Modern Chinese Women Research Articles

Chinese Women's Concept of Childbirth Based on the Social Media Topic "What Does Childbirth Mean to a Woman": Content and Thematic Analysis.

In recent years, women's fertility desire has attracted increasing attention in China. This study aims to detect attitudes toward giving birth among young female users on Douban, a very popular Chinese social media platform. A total of 2634 valid posts from 2489 users discussing the topic "What does childbirth mean to a woman" on Douban were crawled and retained for analysis. We utilized content and thematic analysis methods to capture users' concepts of childbirth. The findings reveal that a significant majority of users conveyed generally neutral (1060/2634, 40.24%) or negative (1051/2634, 39.90%) attitudes toward childbirth, while only about one-fifth of users expressed positive (523/2634, 19.86%) sentiments. Notably, posts with negative attitudes garnered more replies and likes, and the proportion of posts expressing negativity exhibited fluctuations over time. Health risk (339/2634, 12.87%) emerged as the most frequently cited aspect of childbirth cost, with subjective happiness and the fulfillment of mental needs identified as primary benefits. Surprisingly, only a minimal number of posts (10/2634, 0.38%) touched upon the traditional objective benefits of raising children for old-age care. Thematic analysis results suggest that discussions about fertility on social media platforms might contribute to an exaggerated perception of health risks among women. Additionally, a lack of knowledge about childbirth was observed, partially attributable to longstanding neglect and avoidance of communication on these matters, likely influenced by traditional cultural biases. Moreover, there is a prevailing assumption that women should naturally sacrifice themselves for childbirth and childcare, influenced by the idealization of the female figure. Consequently, women may harbor hesitations about having a baby, fearing the potential loss of their own identity in the process. The results indicate a shift in the perception of childbirth among modern Chinese women over time, influenced by their increasing social status and the pursuit of self-realization. Implementing strategies such as public education on the health risks associated with pregnancy and delivery, safeguarding women's rights, and creating a supportive environment for mothers may enhance women's willingness to undergo childbirth. RR2-10.2196/preprints.50468.

Modern missionary work and Chinese women’s literacy: Amy Moore in China 1930–1949

ABSTRACT This article analyses the early work of the Australian missionary Amy Moore, who worked for the China Inland Mission for twenty years. Moore aimed to develop local Christian women leaders who would contribute to China’s spiritual and moral evolution, under the continuing guidance of the colonialism of the European powers. Moore was critical of much of the colonial interventions of Britain and others, but she did not consider that China had yet reached a state of spiritual and cultural maturity, particularly in its treatment of women. Her plan was to improve adult women’s literacy, combining her evangelical passion with influences from international movements for women’s emancipation, and campaigns to improve the condition of Chinese women. Moore’s work was also framed by international and progressive changes in the world mission movement in the interwar years. At the same time Moore responded to modernising changes within contemporary China. Improvements in health, education, and gendered relations for rural women influenced missionary women’s work. Moore shared many life experiences as young woman with Chinese colleagues and friends, yet always the bonds of affection and emotion were cut through by colonial and racial divides.

“Complicating images of the modern Chinese woman, from only child to ‘leftover woman’”

ABSTRACT Two recent documentaries, Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang’s One Child Nation (2019) and Shosh Shlam and Hilla Medalia’s Leftover Women (2019), investigate the legacy of China’s one-child policy and its social impacts on marriage, career and motherhood in the present day. In the films, seemingly progressive young women subjects are depicted against a backdrop of culturally backward and brainwashed individual community members, representing Chinese culture at large, which results in a confusing narrative replete with logical gaps and unanswered questions. This article brings together qualitative data collected from interviews with “leftover women” with film analysis and scholarship on transnational feminism to argue for the importance of critical modes of representation and cautions against the tendency to blame culture.

