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1

Moshchenko, Irina A. "The concept of “love” in the early works of Zhang Ailing (张爱玲 1920–1995)." Philological Sciences. Scientific Essays of Higher Education, no. 3 (May 2021): 59–67. http://dx.doi.org/10.20339/phs.3-21.059.

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This article presents a study designed to analyse the concept of love in the early work of chinese writer Zhang Ailing. The research reveals conceptual binary oppositions which are formed arround the core of the concept of love that is: ai (爱), qing (情) and lian (恋). The oppositions are the following: absurdity — conciseness; frivolous / pretense — serious / sincerity; material — spiritual / sacred; isolation — openness; selfishness — generosity; cowardice — courage; overseas — traditional. This ambiguity of the concept is the key to understanding how early works of Zhang Ailing differs from the previous literature tradition, which understands love as а supreme good. The research shows the transformation of the concept of love in the early work of Zhang Ailing. The writer confronts the tradition, she tries to destroy the romantic-sentimental attitude to love that was formed in Chinese literature in the first decades of the twentieth century. Breaking with the conventional image of “love above all” (恋爱之上), Zhang Ailing begins to build up her own world of love. She starts from the denying of romantic love and attachment, and only then tries to fit love into the social structure, to turn ordinary love into a social value equal to success in work, financial well-being, etc.
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2

Luo, Fang. "On the image of Shanghai in Zhang Ailing's novels." Lifelong Education 9, no. 1 (February 4, 2020): 23. http://dx.doi.org/10.18282/le.v9i1.794.

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<p>The urban image created by Zhang Ailing is impressive. Look at all her novels, almost all of them are based in Shanghai. Through her novels, readers can experience the traditional and modern interwoven urban culture, and understand the unique urban things, as well as ordinary and tragic figures in Shanghai. The image created by Zhang Ailing is not only the living place of the characters, but also the human nature of the city.</p>
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3

Yetty, Yetty, and Rosemary Rosemary. "Analysis Zhang Ailing’s Novel (Red Rose And White Rose) Image Of The Characters And Story Plot." Lingua Cultura 5, no. 1 (May 31, 2011): 47. http://dx.doi.org/10.21512/lc.v5i1.374.

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Zhang Ailing is a heterogeneous novel writer in China literature’s history. Almost of her life, she already wrote so many literature’s works. One of her famous novel is (Red Rose and White Rose). The story is describe the image of main figure’s character and his emotional. Writer wants use the characterization, complexity of personality and story plot these three aspect to analysis the novel’s figure looks, figure character and the story. This novel story is a complication relationship between the man and two women, red roses as her lover and white rose as her wife. About a man that in his standard life and emotional condition occur some contradiction. Writer use reference material and theory of novel writing to analysis Zhang Ailing (Red Rose and White Rose)‘s novel. The result of this analisys are the most important part in novel’s story is not only about the story plot but also the describtion of figure looks and characterization. Zhang Ailing in (Red rose and white rose) descbribtion is very spesific, the story become so interesting because of the Complementary of the figure looks, figure characterization and story plot, embraced each other, fully reflects the fictional reality of compromise and frustration.
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4

SMITH, NORMAN. "‘Only Women can Change this World into Heaven’ Mei Niang, Male Chauvinist Society, and the Japanese Cultural Agenda in North China, 1939–1941." Modern Asian Studies 40, no. 1 (February 2006): 81–107. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0026749x06001831.

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From 1939 to 1941, Mei Niang (b. 1920) penned three of her most famous novellas, Bang (Clam)(1939), Yu (Fish)(1941), and Xie (Crabs)(1941). Each of these works sheds light on the struggle of Chinese feminists in Japanese-occupied north China to realize ideals that stood in stark contrast to the conservative constructs of ‘good wives, wise mothers’ (xianqi liangmu) favoured by colonial officials. The contemporary appeal of Mei Niang's work is attested to by a catch-phrase, coined in 1942, that linked her with one of the most celebrated Chinese women writers of the twentieth century, Zhang Ailing (1920–1995): ‘the south has Zhang Ailing, the north has Mei Niang’ (Nan Ling, Bei Mei). Both women attained great fame in Japanese-occupied territories, only to have their achievements tempered by condemnation of the environments in which they forged their early careers. The Chinese civil war that followed the collapse of the Japanese empire propelled the two writers along divergent trajectories: Zhang Ailing moved to Hong Kong and the United States, where she achieved iconic status, while Mei Niang remained in the People's Republic of China, to be vilified. As one of the pre-eminent ‘writers of the enemy occupation’ (lunxian zuojia), Mei Niang was persecuted by a Maoist regime (1949–1976) dedicated to the refutation of the Japanese colonial order in its entirety.
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5

Zhang, Ailing. "China English and Chinese English." English Today 13, no. 4 (October 1997): 39–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0266078400010002.

