importance that May Fourth intellectuals accorded to the notion of enlightenment. Writing nostalgically of the 1980s New Enlightenment movement, Xu Jilin remarks that it “in some ways was another ‘May Fourth’, but of course a contemporary one.” Xu also notes that “in fact, some participants in the New Enlightenment were to employ just such a transhistorical evocation when they claimed that their efforts in the 1980s were a revivification of the May Fourth era.” Xu points out in the same article that after Fourth June 1989, Chinese intellectual life changed dramatically. Thus, he distinguishes between two phases of post-Maoist intellectual discourse: (1) the New Enlightenment discourse of the 1980s which Xu characterizes as showing a “homogeneity of attitude” (taidude tongyixing), and (2) the post-1989 range of writings that reflect a discourse of what Xu calls “divergence” (fenhua). It is, in Xu’s view, the “homogeneity of attitude” that made intellectual activities in the 1980s a rather unified “movement.” And by “divergence” Xu means the disappearance or destruction of this “homogeneity of attitude” among Chinese intellectuals in the post-Tiananmen 1990s. As he writes: “A unified intellectual sphere in which people can engage in profitable dialogue no longer exists. The consensus of the New Enlightenment has collapsed, very much in the way that it did during the original May Fourth movement.” According to Xu, this “homogeneity of attitude” characteristic of the New Enlightenment discourse of the 1980s first and foremost manifests itself in a commonly shared desire to “revaluate all values.” This form of revaluation also reflects the popularity of philosophical language in the 1980s. Xu argues that the 1980s intellectual discourse can be viewed as a relatively unified movement insofar as its producers all genuinely believed that they should assist in China’s modernization (Xu Jilin 2000: 169, 176–177, 181, 186). In this regard, even though the concept of New Enlightenment was being expressed in the philosophical terms of a radical revaluation of all values, it reflected the same idea that was expressed in Hou Dejian’s pop song of getting the Great Dragon to “rub and open its eyes.”

In those reminiscent discussions in the 2000s by intellectuals who were active during the 1980s, expressions involving an act of “seeing (clearly)” remain in frequent use. For instance, the Beijing-based philosopher Xu Youyu recently wrote nostalgically about the 1980s: “At that time, everyone saw the similarity between the 1980s and the May Fourth era, and engaged him or herself in the new cultural movement and the pursuit of Enlightenment.” Xu explicitly notes that “our plan was to first open our eyes widely to see the world as it really was, and then to devote ourselves to studying China” (Xu Youyu 2006). Liu Zaifu, a leading figure of the 1980s New Enlightenment movement who went to the U.S. after 1989, avers that the most important change that happened in China during the 1980s was that “China started to face the world with new eyes and with a new attitude.” According to Liu, what the 1980s New Enlightenment movement produced was “a great cultural legacy, namely, the soul that makes the Chinese nation shine again with vigor” (Liu Zaifu 2006). One can see from these recent statements that nearly two decades after the 1980s New Enlightenment movement, prominent participants such as Xu Youyu and Liu Zaifu still place the emphasis on getting the Chinese people to “open their eyes.” They also believe that the New Enlightenment is an unfinished project which intellectuals must continue to shoulder as their responsibility: this is evident in their use of phrases such as “opening one’s eyes,” or “seeing with new eyes.” Liu is especially keen to promote a collective will — a “soul” (linghun) — developed out of the 1980s New Enlightenment, and his vision of the Chinese nation as one that will “shine again with vigor” indicates how clearly he imagines such a collective will. The explicit use of phrases related to clear-sightedness in these recent statements by prominent intellectuals shows the continued significance of this type of wording.

Suffice it to say that from the May Fourth era onwards, in Sinophone critical inquiry, “Enlightenment” (qimeng) has often been reified metaphorically into an act of “seeing clearly.” The question is: Why is it necessary for the Chinese people to “see clearly”? To return to the song “Descendants...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• About the Author
• Introduction The Fantasmatic Narrative of Contemporary Chinese Thought
• Chapter 1 “Descendants of a Blurry-Eyed Dragon”
• Chapter 2 New Enlightenment as Modernization
• Chapter 3 “Traumatic” Encounters with Postmodernism
• Chapter 4 Liberals and New Leftists as “Discursive Enemies”
• Chapter 5 China’s New Nationalism and Its Obscene Core
• Chapter 6 Narrating the Fantasmatic Past: Ancient and Recent
• In Place of a Conclusion Traversing the Fantasy
• Glossary
• References
• Acknowledgements
• Index