The Development and Influence of Western Feminist Theory on the Laws Related to the Protection of Women's Rights and Interests after the Establishment of New China

The primary research purpose of this paper is to observe the historical process of western feminist theory from entering China to history. Under the influence of Western feminist theories, Chinese scholars perfected and created Chinese women's protection laws and changed social gender issues. This article researches the history of feminist development in China and modern Chinese women's law. The paper analysed the laws related to protecting women's rights and interests in China through the Chinese perspective of Western feminism. This paper aims to explore the development and protection of women's rights and interests in China and then discuss how to optimise and practice feminism-related theories and defend women's rights and interests in China from a legal perspective. The research results show that the western feminist theory has an inseparable enlightenment and construction effect on the Chinese women's protection law. The awakening of China's feminist awareness and China's protection of it are both showing a positive upward trend. The Chinese women's protection law promotes gender equality and comprehensive development of women, raises the importance of all sectors, and strengthens the protection of women's rights and interests.

Self‐absorption and performance in Tanci fiction: Eighteenth‐century Chinese conceptions of identity in comparative perspective

AbstractThis article provides an analysis of Zaishengyuan, an eighteenth‐century romance authored by Chen Duansheng, who exemplifies the ways in which early modern Chinese women entered the field of prose fiction. Alienated from the vernacular novel, literary women in eighteenth‐century China were channelled into tanci, a genre of narrative fiction connected to romances and manuscript culture. With exuberant representations of female cross‐dressing and many other forms of self‐transformation, Zaishengyuan experiments with radical conceptions of individual identity as discontinuous and self‐determined. It illuminates a social ecology of fiction writing that both differs from and resonates with that in eighteenth‐century Europe.

The Construction and Trend of Feminist Literature Theory Based on Social Media Data Mining

Up to now, the development path of Chinese women's liberation movement and modern Chinese women's literature is fundamentally different from that of the West. Therefore, the study of Chinese women's literature can not only rely on the essentialism of western feminist literary theory but also must return to the social reality and cultural reality of China. Based on social media data mining, this study uses the Word2vec model to map the text content to a more abstract word vector space, improves the original Text Rank algorithm from three aspects, semantic association between words, word frequency, and word directionality, then carries out feature extraction, and applies this algorithm to the generation of user tags. The feasibility and superiority of the model are verified by comparative experiments on LFR benchmark network. The research in this study provides a reference for the analysis of users' interests and behaviors and has certain theoretical significance and application value.

Writing Gender in Early Modern Chinese Women’s Tanci Fiction by Li Guo

Writing Gender in Early Modern Chinese Women’s Tanci Fiction by Li Guo

The Ideological Emancipation of Chinese Women and Its Idealistic Pursuit in the May 4th Movement

The May 4th Movement of 1919 is a significant period of ideological change in Chinese modern history, and in it is during this time that the ideological enlightenment of modern Chinese women made its debut. Led by modern intellectuals, they, from all angles, criticized the traditional social structure, traditional etiquette and feudal family system hindering the liberation and development of women, and further discussed the emancipation of women in terms of ideological education, economic independence, family status, freedom of marriage, ethics, social communication, as well as other relevant social issues. The intense exchange of ideas influenced public opinion, provoking enormous responses from all sections of society, particularly from women. Based on real educational and economic issues concerning women, combined with theories, real thoughts and practices, and carried out with a series of practical social reform activities, the ideological emancipation of women in the May 4th Movement of 1919 laid a solid foundation for the transition of traditional women to modern women, thus becoming the source of ideological emancipation of modern women in China.

A Study on the Evolution Characteristics of Women's Views on Sports at Three Different Stages in Modern China

This paper uses literature and comparative methods to research the evolution characteristics of women's views on sports at three different stages in modern China. The major findings are as follows: (1) The modern Chinese women's views on sports has undergone three different stages that evolve and interact mutually, from "entertainment" to "self-emancipation", from "protecting the country by strengthening people" to "women's fitness" and from "gender difference" to "gender equality". (2) China's modern views on sports at three different stages present distinctive historic features—namely high competitiveness, modernization and diversity. (3) The evolution characteristics of women's views on sports at three different stages in modern China reflect women's attitudes and inclination towards sports.