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AILING ZHANG makes a distinction between two kinds of English in China ‘to emphasize the absolute necessity of Standard English to be taught, instead of other varieties claimed by some linguists to be equally good’.
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6

He, Wen. "La Traduction et la réception de Zhang Ailing en France." Comparative Korean Studies 26, no. 1 (April 30, 2018): 81–102. http://dx.doi.org/10.19115/cks.26.1.3.

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7

Lin, Wei-Hsin. "Chasing After Nothingness—Reading Zhang Ailing Through Žižek’s Interpretation of Lacan." Janus Head 16, no. 1 (2018): 7–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/jh20181611.

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This article provides a Lacanian reading of one of the short stories of Zhang Ailing, a Chinese writer. It is intended to explore the possibility of employing Lacan’s theory of the symbolic order to the interpretation of a Chinese text, as well as to broaden our understanding of Zhang’s work and to unlock the potential of the applicability of Lacan’s ideas. The final part of the article will draw on Žižek’s interpretation of Lacan to illustrate how Zhang, unlike most of her contemporaries, is exempted from the obsession with China and how this obsession can lead us to the conclusion that whatever we chase obsessively in life is nothing but nothingness.
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8

Tejeda Martín, Teresa Inés. "El rol de la mujer china a principios del siglo XX en la novela Bansheng yuan de Zhang Ailing." Revista Internacional de Culturas y Literaturas, no. 23 (2020): 125–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/ricl.2020.i23.09.

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En este artículo reflexionaremos, a través de la lectura Bansheng yuan, la primera novela larga de Zhang Ailing (Eileen Chang), sobre la situación de la mujer china en las primeras décadas del siglo XX. Con el análisis de los tres principales personajes femeninos nos centraremos en destacar dos aspectos que, a pesar de haber avanzado en la teoría, seguían lastrando la posición de la mujer en la práctica: la falta de independencia laboral y el matrimonio.
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9

Lee, Kang-bum, and Sun-ae Hwang. "The Pro-Japanese Problem of Zhang-Ailing in Novel “Lust, Caution( 色|戒)”." Journal of Chinese Language and Literature 104 (June 30, 2017): 161–89. http://dx.doi.org/10.25021/jcll.2017.06.104.161.

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10

葛濤. "the studies of virtual community of the Zhang Ailing fans on Internet ——Regard " Zhang Mi sitting room "as the centre." Journal of Study on Language and Culture of Korea and China ll, no. 19 (February 2009): 256–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.16874/jslckc.2009..19.018.

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11

Jaguscik, Justyna. "Hermann, Marc: Leib und (A-)Moral. Ideologie- und Moralkritik im Werk von Zhang Ailing." Asiatische Studien - Études Asiatiques 69, no. 4 (December 1, 2015): 1091–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/asia-2015-1026.

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12

Xiao, Jiwei. "Can She Say No to Zhang Ailing? Detail, idealism and woman in Wang Anyi's fiction." Journal of Contemporary China 17, no. 56 (June 19, 2008): 513–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10670560802000308.

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13

Chang, Eileen. "Chinese Translation: A Vehicle of Cultural Influence." PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 130, no. 2 (March 2015): 488–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2015.130.2.488.

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Translation played a central role in the life of Eileen Chang (Zhang Ailing, 1920-95). One of the most iconic figures in twentieth-century Chinese literature, Chang also wrote extensively in English throughout her career, which began in the early 1940s in Japanese-occupied Shanghai. She achieved fame quickly but fell into obscurity after the war ended in 1945. Chang stayed in Shanghai through the 1949 Communist revolution and in 1952 moved to Hong Kong, where she worked as a freelance translator and writer for the United States Information Service and wrote two anti-Communist novels in English and Chinese, The Rice-Sprout Song (1955) and Naked Earth (1956).
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14

Meihua, Ren, and Xiao Jiugen. "An Analysis of the Spiritual Characteristics of the Females in the Novels of Writer Zhang Ailing." Science Innovation 9, no. 1 (2021): 7. http://dx.doi.org/10.11648/j.si.20210901.12.

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15

홍석표. "A Study on Zhang Ailing(張愛玲)'s ‘Desolation' and the Description of ≪Chuanqi(傳奇)≫." CHINESE LITERATURE 63, no. ll (May 2010): 149–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.21192/scll.63..201005.008.

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16

Kwak, Su-Kyoung. "The city's character of Shanghai and Hongkong and accept of Hollywood ― about the scenarios of Zhang Ailing." Chinese Studies 47 (April 30, 2014): 181–202. http://dx.doi.org/10.14378/kacs.2014.47.47.181.

