Chinese Discourses on Happiness

245 Pages·2019·7.082 MB·English

by  Gerda Wielander, Derek Hird

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“This distinctive volume creates sustained Happiness is on China’s agenda. From Xi
dialogues around a substantive debate. Jinping’s “Chinese Dream” to online chat
Rejecting the conventional contrasts between forums, the conspicuous references to happiness
China and the West, and yet deeply immersed are hard to miss. This groundbreaking volume
in sinophone media, the authors understand analyzes how different social groups make use
Chinese discourse on happiness as multiple of the concept and shows how closely official
but interconnected conversations within a discourses on happiness are intertwined with
globally shared production of knowledge. popular sentiments. The Chinese Communist
Equally concerned with text and image, Party’s attempts to define happiness and well-
they exhibit an ethnographic eye as sharp being around family-focused Han Chinese
as any orthodox ethnography.” cultural traditions clearly strike a chord with the
—Deborah Davis, Yale University wider population. The collection highlights the
links connecting the ideologies promoted by the
“Wielander and Hird have put together government and the way they inform, and are
a superbly researched and thoughtfully written in turn informed by, various deliberations and
set of essays on the multiple ways in which feelings circulating in the society.
that most elusive of all states—happiness—is
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understood and pursued in contemporary Contributors analyze the government’s 5m
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China. A volume that should become “happiness maximization strategies,” including
required reading for all interested in public service advertising campaigns, Confucian
Chinese society today.” and Daoist-inflected discourses adapted for the
—Julia C. Strauss, SOAS, University self-help market, and the promotion of positive
of London psychology as well as “happy housewives.” They
also discuss forces countering the hegemonic
discourse: different forms of happiness in the
Gerda Wielander is a professor of
LGBTQ community, teachings of Tibetan
Chinese studies at the University of
Buddhism that subvert the material culture
Westminster. Her research focuses on
propagated by the government, and the cynical
the link between the spiritual and the
messages in online novels that expose the
political in contemporary China.
fictitious nature of propaganda. Collectively, the
Derek Hird is a senior lecturer in Chinese authors bring out contemporary Chinese voices
studies at Lancaster University, UK. His engaging with different philosophies, practices,
research interests include gender and and idealistic imaginings on what it means to be
masculinities and mental health needs happy.
of Chinese migrants in London.
Happiness Studies / Cultural Studies / China
Front cover image: Detail from a propaganda poster displayed on
hoardings in Beijing’s CBD in April 2017. © Gerda Wielander
Printed and bound in Hong Kong, China
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Chinese Discourses on Happiness