Политическая философия китайских исторических сериалов

В статье на материале сериалов на историческую или околоисторическую тематику рассматриваются представления современных китайцев о государстве, народе, взаимных правах и обязанностях человека и общества, надлежащих методах и акторах государственного управления, роли и месте Китая в системе международных отношений. Автор вычленяет основные идеи, в явной или скрытой форме лежащие в основе этого комплекса представлений: этатизм, монархизм, патернализм, шовинизм. В связи со значительно возросшей экономической самостоятельностью китайских женщин автор также считает необходимым уделить отдельное внимание тем политическим воззрениям, которые историческое кино презюмирует и старается сформировать у зрительниц. Некоторые политические представления, как доказывается в этой статье, под влиянием изменившихся социально-политических реалий претерпели отпределнную эволюцию от традиционного к более современному мышлению, в частности стала более благосклонной оценка женского правления, изменились взгляды на участие военных и гражданских чиновников в жизни государства, образ варвара приобрел черты младшего, подчиненного парнтнера по взаимовыгодной коммуникации. Но, в целом, автор отмечает чрезвычайную устойчивость комплекса политических представлений китайского народа, их прямую преемственность с традиционной политической философией старого Китая, выработанной еще в доимперский и раннеимперский периоды.

Between Two Worlds: Chinese Immigrant Children and the Production of Knowledge in the Era of Chinese Exclusion

Between Two Worlds: Chinese Immigrant Children and the Production of Knowledge in the Era of Chinese Exclusion

Imitation and creation: Bing Xin’s Fanxing (A Maze of Stars) 繁星and Chunshui (Spring Water) 春水

ABSTRACTFanxing (A Maze of Stars) and Chunshui (Spring Water) are two poetry collections of modern Chinese woman writer Bing Xin (1900–1999). Because they stand at the beginning of a new genre, xiaoshi (short poetry), and are commonly regarded as representative works of this genre, people use the epithets “Bing Xin style,” “Fanxing style,” or “Chunshui style” to refer to xiaoshi writing. Nevertheless, viewed from their intimate relationship with Rabindranath Tagore’s Stray Birds, I argue that Fanxing and Chunshui are products of both imitation and creation. Imitation is not plagiarism. Dryden defines imitation as a form of translation, which allows the full play of the translator’s freedom and personality. With writing as translation, Bing Xin creates her poetics of short poetry writing based on her imitation and appropriation of Tagore’s Stray Birds. Imitation provides the authority and inspiration as well as a model for Bing Xin to follow. However, she does not imitate slavishly or translate faithfully in a traditional sense. Rather, while taking influence from Tagore, Bing Xin reverses the patriarchal and Orientalist tendencies of Tagore with her feminist and realistic writing style. In this way, she both aligns herself with the May Fourth writers and also demonstrates her own voice and features.

