Guangchang Wu:

An Ethnographic Study of Dance in Public Spaces

WANG, Qianni

A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Philosophy

in

Anthropology

The Chinese University of Hong Kong

July 2015

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Abstract of thesis entitled:

Guangchang Wu: An Ethnographic Study of Dance in Public Spaces

Submitted by WANG, Qianni

for the degree of Master of Philosophy

at The Chinese University of Hong Kong in July 2015

Abstract

Public square dance (Guangchang Wu 广场舞) is a collective public

dance for exercise and entertainment. It has already attracted 100 million

participants in China, and is popular in both urban and rural areas. Most of the

participants are middle-aged and elderly women. Despite its prevalence, these

women are called big mama (dama 大妈), a stigmatizing term carrying negative

connotations. Based on four months of fieldwork in Lingyang city1 in Henan,

China, this thesis investigates two major themes in guangchang wu—the history

and present conditions that facilitate its development, and the power relationship

behind the stigmatization of guangchang wu. Each theme has been studied with

the same three dimensions in mind: body culture, space culture and friendships

among participants. I argue guangchang wu involves a mixed body culture, as

Confucian womanhood, Maoist “gender erasure” legacy and post-Maoist

“sexualized femininity” are observed, with middle-aged and older groups

showing different patterns of mixture. The spontaneous appropriation of space for

1In order to protect my informants and relevant institutions, they are all kept anonymous throughout the thesis.

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dance empowers these marginalized dama to assert their existence. Outdoor

space is irreplaceable for the participants, which might be attributed to the idea of

qi (flow of air 气) circulation and the internalized Maoist space culture. Paying

special attention to the lifestyle called “geguge” (to each his own 各顾各), this

thesis describes some guangchang wu participants as “the first generation of

lonely mothers” in the history of PRC, a product of social transition. Spiritual

capital has emerged as a significant value amongst participants, often allowing

them to bridge the gap between different social backgrounds with friendship to

create an alternative social relationship. The stigma on guangchang wu mirrors

the increasingly dominant power of the young generation, the intellectuals and

the emerging middle-class. This thesis offers an in-depth understanding of the

impact of the fast social transition on the middle-aged and elderly women, and it

further evaluates the complex interactions between gender, generation, and class

in contemporary China.

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摘 要

广场舞是中老年女性为主的参与者在公共空间以锻炼和娱乐为目的的

集体舞蹈，已渐成一项普遍流行于城市及乡村的夜间公共生活。有数据表明

中国已有 1 亿人参与广场舞。基于在中国河南省凌阳市（化名）的四个月田

野调查，本文探究促成广场舞的历史及现实条件，以及广场舞被污名化背后

的权力关系，并从身体文化、空间文化和参与者的友情等角度回答这些问题。

本研究显示广场舞是儒道传统、毛时代的历史及改革开放影响的混合产物。

广场舞的污名化反映了年轻一代，知识分子以及中产阶层愈发上升的权力。

从身体文化角度，儒家保守的身体文化，毛时代的“去性化”和改革开放后崇

尚的柔美和“性化“女性气质皆在广场舞中有所表现。而中年女性与老年女性

表现出不同倾向及个体差异。从空间文化角度，道家养生中“气”的概念对她

们倾向于在户外活动有所影响，经历过毛时代的女性也内化了一种在公共场

合跳舞的行为。广场舞参与者使用“各顾各”来描述她们生活方式的变迁，作

者认为计划生育政策以及经济解放共同促成了广场舞的主要参与人群，并称

之为 “第一代孤独母亲。” 精神资本在广场舞群体中受到重视，并使得跨越

不同社会背景的友谊成为可能。本文从广场舞的民族志研究切入，探寻中国

社会极速变迁对中年及老年女性的影响，进而审视性别、代际、阶层在当代

中国错综复杂的互动关系。

 

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Table of Contents

 

 Abstract  ..........................................................................................................................  i  

摘要  ...............................................................................................................................  iii  

Table  of  Contents  ......................................................................................................  iv  Acknowledgments  ....................................................................................................  vi  

