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What are “dangerous bodies”?

Defined as “bodies that transgress existing gender and racial norms,” the dangerous bodies examined in this project portray changing characterizations of Chinese femininity through its various iterations across time. With a special focus on the visual, my goal for this project is to analyze how style serves as a technology for the establishment of self—in other words, as a bridge between the exterior and the interior. Using my own body as a canvas for these sartorial explorations, the photoshoots featured on this blog illustrate four distinct impressions of Chinese femininity, inspired by different historical points in time but newly envisioned to incorporate my personal interpretations. I took care to center the designs for these looks around the theme of “dangerous bodies,” aiming to highlight different conceptions of “danger” through visual elements. Ultimately, by undergoing these stylistic transformations, I hope to capture the ways in which these figures of Chinese femininity, as products of the various social forces of their time, represent examples of crossing and transgression; informed as they are by contemporary norms, they simultaneously rebel against the boundaries of societal acceptance.

As a Chinese American woman, the topic of Chinese femininity has a particular significance to me personally beyond being a purely scholarly interest. The questions of representation, agency, and power dynamics with regard to the figure of the Chinese woman have too often been unaddressed, and I wanted to take the opportunity to consider these issues through a careful analytical investigation of visual motifs. I would like to take a moment to indicate that over the course of this project, the subject sometimes shifts from a close look at Chinese femininity specifically to a wider study of Asian femininity broadly defined. In those moments, I found that it was important for me to do so in order to better express the cohesive idea that I wanted to present both artistically and intellectually. As such, I hope you will please take note of these conceptions of Asian femininity in addition to those of Chinese femininity as well as enjoy reading and learning more about these historically voiceless figures.

This project was created as the final assignment for EAS 314 – “Dangerous Bodies: Cross-Dressing, Asia, Transgression” taught by Professor Erin Huang in the spring of 2020 at Princeton University. With the exception of photos with my face and my body, none of the images included on this blog belong to me and were used in accordance with “fair use” copyright law: namely, for noncommercial educational purposes. All other photos belong to me and were taken and edited with the help of my sister Brooke. Unauthorized use and/or reproduction of any photos depicting my person without my explicit permission is strictly prohibited.

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Much of the inspiration for fashions in the early years of the Republic derived from the West … Such was the extent of the indiscriminate importation of things foreign.

Eileen Chang, “A Chronicle of Changing Clothes”

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"From Old Shanghai to a New Global China: the 21st-Century Reimagining of the Modern Girl”

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This look was largely inspired by the stylistic trends of the first half of the 20th century, a period of time in which China experienced a significant urbanization (i.e. “modernization”) that came largely in the form of increased contact with (and consequent assimilation of) the Western world. Especially in port cities like Hong Kong and Shanghai, trade with the West facilitated not only the exchange of goods but also of cultures and ideas. According to Tani Barlow in her entry titled “Femininity” in The Palgrave Dictionary of Translational History, Chinese femininity during the interwar years (1919-37) was reshaped “to cohere around the desire for capitalist commodities,” essentially becoming an “acquisitive, middle-class, urban and commodity-focused feminine style” (390). This new capitalist desire "modernized” the Chinese conceptions of feminine beauty and fashion, centering them around the display of wealth and consumer culture, as can be reflected in the popularization of sumptuous dresses and flashy jewelry.

It should be noted, however, that this cross-cultural intersection did not entirely take place on an equal playing field. The tumultuous power dynamic between East and West served as a recurring theme in the writing of Eileen Chang (张爱玲 – first photo pictured above), a prominent Chinese writer at the time. Born to an aristocratic family and raised and educated in Shanghai, Chang wrote extensively about the city that was her birthplace as well as the Shanghainese people, who according to Chang possessed a “strange and distinctive sort of wisdom.” Many of her work feature romantic relationships between female characters who represented “traditional” Chinese ideals and male suitors who bore traces of the “modern” Western world.

