9 Zhang Chengzhi’s Reinvention of Ethnic Identity

Abstract

In a society where ethnic supremacy is a frequent accomplice to social and political repression, Zhang's self-remaking all but reveals the inner workings of its ethnic dominance in the name of social progress. Faith, in Zhang's view, is the overriding humanist concern. Yet does his humanist faith verge on a religious revival? In a pithy and touching style that approaches a Shakespearean tragedy, Zhang presents a soul-stirring story of love, empathy and resistance staged by a few Muslim sharecroppers attempting to eke out a meager living on the edge of the civilized world. This chapter spells out a constructive reading that suggests how Zhang has already undertaken to map out the routes for his journey to the realization of his ethnic identity. Zhang's ambivalence with Lu Xun's tentative endings points us to the necessity to dialogize the self/other dichotomy as Bakhtin instructs us.Keywords: Bakhtin; ethnic identity; ethnic supremacy; Lu Xun; Muslim sharecroppers; political repression; Shakespearean tragedy; social repression; Zhang's self-remaking