Chapter  One  Introduction  .......................................................................................  1  Introduction  to  Guangchang  Wu  ...........................................................................  3  Discussion  of  The  Controversies  over  Guangchang  Wu  ......................................  12  Research  Sites  ......................................................................................................  21  Data  and  Methodology  ........................................................................................  27  

Chapter Two  ..............................................................................................................  31  Literature Review and Organization of Thesis  ..................................................  31  Body  Culture  ........................................................................................................  31  Discourse  and  Body  Culture:  Bodies  and  Dances  Shaped  by  Power  Relations  ....  33  Dance,  Creating  Alternative  Social  Relations  .......................................................  40  China’s  Public  Dance  In  Rapid  Social  Transition  ...................................................  42  

Chapter  Three  ..........................................................................................................  50  

Mixed  Body  Culture  in  Guangchang  Wu  ..........................................................  50  Normative  Womanhood  and  Body  Culture  in  Transition  ....................................  52  Maintaining  Distance  from  Men:  From  Jiaoyi  Wu  to  Guangchang  Wu  ...............  54  Differentiating  Dama:  Zhongnian  or  Laonian?  ....................................................  63  Conclusion  ............................................................................................................  71  

 

 

   

   

 

   

 

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 Chapter  Four  .............................................................................................................  73  

Guangchang  Wu  Spaces  ,  Mutually  Constitutive  with  Historical  and  Social  Forces  .............................................................................................................  73  The  Meaning  of  Place  to  Guangchang  Wu  Participants  ......................................  75  Undercurrents  Everywhere:  Guangchang  Wu  Space  as  Site  of  Conflict  ..............  83  What  is  The  Role  of  the  Government?  .................................................................  92  Conclusion  ............................................................................................................  95  

Chapter  Five  ..............................................................................................................  97  

The  First  Generation  of  Lonely  Mothers  .........................................................  97  How  They  Socialize  in  Guangchang  Wu  ...............................................................  97  The  First  Generation  of  Lonely  Mothers  and  “Geguge”  ....................................  103  Inward  Spirit  Transformation,  Proactive  Creation  of  Value  ...............................  109  Friendships  within  the  Community  ....................................................................  112  Conclusion  ..........................................................................................................  117  

Chapter  Six  ..............................................................................................................  119  How  Middle-­‐aged  and  Older  Women  Cope  ...................................................  119  

with  the  Stigma  of  Guangchang  Wu  ................................................................  119  The  Waning  of  Elderly  Patriarchs  .......................................................................  120  Guangchang  Wu  as  a  Product  of  Tradition,  Maoist  Response,  and  Reform  ......  121  

Bibliography  ...........................................................................................................  124  

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Acknowledgments

My foremost gratitude goes to guangchang wu participants in Lingyang City.

They were warm-hearted and full of wisdom. Many of them treated me as their

dearest friend. Most importantly, they always tried to look at the bright side of

life even though many times life has disappointed them. To my own, the

fieldwork had turned out to be not only physical, but spiritual as well, during

which I became more positive and energetic. To each and every one of them, I

again say “thank you.”

I am deeply appreciative of my supervisor Dr. Kuan Teresa. Her advice,

guidance, and encouragement were invaluable in the development of this project.

I have been extremely lucky to have a supervisor who cared so much about my

project, and who responded to each draft, question and query so promptly. She

has invested tremendous time and energy in me even when she was overwhelmed

by her own workload. Her teaching goes beyond the classroom as she models the

life of a humble and peaceable person that I would do well to emulate.

I would like to thank my committee members Dr. Mathews Gordon and Dr.

Cheung Sidney. Their valuable suggestions and support have been indispensible

for the completion of the thesis. I would like to thank Dr. Mathews with whom I

first learned the joy of theory. He taught me to carry a relaxed attitude even when

fulfilling difficult missions. I thank Dr. Cheung for teaching me the importance

of writing. I also especially thank the External Examiner who commented and

made suggestions for additional research that changed my perception of body

culture in guangchang wu.

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I am indebted to all the other teachers in the department of anthropology: Dr.

