Little Emperors and Material Girls

Sex and Youth in Modern China

Jemimah Steinfeld

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781780769844
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780857736628
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Regional Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

China is the world's fastest-growing economic powerhouse. But behind the headlines a once-in-a-generation sexual and cultural revolution is taking place - all in the bars, cafes and streets of China's growing mega-cities. Welcome to this new China.

Writer and journalist Jemimah Steinfeld meets the young people behind the world's fastest-moving nation to unveil their attitudes towards love, life and sexuality. Young Chinese have new words to describe the world they live in: 'little emperors' - single men who have grown up under the one child policy - they're bossy and selfish; 'bare branches' - those without children; 'leftovers' - women over twenty-six who aren't married; 'comrade' - how the gay community identifies itself; 'love markets' - weekend gatherings across China where parents attempt to find husbands and wives for their children, and others show up to match-make young singles and even offer boyfriends for hire. Jemimah Steinfeld introduces the people at the heart of this world, from the woman starting China's first online dating agency to the mistresses of the rich and powerful; from the company trying to sell sex toys to China's middle-classes to the sino-punks of Beijing's bar scene.

Little Emperors and Material Girls is the book which will change the way you see China.

China is the world’s fastest-growing economic powerhouse; everybody knows this. But behind the headlines a once-in-a-generation cultural and sexual revolution is taking place – all in the bars, cafés and streets of China’s growing mega-cities.

Welcome to this new China. Writer and journalist Jemimah Steinfeld meets the young people behind the world’s fastest-moving nation to unveil their attitudes towards love, life and sexuality.

Little Emperors and Material Girls introduces the people at the heart of this world, from the man training students in the arts of love to the women who work the red-light districts; from the company trying to sell sex toys to China’s middle classes to the Sino-punks of Beijing’s bar scene. Prepare to see China in a whole new light...

‘This is a radical, enlivening cherry-bomb of a book. It brings something completely new to the current glut of publications about contemporary China. Steinfeld has spoken to hundreds of young, ambitious, hungry, confused, rebellious Chinese girls and boys, breaking taboos, getting personal and political. In doing so she reflects China as it really is, from the inside out, free of foreigners’ speculation and rooted in the dynamic and contradictory social, economic and personal forces which are driving the hungriest and most rapidly transforming society in the world. This is a must-read for everyone from Sinophiles to sexophiles.’

Bidisha, journalist and broadcaster

‘Jemimah Steinfeld’s fresh and original book is outstanding. It shows us the hidden corners of Chinese society, where today’s young Chinese are fighting for independence – torn between tradition and a fast-changing society, and confused by what they should want and who they should be.’

Xinran, author of The Good Women of China

‘China’s new generation will shape the global future. With insight and empathy, Jemimah Steinfeld portrays a generation caught between worlds, but striving to make their own.’

James Palmer, journalist at the Global Times and author of The Death of Mao

LITTLE EMPERORS

and

MATERIAL GIRLS

Sex and Youth in Modern China

Jemimah Steinfeld

Published in 2015 by

I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd

London • New York

www.ibtauris.com

Copyright © 2015 Jemimah Steinfeld

The right of Jemimah Steinfeld to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

References to websites were correct at the time of writing.

ISBN: 978 1 78076 984 4

eISBN: 978 0 85773 662 8

A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress

Typeset in Palatino by JCS Publishing Services Ltd, www.jcs-publishing.co.uk

For the women of China,

who continue to triumph despite the obstacles.

May you soon hold up half the sky.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction: The Chinese Dream

Love and Dating

1 Leftover in Beijing

2 Reality Bytes: The Emergence of the Internet in China

3 Diamond Love: China’s Rich Kids and who they Date

4 Red Wedding: Capitalism Meets Communism in Chinese Marriage

5 The Other Woman: Mistress Culture

Sex and Sexuality

6 Let’s Talk about Sex

7 Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll

8 Half out of the Closet: Being Gay in Twenty-First-Century China

9 China’s Pussy Riot

China’s Now Generation

10 Leaning In: Women and China’s New Power

11 Model Comrades: Youth, the Party and the Country

12 In Love with God: China’s New Young Christians

Epilogue: London

Further Reading

Acknowledgements

I would first like to thank everyone I interviewed and all those who make up the voices in this book. They were all incredibly kind in giving me their time and attention and, in most cases, opening up to a complete stranger. Without them Little Emperors and Material Girls would not exist.

In the same vein I would like to thank the team at I.B.Tauris and specifically my editor, Tomasz Hoskins. He saw a book in me before I did and his continued enthusiasm and support have been invaluable.

Special thanks go to my friend, teacher and translator Jean. Her kindness and patience knows no bounds.

Then there is my family. They’ve all encouraged me in their own way, both in writing the book and in exploring my continued fascination with China. My mother has been especially generous with her time and her editorial judgement.

Finally, there are my friends from inside and outside China. They’ve listened and given advice in equal measure. Particular mentions go to my housemate Laura, who allowed me to turn our living room into a writing enclave, and my partner, Simon, who helped me in the later stages.