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17

Ho, Mi. "A Comparative Study on Female Consciousness in the Works of Zhang-Ailing(張愛玲) and Lee-Seonhee(李善姬)." Journal of Chinese Language and Literature 108 (February 28, 2018): 133–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.25021/jcll.2018.02.108.133.

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18

Kim, Yeong-myeong. "A Study on the Effect of Agricultural Land Reform on the Destruction of Rural Human Relations - Comparison of Naked Earth by Zhang Ailing and The Descendants of Cain by Hwang Soon Won." Journal of Chinese Literature 75 (May 30, 2019): 155–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.31985/jcl.75.6.

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19

Bojovschi, Ioana. "Tradition and Modernity in Zhang Ailing’s Shortstories." Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Philologia 65, no. 1 (March 10, 2020): 181–202. http://dx.doi.org/10.24193/subbphilo.2020.1.13.

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20

홍지순. "Zhang Ailing’s Media Politics in the 1940s." Journal of Chinese Language and Literature ll, no. 65 (October 2014): 307–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.26586/chls.2014..65.011.

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21

Zou, Lin. "The Commercialization of Emotions in Zhang Ailing's Fiction." Journal of Asian Studies 70, no. 1 (February 2011): 29–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021911810002962.

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This article examines the principle of commercialization evoked in Zhang Ailing's writing and explores how it frames the subjective value of emotions—particularly desolation—in her fiction. Human relationship in Zhang's world is essentially commercial, in the sense that it is dominated by interest calculation and exchange. This relationship is driven by desires that are relentless and cannot find meaning in any goal. Behind this human relationship is a commercial framework of value that turns any form of subjectivity assuming natural value into a commodity for consumption. This is the mechanism through which desolation in Zhang's fiction is commercialized. By exploring the affective structure of desolation, the author argues desolation assumes natural value by building fatalism into its structure as a natural principle. In doing so, Zhang's aesthetics of desolation presents itself as a petty bourgeois construction for consumption.
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22

Kim, Soon-Jin. "The Frame of Children’s Tales in Zhang Ailing’s Stories." Journal of Chinese Language, Literature and Translation 42 (January 31, 2018): 105–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.35822/jcllt.2018.01.42.105.

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23

Gao, Yanyu. "Comparative Study of Dickinson’s Life and Zhang Ailing’s Life." Advances in Literary Study 05, no. 02 (2017): 29–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/als.2017.52004.

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24

Hong, Cheng-hua. "The Meaning of the Third-space in Zhang Ailing’s Novel." JOURNAL OF CHINESE HUMANITIES 74 (April 30, 2020): 333–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.35955/jch.2020.04.74.333.

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25

홍지순. "The Zhang Ailing’s View of the Masses and Chinese Mass Culture: A Comparative Reading of Zhang Ailing’s Writings In The Twentieth Century and the Self-Translations into Chinese." Journal of Chinese Language and Literature ll, no. 41 (June 2009): 169–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.26586/chls.2009..41.008.

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26

Park Jae Bum. "A Study on Zhang Ailing's Chuanqi(傳奇) focusing on Narrative Character as a novel of modernism." Journal of the research of chinese novels ll, no. 33 (April 2011): 237–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.17004/jrcn.2011..33.011.

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27

LIU, KEKE, XIANG XU, YONGHONG XIAO, HAIQIANG YIN, and XIANJIN PENG. "Six new species of Otacilia from southern China (Araneae: Phrurolithidae)." Zootaxa 4585, no. 3 (April 15, 2019): 438. http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4585.3.2.

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Six new ground sac spider species of the family Phrurolithidae were collected from southern China: Otacilia ailan sp. nov. (♀), O. daweishan sp. nov. (♂, ♀), O. fabiformis sp. nov. (♂, ♀) and O. jiandao sp. nov. (♀) from Hunan Province; and O. nonggang sp. nov. (♂, ♀) and O. yinae sp. nov. (♂) from Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. All species are described and illustrated with photographs and line drawings.
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28

Storozhenko, S. Yu, and T. I. Pushkar. "Taxonomic Review Of The Genus Yunnantettix (Orthoptera, Tetrigidae) From The Oriental Region." Vestnik Zoologii 49, no. 3 (June 1, 2015): 211–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/vzoo-2015-0023.