Chen Ju-chen, Dr. Huang Yu, and Dr. Wang Danning. I have benefited so much

from their courses and informal conversations! I especially thank Dr. Huang Yu

and Dr. Chen Ju-chen, as their courses reshaped my understanding of China. The

transformation is reflected in this thesis. I would also like to thank the department

staff: Kathy Wong, Wah Leung, Grace Tsang, and Florence Lam. They are so

professional and cheerful!

I have benefited greatly from my interactions with friends whom I would

like to thank for their insights, criticisms, and encouragement. Qian Linliang

provided an invaluable critique of the materials for the Introduction. Yin Tao,

also made invaluable suggestions in response to the draft of Chapter Four. I thank

Wang Hongzhe for useful suggestions in the final stages as well. Scattered

conversations with Li Shuofei and Ma Huijuan have been more influential than

they realize. Shen Xirong generously shared with me her writing expertise. Liu

Haiping shared with me her perspective on gender studies.

Yu Xin, Ren Jue, Philipp Demgenski, Edwin Schmitt each expressed

enthusiasm and support when I first approached them and their suggestions led

me to materials without which this thesis would be poorer. I am also grateful to

Jane Shealy, who edited the whole thesis, Ann Chiu, who provided library

research assistance, and my friends on the douban website, who are always ready

to comfort me.

Fellow graduate students who provided critical commentary on this thesis

include Gil Hizi, Tse Hiu Hin, Tsang Nai Wang, Jiang Yan, and Yusupov Ruslan.

Ding Ling provided various forms of support for which I will always be grateful.

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My deepest love goes to my husband, Yan Chao. I must express my

gratitude to him for his continued support and encouragement. I was continually

amazed by his willingness to proofread countless pages, to hear my ideas, and to

revise my footnotes and bibliographies. I thank my father, mother and sister, who

experienced with me all of the ups and downs of my three years in Hong Kong.

Thanks for the freedom they have given me to seek my own road.

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Chapter One Introduction

On May 2014, I revisited my field site, Lingyang. This small city held a

mega- public square dance (guangchang wu 广场舞) contest for the first time,

hosted by the local propaganda department and sponsored by a real-estate

developer. A total of 65 troops, or 1,400 individuals, participated in the contest

according to local news report.

Such contests are not uncommon throughout China. Guangchang wu has

become so popular, with nearly 100 million participants, that both the

government and commercial sectors view it as a great opportunity with which to

advance their aims. The government has promoted guangchang wu for its public

health potential. The commercial sector is exploring guangchang wu training and

healing as a business enterprise. For example, according to Zhao Fengling, one of

my informants, a travel agency approached her team at the guangchang wu

competition and offered to sponsor them. The sponsorship included a discount on

travel, but company representatives believed the women were relatively affluent

and would spend additional money on travel for which they would receive a

commission.

Despite its commercial potential, guangchang wu is often met with an

ambiguous and even dismissive attitude. The stigmatization is seen in media

interpretations of the dance and the motives of practitioners, as well as

commentary from social actors, such as public intellectuals, and the cyber

community. They call these dancing women big mama (dama 大妈). Dama has a

negative connotation; it carries with it the stereotypical image of loud,

middle-aged and older women, slightly overweight, not sexually attractive any

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more, but still wearing provocative clothes. For instance, in a recent hot TV

series Tiger Mom (huma maoba 虎妈猫爸), a character, an older woman who

had a hobby of dancing was named “Pei Dama.” Pei Dama was a disturbing

character who had lost all her female appeal and always gossiped about the

neighbors. Such representation of dama is typical.

Dance guangchang wu at nightfall

At the guangchang wu contest where I did my fieldwork, dama were also

generally disrespected. Audiences laughed at them and made fun of them. Zhao

Fengling told me she heard someone commenting about how fat and old she was.

