Throughout the Chinese history, peasants, especially women have always aimed for a recognized position in Chinese society, their roles and positions in both their family and society have not been quite pleased with them. Generally, Chinese women have had almost no legal rights or career opportunities compare to Chinese men until early twentieth century. However, it started to change right after a movement known as “The May Fourth movement in 1919 .” The May Fourth movement was based on Western principles to create a new Chinese culture. Through this revolutionary movement, the peasants and intellectuals had a unified voice to express radical ideologies in Confucianism, traditional civil service hiring exams, patriarchal family structures, …show more content…
In the film, Wu Yonggang tried to describe the life of an unnamed prostitute : Every night she walks the streets, forcing herself to smile for clients, returning exhausted at dawn. The money she earns, she uses to support herself and raise her son. She endures not only humiliation, but also must avoid the police. The unnamed prostitute, also known as Ruan Lingyu reaches the epitome of her virtuosity as an actor in bringing together both the unyielding love of a mother and the tragic fate of a prostitute in one character. This effectively conveys the leftist message of the time, while also gripping viewers’ emotions. The director’s skillful use of prostitution as a way of highlighting China’s social problems of oppression, along with his simultaneous focus on the consequential victimization of the helpless, ultimately causes viewers to heavily ponder the dramatic issues presented in the film and gain a deeper insight as to the injustice of the time. Furthermore, the director delivers a message to the leftist sentiments of social inequality and of the need for change within China through focusing on female suffering in 1930s society. One way in which this message is effectively conveyed in the film is through Lingyu’s beautiful mastery of the role. Her facial expressions and subtle gestures reveal the inner turmoil the character feels, and ultimately, it is her performance that brings true meaning to the film’s underlying argument. In one scene where Lingyu’s character comes home after having worked the streets, we see her quickly tend to her crying baby and, while she warmly cradles him in her arms, look up and stare off to the right in deep contemplation of the unfortunate reality she is being forced to live. She skillfully takes on a deep look of sadness and hopelessness, which tells viewers that, despite her loving heart
The rise of nationalist movements and the modern nation-state has affected women’s political and economic participation and social freedoms. Based on the following documents, there were many opportunities and barriers that nationalist movements posed concerning women's rights in the twentieth century. Many women saw the opportunities of the movements accessible to women, but other women focused on the barriers and didn’t feel that the opportunities were accessible.
This story follows Wang Lang a poor young farmer in rural China that is forced by his father to marry a slave that belongs to the powerful local Hwang family. The Hwangs sell Wang a 20-year-old slave named O-lan who becomes his wife. O-lan and Wang Lung are pleased with each other, although they exchange few words and although Wang is initially disappointed that O-lan does not have bound feet. Together, Wang Lung and O-lan have a cultivate, beautiful and profitable harvest from their land. O-lan becomes pregnant, and Wang Lung is overjoyed when O-lan’s first child is a son. Meanwhile, the powerful Hwang family lives decadently the husband is obsessed with women, and the wife is an opium addict. Because of their costly habits, the Hwangs fall
During the long nineteenth century, political revolutions, industrialization, and European imperialism resulted in dramatic changes in the role of women in Western Europe and Eastern Asia. As industrialization spread in Western Europe, women were no longer able to fulfill their dual role as a mother and a worker. After the introduction of industrialization, laborious tasks were moved from the household to factories and women were forced to choose either the life of a mother or the life of a worker. Women who chose to leave their households were subjected to harsh conditions, low wages, and long hours. The majority of married and middle-class women were confined to the home, and deprived of an education and civil rights. Unlike the women of Western Europe, the women of Eastern Asia rapidly constituted a major portion of the work force, but they also faced poor conditions and unfair wages. Similarly to Western Europe, the women of Eastern Asia were of a meaningless status and were expected to remain confined to the home. However, during the nineteenth century, the women of Eastern Asia gained greater educational opportunities. Additionally, the change in the role of women in Western Europe and Eastern Asia resulted in countless suffrage movements for civil rights. Therefore, the role of women in Western Europe and Eastern Asia was significantly similar in terms of the participation in the labor force and their attempts at gaining equal civil rights. However, the women of Eastern Asia had greater opportunities for education.