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Abstract Taxonomic review of the genus Yunnantettix Zheng, 1995 is given. It is similar to Aspiditettix Liang, 2009, Pseudepitettix Zheng, 1995, and Epitettix Hancock, 1907. Yunnantettix is the most similar to Aspiditettix in the general appearance, the rugose disc of the pronotum, and the bisinuate lateral lobe of the pronotum, and diff erent from it by the completely reduced hind wing and the position of the antennal socket. Yunnantettix is similar to Pseudepitettix and Epitettix in the moderately widened frontal ridge and low median carina of pronotum, but diff erent from the latter by the presence of the narrow tegmen and a shallow yet distinct tegminal (upper) sinus on the pronotal lateral lobe. Originally, Yunnantettix is a monotypic genus (type species: Yunnantettix bannaensis Zheng, 1995 from South China). Two species are additionally included to this genus: Yunnantettix elytratus (Günther, 1939), comb. n. (= Epitettix elytratus Günther, 1939) from India and Yunnantettix thaicus, sp. n. from Th ailand. Th e new species diff ers from all other species of this genus by the shallow excision on apex of the posterior pronotal process and by the external lateral pronotal carina, arch-like and strongly curved upward above the tegmen. A key to the species and redescription of the genus Yunnantettix are provided.
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29

Chon, YoungEui. "A Study of Urban Culture Comparative Amalgamation Study through Korean & Chinese Literature Texts - a focus of the Others’ Spaces and Desire’s Presentation about Chae, ManSick · Jo, JeongRae · Wang, AnYi · Zhzng, AiLing’s texts -." Korean Literary Theory and Criticism 21, no. 4 (December 31, 2017): 343–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.20461/kltc.2017.12.77.343.

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30

Zeiger, Timothy, Ailyn Diaz, Meenal Pathak, Daisy Shirk, Jasmin Lagman, Jolene M. Hillwig-Garcia, Himadri Patel, and Lidija Petrovic-Dovat. "rld Association of Academics and Researchers) Skip to content Home Page Architecture Home Editorial Board Reviewers’ Board Forthcoming Papers Current Issue Past Issues Sponsored Conferences Indexing & Abstracting Business & Economics Home Editorial Board Reviewers’ Board Forthcoming Papers Current Issue Past Issues Sponsored Conferences Indexing & Abstracting Education Home Editorial Board Reviewers’ Board Forthcoming Papers Current Issue Past Issues Sponsored Conferences Indexing & Abstracting Health Home Editorial Board Reviewers’ Board Forthcoming Papers Current Issue Past Issues Sponsored Conferences Indexing & Abstracting History Home Editorial Board Reviewers’ Board Forthcoming Papers Current Issue Past Issues Sponsored Conferences Indexing & Abstracting Humanities & Arts Home Editorial & Reviewers’ Board Forthcoming Papers Current Issue Past Issues Sponsored Conferences Indexing & Abstracting Law Home Editorial & Reviewers’ Board Forthcoming Papers Current Issue Past Issues Sponsored Conferences Indexing & Abstracting Mass Media and Communications Home Editorial Board Reviewers’ Board Forthcoming Papers Current Issue Past Issues Sponsored Conferences Indexing & Abstracting Mediterranean Studies Home Editorial & Reviewers’ Board Forthcoming Papers Current Issue Past Issues Sponsored Conferences Indexing & Abstracting Philology Home Editorial Board Reviewers’ Board Forthcoming Papers Current Issue Past Issues Sponsored Conferences Indexing & Abstracting Sciences Home Editorial Board Reviewers’ Board Forthcoming Papers Current Issue Past Issues Sponsored Conferences Indexing & Abstracting Social Sciences Home Editorial Board Reviewers’ Board Forthcoming Papers Current Issue Past Issues Sponsored Conferences Indexing & Abstracting Sports Home Editorial Board Reviewers’ Board Forthcoming Papers Current Issue Past Issues Sponsored Conferences Indexing & Abstracting Technology & Engineering Home Editorial Board Reviewers’ Board Forthcoming Papers Current Issue Past Issues Sponsored Conferences Indexing & Abstracting Tourism Home Editorial Board Reviewers’ Board Forthcoming Papers Current Issue Past Issues Sponsored Conferences Indexing & Abstracting Publication Ethics Paper Submission Submission Form List of Editors List of Reviewers List of Universities Contact Publication Status Papers Under Review Search for: Athens Journal of Health and Medical Sciences Volume 7, Issue 1, March 2020 DOI: 10.30958/ajh_v7i1 Edit TABLE OF CONTENTS Download the entire issue (PDF) Front Pages i-x A Review of Drugs Supply Disruption Risks and Effects that Lead to Shortage Aruna Burinskas 1 The Effect of Patient Satisfaction on Patient Burhanettin Uysal & Mehmet Yorulmaz 19 Comparing Traditional Cognitive Behavior Therapy with Mindfulness-Based Interventions as a Treatment Option for Anxiety Disorders in Pediatric Patients Timothy Zeiger, Ailyn Diaz, Meenal Pathak, Daisy Shirk, Jasmin Lagman, Jolene M. Hillwig-Garcia, Himadri Patel & Lidija Petrovic-Dovat 37 Let Master of Public Health Students Experience Statistical Reasoning Qi Zheng 47 <." Athens Journal of Health and Medical Sciences 7, no. 1 (February 28, 2020): 37–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.30958/ajhms.7-1-3.