The committee in charge of the competition also did not take these participants

seriously; no seats were provided for them, and the staff shouted at them

impolitely. Moreover, the committee, obviously worried about the quality of the

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dancing, calling on younger and professional dancers to participate as well. The

day of the competition, all eyes were on these younger dancers, especially a

group of pregnant women who were belly dancing. Media reports also focused on

them. My informant, Deng Lihua, told me begrudgingly, “We are actually the

people they should be paying attention to; we are more positive when conquer

diseases, which is totally worth learning. But they got attention just because they

are pregnant.” As Wang Yuling, organizer of Spirit Dance team told me, “The

most upsetting part was that we expected the government to provide a stage for

us to display ourselves, but in the end, we were making wedding clothes for

someone else (weitaren zuojiayi 为他人做嫁衣).”

The devaluation and rejection from society makes the continuing prevalence

of guangchang wu an interesting topic. To better understand guangchang wu, this

thesis seeks answers for the following questions:

(1) How do the participants themselves experience guangchang wu? How can they put aside the social misrecognition and stigma applied to the activity and its participants, and still enthusiastically participate?

(2) How is guangchang wu related to history and contemporary society?

(3) What is the cultural meaning of the stigmatization towards guangchang wu and its participants?

Introduction to Guangchang Wu

How do we define guangchang wu? What does the dance actually consist of?

What are the forces behind its emergence and popularity?

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Definition of Guangchang Wu

Guangchang wu, in Chinese, 广场舞，literally means “public square dance.”

If you walk on any street or square in China, whether in urban or rural areas, you

can easily get a sense of guangchang wu. It is collective activity accompanied by

recorded music, and mostly danced by middle-aged and senior women in outdoor

spaces at night. Guangchang wu is believed to be a combination of dance (wu 舞)

and gymnastics (cao 操). In China, the mass guangchang wu is supervised by the

General Administration of Sport (Guojia Tiyu Zongju 国家体育总局), as well as

the ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China (Guojia Wenhua Bu 国

家文化部).

Generally four types of dance can be seen in today’s guangchang wu. There

are disco-like movements such as cross steps (jiaochabu 交叉步), social-dance

movements such as three steps (sanbucai 三步踩) and jitterbug,2 yang’ge

movements such as ten crosses (shizi bu 十字步), and Tibetan, Uighur and Dai

folk dances. In addition to these dances, movements from Cha-cha, tango, and

even ballet and yoga are occasionally used by some teams. The horse-riding step

from Gangnam Style was also quite popular for a period of time. When I did my

fieldwork, from time to time, I would see an instructor teaching the circulation of

energy flow (qi 气,)3 to stretch their arms and necks. Circulation of qi is a

Chinese body technique that is mostly used in Qigong. In short, guangchang wu

is a popular and grassroots use of local and global dance styles.

2Jitterbug (in Chinese it is translated as 吉特巴, also called ⽔水兵舞), originated in the United States. According to a local folk dance expert in Lingyang, the dance became popular in big cities in China in the 1980s to 1990s, and then moved into smaller cities such as Lingyang. This is the usual path by which foreign popular culture enters China. 3Qi is the central underlying principle in traditional Chinese medicine and martial arts.

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The lead teach ten crosses (shizi bu 十字步) that originally from yang’ge

The middle-aged participants were dancing a cha-cha style guangchang wu （during a special morning gathering for practicing for a competition）

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Dance a Chinese folk dance (this movement is called “making the wrists a

flower -shape(shou wanhua 手挽花)” in guangchang wu (photo taken in October, 2013, Shenzhen)

Guangchang wu music is a medley of Chinese pop songs, folk songs, and

Western pop music (old and new). Although many participants grew up in the

Maoist era, revolutionary songs are seldom used. Some nostalgic songs from the

1980s, such as “Gold Brocades, Silver Brocades (jinsuo yinsuo 金梭银梭),” that

remind participants to cherish time, are popular. The most popular songs were

from Phoenix Legend (fenghuang chuanqi 凤凰传奇), representing new Chinese

folk songs. Some dancers said that they preferred pop music because it made

them feel young and in tune with the times (yushijujin, 与时俱进).