For example, Chang’s “Love in a Fallen City” depicts the ostracized divorcee Bai Liusu who seeks matrimonial legitimacy and economic solvency from the England-educated womanizer Fan Liuyuan; in this story, Liusu is described as “old-fashioned” and a “real Chinese girl” (136), while Liuyuan is portrayed as a “modern man” (135). The dynamics of the two lovers paint an interesting portrait of crossing (transnational, cross-cultural, transhistorical, etc. in nature), as viewed through the lens of changing romantic human relationships. The romance between “traditional Chinese girl” Liusu and “hybridized un-Chinese man” Liuyuan wrestle with transactions of economy and power on an interpersonal level that is reflected in the geopolitical affairs of the “old-fashioned,” feminine East and the “modern,” masculine West. The question then becomes how the feminine East is able to draw the boundaries in such an imbalanced relation.

Our contemporary times see a return to the “desire for capitalist commodities” in the context of Chinese style, accompanied by, interestingly, a quasi-role reversal with regard to the East-West relationship. Given China’s rise to prominence in the 21st century, the United States now finds its position as the only global superpower threatened by China’s tremendous economic performance. This shifting power dynamic is not only represented in GDP but also in popular culture as well; in addition to being a milestone for Asian representation in American films and a smashing box office success, the 2018 movie Crazy Rich Asians (third photo pictured above) not-so-subtly touted Asia’s increasing economic relevance with its depiction of Asian characters living lives of luxury while simultaneously occupying positions of power. Furthermore, female Chinese stars such as actress Zhang Ziyi (fourth photo pictured above) are rapidly becoming globally recognized icons, appearing in Hollywood films and major fashion magazines such as Vogue. Gone are the days when the only way for a Chinese woman to gain stability and legitimacy was through marriage with a man; she can now earn millions by herself. The resurgence of the consumerist ideals from “Old Shanghai” now finds itself occurring in a new and different world, one in which China—and Chinese women—experiences greater power and agency.

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Occupying a particular focus in many of Eileen Chang’s works, the cheongsam (also known as the qipao) has long been recognized as an iconic identifier of Chinese femininity. As Chang especially notes in her essay “A Chronicle of Changing Clothes,” with the rise in the cheongsam came a shifting status of women in Chinese society: “What is important now is the person: the qipao became nothing more than a foil setting off the curvilinear contours of the figure … The individual was of secondary concern; what mattered was the creation of a poetic sense of line, an abstract form. Thus it was that the female form was conventionalized. It was only when women took off their clothes that one could become aware of any differences among them” (438). 

In this documentation of the cheongsam’s evolution, Chang emphasizes how Chinese femininity has become more closely matched to the biological body, much as the garment’s form-fitting fabric maps itself onto the “curvilinear contours of the figure.” Additionally, she notes the way in which individuality (and the notion of individual expression and the establishment of the self) has been scrapped in favor of the conventionalization of the female form, which one could argue is tantamount to the objectification of the female body. The cheeky remark Chang makes that it is “only when women took off their clothes that one could become aware of any differences among them” connotes a sexual role expected of contemporary Chinese women, who are reduced to interchangeable commodities, sought after for male consumption, and whose only differentiating factors boiled down to how they performed in bed.

As such, I wanted to return to this image of the cheongsam but with greater regard to the issue of sexual empowerment and feminine agency. For this design, I selected a black cheongsam (a tribute to the now-ubiquitous LBD – “little black dress” – first popularized by designer Coco Chanel) that had been altered and studded to suggest a more modern, almost “grunge” interpretation of the original silhouette. Paired with a classic makeup look, clean brows and eyes with a vivid red lip, the concept for this photo series centered around a reimagining of the “old Shanghai beauty” who embraces her sexuality as a testament to her own self-definition and self-expression. No longer attempting to cater to an explicitly male, domineering gaze, she is now fully in her element.

