The Moral Economy of Walls

Abstract

This chapter discusses how the Chinese landscape is defined by its walls and, consequently, by an architecture of enclosure. Clearly demarcated walled spaces, each one nested inside another, provide order as they structure and arrange the landscape into conceptual units of social space. The chapter then looks at how space, time, and language interact within the discursive formation of Chinese modernity. Language inhabits a spatiotemporal geography in Shenyang, with words and accents indexing each person's location within this environment both physically (where they are from) and temporally (how they are oriented in terms of being “ahead” or “behind” others). Modern languages belong in modern spaces, while antiquated ones belong in antiquated spaces. Thus, Dongbeihua is properly thought to be a language spoken in the countryside, or by the poor and elderly residents of Shenyang's older neighborhoods. For those who can speak standard Mandarin, Dongbeihua belongs in private domestic spaces, signifying close social relations among family. English, in contrast, is a language expressed, both verbally and graphically, in popular shopping districts and corporate enterprises.