Chinese Discourses on Happiness
Edited by Gerda Wielander and Derek Hird
Hong Kong University Press
The University of Hong Kong
Pokfulam Road
Hong Kong
www.hkupress.hku.hk
© 2018 Hong Kong University Press
ISBN 978-988-8455-72-0 (Hardback)
All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or
any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the
publisher.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed and bound by Hang Tai Printing Co. Ltd., Hong Kong, China
Contents
List of Figures and Tables vii
Acknowledgments viii
Introduction: Chinese Happiness, a Shared Discursive Terrain 1
Gerda Wielander
1. Happiness in Chinese Socialist Discourse: Ah Q and the “Visible Hand” 25
Gerda Wielander
2. Tibet and Happiness in Chinese Media Discourses: Issues and
Contestation 44
Jigme Yeshe Lama
3. Happiness “with a Chinese Taste”: An Interpretive Analysis of CCTV’s
2014 Spring Festival Gala’s Public Service Announcement (PSA)
“Chopsticks” (Kuaizi pian) 64
Giovanna Puppin
4. “As Long as My Daughter Is Happy”: “Familial Happiness” and
Parental Support-Narratives for LGBTQ Children 86
Elisabeth Lund Engebretsen
5. Smile Yourself Happy: Zheng Nengliang and the Discursive
Construction of Happy Subjects 106
Derek Hird
6. “Happy Housewives”: Gender, Class, and Psychological Self-Help
in China 129
Jie Yang
7. Cultivating Capacity for Happiness as a Confucian Project in
Contemporary China: Texts, Embodiment, and Moral Affects 150
Yanhua Zhang
8. Talking of Happiness: How Hope Configures Queer Experience
in China 169
William F. Schroeder
vi Contents
9. Chinese Happiness: A Proverbial Approach to Popular Philosophies
of Life 189
Mieke Matthyssen
10. The Happiness of Unrealizable Dreams: On the Pursuit of Pleasure in
Contemporary Chinese Popular Fiction 208
Heather Inwood
List of Contributors 227
Index 230
Figures and Tables
Figures
Figure 1.1 Zhao Yanian, “Ah Q laughing hysterically” 40
Figure 2.1 Lhasa’s Happiness Sculpture 51
Figure 4.1 Mama Wu: “My son is gay,” screenshot from the Chinese edition
of Elle 87
Figure 4.2 Screenshot from Pink Dads: Father and son 92
Figure 4.3 Screenshot from Mama Rainbow: Mother and lesbian daughter 98
Figure 5.1 “Zheng nengliang every day” (meitian zheng nengliang) 115
Figure 5.2 “Live a bit more gracefully” (huode youyaxie) 117
Figure 5.3 “Optimism is an attitude” (leguan shi yizhong taidu) 118
Figure 5.4 “Hello happy times” (meihao de shiguang nihao) 119
Figure 5.5 “Offer compassion; transmit zheng nengliang” (fengxian aixin;
chuandi zheng nengliang) 121
Figure 9.1 Chi kui shi fu 吃虧是福 and nande hutu 難得糊塗 191
Tables
Table 3.1 Titles and synopses of CCTV gala PSAs, 2013–2016 69
Table 3.2 Main sequences of the gala PSA “Chopsticks,” 2014 72
Acknowledgments
This book started with a simple conversation between colleagues. Gerda Wielander
told Derek Hird about her interest in happiness; Derek Hird told Gerda Wielander
about his interest in developing a multidisciplinary project. The two things were put
together, the idea germinated, articulated, and turned into a call for contributors to
an initial, closed workshop on happiness, which took place in November 2014 at the
University of Westminster. In addition to the editors, Heather Inwood, Giovanna
Puppin, and Jigme Yeshe Lama, who joined us all the way from New Delhi, were
among the participants in this initial event. The idea of an edited volume started to
grow from there. The editors made a targeted approach to academics who they felt
might be a good fit for the volume in terms of their interests and disciplines. The
authors who contributed to this volume were as enthused as we were about the idea
and chose to engage with us, in most cases despite considerable pressures on their
time. We want to thank all of them for believing in the project, sticking with it, and
for entrusting us with their excellent research; we feel honored that they chose to
work with us. In the process new friendships were forged, despite less than rigorous
application of the em dash in some cases, ultimately resulting in vastly increased
happiness levels all around.
Strategic Impact Funding from the University of Westminster enabled us to
organize a two-day event at Westminster in July 2016, which brought together
seven of the final contributors in London, and added an additional one who had
signed up to the event as a participant. The event did not take the form of a tra-
ditional conference, but simultaneously engaged with academic and nonacademic
audiences from the Chinese community in London. It was facilitated by True
Heart Theatre, which specializes in playback theater. Films and photographs of the
event can be found at https://www.westminster.ac.uk/contemporary-china-centre/
projects/chinese-happiness. The event was an eye-opener to all of us. We are grate-
ful to all of our participants, in particular to those outside the academic community,
and to True Heart, who managed to take us all out of our rehearsed patterns to try
to find a new language to communicate our research.
We want to thank our editor at Hong Kong University Press, who recognized
the importance and timeliness of “happiness” in the context of contemporary China
Acknowledgments ix
and was willing to put faith in us. We thank Eric Mok for his expert advice and
unfailing encouragement in bringing this edited volume to fruition. We are also
grateful to the two anonymous readers of the complete manuscript for their hugely
positive and encouraging feedback and for unequivocally recommending the pub-
lication of this volume. Their comments also led to a comprehensive rewrite of the
introduction, which has vastly improved this important part of the volume. Of
course, all errors or omissions remain the responsibility of the author.
Many factors contribute to the success of a creative and intellectual project. In
addition to excellent authors and a supportive editor at the chosen press, there are
also a host of intangibles and inexpressibles; this is an acknowledgment of all these
factors that came together in a cosmically fortuitous constellation.
Finally, Derek Hird wishes to thank Gerda Wielander for leading this project
with consummate efficiency and good humor all the way from the conception to the
completion of this volume, and for stoically bearing the brunt of the editing work.
Gerda Wielander wishes to thank Derek Hird for his unfailing creative and intel-
lectual input, and for his robust Scottish constitution, a vital ingredient in making
the collaboration with his “efficient” coeditor such a happy one.