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It's one of your favorite fantasies, isn't it? The submissive Oriental woman…

Song Liling, M. Butterfly (David Henry Hwang)

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"Destroying the Fantasy of ‘Ideal Femininity’: the Deconstruction of the Submissive Oriental Woman”

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In contrast with the other looks, this design is not explicitly situated in a specific time period but rather is derived from a concept that has appeared across various media and cultures: the image of the submissive Oriental woman. As opposed to a historical iteration of Asian femininity, this idea of “perfect” womanhood is precisely that—an idea, often presented at the expense of the the subject who is supposedly represented. She is often seen onstage and onscreen, although it is curious to note that she has not always been portrayed by female-identifying actors; in fact, such an idealized conception of Chinese femininity can be traced back to an origin of being performed by men.

One prominent example is that of Peking opera, in which female characters have been traditionally played by male actors, such as the legendary opera singer Mei Lanfang (first photo pictured above). Renowned for his performances of leading female roles, Mei achieved worldwide success and became a globally recognized household name. In her article on Mei titled “From Imperial Concubine to Model Maoist: The Photographic Metamorphosis of Mei Lanfang,” Suk-Young Kim discusses how Mei’s performance conveyed femininity in a manner unlike any other stage actress in that he portrayed “a stylized, aesthetically abstract image” (44) of a woman. In other words, Mei performs “the idea” of femininity, and in doing so, embodies the idealized woman. The idolized nature of Mei’s male-performed femininity is captured in an early scene from the 2008 biopic Forever Enthralled, in which the scholarly magistrate Qiu Rubai attends one of Mei’s operas. As Mei appears onstage in character and first begins to sing, another audience member turns to Qiu and remarks, “Isn’t he more like a woman than the real thing? [比���的还像女的吧？]” (Chen 0:14:07). Beyond lauding Mei’s extraordinary abilities, these praises serve to reinforce this image of the impossible femininity he plays, one that is heavily abstracted in nature.

The submissive nature of this idealized feminine figure occupies a greater focus in later works, such as the play M. Butterfly by American playwright David Henry Hwang. Borrowing its namesake from the Puccini opera Madama Butterfly, the play centers around a French diplomat named René Gallimard, who falls in love with a beautiful Chinese Peking opera singer Song Liling (second photo pictured above), whom he believes to be female. Acting as a spy for the Chinese government, Song disguises himself as a woman to seduce and extract information from Gallimard, taking advantage of his misinformed conviction that he has found the “perfect woman.” Song not only uses the stereotype of the submissive Oriental woman to manipulate Gallimard but also explicitly criticizes its depiction, such as in the opera Madama Butterfly, in which the Japanese heroine Cio-Cio-san (third photo pictured above) kills herself after being abandoned by her American lover. In a scene between Gallimard and Song after first meeting, the two discuss their different perspectives on the opera: Song scoffs and calls it “ridiculous,” while Gallimard finds it “a very beautiful story”; Song reasons that “because it’s an Oriental who kills herself for a Westerner—ah!—you find it beautiful” (1.6). M. Butterfly strives to subvert the portrayal of submissive Chinese femininity through the depiction of Gallimard’s delusion and his love not for Song, but for the idea of Butterfly herself.

Nevertheless, the archetype of the submissive Oriental woman persists to this day, even on such a prominent a platform as the Broadway stage. Recently revived only a couple years ago, the 1989 musical Miss Saigon tells exactly the same story as Madama Butterfly, now relocated to 1970s Saigon during the Vietnam War and portraying the romance between a United States Marine and a seventeen-year-old South Vietnamese bargirl. Just like in the original opera, the heroine Kim lacks any sort of agency of her own, and her suicide at the end of the play evokes the same image of the “perfect Asian woman” who takes her own life for an unworthy Western lover. Ultimately, the persistence of this trope is harmful toward the women they purport to represent, who must suffer under the dual burden of the projected affects associated with both the Oriental and the feminine.