William Hinton, a US born member of a Chinese Communist land reform task force in 1948, noted that the peasants were challenging the landlords and money lenders in regards to overcharges and restoration of lands and property seized in default of debts (Doc 4). This was due to the newly found confidence in themselves through the defeat of the Japanese. Although Hinton was born into the communist party, his recount of the actions he saw concerning the peasants was simply from a look from the outside in. He personally did not experience this sudden upsurge of challenges, which gives the public a view of what the communist party thought of what looked like a move towards social equality. Although Hinton’s recount may not have been thoroughly verified, the communist party did indeed aid in fueling what was known as a struggle meeting, where Chinese peasants humiliated and tortured landlords, as seen in the picture, organized by the Communist Party as part of the land reform process, of a group of peasants at a meeting where in the center a woman is with her former landlord (Doc 7). Alongside the destruction of the landowning infrastructure that was previously followed, the Communist party also aided the peasants in a form of social reform. One important law that granted specifically women more freedom in their social life was the creation of the Marriage Law of the People’s Republic of China in 1950, where it states that the “supremacy of man over woman, and in disregard of the interest of the children, is abolished” (Doc 5). The newly introduced concepts of free choice in partners, abortion, and monogamy that derived from this law changed the societal position on women and peasants which greatly expresses the amount of new social mobility
A young socialist group was created by the name “Red Guards” are hunting down “capitalist-roaders” who are guilty of the “Four Olds” which is old customs, old habits, old thoughts, or old culture. This is shown when the village chef comes for Fugui to get rid of the puppets because everyone knows that they are part of the old culture and though the puppets remind Jiazhen of her son Yongqing, the family burns the puppets. The audience is shown that the Communist party has infiltrated people’s houses and propaganda is even in the marriage song between Fengxia and Erxi. It is known that by this time the Revolution is at it’s strongest. Education is depicted to not matter and that proves to cause a disaster as later in the film during Fengxia’s childbirth the doctors are all gone and only the students are left. It is noticed that these students are all young woman and the Communist party is trying to make gender roles equal for these young woman, however it is clear that since the doctors were the only ones educated to help this puts the death of Fengxia who dies of blood loss after giving birth to her son Mantou. Fengxia who is mute and considered back in China as a disability in Chinese culture as a “dishonor” since disabilities was considered that no doctor or nurse would that treat them, manly because they did not know how. This part in the film is symbolic to this part of China during that time as it shows both children, Youqing and Fengxia victims of the Communist Party polices. At the end, when Erxi buys a box full of young chicks for his son, which they decide to keep in the chest formerly used for the shadow puppet props. Implies the history of Puppetry in Chinese culture such as it was made for an emperor who had lost a loved one and so an Official made a shadow puppet of her and when presenting it to the emperor he was overjoyed that he could see his loved one again.
To achieve this goal, he crafts a stylized capitalistic society that inflicts grave injustices upon his protagonists. The avarice inherent to this society governs everyday life within Street Angel. Xiao Hong, for example, lives with adoptive parents so corrupted by greed that they prostitute their older daughter, Xiao Yun. In a transaction that reflects the inhumanity of higher-level capitalism, these parents sell Xiao Hong to a local gangster. By juxtaposing the implications of this sale with Xiao Hong’s exaggerated innocence, Yuan appeals to his audience’s emotions, stoking anger toward social values that could enable such barbaric exploitation of the poor. Yuan employs a similar juxtaposition later in Street Angel, when Wang visits a lawyer’s office in a skyscraper – an environment so divorced from his day-to-day realities that he remarks, “This is truly heaven.” Wang soon learns otherwise, when the lawyer rebuffs his naïve plea for assistance by coldly reciting his exorbitant fees. The lawyer’s emotionless greed – a callousness that represents capitalism at its worst – contrasts strikingly with Wang’s naïve purity, a quality betrayed by his awestruck expression while inside the skyscraper. Again, this juxtaposition encourages the film’s audience to sympathize with a proletarian victim and condemn the social values that enable his
Growing up in the People’s Republic is a detailed account of two individual women’s generational struggle during the controversial periods of The Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution and the Cultural Fever of the 1980’s. Their case study tries to define their individual identity growing up in a Communist China. Ma Xiadong and Ye Weili’s life allow the reader to understand the struggle that ensued for the individual at a time of change that was the Cultural Revolution.