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In Shenzhen, I ran into this senior man who sold mobile music boxes with many popular guangchang wu music downloaded in them. Users could simply get access to the guangchang wu music according to his printed list. The invention seemed quite popular among the seniors that passed by, among some are guangchang wu participants. In this photo, he was selling his guangchang wu music box to a senior woman, October 2013, Shenzhen.

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Printed handbook of guangchang wu music lists by the senior man I met

October 2013, Shenzhen.

The naming of guangchang wu is related to the urbanization process of

China, to be specific, to the massive construction of city squares in all types of

Chinese cities. Naming the dance based on where it is danced shows how such

dance is tightly related to the available spaces. With the dramatic expansion of

dance participants, city squares alone cannot meet the demand, and individuals

have begun to dance in any spare neighborhood space, including lanes in city

parks and parking lots, but the dance retains the name guangchang wu.

The Population Scale of Guangchang Wu

China has nearly 100 million guangchang wu enthusiasts, according to a

special report broadcast Nov. 7, 2013 on “One plus One,” (a China Central

Television program).4 Except for this estimate provided by CCTV, there are no

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other nationwide statistics about guangchang wu. I did find a recent regional

survey by Li Rui (2013). Her postgraduate thesis approaches guangchang wu

from a sports-education perspective, and the research was done in three cities in

the southern part of the Henan province, Xinyang, Nanyang, and Zhumadian. She

found that 1) 70 percent of the main participants are in their 40s to 60s; 2）women

make up 90 percent of all participants; 3) 85 percent are married, but 14 percent

of these have been widowed; 4) retirees are the main participants, and the second

largest population are active public officers; 5) the exercise takes place mostly

after dinner (80%); 6) participants join the activity either on their own or because

of encouragement from their friends.4

One can find guangchang wu in all the cities. Searching the most popular

Chinese research engine, www.baidu.com, will turn up more than 1 billion

guangchang wu videos and 1 million web pages. With the key words,

“guangchang wu competition,” one can find 300,000 reports involving the major

provinces and cities nationwide. In the biggest Chinese online shop,

www.taobao.com, there are almost 10,000 merchants with 300,000 guangchang

wu related items for sale such as dance shoes, dance clothes, and stereos. All of

this activity is evidence of the considerable business created by guangchang wu.

Dynamics: State Approval and Commercial Value

The media have tried to make sense of the prevalence of guangchang wu. Du

Xiuqi, editor of Elephant Magazine (daxiang gonghui 大象工会), believes that

there are two main factors that contribute to “guangchang wu fever.” First, it is a

4Li Rui (李蕊). 2013. “豫南地区广场舞现状调查研究 (The Investigation and Research of Developing Present Situation For Guangchang Wu in The South of Henan Province).” 体育学硕士论文 (Master Thesis of Physical Education), 河南师范大学 (Henan Normal University).

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combination of social need and the scarcity of sports fields. He emphasizes the

fact that women’s social activities, such as banquets, funerals, or wedding

ceremonies, are declining along with the deconstruction of the traditional

neighborhood network.5 Li Xi, editor of The Netease, argues that guangchang

wu has replaced the social function of Qigong after the government crackdown in

the late 1990s. He believes that in the 1990s, social networks among the elderly

and middle-aged were scarce. Compared to youth, they are less familiar with

social media, and it is more difficult for them to use the Internet to explore public

spaces. As a result, guangchang wu, as a cheap, easy means of social bonding,

gained in popularity.6

Second, some media outlets have pointed out that “guangchang wu fever” is

quite relevant to state policy, and it is driven by top-down forces. According to a

2005 special report, “Evaluation of Originations of Guangchang Wu” (dama

guangchang wu yuantou kao), on the website Netease (www.163.com), the

contemporary popularity of guangchang wu is very much in line with state policy

in “creating civilized and clean city activity” (chuangwen chuangwei 创文创卫)

and is a national fitness activity (quanmin jianshen 全民健身). Guangchang wu

is helping cities become one of The National Civilized Cities; since 2005, this

honor has been recognizing cities that meet requirements such as “amateur mass

arts and sport teams of no fewer than 15 members in each street committee

(jiedao 街道) with square activities of big scale in the district level should not be

