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To what extent can it be claimed that the governmental and intellectual elite of the Qing dictated the parameters of ‘popular culture’?: Chapter Five

V: Conclusions

In conclusion this study has provided a survey of different interpretations as to how one should view popular culture within Qing China. The specific case studies contained within sections II through IV establish the degree to which popular culture, the impetus driving mechanisms of belief and interaction, was not confined to dogmatic parameters defined by the elite, ruling class but replete in relationships centered upon the ability of the peasant to exercise personal desire. However, each study, albeit not in every instance directly, alludes to the significance of tradition in dictating belief systems and modes of interaction, underlining mechanisms regardless of social standing to allow for there to be a degree of continuity and self-propagation of a national image and agenda. The role sexuality occupied within society specifically brings to attention certain themes such as the interaction between State orthodoxy, elite and common practice and ‘tradition’. In exploring homosexuality as functional one is reminded that Qing China was a society of particular social relations, with interaction, to an extent, dictated in terms of class, age and sex, patterns of which can easily be traced in Chinese history. Furthermore, in exploring homosexuality as a method of attack for political elites and an expression of personal choice there still existed a sense of proper social etiquette, with people knowing and accepting a particular position in a social hierarchy. This point coincides with the conclusion that same-sex relations draw particular attention to the role of tradition, not only in terms of respecting hierarchies within society as a whole but also on a much more personal level: the family.

Modern historiography leans towards considering new areas of possible research, areas otherwise mistreated, underestimated or all together not considered. To this effect rose movements such as subaltern history, history of mentalities and other specific schools of historical consideration. Within Chinese peasant studies, a field with limited primary source material of personal perspective; it becomes even harder to consider peasants on their own terms. However, modern attitudes tend to deny that the agents the historian considers is devoid of any sort of rationality in their actions, therefore to truly understand ‘culture’ one need to approach the material and resources available from different angles. Evans-Pritchard, for example in his study of the Azande^[1], pioneered a unique social approach to understanding and explaining witchcraft as a part of a community’s culture. Specifically Evan-Pritchard considered the field of study ‘sociology of perception’; a mean of trying to ascertain models of social relations and world views based on primary evidence and real patterns of behaviour^[2]. To truly understand peasant culture in China, therefore, one needs to go beyond economic or mathematical models. Likewise, trying to establish models and patterns are sometimes unattainable; to understand systems of belief, values and social norms a variety of different considerations and approaches need to be debated and applied.

As thus, through considering different approaches in understanding Chinese popular culture this essay has highlighted the necessity of contemplating that culture within China was a product of negotiation between personal want, the effect of political methods of control and traditions embedded within social organization. This model, for want of a better word, is not specific to a region or specific social group but can be used to ascertain a social understanding. This provides an understanding of how culture was constructed, however, and only as a by-product furnishes an insight into how culture actually existed, for example prevailing attitudes extant within family politics and economic systems. However, in order to fully elaborate on this point a separate survey of the history of culture in China would be necessary, considering historical method and its relation, most specifically perhaps, to anthropology and sociology. As thus, the conclusion given can only exist on the basis that more information on cultural studies in China needs to be applied to strengthen its claims.

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^[1] E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande, Oxford University Press, 1951

^[2] Mary Douglas, Introduction: Thirty Years after Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic, in Mary Douglas (ed.), Witchcraft Confessions and Accusations, Tavistock Publications Limited, 1970, p. xvi

To what extent can it be claimed that the governmental and intellectual elite of the Qing dictated the parameters of ‘popular culture’?: Chapter Four

IV: The question of ‘creativity’

