Hipertensión Arterial (HTA)

While my students‟ reception of foreign entertainment media was complex and in some respects contradictory, as I have argued in previous chapters, it was generally positive and forms part of what I have referred to in chapter five as the creation of a „Chinese American dream‟. This might suggest a triumph of (neo)liberal attitudes, in one form or another, among young educated urban citizens, as some scholars have indicated (F. Liu, 2008, p. 207; Lull, 1991, p. 220; Rofel, 2007, p. 3).¹ Others, however, have noted how this very triumph seems to foster and be fostered by various nationalist

counter-discourses (G. R. Barmé, 1995, pp. 233-234; Dai, 2001, p. 184; V. Fong, 2004, pp. 641-643; S. Zhao, 1997, pp. 743-745) which may not easily sit alongside a liberal agenda. In this chapter, I therefore draw upon my student respondents‟ views to examine how a positive engagement with foreign entertainment media does not exclude nationalistic reactions and consider how this sheds light on the ways in which contemporary discourses of cosmopolitan engagement circulating in China interact with those of patriotic education.

My first engagement with foreign films as a potential channel for the expression of nationalistic defensiveness came when I discussed with one class of students at the beginning of the academic year what type of English language teaching they had previously experienced and would like to have in future. A chorus of requests for

watching films, perhaps unsurprisingly, soon followed.² Students were candid enough to admit that they wanted something fun – in contrast to the otherwise somewhat routine learning requirements of their university life – but also that they would welcome assistance from a native speaker in understanding the sometimes opaque idiomatic phrases and cultural references peppering even the most mainstream of Hollywood movies. One of the outcomes of my attempts to meet these requests was a powerful

1 As Liu defines it, neo-liberal in the Chinese context „enjoins the subject to be the self-enterprising individual – autonomous, rational and free-choosing. Such a regime requires the subject to put the self at the center, or be authentic to the self, thus placing the authority in the hand of the individual subject in the construction of identity‟ (2008, p. 196). Rofel also emphasises the role of the „desiring subject‟ and „the individual who operates through sexual, material, and affective self-interest‟ (2007, p. 3), but argues that economic neo-liberalism, as applied in Chinese society, is itself not a wholly coherent concept and therefore results in diverse social practices (2007, pp. 199-200).

2 Second year oral English (class 1); 12^th Sep. 2006.

though largely unintended encounter with student nationalism through their rejection of foreign representations of China after some in-class screenings, as I shall discuss in detail below. Taken together, such responses seemed to illustrate some of the contradictions that occur when desire for the cosmopolitan faces other hegemonic realities. These reactions, as I will suggest, constitute attempts to mark off or delimit engagement with the wider world, but perhaps paradoxically, in an attempt to safeguard it.

Student Nationalism: ‘Big Trouble’

My first encounter with nationalism as a significant aspect of students‟ responses to foreign films occurred when I decided to show an extract from John Carpenter‟s ‘Big Trouble in Little China’ (1986) followed by a clip of Bertolucci‟s ‘The Last Emperor’

(1987). I chose these as an initial stimulus for a discussion of students‟ film preferences and, more specifically, out of a curiosity to know if their views matched the generally positive view of the two films‟ hybridity that I had encountered in a lecture on „Film, Media and Chinese Identities‟ at the University of Westminster (2006). As already noted, these screenings were in response to requests from a class (second year oral class 1) to use films in my teaching and were not initially intended to be part of my research.³ But because of the intensity of the reaction, I wrote up an account of their reactions and decided to show the same extracts to another group (third year writing class 2) and ask them to write their responses in class (Essay 1).⁴ I followed this up several months later by asking the latter group and one other (third year writing class 3) to write a general essay on „patriotism nowadays‟ (Essay 3).⁵

I shall discuss students‟ contrasting reactions to patriotism in greater detail below, but overall, their views on these film extracts I showed were almost uniformly negative.

Particularly in the case of ‘Big Trouble’, a US-made kung fu action comedy, students strongly rejected what they saw as an ignorant and possibly even malicious attempt to demonise China – as one complained, „I assume that the director still believes that there is no law in China‟ (Hou Fang – E1/15). These responses were perhaps heightened by the context in which the films they were viewing were selected and presented by a Westerner.