5Du Xiuqi (杜修琪). 2014. “广场舞思密达 (Hello, Guangchang Wu).” 大象公会 (Elephant Magazine) 第一期 (No. 1). At http://www.weibo.com/daxianggonghui?is_search=0&visible=0&is_tag=0&profile_ftype=1&page=4#feedtop, accessed 11 March 2014. 6Li Xi (李熙). 2014. “⼤大妈⼴广场舞源头考 (Evaluation of Originations of Guangchang Wu).” At http://view.163.com/special/reviews/commiedance0424.html, accessed 25 April 2014.

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fewer than eight times every year.”7 These incentives encourage every local

government to promote guangchang wu.

Li also provides this account: In 2008, a senior man in Heilongjiang province

invented a set of guangchang wu movements. Later in 2010, the sports

administration of Heilongjiang organized a training course to promote this dance

province-wide. In 2012, China's General Sports Administration held a one-week

course to train 60 members from 30 provinces. This case provided a new model

for the emergence of a grassroots dance, confirmed by a national government

bureau and promoted nationwide via training courses. Afterwards, many

provinces and cities accepted this model through which many guangchang wu

instructors were fostered. Li concluded that the willingness to sponsor and govern

guangchang wu reflects the state’s intention to control social organizations it

doesn’t trust.

Reporters also have noticed the commercially driven force behind

guangchang wu as did Chen Ye.8 Her emphasis on business as a driving force

for guangchang wu cannot be overlooked, that participants are used as

advertisement for sponsors when they wear clothing with sponsors’ logos on

them and accept financial support. I also noticed the commercialization aspect

when well-known dancers began to hold expensive training courses in 2013. In

one of them, “Beauty China 2014 Guangchang wu training campus,” in Jiaxing

city, Zhejiang province, dancers charged 980 RMB for a three-day training.9

7Li Xi (李熙). 2014. “⼤大妈⼴广场舞源头考 (Evaluation of Originations of Guangchang Wu).” At http://view.163.com/special/reviews/commiedance0424.html, accessed 25 April 2014. 8Chen Ye (陈晔). 2014. “广场舞已经是门生意了 (Guangchang Wu Has Become a Business). ” One Read (壹读). At http://help.3g.163.com/14/0825/19/A4H1KL0200964KMI.html, accessed 13 November 2014. 9ZheJiang Internet TV Station (浙江网络电视台). 2014. “ ‘美丽中国’ 广场舞嘉兴培训班 (”Beauty China” Jiaxing Guangchang Wu Training Course).” At http://sport.cztv.com/xianchang/kuaibo/news/2014/09/2014-09-034496201.html, accessed 3 September 2014.

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The forces behind guangchang wu are not limited to state approval,

commercial value, and older women’s need for sociality. Class, Generation, and

Gender are also sources of power behind guangchang wu. Guangchang wu is a

vivid case of contemporary Chinese discourse on “civilization.”

Discussion of The Controversies over Guangchang Wu

There has never been a dance in China as controversial as guangchang wu.

The ongoing debates between guangchang wu as a civilized vs. uncivilized

activity, the conflicting rights of dancers vs. quiet seekers, and the aesthetic and

moral judgments tell us much about the individuals who have expressed their

opinions and the social cultural forces behind the tensions.

The “noise disturbance” and “occupation of public space” issues have

brought guangchang wu and its participants the most severe public criticism.

Some 26,371 individuals responded to an on-line survey conducted by China

Central Television (aired on Nov. 7, 2013). Of these respondents, 71.60%

believed noise making was the most annoying issue connected to the dance;

24.01% stated that guangchang wu denied others the opportunity to use public

resources.10

Intellectuals’ critiques are limited to the civic discussion. As said by Susan

Brownell in her book Training the body for China, the Chinese version of

“civilization,” wenming, is a central moral principle. Like European usages of

“civilization,” it is used by elites against lower classes (Brownell 1995:25).