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31

"Images of Hong Kong and Shanghai in the works of Zhang Ailing." Problemy Dalnego Vostoka, no. 1 (2020): 131–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.31857/s013128120008838-2.

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32

Di Muzio, Alessandra. "Wreckage, War, Woman. Fragments of a Female Self in Zhang Ailing’s Love In a Fallen City (倾城之恋)." 56 | 2020, no. 56 (June 30, 2020). http://dx.doi.org/10.30687/annor/2385-3042/2020/56/017.

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This article examines wreckage and war as key elements in Zhang Ailing’s novella Qing cheng zhi lian 倾城之恋 (Love in a Fallen City) exploring the strategies used by the female protagonist to engage on a nüxing 女性 ‘feminist’-oriented spatial quest for independence in a male-centered world. Analysed from a feminist perspective, these strategies emerge as potentially empowering and based on the idea of conflict/conquest while dealing with man and romance, but they are also constantly threatened by the instability of history and by the lack of any true agency and gender-specific space for women in the 1940s Chinese society and culture. By analysing the floating/stability dichotomy and the spatial configurations of Shanghai and Hong Kong as described in the novella, the author argues Zhang Ailing’s depiction of Chinese women while dealing with history, society and the quest for self-affirmation is left in-between wreckage and survival, oppression and feminism, revealing her eccentric otherness as a woman and as a writer with respect to socially committed literature.
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33

Wang, Jing. "The Coffee/Café-Scape in Chinese Urban Cities." M/C Journal 15, no. 2 (May 2, 2012). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.468.