Introduction

The Chinese Dream

The world is yours, as well as ours, but in the last analysis, it is yours. You young people, full of vigour and vitality, are in the bloom of life, like the sun at eight or nine in the morning. Our hope is placed on you. […] The world belongs to you. China’s future belongs to you.

Chairman Mao (1957)

During the summer of 2013, millions of people throughout China filed into their local cinemas to watch Chinese chick flick Tiny Times. It was planned perfectly to coincide with school and university holidays and the crowd was predominantly young, lively and female. Hailed as China’s version of Gossip Girl and Sex and the City, Tiny Times had taken the nation by storm. Immediately after its release, it set a new box-office record and quickly knocked aside American blockbuster Man of Steel. It became the most talked-about film of the summer, turning it into a cultural – and multimillion-dollar – phenomenon.

Based on a trio of popular young adult novels by Guo Jingming, a 30-year-old celebrity author, Tiny Times narrates the fortunes of four fashion-conscious Shanghai graduates and their struggle for success, love and friendship. The movie revolves around Lin Xiao, who lands her dream job as a personal assistant at ME, a luxury fashion magazine. The publication’s title is no coincidence: the film is really a story about China’s ‘me’ generation. These are the 1980s kids, the only children born after China’s reform and opening up, who care less about politics and collectivism and more about individualism and conspicuous consumption.

Throughout the film, the characters trot around Shanghai in Christian Louboutins, drinking champagne like water. Outfit changes are frequent. No character appears wearing the same clothes twice, which, according to the production designer, resulted in more than 3,000 costumes. It’s opulence on acid. ‘Love without materialism is just a pile of sand,’ proclaims one of the girls in the film as she admonishes her wealthy yet anti-consumerist onscreen boyfriend. In this world of commodities, a man is the ultimate accessory. The men in the film, as airbrushed as the women, are coveted and spoiled throughout. Their characters are reduced to little emperors, adored by the equally reductive material girls.

Does Tiny Times symbolise the Chinese dream?

Chinese commentators were divided. Critics of the film wrote about how the display of riches was gratuitous and the plots vacuous, in what quickly turned into a war of words over the morality of a new generation of young people. One esteemed film critic, Raymond Zhou, wrote that the film exhibited signs of ‘pathological greed’. Another lamented the ‘sick’ parody of beauty and wealth. Were the youth of China becoming too materialistic?

In a related criticism, commentators wrote that if this was the Chinese dream, many would be disappointed. Most of the viewers were teenage girls hailing from one of China’s second- or third-tier cities. Watching a film about China’s super-rich was setting them up for consumerist expectations that could not be fulfilled. Their comments indicated that the gap between fiction and reality was not so entrenched in China as in the West, where we are used to films often exhibiting impossible lifestyles. For a Chinese teenager, whose parents could still remember collectivisation, and whose cinema historically conveyed messages from the Communist Party, the situation was different. This, then, was the heart of the issue. The China of the twenty-first century was nothing like the China of the twentieth – a fundamental difference between them and us. While the West continues to change, it does so at a slower pace. It’s a gentle gradient rather than a steep slope and therefore the schism between old and young is much less pronounced. Chinese commentators, an older bunch, were grappling with the direction China was taking and Tiny Times was a packaged version of their fears.

There was, in fact, some surprise that Tiny Times had been allowed to air at all. It was the first summer of the new Chinese politburo, with Xi Jinping as head of state. As the economy slowed for the first time in 14 years and the population grumbled about one too many corruption scandals, the Chinese government was on a campaign to promote austerity. It was not beyond the government to censor films that did not fit into their narrative, and Tiny Times was definitely walking a thin line. Eyebrows were raised about exactly where the central characters in the film got their money from. Those in intellectual circles were particularly fast to pick up on this.

But to China’s youth, the popular appeal of Tiny Times was clear. It was a film about friendship, something which took on great meaning in a country where many of the under-thirties have no siblings. And it was about youth and hope. The rags-to-riches tale was seductive. This was buttressed by the film’s writer and director, whose own story was proof that it wasn’t all fantasy. Guo Jingming was born into a modest background in a small city in Sichuan Province in 1983. While at high school, he won first prize in a national writing competition for two consecutive years, which marked the beginning of his ascent towards fame. He then moved to Shanghai to study film, art and technology at university, a move he made on his own and with no help from his parents. He achieved overnight success when his book, City of Fantasy (2003), sold over 1.5 million copies and came second on the bestselling list in the first year of publication. Since then his star has continued to rise. He now runs a publishing empire, is one of the richest writers in China and is a regular fixture of the fashion circuit.

‘For young readers, I am like a spokesman close to their age and experience, and so they connect with my work,’ Guo once remarked. ‘I used to be an ordinary student and my life resembles theirs in my writings: I studied, I was confused by the university entrance exam and I sometimes dated. Now I have become a tough person, so they aspire to who I am, which is also what they aspire towards in the world.’

Chen Shi-Zheng, an opera and film director, called Guo Jingming ‘a b...

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