One day after doing the Chinese Seamstress’ nails, the narrator longs “to ask if [he] might kiss her red nails when I [he returns] the next day”(152). However, he stops upon reminding himself “of the prohibitions arising from [his] gallant commitment to [his] friend and commander”(152). By this point in the book, the narrator has become comfortable, and accepting of the ideas “of women, love and sex”, as a result of Western books, and more importantly has become comfortable with his environment. The only thing holding him back from giving in to his feelings about the Chinese Seamstress, is his loyalty to his friend. However, now that he’s relaxed, and has exposed himself to these new ideas, he eventually gives in. The narrator slowly succumbs to his feelings, allowing himself to think about the Chinese Seamstress sexualy as shown when one night the narrator abandons “himself in the dark to a betrayal that [leaves] his pants sticky”(157). The narrator fantasizes about the Chinese Seamstress sexually, and in doing so “abandons”, or in other words, gives up on trying to be loyal to Luo. This is only the start, as the narrator allows himself to think more and more about the Chinese Seamstress in this way. By thinking of the Chinese Seamstress in a romantic way, the narrator allows himself to develop a feeling of closeness to the seamstress. This is revealed to reader when upon discovering the Chinese Seamstress is pregnant, the narrator thinks, “I felt as if it were my child...I would have married her myself had the law permitted”(159). The narrator feels such a connection to the Chinese Seamstress, that he feels the baby is his responsibility, and is willing to marry the Seamstress. This shows the vast transformation of the narrator, as he goes from refusing to even entertain any romantic thoughts about
Zhu Ying was a member of the military’s theatre troupe, and about to be a member of the party, until she refused to sleep with party members. After that, they transferred and then imprisoned her. While her role in the military could have made Zhu Ying an androgynous figure, an emblem of communist gender equality, the party’s expectation that she have sex with party members makes her a sexual object, which is its own form of feminization. Zhu Ying is allowed to retain her femininity only if she consents to being a sexual object; when she does not, she is sent to be a laborer, and later imprisoned. Moreover, by being separated from her boyfriend, her chance at domestic happiness is taken away. After imprisonment, she has no opportunity to fill the traditional female role of marriage and children (which she may or may not have desired). Thus, the party halts the “natural” order of marriage and
Chang 32). On the inside, the shop is no more impressive with “cream colored” walls and a mirror too large for the shop ceiling, so it must be propped up against a wall (E. Chang 34). The rather bland setting parallels with Wang’s no-nonsense work ethic: she is the only person in her group who takes charge of the situation even when Mr. Yee moves to Shanghai and their funding for their scheme is cut (E. Chang 25-26). The mirror propped up against the wall parallels Wang’s ability to take a situation that seems like it will be failing and make it work out in her favor. Her ability to act as a socialite despite the dingy “stage” she is left within the jewelry shop really embodies the strength and determination she carries as an actress and just a powerful female in general. Wang’s power is definitely notable in the story and Sung-sheng Yvonne Chang notes that: “Unlike the other women writers who sought to be assimilated into the male-dominated mainstream tradition, and thus necessarily developed a sense of self-denial [Chang] by choosing to deal with a "feminine" genre, and hence inevitably with the specific ideology of the form, have gained valuable ground in coming to terms with their own socially determined feminine experience.”(S. Chang 205). In this instance, Wang could quite possibly not be seen as any more “socially determined” to make a statement: she is working with
The film, Farewell My Concubine, directed by Chen Kaige drew the attention of the western world onto Chinese Opera at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival by winning the Palme d’Or award that year. Farewell My Concubine is one of the most famous plays in Beijing Opera in which the loyalty of Yu Ji (Beauty Yu) is contested by the King of Chu when his state is defeated. The main character, Cheng Dieyi, mirrors both Mei Langfan and Yu Ji. Mei Langfan is considered the most representative artist in Beijing Opera because of his perfection as a female impersonator. Cheng Dieyi, much like Mei Langfan, is the most popular male dan(female role) at the time in the film. The most intriguing aspect of the film is the similarity between Yu Ji’s life and Cheng’s. As Director Chen explains in an interview with BOMB Magazine, “He (Cheng) blurs the distinction between theater and life, male and female. He’s addicted to his art. He’s a tragic man who only wants to pursue an ideal of beauty, to become Yu Ji, the concubine in the opera.” The film raises many questions about female impersonators’ gender identity, because in order to portray the femininity, they must think and act like women even in daily life. Many of them might undergo similar struggles Cheng suffers. While many people associate them with homosexuality and prostitution, let us examine male dans’ gender identities in various aspects.