In the first instance one can claim homosexuality simply reiterated orthodox practices, being something functional. Same-sex relationships usually existed between men of different social standing, with social standing denoting sexual role. This allowed a real and physical enforcement of hierarchical structures. As thus, homosexuality shows a mechanistic society, with relationships predetermined by traditional dichromaticism. Ng claims that the Qing court used homosexuality as part of an ideological campaign to increase political control, demonstrating elite methods of control. However, Volpp contends that evidence to suggest increased same-sex action and tolerance, such as a vogue in explicit literature, were actually manifestations of interests held by the educated classes and therefore did not represent popular systems of belief and interaction. Alternatively, it could be argued that homosexual relations demonstrate both rationality and the significance of traditional social organization within Chinese society. Sommer reiterates such a position through demonstrating both an active drive towards moral conservatism and repeated offences against it. Peasants, general society, were capable of volition; expressing ones own thoughts and desires while still existing within the state machine. Although tied to the bonds of tradition, something that existed transhistorically and permeated both state practice and the heart of general society, there still existed room for free expression

Through using homosexuality as a method of enquiry it is hoped that insights will be gleamed into both elite and peasant societies, providing a more accurate and impartial model of a general ‘Chinese society’. Same-sex intercourse occurred in China from very ancient times^[1], and refers exclusively, at least for this study, to relationships between men^[2]. By the Ming period male-male intercourse was nothing shocking or out of the ordinary: if anything, ‘homosexuality’ existed as a component of a traditional, romanticised past^[3], with homosexual relations transcending class divisions. As thus homosexuality, as an area of study, provides a unique insight into the physical, emotional and social relationships that occurred between members of different social classes. In this way, the historian is able to ascertain a more comprehensive and imbalanced picture of Chinese society. The actions and roles assumed by the individual within same-sex relationships illuminate not only a class identity, for example through reiterating traditional social relationships of dominance and submission, but also provides a tool to measure subject rationality, the extent to which choices were predetermined, within a highly bureaucratic system. Ultimately, homosexuality demonstrates more than just rigid social hierarchies expressed through relationships of dominance and submission, but the existence of sexual subjectivity. This, in turn, generates new models for understanding cultural and social practices both between and within different social groups. Furthermore, homosexuality draws attention to the difference between the roles of ‘tradition’, ‘conservatism’ and ‘orthodoxy’, and the resulting impact on popular and state action.

Firstly, male to male relationships could be considered to serve a function within Chinese society, as they provided a practical demonstration and physical reiteration of the distinctions between classes and, as thus, helped maintain a society defined by roles through ensuring proper values and behaviour.

The elite male embodied dominance, masculinity and power, taking the active sexual role, whilst the lower class male existed in opposition. “Age and status hierarchies tend to parallel the hierarchy of roles in anal intercourse^[4]” with performing specific sexual acts and the giving of gifts and favours further reinforcing differences of social position in terms of behaviour given and behaviour deserved. In emphasising his superior social position the elite male demands respect and loyalty, while the lower class male is taught obedience and reverence. As thus, homosexuality aids the cultivation of correct values through exemplifying how behaviour is determined not by want or desire but necessity and expectation. The lower class male becomes more able to observe correct etiquette in relationships, such as father and son, and applies character traits cultivated to specific social role and in doing so adds to a shared community ethic of livelihood and consistency. In practicing proper relationships a strong vertical hierarchy underpinned Chinese society, each subject of the state exhibiting particular behaviour in order to, in turn, receive appropriate behaviour.

This argument is best exemplified in contemporary literature and in the writings of Li Yu (1611-79/80). Erotic fiction of the Ming period often depicted relationships between men of the same class but belonging to different classes. For example The Golden Lotus (Jing Ping Mei) demonstrates how “intercourse between members of different social groups, sexual positions often reinforced social positions.^[5]” In the novel a nobleman, Ximen Qing, grows bored of female intercourse with his wife and concubines so turns to anal intercourse and ignites sexual relations with a young male servant named Suzhou. The two enter into a relationship typical to their distinct social positions, that of dominance and submission, as is shown in Suzhou’s comments of “I will do your bidding in all things^[6]” and in Suzhou gaining certain influence and privilege.