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IntroductionIn this article, I set out to accomplish two tasks. The first is to map coffee and cafés in Mainland China in different historical periods. The second is to focus on coffee and cafés in the socio-cultural milieu of contemporary China in order to understand the symbolic value of the emerging coffee/café-scape. Cafés, rather than coffee, are at the centre of this current trend in contemporary Chinese cities. With instant coffee dominating as a drink, the Chinese have developed a cultural and social demand for cafés, but have not yet developed coffee palates. Historical Coffee Map In 1901, coffee was served in a restaurant in the city of Tianjin. This restaurant, named Kiessling, was run by a German chef, a former solider who came to China with the eight-nation alliance. At that time, coffee was reserved mostly for foreign politicians and military officials as well as wealthy businessmen—very few ordinary Chinese drank it. (For more history of Kiessling, including pictures and videos, see Kiessling). Another group of coffee consumers were from the cultural elites—the young revolutionary intellectuals and writers with overseas experience. It was almost a fashion among the literary elite to spend time in cafés. However, this was negatively judged as “Western” and “bourgeois.” For example, in 1932, Lu Xun, one of the most important twentieth century Chinese writers, commented on the café fashion during 1920s (133-36), and listed the reasons why he would not visit one. He did not drink coffee because it was “foreigners’ food”, and he was too busy writing for the kind of leisure enjoyed in cafés. Moreover, he did not, he wrote, have the nerve to go to a café, and particularly not the Revolutionary Café that was popular among cultural celebrities at that time. He claimed that the “paradise” of the café was for genius, and for handsome revolutionary writers (who he described as having red lips and white teeth, whereas his teeth were yellow). His final complaint was that even if he went to the Revolutionary Café, he would hesitate going in (Lu Xun 133-36). From Lu Xun’s list, we can recognise his nationalism and resistance to what were identified as Western foods and lifestyles. It is easy to also feel his dissatisfaction with those dilettante revolutionary intellectuals who spent time in cafés, talking and enjoying Western food, rather than working. In contrast to Lu Xun’s resistance to coffee and café culture, another well-known writer, Zhang Ailing, frequented cafés when she lived in Shanghai from the 1920s to 1950s. She wrote about the smell of cakes and bread sold in Kiessling’s branch store located right next to her parents’ house (Yuyue). Born into a wealthy family, exposed to Western culture and food at a very young age, Zhang Ailing liked to spend her social and writing time in cafés, ordering her favourite cakes, hot chocolate, and coffee. When she left Shanghai and immigrated to the USA, coffee was an important part of her writing life: the smell and taste reminding her of old friends and Shanghai (Chunzi). However, during Zhang’s time, it was still a privileged and elite practice to patronise a café when these were located in foreign settlements with foreign chefs, and served mainly foreigners, wealthy businessmen, and cultural celebrities. After 1949, when the Chinese Communist Party established the People’s Republic of China, until the late 1970s, there were no coffee shops in Mainland China. It was only when Deng Xiaoping suggested neo-liberalism as a so-called “reform-and-open-up” economic policy that foreign commerce and products were again seen in China. In 1988, ten years after the implementation of Deng Xiaoping’s policy, the Nestlé coffee company made the first inroads into the mainland market, featuring homegrown coffee beans in Yunnan province (China Beverage News; Dong; ITC). Nestlé’s bottled instant coffee found its way into the Chinese market, avoiding a direct challenge to the tea culture. Nestlé packaged its coffee to resemble health food products and marketed it as a holiday gift suitable for friends and relatives. As a symbol of modernity and “the West”, coffee-as-gift meshed with the traditional Chinese cultural custom that values gift giving. It also satisfied a collective desire for foreign products (and contact with foreign cultures) during the economic reform era. Even today, with its competitively low price, instant coffee dominates coffee consumption at home, in the workplace, and on Chinese airlines. While Nestlé aimed their product at native Chinese consumers, the multinational companies who later entered China’s coffee market, such as Sara Lee, mainly targeted international hotels such as IHG, Marriott, and Hyatt. The multinationals also favoured coffee shops like Kommune in Shanghai that offered more sophisticated kinds of coffee to foreign consumers and China’s upper class (Byers). If Nestlé introduced coffee to ordinary Chinese families, it was Starbucks who introduced the coffee-based “third space” to urban life in contemporary China on a signficant scale. Differing from the cafés before 1949, Starbucks stores are accessible to ordinary Chinese citizens. The first in Mainland China opened in Beijing’s China World Trade Center in January 1999, targeting mainly white-collar workers and foreigners. Starbucks coffee shops provide a space for informal business meetings, chatting with friends, and relaxing and, with its 500th store opened in 2011, dominate the field in China. Starbucks are located mainly in the central business districts and airports, and the company plans to have 1,500 sites by 2015 (Starbucks). Despite this massive presence, Starbucks constitutes only part of the café-scape in contemporary Chinese cities. There are two other kinds of cafés. One type is usually located in universities or residential areas and is frequented mainly by students or locals working in cultural professions. A representative of this kind is Sculpting in Time Café. In November 1997, two years before the opening of the first Starbucks in Beijing, two newlywed college graduates opened the first small Sculpting in Time Café near Beijing University’s East Gate. This has been expanded into a chain, and boasts 18 branches on the Mainland. (For more about its history, see Sculpting in Time Café). Interestingly, both Starbucks and Sculpting in Time Café acquired their names from literature, Starbucks from Moby Dick, and Sculpting in Time from the Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky’s film diary of the same name. For Chinese students of literature and the arts, drinking coffee is less about acquiring more energy to accomplish their work, and more about entering a sensual world, where the aroma