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A Study on the Desire Representation of Chinese Women Born during the 80’s Economic Reform – Focusing on Their Attitude towards “Urban and Rural Areas” and the Pressure of “Age-Gender System”

  • JOURNAL OF CHINESE STUDIES
  • 2020, (68), pp.217-254
  • DOI : 10.26585/chlab.2020..68.009
  • Publisher : CHINESE STUDIES INSTITUTE
  • Research Area : Humanities > Chinese Language and Literature
  • Received : April 30, 2020
  • Accepted : June 9, 2020
  • Published : June 30, 2020

KIM MIRAN 1

1성공회대학교대학원

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Women in Beijing(北京女子图鉴), aired in 2018, is a meaningful drama that shows women’s awareness of “marriage” and “social success” with high viewer ratings. The drama, which depicts the desire and dilemma of Chinese women in their 30s born in the 1980s when marketization reform began, reveals the common difficulties that young women in Korea and Japan also encounter. Nevertheless, there are distinct differences between the Japanese original Tokyo Girl(东京女子图鉴, 2016) and its Chinese version Women in Beijing in terms of the main character’s final choice and the representation method. This paper compares these two works to understand the characteristics of Chinese society, examining how the younger generation that formed an elite group after the economic reform see life and marriage. The analysis subjects of the paper are the main character’s attitude towards “urban and rural areas”, that is her perception of “place”, and the pressure of “age-gender system” on women represented by “marriageable age”. The analysis shows that the main character’s absolute belief in “developmentalism”, a typical example of the non-urban ‘floating population(漂族)’, blocked her from taking a critical view of the gender-discriminatory reality of “marriageable age”. The blind faith in developmentalism, the All-China Women’s Federation(中华全国妇女联合会), the media and capital have contributed significantly to the recognition of marriage as a tool for success. The fundamental cause of this phenomenon in Chinese society is that the “value of life” debate(对人生价值讨论, 潘晓讨论) in the early 1980s was not fully evolved until the developmentalism rapidly replaced it.

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This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.
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