Li Yu wrote both fiction and commentaries. Although eccentric, his “daring, innovative subject matter” had a didactic purpose, representing an unheard voice within his society^[7]. Li Yu attempts to place homosexuality in an overall context, claiming that both heterosexuality and homosexuality were part of nature.: “Men takes his excess and fills woman’s vacancy so that she will not be lacking…It is a tendency arising from nature.^[8]” Likewise, the economic differences between two men inspired men of different social classes to live together: “Due to the fires of lust perhaps some handsome young boys, poor and unable to make a living…These were the extenuating circumstances, as in the present age.^[9]” Through such circumstances arose bonds of dominance and submission, prostitution and patronage, instilling in both the elite and younger male values and a sense of place appropriate to their social standing. Li Yu further links homosexuality to nature and tradition in claiming the existence of the ‘southern custom tree’ (nanfeng shu)^[10]. The tree consists of two trees, one smaller than the other, “representing unequal ages of many men in homosexual relationships^[11]” and intertwine to become one. Hinsch claims that Li Yu borrowed the famed image of intertwined trees from Han dynasty literature and pictorial art, interpreting it “specifically as an icon of homosexuality.^[12]” This imagery asserts not only the ‘naturalness’ of homosexuality but also establishes its roots in traditional Chinese thought and behaviour. As thus, homosexuality is not only representative of social relationships and the cultivation of correct behaviour so that society can function, but also that such interaction and behaviour, and there society as a whole, is dictated by tradition, something Hinsch claims provides “a righteous model for their own sexual practices.^[13]”

Alternatively, one could claim that homosexuality is not a useful tool in understanding Chinese society, but instead merely contributes to the wealth of academic knowledge already held on elite culture. Firstly, Sophie Volpp claims that the discursive explosion of late-sixteenth and seventeenth vernacular fiction regarding ‘male love’ was not because there was a ‘vogue’ for such action but simply and increased interest in “describing, explaining and debating its merits.^[14]” As thus, investing significance in literature as a representation of the social relationships and behaviour in society is flawed. Volpp claims that in examining notation books alongside fictional sources one is shown nothing documentary but a rich rhetoric, revealing “such similarities between them as the adoption of an ethnographic voice.^[15]” Therefore, they are neither documents of practice or indicators of homosexual tolerance. However, in examining anecdotes regarding male love one is shown two of the “most compelling topics for the seventeenth century author,” passion (qing) and the strange (qi)^[16]. Volpp draws attention to the fact that such anecdotes appear in the ‘back of the book’, a location reserved for items concerning the marginalized and fantastical stories of prostitutes and monsters, demons and animals^[17]. Literature served an entertainment purpose for the educated, as thus, it is hard to attach any greater significance to them. Volpp draws attention, inadvertently, to the problem of understanding a wider ‘Chinese identity’ beyond elite interests and action as sources are limited, existing mainly relationally or inferentially to an official standard.

Secondly, Ng argues that ‘homophobia’ was part of an ideological campaign to “gain the allegiance of the conservative Chinese elite” as it could be seen as a direct “challenge to the requirements of filial piety” because it could produce no sons^[18]. The majority of information concerning homosexuality during this period, excluding literature, comes from the laws against same-sex intercourse, eventually seeing homosexual sex become part of the Qing’s code on ‘illicit sex’ (jian). Prior to the Qing there had been legislation over homosexuality, for example Song sources of a law of the Zhenghe era (1111-1118) punishing “males who act as prostitutes” with 100 blows of heavy bamboo^[19] and also a Ming statue of the Jiajing reign (1522-1567) that reads “whoever shall insert his penis into another man‘s anus for lascivious play shall receive a 100 blows of the heavy bamboo.^[20]” However the effectiveness of this legislation has often been questioned^[21], and it was not until the Qing that homosexual and heterosexual offences were considered equally destructive of a conservative moral standard, for example disallowing procreation and traditional kinship relationships^[22]. Sources concerning homosexuality imply an increased zeal towards Qing consolidation that is reflected in other area of policy, for example foreign policy from the Qing’s establishment was concerned with fortifying boundaries to allow an increased involvement in internal affairs^[23]. The Ming’s failure was attributed to liberalism, with Manchu officials seeing nothing but chaos and disorder^[24] and in ensuring conservatism, hence efforts against homosexuality, the Qing assumed power and success.