of coffee mixes with the sounds from the coffee machine and music, as well as the lighting of the space. More importantly, cafés with this ambience become, in themselves, cultural sites associated with literature, films, and music. Owners of this kind of café are often lovers of foreign literatures, films, and cultures, and their cafés host various cultural events, including forums, book clubs, movie screenings, and music clubs. Generally speaking, coffee served in this kind of café is simpler than in the kind discussed below. This third type of café includes those located in tourist and entertainment sites such as art districts, bar areas, and historical sites, and which are frequented by foreign and native tourists, artists and other cultural workers. If Starbucks cultivates a fast-paced business/professional atmosphere, and Sculpting in Time Cafés an artsy and literary atmosphere, this third kind of café is more like an upscale “bar” with trained baristas serving complicated coffees and emphasising their flavour. These coffee shops are more expensive than the other kinds, with an average price three times that of Starbucks. Currently, cafés of this type are found only in “first-tier” cities and usually located in art districts and tourist areas—such as Beijing’s 798 Art District and Nanluo Guxiang, Shanghai’s Tai Kang Road (a.k.a. “the art street”), and Hangzhou’s Westlake area. While Nestlé and Starbucks use coffee beans grown in Yunnan provinces, these “art cafés” are more inclined to use imported coffee beans from suppliers like Sara Lee. Coffee and Cafés in Contemporary China After just ten years, there are hundreds of cafés in Chinese cities. Why has there been such a demand for coffee or, more accurately, cafés, in such a short period of time? The first reason is the lack of “third space” environments in Mainland China. Before cafés appeared in the late 1990s, stores like KFC (which opened its first store in 1987) and McDonald’s (with its first store opened in 1990) filled this role for urban residents, providing locations where customers could experience Western food, meet friends, work, or read. In fact, KFC and McDonald’s were once very popular with college students looking for a place to study. Both stores had relatively clean food environments and good lighting. They also had air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter, which are not provided in most Chinese university dormitories. However, since neither chain was set up to be a café and customers occupying seats for long periods while ordering minimal amounts of food or drink affected profits, staff members began to indirectly ask customers to leave after dining. At the same time, as more people were able to afford to eat at KFC and McDonald’s, their fast foods were also becoming more and more popular, especially among young people. As a consequence, both types of chain restaurant were becoming noisy and crowded and, thus, no longer ideal for reading, studying, or meeting with friends. Although tea has been a traditional drink in Chinese culture, traditional teahouses were expensive places more suitable for business meetings or for the cultural or intellectual elite. Since almost every family owns a tea set and can readily purchase tea, friends and family would usually make and consume tea at home. In recent years, however, new kinds of teahouses have emerged, similar in style to cafés, targeting the younger generation with more affordable prices and a wider range of choices, so the lack of a “third space” does not fully explain the café boom. Another factor affecting the popularity of cafés has been the development and uptake of Internet technology, including the increasing use of laptops and wireless Internet in recent years. The Internet has been available in China since the late 1990s, while computers and then laptops entered ordinary Chinese homes in the early twenty-first century. The IT industry has created not only a new field of research and production, but has also fostered new professions and demands. Particularly, in recent years in Mainland China, a new socially acceptable profession—freelancing in such areas as graphic design, photography, writing, film, music, and the fashion industry—has emerged. Most freelancers’ work is computer- and Internet-based. Cafés provide suitable working space, with wireless service, and the bonus of coffee that is, first of all, somatically stimulating. In addition, the emergence of the creative and cultural industries (which are supported by the Chinese government) has created work for these freelancers and, arguably, an increasing demand for café-based third spaces where such people can meet, talk and work. Furthermore, the flourishing of cafés in first-tier cities is part of the “aesthetic economy” (Lloyd 24) that caters to the making and selling of lifestyle experience. Alongside foreign restaurants, bars, galleries, and design firms, cafés contribute to city branding, and link a city to the global urban network. Cafés, like restaurants, galleries and bars, provide a space for the flow of global commodities, as well as for the human flow of tourists, travelling artists, freelancers, and cultural specialists. Finally, cafés provide a type of service that contributes to friendly owner/waiter-customer relations. During the planned-economy era, most stores and hotels in China were State-owned, staff salaries were not related to individual performance, and indifferent (and even unfriendly) service was common. During the economic reform era, privately owned stores and shops began to replace State-owned ones. At the same time, a large number of people from the countryside flowed into the cities seeking opportunities. Most had little if any professional training and so could only find work in factories or in the service industry. However, most café employees are urban, with better educational backgrounds, and many were already familiar with coffee culture. In addition, café owners, particularly those of places like Sculpting in Time Cafe, often invest in creating a positive, community atmosphere, learning about their customers and sharing personal experiences with their regular clients. This leads to my next point—the generation of the 1980s’ need for a social community. Cafés’ Symbolic Value—Community A demand for a sense of community among the generation of the 1980s is a unique socio-cultural phenomenon in China, which paradoxically co-exists with their desire for individualism. Mao Zedong started the “One Child Policy” in 1979 to slow the rapid population growth in China, and the generations born under this policy are often called “the lonely generations,” with both parents working full-time. At the same time, they are “the generation of me,” labelled as