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The visual element of these photos was primarily inspired by two masculine depictions of womanhood: the Peking opera singer Mei Lanfang and the character of Song Liling from M. Butterfly (second and third photos pictured above, respectively). For both of these figures, the idea of becoming what they were not was a crucial aspect of the roles they occupied (both onstage and offstage, in Song’s case) as performers of “ideal femininity.” To facilitate the physical transformation—or rather, the embodiment of the role—costume and makeup were employed as tools to both to portray the exterior and convey the interior of a conceptualized woman. In terms of cosmetics, the white face paint, the dark winged eyeliner, and the roselike lips combine to form this highly stylized image of idealized feminine beauty.

Overall, I borrowed more inspiration from portrayals of Song in depictions of M. Butterfly when creating this design. Although Song is supposed to be a Peking opera singer, his makeup and costume seems more inspired by that of a Japanese geisha, in alignment with the role of Cio-cio-san, the Japanese heroine of the original opera Madama Butterfly. I found Song’s character to be especially compelling in the hybridity of his nature—his dual deception, so to say; he not only inhabits this type of male to female cross-dressing but also this cross-ethnic transformation, blurring both ethnic and gender boundaries in his performance, all of which comes together to engender this “delicate butterfly”—the submissive Oriental woman—with whom Gallimard falls in love. As such, this look serves as a testament to his transformative feats in particular; from the strikingly pink eyeshadow to the Oriental silk robe, I sought to embody the visuality of such a “perfect woman” through the act of a performative crossing.

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We came here to become soldiers … in order to offer ourselves to the revolution. Our goal is the save the suffering people—and our suffering selves.

Xie Bingying, A Woman Soldier’s Story

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“A Different Kind of Female Empowerment: the Rebirth of the Woman Soldier in Contemporary Girlhood”

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In a significant departure from the image of the “middle-class modern girl” from the early 20th century, the proletariat woman finding her freedom in revolution is only the latest iteration in the ever-evolving history of Chinese femininity. Returning to Tani Barlow’s “Femininity,” the contemporary Chinese mode of femininity (i.e. during the Maoist Revolution) was “rooted in the rustic village peasant styles and in Soviet Russian Bolshevik fashion, feminine figures whose large hands, muscled arms and prominent breasts romanticized the productive femininity of liberated working women” (390, emphasis mine). These concepts of productive femininity and the working woman are particularly salient, even employed in the rhetoric of Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong himself. Across various reports and notes, Mao is consistently quoted to have called for the integration of women into the labor force; he denounces the authority of the husband over women (i.e. masculine authority) as an “embodiment of the whole feudal-patriarchal ideology and system” and argues for equality between the sexes, which “can only be realized in the process of the socialist transformation of society as a whole.” In a remarkable transformation from the figures of femininity that proceeded her, the liberated working woman rose to prominence in the mid-20th century and occupied the spotlight of many works of art created at the time.

As one of the most iconic theatrical works to emerge from the Mao era of China, The Red Detachment of Women (in both the original film form and the adapted ballet form) not only served as a piece of propaganda art for the Chinese Communist Party but also showcased the changing depiction of women in a new society striving in the direction of socialist revolution. Focusing on the story of Wu Qionghua (first photo in red and second photo pictured above), a slave girl who becomes a soldier in the Red Army, both the film and the ballet versions of The Red Detachment of Women are stylistically similar, diligently reinforcing both Communist imagery and ideals, tonally and thematically possessing a passionate revolutionary fervor. The character of Qionghua serves a paragon of the ideal female figure, as she and her fellow comrades train and fight together in order to overthrow feudal tyrannies on behalf of the working class and the revolutionary cause. In contrast with, for example, the demure, slender maidens of Peking Opera fame, the female soldiers of The Red Detachment of Women find themselves taking much more active social and political roles in their own stories.