As thus, homosexuality during the Qing can be seen largely as part of a strategy to ensure political control, both over elites of the old Chinese state and the general population. Consequently, little is actually gleamed on Chinese society as an institution through examining homosexuality, the interaction between elite and subject being shown as the product of official mandate and stipulation, ultimately representing ‘common’ society as nothing more than a product of official jurisdiction.

In reply, both of the points raised by Volpp and Ng ignore, what Hinsch calls, the ‘tradition of homosexuality’ within Chinese history. Same-sex intercourse was recorded country wide^[25], with sources demonstrating a knowledge of homosexuality pre-dating the dynasty, thereby making it a useful point of historical analysis. The Ming-Qing era saw an increased level of literacy through a population explosion, refinement in printing technology and increased liberal attitude in sharing the benefits of the written word^[26]. This meant that any scholar, merchant, bureaucrat or student with access to even a basic library could read of ancient rulers and their favourites in dynastic histories amongst other such accounts. This gave the men of Ming and Qing a “righteous model for their own sexual practices” as the “Chinese have always shown reverence for the models of antiquity…gave later imperial homosexuality an interesting air of self-awareness and tradition.^[27]” Homosexuality was not simply a product of interest and utility for methods of state control, but expressed relationships that had occurred in a similar way, between men of different social standings, throughout time. The study of homosexuality, therefore, provides an insight into cross-class relations; the extent to which people were self-aware or behaviour was purely functional to ensure livelihood and the relationship between state mandated orthodoxy and actual practice.

So far debate over what homosexuality can tell us about Chinese society has completely denied any sort of predisposition to same-sex intercourse, as Volpp states “historians of Chinese sexuality have argued that there was no conception in pre-modern China of a type predisposed to engage in affairs with other men.^[28]” However, as David Halperin claims, this is based on a misreading of Foucault’s distinction between ‘sodomy’ and ‘the homosexual’ as the units of social control of same-sex desire:

“As defined by the ancient civil or canonical codes, sodomy was a category of forbidden acts…perpetrator was nothing more than the juridical subject of them…The nineteenth century homosexual become a personage, a past, a case history…^[29]”

Foucault was not making two types of conceptualizations of the sexual object, but “making a distinction between two types of control of the sexual subject.^[30]” Prior to the nineteenth the sexual subject was regulated by ecclesiastical and juridical codes, and then after, by psychiatric investigation of the homosexual as a personage^[31]. As thus, one needs to consider that same-sex intercourse is an expression of personal volition, thereby indicating rationality within Chinese society and that systems of values and beliefs were self-motivated and not implemented through hierarchical methods of control.

Sommer’s study, ‘The Penetrated Male in Late Imperial China: Judicial Constructions and Social Stigma’, looks at the roles of ‘penetrant’ and ‘penetrated’ in Qing society and at the development of legislation that ultimately outlawed same-sex intercourse. The study illustrates the importance Qing elites placed on social hierarchies and moral behaviour; fixing boundaries for those of common status and ensuring correct codes of social practice^[32] and also draws attention to the very real existence of same sex wants, lust and desires, above and beyond state orthodoxy, as judicial reports show an enactment of personal wants over State prescribed moral and social conduct. Therefore sources depicting explicit homosexual activity express rebellion, showing that the relationships between state and subject was not purely state dominance and subject submission.