spoiled, self-centred, and obsessed with consumption (de Kloet; Liu; Rofel; Wang). The individuals of this generation, now aged in their 20s and 30s, constitute the primary consumers of coffee in China. Whereas individualism is an important value to them, a sense of community is also desirable in order to compensate for their lack of siblings. Furthermore, the 1980s’ generation has also benefitted from the university expansion policy implemented in 1999. Since then, China has witnessed a surge of university students and graduates who not only received scientific and other course-based knowledge, but also had a better chance to be exposed to foreign cultures through their books, music, and movies. With this interesting tension between individualism and collectivism, the atmosphere provided by cafés has fostered a series of curious temporary communities built on cultural and culinary taste. Interestingly, it has become an aspiration of many young college students and graduates to open a community-space style café in a city. One of the best examples is the new Henduoren’s (Many People’s) Café. This was a project initiated by Wen Erniu, a recent college graduate who wanted to open a café in Beijing but did not have sufficient funds to do so. She posted a message on the Internet, asking people to invest a minimum of US$316 to open a café with her. With 78 investors, the café opened in September 2011 in Beijing (see pictures of Henduoren’s Café). In an interview with the China Daily, Wen Erniu stated that, “To open a cafe was a dream of mine, but I could not afford it […] We thought opening a cafe might be many people’s dream […] and we could get together via the Internet to make it come true” (quoted in Liu 2011). Conclusion: Café Culture and (Instant) Coffee in China There is a Chinese saying that, if you hate someone—just persuade him or her to open a coffee shop. Since cafés provide spaces where one can spend a relatively long time for little financial outlay, owners have to increase prices to cover their expenses. This can result in fewer customers. In retaliation, cafés—particularly those with cultural and literary ambience—host cultural events to attract people, and/or they offer food and wine along with coffee. The high prices, however, remain. In fact, the average price of coffee in China is often higher than in Europe and North America. For example, a medium Starbucks’ caffè latte in China averaged around US$4.40 in 2010, according to the price list of a Starbucks outlet in Shanghai—and the prices has recently increased again (Xinhua 2012). This partially explains why instant coffee is still so popular in China. A bag of instant Nestlé coffee cost only some US$0.25 in a Beijing supermarket in 2010, and requires only hot water, which is accessible free almost everywhere in China, in any restaurant, office building, or household. As an habitual, addictive treat, however, coffee has not yet become a customary, let alone necessary, drink for most Chinese. Moreover, while many, especially those of the older generations, could discern the quality and varieties of tea, very few can judge the quality of the coffee served in cafés. As a result, few Mainland Chinese coffee consumers have a purely somatic demand for coffee—craving its smell or taste—and the highly sweetened and creamed instant coffee offered by companies like Nestlé or Maxwell has largely shaped the current Chinese palate for coffee. Ben Highmore has proposed that “food spaces (shops, restaurants and so on) can be seen, for some social agents, as a potential space where new ‘not-me’ worlds are encountered” (396) He continues to expand that “how these potential spaces are negotiated—the various affective registers of experience (joy, aggression, fear)—reflect the multicultural shapes of a culture (its racism, its openness, its acceptance of difference)” (396). Cafés in contemporary China provide spaces where one encounters and constructs new “not-me” worlds, and more importantly, new “with-me” worlds. While café-going communicates an appreciation and desire for new lifestyles and new selves, it can be hoped that in the near future, coffee will also be appreciated for its smell, taste, and other benefits. Of course, it is also necessary that future Chinese coffee consumers also recognise the rich and complex cultural, political, and social issues behind the coffee economy in the era of globalisation. References Byers, Paul [former Managing Director, Sara Lee’s Asia Pacific]. Pers. comm. Apr. 2012. China Beverage News. “Nestlé Acquires 70% Stake in Chinese Mineral Water Producer.” (2010). 31 Mar. 2012 ‹http://chinabevnews.wordpress.com/2010/02/21/nestle-acquires-70-stake-in-chinese-mineral-water-producer›. Chunzi. 张爱玲地图[The Map of Eileen Chang]. 汉语大词典出版 [Hanyu Dacidian Chubanshe], 2003. de Kloet, Jeroen. China with a Cut: Globalization, Urban Youth and Popular Music. Amsterdam: Amsterdam UP, 2010. Dong, Jonathan. “A Caffeinated Timeline: Developing Yunnan’s Coffee Cultivation.” China Brief (2011): 24-26. Highmore, Ben. “Alimentary Agents: Food, Cultural Theory and Multiculturalism.” Journal of Intercultural Studies, 29.4 (2008): 381-98. ITC (International Trade Center). The Coffee Sector in China: An Overview of Production, Trade And Consumption, 2010. Liu, Kang. Globalization and Cultural Trends in China. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2004. Liu, Zhihu. “From Virtual to Reality.” China Daily (Dec. 2011) 31 Mar. 2012 ‹http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/life/2011-12/26/content_14326490.htm›. Lloyd, Richard. Neobohemia: Art and Commerce in the Postindustrial City. London: Routledge, 2006. Lu, Xun. “Geming Kafei Guan [Revolutionary Café]”. San Xian Ji. Taibei Shi: Feng Yun Shi Dai Chu Ban Gong Si: Fa Xing Suo Xue Wen Hua Gong Si, Mingguo 78 (1989): 133-36. Rofel, Lisa. Desiring China: Experiments in Neoliberalism, Sexuality, and Public Culture. Durham and London: Duke UP, 2007: 1-30. “Starbucks Celebrates Its 500th Store Opening in Mainland China.” Starbucks Newsroom (Oct. 2011) 31 Mar. 2012. ‹http://news.starbucks.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=580›. Wang, Jing. High Culture Fever: Politics, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Deng’s China. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: U of California P, 1996. Xinhua. “Starbucks Raises Coffee Prices in China Stores.” Xinhua News (Jan. 2012). 31 Mar. 2012 ‹http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-01/31/c_131384671.htm›. Yuyue. Ed. “On the History of the Western-Style Restaurants: Aileen Chang A Frequent Customer of Kiessling.” China.com.cn (2010). 31 Mar. 2012 ‹http://www.china.com.cn/culture/txt/2010-01/30/content_19334964.htm›.
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