baiwu-jinji

[baiwu-jinji]

Do you know if the English version of jjwxc will have the same name as the Chinese version? Also, I thought the English version was the webnovel website created for the western fans. Is that a completely separate thing then or does it also have its Chinese equivalent?

Thank you for running this blog. One gets to know a lot of interesting information here!

Hi! Thank you for your kind words! The English version is an app called Onlinovel so it doesn't have the same name as JJWXC's Chinese website. And yes, it's created for international readers so it's completely seperate from the JJWXC platform - it just has a lot of JJWXC's titles.

[baiwu-jinji]

I was reading JJWXC's old announcment of their English website (yep still beating that dead horse) and was confused by how much Chinese readers in the comment section got triggered at the mention of "LGBT." So JJWXC outsourced their English version to Onlinovel, and the latter introduced danmei novels on their app as "LGBT literature":

Chinese readers posted numerous protesting messages in the comments such as "LGBT isn't a good term why're you using it," "what the hell that term is too political," "what does LGBT have to do with danmei." At first I was perplexed - espeically since I haven't been on the Chinese internet for ages because all my Chinese social media accounts got nuked, so I don't always know what's going on with Chinese kids these days - but then it made sense to me because younger generations in China have their brains conditioned by the belief that China is in an ideological war with the West, and therefore it's their duty to resist the takeover of Western ideology and defend Chinese values. In their minds, "LGBT" is part of the "woke" Western ideology and Western cultural imperialism that shouldn't be allowed to commandeer conversations about 同性文化 (same-sex culture) in China.

I guess it also doesn't help that readers in the JJWXC forum were in general pretty hostile or dismissive towards the launch of the English webiste because 1) JJWXC treats danmei authors and readers poorly and has only ever subjected danmei to increasingly tighter censorship, so its goal is never to promote danmei but solely to profit from danmei's overseas popularity; 2) even though JJWXC claimed that they'd only publish danmei on their English website during the beta testing period, they ended up flooding the app with lots of other genres and didn't even mark out danmei works as a separate category (my understanding is that they do so to get past censorship and bring in more profit to their struggling main webiste without risking the attention).

[baiwu-jinji]

'Danmei provides a kind of mental anesthesia. In China, where there is a massive gap between the rich and the poor in urban and rural areas, immersion in danmei, which has “city-centered storylines,” leads danmei’s “city-born fans” to enter a cycle of exposure to only “urban class fantasies.”'

-"Strategic mouthing of words: the Chinese bromance drama Word of Honor, censorship and gender stereotypes," Mi Erin Zhou

[baiwu-jinji]

"Danmei and fanfiction share many features, such as the following: primarily female-authored and read by female fans, they are pseudonymous texts that are serially published, center queer romance and issues of queer sexuality, arise within a frequently non-professional community of writers, and rely on internet platforms to give underrepresented writers a voice."

-"Danmei and/as Fanfiction: Translations, Variations, and the Digital Semiosphere," JSA Lowe

[baiwu-jinji]

[baiwu-jinji]

i think every british journalist should just be gunned down

[baiwu-jinji]

"And yet at any fold of time we may come to realize that, without the imagination of darkness at even the brightest moment of history, we are unprepared to recog­nize it in its future incarnations. For this reason, all modernities bear the imprint of primitive savagery, and all utopian projects presuppose their own negations."

-"Utopian Dream and Dark Consciousness: Chinese Literature at the Millennial Turn," David Der-Wei Wang

[baiwu-jinji]

"For what does a literary work ‘say’? What does it communicate? It ‘tells’ very little to those who understand it. Its essential quality is not statement or the imparting of information. Yet any translation which intends to perform a transmitting function cannot transmit anything but information – hence, something inessential. This is the hallmark of bad translations. But do we not generally regard as the essential substance of a literary work what it contains in addition to information – as even a poor translator will admit – the unfathomable, the mysterious, the ‘poetic’, something that a translator can reproduce only if he is also a poet?"

-"The Task of the Translator," Walter Benjamin

[baiwu-jinji]

this paper is very interesting and all but what did I just read?...

[baiwu-jinji]

'[...] in the context of the authorities’ highly arbitrary decree enforcement, the dominant reason for the censorship of danmei may not be its pornographic nature. For example, danmei writer Shenhai was arrested in December 2017 [...] and was eventually charged with illegal publication. Like Tianyi, [who was sentenced to 10 years and 6 months for disseminating obscene materials], Shenhai printed and sold her own books without a registered publisher. Since such content is not subject to official review, unregistered publications that draw large groups of readers pose a threat to the authorities’ ideological control. Although Shenhai’s works were more literary than Tianyi’s, their sexual descriptions accounted for a significant proportion of her writing. However, Shenhai’s family could afford legal representation, and she eventually avoided the obscenity charge. The ongoing censorship of danmei as “pornography” is thus likely only an excuse.'

-"Strategic mouthing of words: the Chinese bromance drama Word of Honor, censorship and gender stereotypes," Mi Erin ZHou

[baiwu-jinji]

'The image of China is easier to exploit than the realities of China. I believe some of this exploitation comes from individual Chinese who emigrated to the West. [...] I wrote about 哈金 (Ha Jin), the popular Chinese novelist who writes and publishes in English. Skilled as he is and admired as he is, he is not above casting his characters anachronistically in a stereotyped mold. In Waiting, a novel about a contemporary Chinese trying to divorce a conservative wife in order to marry another woman, Ha gives the wife bound feet to highlight her reactionary ways, despite the fact that bound feet were outlawed in China half a century before she was born. I also explored the "exoticizations" of China and of Chinese poetry which can be found in the work of as knowledgeable and as authentic exponent of China as Cheng. Nor is the distortion of Chinese literature to be found only in Chinese expatriates eager to assimilate to an adopted Western culture. Non-native scholars have dwelled excessively on "the enduring mystery" of China (in another era, the cliché was "inscrutability") and on defining the essential "Chineseness" of a text or translation.'