The Fujian region in South West China provides a rich research area into same-sex interaction. When an official would retire it was customary for “several hundred handsome youths” to come to party, where favours “would be continuous” and the young men would be recommended for important posts by the older men they pursued^[33]. Within Fujian also existed same-sex marriage, where two men took part in a ceremony similar to that of heterosexual marriage, with the elder male of higher status became the ‘adoptive older brother’ (qixiong) and the younger the ‘adoptive younger brother’ (qidi). Upon marriage the two men existed similarly to those in traditional same sex marriage, with financial security coming from the qixiong and the qidi moving into the elders household, being treated like a son-in-law^[34]. However, ultimately such structures had to dissolve as the men would have to embark upon heterosexual relationships. Yet, judicial and literary sources often “marvelled at the heights of devotion reached by these couples^[35]” and often their existing tales of death and mutilation in order for men of the same sex to remain together. Elite choice for homosexuality too “seems to have been motivated by personal enthusiasm.^[36]” Levy examines traditional essayists who wrote about the various cities gay quarters, for example Ch’ang-an, Nanking and Suchow and that the elite had a personal agenda for their actions, often to recapture “events gone by” and the “inevitable passing of youth and beauty.^[37]”

Ultimately, however, homosexual love had to be sacrificed for family, procreation and the following of other such Confucian values. However, continued expressions of homosexuality actively broke tradition, something that was so significant both for a renewed Qing conservatism and for general patterns of social behaviour, as thus demonstrating conflict between personal want and other forces present in society. This exemplifies the complicated position of sexual subjectivity within the context of embedded traditional values of kinship, filial piety and procreation. This illustrates that ‘common’ level organization is more complex than simply mirroring relationships of dominance and submission, meaning there are various dimensions that need to be considered in order to understand Chinese society: firstly, personal want, secondly, traditional foundations embedded within society and thirdly, State mandated organization and action.

Regardless of want or function, the majority of same-sex relationships existed in conjunction with heterosexuals practice: the taking of a wife, the raising of a family and all that this implies. Although scholars such as Hinsch have claimed a bisexual attitude prevalent in Chinese society^[38], it seems perhaps more logical to claim that such behaviour exemplifies a sense of tradition, Confucian or otherwise, amongst the Chinese people who had existed within a certain pattern that had not been challenged or changed for countless years. Furthermore, a point that has not been touched upon in this analysis for reasons of time, space or emphasis, ‘tradition’ within families and local-level social interaction is also connected to religious and spiritual beliefs; members of a family lived on in memory and spirit after death. Paying proper respects implied ensuring continuity, not only for the sake of ritual but to safeguard fortuity and luck within a family’s practices.

Besides the role of tradition within society other points of analysis have been raised through examining homosexuality. Firstly, one is shown that the Qing polity became increasingly concerned with moral behaviour, ensuring an equilibrium and prosperity over not only affairs of state but also over the people themselves. This hints at what the Qing thought to be the secret of state success: not an uncontrolled liberalism but a regulated State-subject relationship, backed by legitimacy in to form of tradition and jurisdiction. However, as also shown in section II, there existed a degree of dichotomy between efforts of increased standardization and actual mechanisms of belief and social organization. Secondly and also linked to the prior point, homosexuality highlights a certain degree of rationality amongst both the elite and common population. Examples of couples actively going against State jurisdiction and traditional social behaviour, also popular interest and examples of equating homosexuality with morally lax repercussions, signifies a certain degree of personal volition. As thus, considering homosexuality allows the historian, anthropologist and many others to examine Chinese society, especially the peasant communities, in a different light. In granting rationality one is presented with new models for understanding cultural and social practices both between and within different social groups.

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^[1] Hinsch claims that earliest indicators of homosexual behaviour comes from the upper classes during the Zhou dynasty (1122-256 BCE) For example, the Legalist Han Fei’s ‘Han Fei Zi’ provides an account of favouritism in the court of Duke Ling of Wei, (534-492 BCE), where an infatuated Ling would do anything for his favourite Mizi Xia (see: Hinsch, Passions of the Cut Sleeve, pp.20-1)

^[2] “Chinese literature was almost always written by men for men, very little documentation survives on lesbian life” - Bret Hinsch, Passions of the Cut Sleeve: the male homosexual tradition in China, University of California Press, 1992, p.7

^[3] Hinsch, Passions of the Cut Sleeve: the male homosexual tradition in China, p.118