The early part of the novel shows women’s place in Chinese culture. Women had no say or position in society. They were viewed as objects, and were used as concubines and treated with disparagement in society. The status of women’s social rank in the 20th century in China is a definite positive change. As the development of Communism continued, women were allowed to be involved in not only protests, but attended universities and more opportunities outside “house” work. Communism established gender equality and legimated free marriage, instead of concunbinage. Mao’s slogan, “Women hold half of the sky”, became extremely popular. Women did almost any job a man performed. Women were victims by being compared to objects and treated as sex slaves. This was compared to the human acts right, because it was an issue of inhumane treatment.
Qiu Jin was a female revolutionary who died fighting the Qing Empire. In Qiu’s piece, An Address to My Two Hundred Million Women Compatriots in China, she addresses her 200 million strong female audience. Qiu tells her female audience that change is needed, “But I hope that from now on we sisters will do away with the state affairs from the past and exert ourselves to create new circumstances. It is as if we had died and been reborn as human beings.” . This message was progressive, as women in China at tis time did not have many rights. They were treated as second hand citizens in the eyes of most men. This call for equality that was coming from Qiu reached many women and recruited them to the communist cause. At the end of her piece, Qiu says something else that shows the importance of women in the communist revolution, “Men cannot be sure of their own survival, so how can we continue to rely on them? If we do not lift ourselves up now, it will be too late once the nation has perished” . Qiu made it clear that without the women’s help the fight for freedom would not be achieved. It was not only the female members of the communist party that were calling for equality for women. Mao Zedong wrote social reforms that explicitly gave women more rights. One that strands out is, “18. A women can dispose of her land the way she wishes when she is married” . The leader of the communist party made it clear that women need to have more rights. Hearing it from one of the major players of the communist movement reassured women that if this revolution were indeed to take place and succeed, then they would have more rights. If women were treated as equals they would be more willing to fight for Mao and the communist revolution. There were other factors that contributed in people joining the
As the women narrate the harm caused by men, they lose track of the beings that they once were and become different people in order to cause a reaction in others. These women are hurt in ways that cause them to change their way of living. The Lady in Blue becomes afraid of what others will think of her because a man impregnated her: “i cdnt have people [/] lookin at me [/] pregnant [/] I cdnt have my friends see this” (Shange, Abortion Cycle # 1 Lines 14- 16). Instead of worrying about the life of her child, she worries about how her...
...ime. Majority of the women in the novel overcame the tough traditions of women treatment in ancient Chinese culture. The ancient Chinese culture believed that women should fall under patriarchy and strict ethics. This gave women no opportunity to move up the social class ladder. Being treated poorly effected would often affect women. Women like Lindo represent the power of escaping the oppressive atmosphere. Lindo decided to leave when she saw the Huang couldn’t control her anymore. Women had to be able to find their own independent identity. Ying-Ying is an example of this since she always wished to be found by someone, but inevitably she realized that she was her solution to finding her wholeness. Today modern women can express their thoughts, independence, and creativity. Aid should be continually provided for liberating women from oppression and discrimination.