-Eugene Eoyang, "The Persistence of 'Cathay' in World Literature"

[baiwu-jinji]

moon eyes

if you ever catch me unenraptured by the beauty of the moon then there is nothing left of me and i ask you bring me to a licensed veterinarian to be euthanized

[baiwu-jinji]

"[...] since a heteronormative order is affirmed in reality and fantasy, some Chinese ‘rotten girls’ tend to consume danmei through a heteronormative frame. As a consequence, this cohort of ‘rotten’ readers prefer danmei fiction entailing: 1) societal and familial approval, e.g. marriage/wedding and male pregnancy/childbirth; 2) everlasting romantic relationships; 3) traditional masculine-feminine binarism and gender stereotypes in appearance, demeanour, personality and social roles; and 4) absence of ‘reversible’ penetrant-penetrated sexual roles.

[...] In contemporary China, a danmei subgenre called ‘childbearing writing’ (shengzi wen 生子文) that features male pregnancy and childbirth is increasingly visible, as illustrated by the expanding amount of such works on Jinjiang and related online discussions. In narratives under the category of ‘childbearing writing’, feminised uke characters are depicted as being able to deliver offspring, predominantly male heirs, though the biological feasibility is mostly left unexplained."

-"Cliché-ridden Online Danmei Fiction? A Case Study of Tianguan ci fu," Aiqing Wang

[baiwu-jinji]

'China scholars have offered a number of different theories about the cause of rampant nationalism on the Chinese Internet. Shubo Li attributes the phenomenon to Chinese government efforts to dismantle the online public space “until the folk discourse is no longer able to carry deliberative discussions on public matters apart from unreflective nationalism and popular prejudices.” Yang and Zheng emphasize the psychological aspect of youth nationalism. They argue that there is a “psychological gap” or “imbalance” between youth’s “expectation of China’s international status and the actual prestige accorded to China by the West.” Growing up in an era of unprecedented economic growth in China, the new generation of youth tends to believe that China deserves more respect from the international community for its enhanced national strength. When this expectation is not met, nationalistic sentiments are stirred up.'

-"Chinese Danmei Fandom and Cultural Globalization from Below," Ling Yang, Yanrui Xu

[baiwu-jinji]

・✾・

[baiwu-jinji]

Tombstone Inscriptions by Lu Xun

(I'm doing some related research and want to share this haunting essay by Lu Xun here. Lu Xun is probably the most important 20th century Chinese author bar none.)

I dreamed of myself facing a tombstone, reading the inscriptions carved on it.

The tombstone appears to be made of sandstone, crumbling at numerous spots and overgrown with moss. Only a few phrases remain:

. . . in a frenzy of boisterous singing catch a chill, in the skies see an abyss.

In all eyes see a void, in no hope find redemption.

. . . a wandering spirit transforms into a serpent, mouth with venomous fangs.

Bites not others, but bites itself, dies in the end.

. . . leave!

I go around behind the tombstone—only then do I see a lone grave, bereft of vegetation and fallen into disrepair. Through a big crack, I glimpse a corpse, chest and abdomen completely caved in, no heart nor liver within. Yet the face shows no trace of joy or sorrow but is hazy, as if shrouded in smoke. In my apprehension, I turn around, but not before seeing the remaining phrases on the backside of the tombstone—

. . . gouge out my heart and eat it, wanting to know its true taste.

The pain is so searing, how could I know its true taste?

. . . as the pain subsides, slowly consume it. But the heart now old and stale, how could I know its true taste? . . .

. . . answer me, or else leave! . . .

I’m about to leave. But the corpse sits up in the grave. Its lips don’t move, but says—

“When I turn to dust, you’ll see my smile!”

I flee, dare not look back, terrified to see him in pursuit.

(translation by Eileen Cheng, original Chinese under the cut)

墓碣文

我夢見自己正和墓碣對立，讀上面的刻辭。那墓碣似是沙石所製，剝落很多，又有苔蘚叢生，僅存有限的文句！

……于浩歌狂熱之際中寒﹔于天上看見深淵。于一切眼中看見無所有﹔于無所希望中得救。

…………有一游魂，化為長蛇，口有毒牙。不以嚙人，自嚙其身，終以殞顛。

…………離開！……

我繞到碣後，才見孤墳，上無草木，且已頹壞。即從大闕口中，窺見死尸，胸腹俱破，中無心肝。而臉上卻絕不顯哀樂之狀，但蒙蒙如烟然。

我在疑懼中不及回身，然而已看見墓碣陰面的殘存的文句！

……抉心自食，欲知本味。創痛酷烈，本味何能知？……

……痛定之後，徐徐食之。然其心已陳舊，本味又何由知？……

……答我。否則，離開！……我就要離開。而死尸已在墳中坐起，口脣不動，然而說──

“待我成塵時，你將見我的微笑！”

我疾走，不敢反顧，生怕看見他的追隨。

[baiwu-jinji]

Illustration from last year on trauma therapy, for Dutch newspaper Trouw.