The figure of the female soldier and the concept of “female masculinity” become especially relevant during this time period, as detailed in the A Woman Soldier’s Story, the autobiography of Chinese soldier Xie Bingying (fourth photo pictured above). In the context of Xie’s autobiography, the production of “female masculinity” centers around a type of revolutionary becoming, particularly experienced by the female cadets in the women’s army. As the “female” in Xie’s time was tied to the restrictions imposed by feudal tradition, “female masculinity” encompassed a revolt against feudalism in the direction of modernity and its accompanying values. The very notion of women joining the military was “an unprecedented example of breaking away with Chinese tradition” (58), and Xie herself notes a special significance in the act of becoming a soldier: “Soldier. What a powerful word! I would not have believed that we Chinese women, repressed by ancient custom for thousands of years, would see the day when we would become soldiers” (64). In becoming a soldier, Xie believes herself to have donned the idea of masculinity in the form of empowerment, occupying a role traditionally affiliated with men while also enjoying a freedom from repression as well as a sense of responsibility and purpose, the likes of which have never before been allotted to women. 

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What I took away from reading Xie Bingying’s autobiography was less so the harshness and difficulty of her life but rather the youthfulness and vivacity of her character. Xie recounts stories from her childhood of unbinding her feet and splashing barefoot in the puddles with her female classmates, and this playful spirit of hers follows her even into her life as a soldier, reflected in times such as when she led her fellow female cadets in song as they marched through the pitch black night on a mission. The way in which she describes the joyous moments of her life with a wholehearted exuberance was more striking to me than even the strict severity of her military training, and I hoped to be able to capture some of that spontaneous, innocent spirit in this look. As such, this design shies away from a direct visual costuming of a female soldier but instead opts for a modern representation that incorporated their power and vitality.

Set against a backdrop of nature, I strove to depict what could be considered as a modern-day equivalent of a female soldier: a young woman empowered by the strength and smarts she needs to succeed. Using books such as Mulan and Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior (as well as Xie’s autobiography!) as props, I aimed to convey the idea of a Chinese girl reading works depicting strong Chinese heroines, both fictional and nonfictional, and drawing from them inspiration for the type of Chinese woman she wants to be. The look does make some visual allusions to The Red Detachment of Women film and ballet, such as with the soldier’s cap, the braided hair, and the balletic tights, but for the most part I wanted the focus to remain on the image of a modern Chinese woman who is willing and capable of fighting for what she believes in. After all, nothing is more fearsome than a young girl with revolutionary potential.

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[Cuteness is] soft, round, and deeply associated with the infantile and the feminine … the complete absence of anything threatening.

Sianne Ngai, “The Cuteness of the Avant-Garde”

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“The Rebellion of a Historically Unvoiced Femininity: I Refuse to Be Your Cute Asian Girlfriend”

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If I had a dime for every time somebody squished my cheeks or patted my head or told me how “cute” I was… I would have a lot of dimes. For some reason, there is a tendency for people to perceive all Asian women as indiscriminately cute, consequently conveying an (intentional or otherwise) objectifying gaze. American novelist R. O. Kwon wrote an opinion piece about this phenomenon in The New York Times titled “Stop Calling Asian Women Adorable”; in her essay, Kwon recounts many instances in which colleagues and even complete strangers have remarked upon her appearance, often in professional settings, calling her an adorable “little lamb,” commenting on her “alabaster” skin and “silklike, shiny” hair, and even going so far as to say “I wish I could adopt you.” Kwon captures the way in which her race and her gender have been codified to represent a sort of feminine infantility, based on a surface-level perception of her character as an Asian woman.