3 Screenings and class discussion, 17^th Oct. 2006.

4 Screenings and Essay 1, in class: 25^th Oct. 2006.

5 Essay 3, written in class: 18^th Jan. 2007.

Here, as in other instances, the intrusion of a „foreign‟ view of China perhaps confirmed claims to an „inside‟, authoritative yet defensive understanding of the films, rooted in an exclusive sense of being Chinese. As another student put it „[China‟s] culture is not closely related to other countries‟ so it‟s not easy for other countries‟ people to

understand‟ (Chai Haiming – E1/4). Moreover, as Zhang Xudong notes (2008, pp. 71-72), when Chinese people‟s active efforts to join the global mainstream comes up against that very mainstream‟s „orientalist‟ view of their culture, the results can be intense – even angry, as some students were in this case. Such reactions tend to be characterised

„tirelessly and tiresomely‟ (X. Zhang, 2008, p. 4) as a nationalist gap filler for the decline of communist ideology.⁶ Indeed, in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations, the state introduced patriotic education to mitigate against such apparent decline and the foreign influences contributing to it (C. R. Hughes, 2005, p. 254; S. Zhao, 1998, p. 297).

My emphasis is rather different. Based on an analysis of my students‟ reactions and drawing on similar arguments made by Dai Jinhua (2001, pp. 174-176), Liu Fengshu (2008, pp. 207-210) and Vanessa Fong (2004, p. 644) as well as Hughes‟ discursive approach to nationalism (2005, pp. 266-267),⁷ I argue that the nationalist reactions of my students are actually linked to cosmopolitanism rather than being in opposition to it and that, in the responses of my students, nationalism emerges as a weapon in the fight to defend, define and, ultimately, realise the vision of a truly globalised China.

‘I Strongly Protest’⁸

As already noted, my students‟ reactions to viewing an extract from ‘Big Trouble in Little China’ (1986), the cult action-comedy and homage to Hong Kong kung fu films, were virtually unanimous in their condemnation, though for a variety of reasons. The screening was not, initially, intended to be part of my field work, but was rather an experiment in response to students‟ earlier requests to use films as learning material in their oral English

6 As many have pointed out, nationalism was promoted by the state particularly in the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations: see, for example, Friedman and McCormick (2000, p. 26), Zheng Yongnian (1999, pp. 51-52) and Zhao Suisheng (1998, pp. 289-290).

7 Hughes (2005, pp. 266-267) argues that as discursive approach to Chinese nationalism avoids problems that arise when trying to define the term and also brings out the degree to which nationalism is not monolithic but includes contradictions within it which nevertheless serve particular political agendas.

8 Liao Yanting – E1/20

course.⁹ As a teacher, my primary aim was to try to ensure that students would have material they could talk about, so my choices were pragmatically tailored to this purpose.

I showed both clips together without a break –‘The Last Emperor’ first and then ‘Big Trouble’ – as they were relatively short and were a contrasting pair of genres (a historical drama and a comedy) which I hoped would provide a springboard for discussion of what genres they preferred. At the same time, however, as I have also already mentioned, I was also curious to discover whether the cross cultural hybridity in ‘Big Trouble’ in particular – combining elements of martial arts and American western (Barron, Bernstein,

& Fort, 2000, pp. 141-142; Conrich & Woods, 2004, pp. 108, 113) – was something that the students recognised and responded to.

Although ‘Big Trouble’ opened in the US to mixed reviews (see Ebert, 1986; W.

Goodman, 1986) and disappointing box office results, it was a pioneering attempt to incorporate kung fu elements into Hollywood, and has subsequently achieved success on video and DVD as a cult classic (Pollard, 2007). Its use of stock Chinatown stereotypes – part of Hollywood‟s so-called „yellow peril‟ formula (Marchetti, 1993, pp. 2-6; Xing, 1998, p. 57) – perhaps opens it to the charge of negatively portraying Asians as a source of danger. But this is undercut by the comic tone of the film and the persona of its „all-American‟ hero blundering incongruously through a culture that perplexes him (Conrich

& Woods, 2004, p. 113). In this case, I told my twenty-five second year oral English students briefly that they were about to see part of an American film made in the 1980s and that we would discuss what they thought of it afterwards. They viewed an early scene where Kurt Russell (Jack), the John Wayne-like trucker and his Chinese buddy Dennis Dun (Wang) gingerly guide Jack‟s brash American juggernaut into the narrow misty back streets of Chinatown, only to stumble across a riot of gangland kung fu action, topped off by the spectacular intervention of three oriental gods descending from the sky amid smoke and crackling electricity.