^[4] Matthew H. Sommer, ‘The Penetrated Male in Late Imperial China: Judicial Constructions and Social Stigma’, Modern China, Vol. 23, No. 2, 1997, p. 141 (hereafter article referred to as ‘The Penetrated Male’)

^[5] Hinsch, Passions of the Cut Sleeve: the male homosexual tradition in China, p. 134

^[6] Clement Egerton, The Golden Lotus, Heian Intl Pub Co, 1979, p. 97

^[7] Hinsch, Passions of the Cut Sleeve: the male homosexual tradition in China, p. 121

^[8] Li Yu, Li Yu quanji, pp. 5383-5384

^[9] ibid., p. 5384

^[10] ibid., p. 5385

^[11] Hinsch, Passions of the Cut Sleeve: the male homosexual tradition in China, p. 126

^[12] ibid., p.126

^[13] ibid., p. 120

^[14] Sophie Volpp, ‘Classifying Lust: The Seventeenth-Century Vogue for Male Love’, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 61, No. 1, 2001, p. 80

^[15] ibid., p. 80

^[16] ibid., p. 84

^[17] See Yanyibian, compilation attributed to Wang Shizhen (Yangzhou: Guangling guji yeyinshe, 1998)

^[18] Vivian Ng, ‘Homosexuality and the State in late Imperial China’ in Martin Duberman et al. (eds.) Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past, New York, 1989, pp.88-89

^[19] Yunsheng Xue, Du li cun yi (Lingering doubts after reading the substatutes), ed. and punctuated by Huang Jingjia, 5 vols, Taibei: Chinese Materials and Research Aids Service Centre, 1970, pp. 375: 03

^[20] ibid., pp. 285: 33

^[21] See Sommer, ‘The Penetrated Male’ for a historical overview of homosexual legislation and Hinsch, Passions of the Cut Sleeve: the male homosexual tradition in China, pp.115-118 for claims against the effectiveness of the Qing legislation.

^[22] Sommer, ‘The Penetrated Male’, pp. 148-150

^[23] W. I. Cohen, East Asia at the Center: Four Thousand Years of Engagement with the World, Columbia University Press, 2001, pp. 216-227 An example of strengthening borders to allow greater internal condition is shown in Youngzheng’s reconfiguration of the bureaucracy and establishing a small national security council which reported only to him. Qianlong enlarged this council to then form the ’Grand Coucnil’: the most dominant policy force in government.

^[24] Hinsch, Passions of the Cut Sleeve: the male homosexual tradition in China,

^[25] One late-Ming source contended that homosexuality was not simply more popular in areas such as Fujian and Guangdong but contended that in Zhejiang, Zhili and the northern provinces love between men was also widespread. (Xie Zhaozhe, Wuzu zu (five miscellaneous dishes), Shanghai, 1959, 8:209. Another source also lists streets in Beijing noted for male brothels (Wang Shunu, Zhongguo changji shi, p.323)

^[26] Hinsch, Passions of the Cut Sleeve: the male homosexual tradition in China, p. 119

^[27] ibid., p.120

^[28] Volpp, ‘Classifying Lust: The Seventeenth-Century Vogue for Male Love’, p. 82

^[29] Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: Will to Knowledge, Penguin Books Ltd., 1998, p. 43

^[30] David Halperin, ‘Forgetting Foucault: Acts, Identities, and the History of Sexuality’, Representations, No. 63, 1998, p. 108

^[31] Volpp, ‘Classifying Lust: The Seventeenth-Century Vogue for Male Love’, p. 83

^[32] Sommer, ‘The Penetrated Male’, p. 144

^[33] Wuxia Ameng, ed., Duanxiu pian 9:15B

^[34] Hinsch, Passions of the Cut Sleeve: the male homosexual tradition in China

^[35] ibid., p. 132

^[36] Howard S. Levy, A Feast of Mist and Flowers: The Gay Quarters of Nanking at the End of the Ming, Yokohama, Japan 1966, p.4

^[37] ibid., p. 5

^[38] Hinsch, Passions of the Cut Sleeve: the male homosexual tradition in China, Introduction pp.