This criticism of the way in which Asian women are dubbed “cute” could be easily dismissed as trivial or hypersensitive—after all, “What’s so bad about being called ‘cute’?” However, the implications might not be as innocuous as you might think. In her essay “The Cuteness of the Avant-Garde,” American cultural theorist Sianne Ngai describes how the visual qualities of cuteness have the potential to inform their perceived essential qualities as well. As Ngai argues, the formal properties associated with cuteness, including smallness, softness, and simplicity, can call forth specific affects, such as helplessness, pitifulness, and even despondency (816). In other words, the imagery of the cute does not merely convey the sense of innocence or the lack of any threat but instead goes a degree further to conjure up notions of defenselessness and deformability. As such, a cute object, “in its exaggerated passivity and vulnerability,” ends up evoking a consumer’s desire “for mastery and control as much as his or her desire to cuddle” (816). Daniel Harris expands on this idea by noting how “the process of conveying cuteness to the viewer disempowers its objects … making them appear more ignorant and vulnerable than they really are” (qtd. in Ngai 816-817).

By mapping these qualities onto the “cuteness” of Asian women, the resulting effect is a troubling conception of Asian femininity as passive and vulnerable, moldable to the will of the viewer/consumer. Princeton professor Anne Anlin Cheng addresses this complicated treatment of Asian femininity in her book Ornamentalism. Its title itself a play on Edward Said’s 1978 book Orientalism, in which he describes the West’s historically patronizing representations of “the Orient,” Ornamentalism explores the idea of the yellow woman, defined by Cheng as “a fusion between synthetic objecthood and organic personhood” (Cheng 1). Cheng demonstrates how the Asian woman, or rather the style of theAsian woman, is malleable in the way she is perceived by others—able to fulfill a slew of archetypical molds and simultaneously embody several opposing ideas. Especially within the realm of romantic interactions, the yellow woman has been particularly vulnerable to exploitation, with popular terms such as “yellow fever” (referring to a fetishized sexual/romantic preference toward Asian people, most commonly women) and “me love you long time” (a phrase suggesting an Asian woman’s role to be sexually servile) indicating the proliferation of (Western) sexual imperialism. The combined gendered–racialized nature of these sexualized conceptions of Asian femininity reinforces a problematic power imbalance in which Asian women remain subordinate.

The ways in which Asian femininity continues to be objectified, infantilized, and exoticized under the designation of “cute” are visible in popular culture. With the rise of “pink globalization” (the title of a book by Christine R. Yano), the image of “Asian cuteness” has spread across the world in the form of anime girls and Hello Kitty (first and second photos pictured above, respectively); these examples of “cuteness culture” might serve to perpetuate a perception of Asian femininity as docile, puerile, and even voiceless (Hello Kitty doesn’t even have a mouth to speak!). Asian women are reduced to the idea of Asian femininity—the coveted “cute Asian girlfriend,” so to speak (third photo pictured above)—simultaneously desired but absent of her own desire, inherently lacking any power or agency to decide for herself.

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For this look, I picked out a shift dress with ribbons (from Harajuku-based brand “Honey Marble), black over-the-knee sock tights, and a bright blue headband in hopes of creating a more infantile form and conjuring the image of a life-sized human doll. My stuffed rabbit (named Bun) was included as a prop to add to this perceived childish quality, as well as to serve as a stand-in for the Hello Kitty-esque figure of mute, animalistic cuteness. The final costume piece, the pink cherry face mask, was meant to further emphasize this aspect of voicelessness. All in all, I wanted this design to look as innocent, childlike, and “cute” as possible from the first glance while suggesting a deeper element of pain and oppression upon further examination.

The only makeup I wore for this design was the blue, sparkly “black eye.” I took inspiration from the album cover for American singer Halsey’s Manic (second photo – fan art – pictured above), which depicts her with a similar “sparkling black-blue eye.” According to Halsey, she chose to sport the black eye as a “universally recognized sign of pain or trauma or abuse,” and I wanted to include the same imagery in this look as a commentary on the violence—both physical and otherwise—suffered by Asian women, especially with regard to their historical lack of power and agency. In fashioning this design as well as the project as a whole, I wish to stand in solidarity with these aforementioned women and bear witness to the Asian feminine figure in all that she has collectively experienced. Though deprived of her voice and battered by forces beyond her control, she looks the future right in the eye and challenges it to be different.