Hong Kong: A Recommended Reading List

TO CURATE A reading list of ten to fifteen Hong Kong books that will inspire the international reader of literature is no easy task. For one thing, ten to fifteen is an arbitrary range, and for someone who has devoted so much time and her writing to her birth city, I am keenly aware there are many other titles that could and even should be on this list. But to curate is a curious task, and what I’ve selected might be best defined by this OED example: We are conscious of the debt we owe to those who built what we are now privileged to curate (1985, M. Diamond). A brief word on selection and presentation criteria: only four of the fifteen titles are translations of Chinese literature. Hong Kong’s literature has a short history, and translations of literary work are sadly lacking . At this time, Chinese is still not quite the global language that English is, and in time, we can only hope that this translation oversight will be rectified. Likewise, only four titles are poetry; the rest are prose. It is worth noting that there are significantly more volumes of poetry than literary prose works, and a list of only poetry titles would be a worthwhile one for a poet to curate. Generally , I have chosen work that best showcases the true character of the city through perspectives that are local/global. Some titles are not necessarily the most well-known Hong Kong books in the genre. However, anglophone publishing has favored books by foreigners that are often exoticized depictions , more genre than literary. The list is chronologically arranged by English-language publication date and begins in the mid-twentieth century, which is when, I feel, a truly Hong Kong literature first began to emerge, although the earliest books are by Chinese foreigners who were temporary residents. For obvious reasons, I did not include any of my own titles. Han Suyin A Many Splendored Thing (1952) Fiction – Novel This story of an interracial adulterous affair is one of the least sentimental portraits of postwar Hong Kong. Based on the author’s actual experience (she was a Eurasian medical doctor), it is also a feminist view of the modern Chinese woman. C. Y. Lee The Virgin Market (1965) Fiction – Novel This surprising novel by the Chinese author of the better-known Flower Drum Song is a rare and insightful look at an out-ofwedlock Eurasian red-haired girl raised in Hong Kong’s fishing folk boat community. Leung Ping-kwan City at the End of Time Trans. Gordon T. Osing with the author (1992 / 2012) Poetry If Hong Kong has a poet laureate, it would be the late “PK” or “Ya Se” as he was known. His work is canonical. He honors the Cantonese language and investigates the city from many angles. Nury Vittachi Only in Hong Kong (1993) Nonfiction – Satire This Sri Lankan comic author is a longtime resident who chronicles the comedy of bilingualism, colonialism, and Hong Kong’s mercantile character. Simon Elegant A Chinese Wedding (1994) Fiction – Novel Of the myriad novels by journalists, sinologists , foreign residents, and visitors—some Hong Kong A Recommended Reading List by Xu Xi COVER FEATURE HONG KONG 74 WLT SPRING 2019 good, many indifferent, and the majority dreadful—this one stands out as one of the most sympathetic explorations of an EastWest marriage, primarily from the foreign woman’s point of view. It is also an excellent portrayal of the complexity of being a “typical” Hong Kong Chinese man who is westernized but not. Plus, it beautifully details Cantonese food culture in the wedding banquet. Xi Xi My City: A Hong Kong Story Trans. Eva Hung (1994) Fiction – Novel No book celebrates the city the way My City does. Surreal, fantastical, wry, and deliciously detailed, no writer gets inside Hong Kong’s head and heart quite the way Xi Xi can. Ackbar Abbas Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance (1997) Nonfiction – Cultural Studies Twenty-two years later, this book remains the most prescient and incisive commentary on the cultural and political reality of Hong Kong. Louise Ho New Ends Old Beginnings (1997) Poetry To date, this...