9 Second year oral English class 1 (25 students); 17^th Oct. 2006.

Big Trouble in Little China¹⁰

Although the class appeared to enjoy the spectacle, with students laughing and sometimes commenting to one another, when I asked them for their impressions, their initial

responses were hesitant. The first comment was from a girl who said simply that it showed Chinese as conservative. I mentioned that I thought the director, in this case, might be basing his view of Chinese people on the overseas Chinese and the way he imagined Chinatowns formed a relatively closed community. But increasingly critical voices followed these initial comments. Rather than revel in the playful, over-the-top comedy of the scene as the director perhaps intended,¹¹ students expressed surprise, shock, and indignation at such a foreign representation of China, notwithstanding its setting in a fictional San Francisco Chinatown. They did not accept my suggestion that it was probably not intended to be a realistic portrayal of Chinese life (in China or

elsewhere) and therefore might not necessarily be regarded as wholly negative in the eyes of Western audiences. By this point, the atmosphere had become quite impassioned – „it‟s just rubbish‟ insisted one boy – with students criticising the film as an example of foreign ignorance, arrogance and perhaps even deliberate malice on the director‟s part. Indeed, as I observed in my fieldnotes „a more accusatory tone [developed] as some began to ask why I had shown them this film and why I had asked them to do this task in the first place‟.¹² When I responded that the film did not necessarily represent my view of Chinese culture, one girl commented that she thought I and other foreigners were a „victim‟ of this

10 http://www.lazydork.com/movies/bigtrouble.jpg

http://davidlopan.com/content/images/lightning-storm-big-trouble-in-little-china.jpg

11 See interview with Carpenter by Anthony Ferrante published in ‘Cinescape Magazine’, 26^th Aug. 2001:

http://www.mania.com/ghost-world-john-carpenter-interview-part-3_article_28927.html (accessed 4^th Sept, 2010).

12 Fieldnotes for 17^th Oct, 2006.

kind of representation, even if not personally intending to look down on Chinese. As the target of criticism had now moved rather uncomfortably from the film to myself, in the interest of future relations, I gradually called a halt to the discussion and called for our regular ten minute class break. The second half of the lesson proceeded calmly, if a little tensely, as we moved on to other unrelated topics.

Later, wondering if the intensity of the response was perhaps idiosyncratic or reflected more widely shared views, I decided to pursue the matter with a different group, this time in a writing class (Essay 1).¹³ Following the experience of my preliminary and pilot studies, I also hoped that writing would elicit more detail in a calmer atmosphere as well as tap into the views of those who might not otherwise choose to speak out. As before, I very briefly introduced the extracts giving the titles and the dates of the films, but on this occasion there was no discussion after viewing as it led straight into writing and, in order to reduce any sense of imposition, I gave students a choice over which clip they wrote about.

Once again, although on the surface everyone appeared to enjoy watching ‘Big Trouble’ in particular, and most chose to write about it, or sometimes both, their

responses nevertheless focused on the negative impression it made. After viewing, as one put it, „I had an impuls[e] to tell the foreigners that China is not such a mysterious

country‟ (Chen Yuwei – E1/5). A commonly expressed theme was „how little foreigners know about China‟ or how their views are muddled or „out of date‟ and how, for instance,

„[...] women‟s abnormal small feet, mysterious Chinese kung fu, may be the whole picture of an ordinary Westerner‟s impression of China‟ (Huang Nan – E1/18). Other comments characterised foreign misunderstandings in more contemporary terms; either the West‟s „very limited attention‟ to the developing world or, alternatively, the director‟s commercial imperative to attract audiences. Some students also considered more

malicious motives. Several comments expressed disquiet that the Chinese actors in the film seemed both short and ugly, prompting the question: „Did the director try to uglify Chinese or just make fun of Chinese?‟ (Hua Fangzhi – E1/17), while one student who was preparing for his postgraduate entrance exam drew explicitly upon his academic

13 Essay 1: third year writing class 2 (see appendix 2b).

knowledge, noting that „Westerners prefer imagining a China than touching the real one.

A scholar called this strange phenomenon “Orientalism”‟ (Huang Nan – E1/18).

As an indication of foreign ignorance, criticism often focused initially on the cultural accuracy of the film. One student observed, for instance, that the funeral scene, was inappropriate as the carrying of a large picture of the deceased would traditionally only occur in the case of a state leader (Hua Fangzhi – E1/17). Beyond such questions of cultural authenticity, others also pointed to transgressions of genre: for instance, how the combining of kung fu with either firearms or magic, mixed elements in an inappropriate and inauthentic manner that appeared „ridiculous‟ (Dong Shuai – E1/9). The anachronism of the main characters (Jack and Wang) wearing modern clothes while the Chinese gang members wear ancient dress was also singled out for criticism (Dong Shuai – E1/9).

