Breaking an Eagle and Pick-Up Artists in a Chinese Context

Abstract

In this paper, I analyse a thought-provoking 1986 novella concerning falconry from a contemporary perspective. Breaking an Eagle depicts a process during which a recalcitrant and adamantine wild falcon is tamed into an acquiescent hunting tool through a series of manoeuvres that annihilate its willpower. I propound this is analogous to a phenomenon dubbed ‘PUA’ that is permeating every section of contemporary Chinese society. As a cultural import from the US, the terminology PUA (Pick-up Artist) in the Chinese context preserves its original meaning regarding heterosexual courtships and entanglements, yet more significantly, it constructs novel connotations pertaining to emotional coercion and exploitation in the workplace. Parallel to the mentally manipulated and physically abused falcon depicted in the novella, the confidence and assertiveness of victims of interpersonal and workplace PUA are extirpated, bombarded with perpetual censure and nefarious carrot-and-stick approaches.