Hong Kong: A Recommended Reading List

TO CURATE A reading list of ten to fifteen Hong Kong books that will inspire the international reader of literature is no easy task. For one thing, ten to fifteen is an arbitrary range, and for someone who has devoted so much time and her writing to her birth city, I am keenly aware there are many other titles that could and even should be on this list. But to curate is a curious task, and what I’ve selected might be best defined by this OED example: We are conscious of the debt we owe to those who built what we are now privileged to curate (1985, M. Diamond). A brief word on selection and presentation criteria: only four of the fifteen titles are translations of Chinese literature. Hong Kong’s literature has a short history, and translations of literary work are sadly lacking . At this time, Chinese is still not quite the global language that English is, and in time, we can only hope that this translation oversight will be rectified. Likewise, only four titles are poetry; the rest are prose. It is worth noting that there are significantly more volumes of poetry than literary prose works, and a list of only poetry titles would be a worthwhile one for a poet to curate. Generally , I have chosen work that best showcases the true character of the city through perspectives that are local/global. Some titles are not necessarily the most well-known Hong Kong books in the genre. However, anglophone publishing has favored books by foreigners that are often exoticized depictions , more genre than literary. The list is chronologically arranged by English-language publication date and begins in the mid-twentieth century, which is when, I feel, a truly Hong Kong literature first began to emerge, although the earliest books are by Chinese foreigners who were temporary residents. For obvious reasons, I did not include any of my own titles. Han Suyin A Many Splendored Thing (1952) Fiction – Novel This story of an interracial adulterous affair is one of the least sentimental portraits of postwar Hong Kong. Based on the author’s actual experience (she was a Eurasian medical doctor), it is also a feminist view of the modern Chinese woman. C. Y. Lee The Virgin Market (1965) Fiction – Novel This surprising novel by the Chinese author of the better-known Flower Drum Song is a rare and insightful look at an out-ofwedlock Eurasian red-haired girl raised in Hong Kong’s fishing folk boat community. Leung Ping-kwan City at the End of Time Trans. Gordon T. Osing with the author (1992 / 2012) Poetry If Hong Kong has a poet laureate, it would be the late “PK” or “Ya Se” as he was known. His work is canonical. He honors the Cantonese language and investigates the city from many angles. Nury Vittachi Only in Hong Kong (1993) Nonfiction – Satire This Sri Lankan comic author is a longtime resident who chronicles the comedy of bilingualism, colonialism, and Hong Kong’s mercantile character. Simon Elegant A Chinese Wedding (1994) Fiction – Novel Of the myriad novels by journalists, sinologists , foreign residents, and visitors—some Hong Kong A Recommended Reading List by Xu Xi COVER FEATURE HONG KONG 74 WLT SPRING 2019 good, many indifferent, and the majority dreadful—this one stands out as one of the most sympathetic explorations of an EastWest marriage, primarily from the foreign woman’s point of view. It is also an excellent portrayal of the complexity of being a “typical” Hong Kong Chinese man who is westernized but not. Plus, it beautifully details Cantonese food culture in the wedding banquet. Xi Xi My City: A Hong Kong Story Trans. Eva Hung (1994) Fiction – Novel No book celebrates the city the way My City does. Surreal, fantastical, wry, and deliciously detailed, no writer gets inside Hong Kong’s head and heart quite the way Xi Xi can. Ackbar Abbas Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance (1997) Nonfiction – Cultural Studies Twenty-two years later, this book remains the most prescient and incisive commentary on the cultural and political reality of Hong Kong. Louise Ho New Ends Old Beginnings (1997) Poetry To date, this...

Nightclub as a Liminal Space: Space, Gender, and Identity in Lisa See’s China Dolls

Nightclubs flourished in San Francisco’s Chinatown in the late 1930s when it became a nightlife destination. To Chinese Americans, however, San Francisco nightclubs became a new site at the time for them to re-explore their identities. For some, visiting these nightclubs became a way for them to escape from traditional Chinese values. For others, it became a way to satisfy Western stereotypes of Chinese culture. Lisa See’s China Dolls (2015) describes three young oriental women from various backgrounds that become dancers at the popular Forbidden City nightclub in San Francisco in the late 1930s. Through the three girls’ precarious careers and personal conflicts, Lisa See proposes the San Francisco nightclub as both a site for them to articulate their new identities beyond their restricted spheres and a site for them to perform the expected stereotypical Asian images from Western perspectives. It was, at that time, a struggle for the emergence of modern Chinese women but particularly a paradox for Chinese-American women. The space of the Chinese-American nightclub, which is exotic, erotic, but stereotypical, represents contradictions in the Chinese-American identity. Through studying Lisa See’s novel along with other autobiographies of the Chinese American dancing girls, I argue that San Francisco nightclubs, as represented in Lisa See’s novel, embody the paradox of Chinese American identities as shown in the outfits of Chinese American chorus girls—modest cheongsams outside and sexy, burlesque costumes underneath.