Such inaccuracies, however, might not have been so offensive had they not also been seen to have „demonised‟ Chinese, as some put it in their essays (Liao Yanting – E1/20; Meng Xiandong – E1/24). Another admitted, „I was shocked. I want to ask foreigners [...] Are these real Chinese customs [...] in your eyes?‟ (Hu Ruotao – E1/16).

Students often cited the unrestrained violence of the Chinese gangs here, but most notable was how frequently it was linked to backwardness, with perhaps an unstated implication that „modern‟ violence might somehow be less offensive. Comments focused on how Chinese people were shown not only to be „cruel‟ (Dong Shuai – E1/9) but also

„conservative‟ (Ding Weisi – E1/8), and „uneducated‟ (Liao Yanting – E1/20), either rejecting or ignorant of the modern world. By implication, they seemed to take

modernisation (particularly education) as a morally cleansing process, for in its absence, the ignorant were shown as believing that problems can and should be solved through violence (Hua Fangzhi – E1/17).¹⁴

Some comments did, however, accept that foreigners‟ focus on traditional culture such as kung fu, pigtails, bound feet and Chinese myths was perhaps motivated by a sincere interest in China, but the introduction of ghosts in the film was seen as reinforcing a negative stereotype of Chinese. The appearance of these magical aspects were, once again, also related to foreigners‟ ignorance in portraying Chinese as superstitious,

14 Another possible implication here is that foreigners‟ ignorance of China is also a potential source of violence or, at least, an aggressive posture towards China.

irrational and in some sense, mysterious. A few students accepted this portrayal as perhaps having a basis in reality, at least in the past, but others insisted that the majority of Chinese were now educated out of such beliefs (Bai Chuanyan – E1/1). One, indeed, explicitly spelled out that in rituals for the dead „living persons could do nothing [...]

except express their sad feelings for losing them‟ (Han Yan – E1/14). In the light of these denials, students clearly considered foreign interest in such things irritatingly out of date and misguided.

Apart from objecting to the film‟s violence and implicitly racist ignorance, many also objected to the way they felt the film depicted Chinese people as standoffish and isolationist. The scene in which an old woman turns her back on the American hero‟s polite question, as he gingerly enters Chinatown, was frequently cited here. One comment perceptively noted that this negativity was perhaps intended to foreshadow the

subsequent fight scene (Fu Rifei – E1/10) in which the director alludes to both Hong Kong films and the American western, but the same writer nevertheless felt a need to insist that „the truth in China is that Chinese are warm-hearted‟.

Beyond expressing a sense of shock and indignation, the students also expressed particular unease about the effect such images of China might have on foreign audiences.

Some worried that foreigners might take what they saw too literally for although „we also have these scenes in our films, [...] we know that they [do…] not exist (Chen Yuwei – E1/5).¹⁵ The fact, moreover, that the film was quite entertaining and even funny, in a sense made it all the more disturbing for as one noted, it had made her laugh „even though I too am a Chinese‟ (Bai Chuanyan – E1/1). This led some to suggest that China should take its own measures to overcome such negative images by promoting its culture more abroad through films, tourism trade and so on, though one respondent felt that foreign governments, through their control of the media, tend to „delay and forbid‟

material that would show other cultures in a good light (Hu Ruotao – E1/17). For most, however, enhancing intercultural communication and making extra efforts to promote Chinese culture abroad was the key, but with a perhaps greater emphasis on its diversity,

15 This student recounted how she saw an American on the previous year‟s Spring Festival Gala programme who explained that when watching films as a boy, he had believed that Chinese kung fu practitioners could genuinely fly through the air. „After he grew up, he came to China to learn kung fu. However, to his disappointment, it is impossible [...]‟ (Chen Yuwei – E1/5).

and in particular, moving away from historical to more contemporary and future-oriented themes. As one student put it, „[this film] warns me that we Chinese should introduce ourselves to the world, not only the past of China, but also the present and future [...]‟

(Bai Chuanyan – E1/1).

As I have noted, in both the oral class and the writing class, students tended to focus on the film as a representation of China rather than a spectacular comedy or a hybrid engagement with the Hong Kong martial arts genre. Interestingly, even the sole exception to the otherwise overwhelmingly negative responses also based his view on the realism of the films‟ depiction of Chinese culture, in particular, to Chinese beliefs about death and the need to be „submissive‟, as he put it, to the supernatural order. In his view,

„This sort of belief [is] root[ed] deeply in nearly every Chinese man‟s mind and the

„This sort of belief [is] root[ed] deeply in nearly every Chinese man‟s mind and the