Nu Shu GPS: 25°21’00.5N, 111°27’17.7E—An Interdisciplinary Cooperation between Dance, Calligraphy, and the Body in Multimedia Performance

Nu Shu GPS: 25 °21’00.5N, 111°27’17.7E – an interdisciplinary cooperation between dance, calligraphy, and the body in multimedia performance, began with a diary exchange between the artist and a friend, who shared their thoughts by writing in the same journal. During this ‘diary swapping’ period, they developed a semiotic system that only the two of them could understand. Later, the artist came across Nu Shu, the only written language in the world that exclusively women learned to write and read. The artist attempts to explore all the possible metaphors and meanings implied by Nu Shu. The performance Nu Shu GPS: 25 °21’00.5N, 111°27’17 attempts to bring this secret method of communication back to life among modern Chinese women. This interdisciplinary performance work employs a practical approach to art through a creative collaboration among experts from different fields: choreographers, dancers, lighting designers, programmers, etc. It attempts to apply the three stages of the art creation process (Praxis, Symbol, Presence) as the three different faces for a theory regarding this work.

The Ultimate Female Auteur: Visuality, Subjectivity, and History in the Works of Peng Xiaolian

Peng Xiaolian is a rare and prolific Chinese author who writes both fiction and non-fiction works and directs both dramatic and documentary films. Peng has not only written, cowritten, or rewritten all the screenplays of her eight dramatic features and two documentaries but is also the author of one novel, twelve novellas, over a dozen short stories, four book-length memoirs, three collections of film reviews, and numerous essays. The existing scholarly studies, however, nearly all focus on Peng’s dramatic films, with much less, if any, attention directed at her writing and documentaries. To really understand Peng as a film auteur, however, it is necessary to look at her films and writings together. Given the quantity and complexity of her works and the space limitations of this article, I examine Peng’s subversion of the conventional treatment of character, location, and time in three thematic sections reflecting the key narrative motifs in her work. I first summarize existing studies of Peng’s films, highlighting the rarely examined interaction between visuality and spatiality in her films. Then, after defining her sense of time in narrative, I demonstrate how family history and self-reflexivity are the major difference between her films and her nonfiction works. Last but not least, I discuss how, through her use of multilayered narratives constructed by the female voice and subjectivity, her complete repertoire constitutes a unique history of modern Chinese women. This article aims to demonstrate how, through her use of multilayered narratives constructed by the female voice and subjectivity, her complete repertoire constitutes a unique history of modern Chinese women.

Modern Chinese Woman Writer Dingning(丁寧)'s Life and the Ci Poetry: Focused on Huanxuanci(還軒詞)

Modern Chinese Woman Writer Dingning(丁寧)'s Life and the Ci Poetry: Focused on Huanxuanci(還軒詞)

Ibsen and Peking Women's High Normal University

<p>This article aims at exploring the great influence of Ibsen and especially his play <em>A Doll House</em> on the young Chinese girls studying at Peking Women’s High Normal University established for the first time in China at the beginning of the 20<sup>th</sup> century to educate girls.</p><p>In its short history, the girls at the university were exposed widely to the progressive ideas and literature from the West. Ibsen, the most popular writer at that time, inspired the girls tremendously whose performance of <em>A Doll House </em>aroused a heated debate among the well-known scholars on such important issues as women’s rights, women’s liberation, new culture, art and literature.</p><p>Consequently there appeared at the university first group of modern Chinese women writers who picked up their pens and wrote about themselves and about women in China, describing themselves as “Chinese Noras”.</p>

Queering the New Woman: Ideals of Modern Femininity in The Ladies’ Journal, 1915–1931

This case study of Republican China’s most widely read women’s periodical, The Ladies’ Journal (Funü zazhi), argues that the New Woman remained a highly contested ideal throughout the journal’s publication from 1915 to 1931. Editors and contributors endorsed competing models of modern femininity that shifted over time, shaped by volatile political conditions and social trends. With a focus on sexual morality, this article subjects normative visions of the modern Chinese woman, as depicted in The Ladies’ Journal, to a queer reading. By exploring the tension between widely circulated heteronormative discourses and their inherent slippages that revealed and fostered subversion, this article demonstrates that, rather than advocating for a clearly defined and radically new icon of sexual liberation, The Ladies’ Journal presented a vision of the New Woman that was capricious, contested, and in some ways conservative.