Furthermore, Chinese intellectuals are setting themselves up as examples of

10The special coverage on guangchang wu is entitled “Do Not Let Guangchang Wu Become the Blasting Fuse of Conflicts.” Details on this special coverage are provided on http://www.young100.cn/news/topic/2013-11-08/28400.html, accessed 4 January 2014.

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self-restraint, and believe that others should follow their example (Brownell

1995:27), and in this case, that means the dama.

Conflicting Rights of Dancers vs. Quiet Seekers

The tension between guangchang wu dancers and those who prefer quiet

public spaces was explored in two national news stories. In the first story, an

elderly man in Beijing attempted to scare and disperse the dance crowd by firing

a gun in the air at a park; he then used his two Tibetan mastiffs to repel

guangchang wu dancers. In another case, irritated neighbors in a gated

community in Wuhan city, Hubei province, pelted dancers with feces.11 The

response to these news reports showed little empathy for the dancers, but plenty

for the irritated neighbors.

One camp of intellectual opinion believes the noise disturbance issue

demonstrates that guangchang wu dama need to be educated because they lack

civic mindedness (gongde xin 公德心). One typical opinion is from a public

intellectual Tao Duanfang, who now lives in Canada. He argues that China

should learn from developed Western countries because they have experience in

dealing with noise issues. According to him, many communities in developed

countries have noise ordinances that limit the level of noise in residential areas

during evening hours and have a “zero-tolerance” policy for violators.12 Another

news story is a perfect example: On Aug. 6, 2014, several Chinese women were

11Wang Haocheng (王浩成). “武汉大妈跳广场舞扰民被泼粪 (Guangchang Wu Dama Were Pelted With Feces in Wuhan).” 中国新闻网 (Chinanews.cn). At http://www.chinanews.com/sh/2013/10-25/5422441_2.shtml, accessed 30 March 2014. 12Tao Duanfang (陶短房). 2013.“国外为何没有广场舞? (Why is There No Guangchang Wu in Foreign Countries)” 新京报 (The Beijing News). At http://epaper.bjnews.com.cn/html/2013-11/09/content_476799.htm?div=-1, accessed 9 November 2013.

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dancing in Brooklyn Sunset Park, New York City, when neighbors complained;

their instructor Aunty Wang was arrested.13

Similarly, the famous journalist Lüqiu Luwei suggests that property-owner

committees (yezhu weiyuanhui 业主委员会 ) could limit the use of the

commercial residential complexes (xiaoqu 小区) public areas in order to control

the noise, so it does not become social pollution (shehui gonghai 社会公害).

Similar opinions caution participants not to make “… guangchang wu become a

disturbing dance (raomin wu, 扰民舞).”14

Guangzhou Daily, a party-run propaganda newspaper expressed a similar

opinion in November 2014: “As soon as ‘group dancing’ becomes ‘public

nuisance dancing’ that infringes on the rights of others to relax, it is another

matter (that has to be solved).”15 In response, the city of Guangzhou quickly put

out Park Regulation Rules (Draft).16

I reject “civilization” as the crux of the matter, and argue instead that the

public criticism on this issue reflects power differences between classes. The

“zero-tolerance” policy in Australia and the Chinese dancing leader arrested in

New York are portrayed as examples of “civilization” that Chinese dama should

follow. Caroline Chen argues that it reflects the urban middle class’s imagination

towards a quiet city. The problem, according to Chen, is that public dancing, for

13Wang Hejin (王鹤瑾), Xu Xinyi (许心怡). 2014. “大妈跳广场舞纽约被拷引热议，大妈：反应夸张涉嫌

歧视 (Guangchang Wu Dama Got Arrested in New York, Dama Said It Involves Discrimination).” 人民网 (People’s Net). At http://culture.people.com.cn/n/2013/0809/c22219-22499684.html, accessed 30 March 2014. 14Lin Shan (林姗).“别让广场舞成为“扰民舞” (Do Not Let Guangchang Wu Become Disturbance Dance).” 延边第一生活周报 (The Life Weekly in Yanbian). At http://dsb.ybtop.com/1347/a8-1.html, accessed 30 March 2014. 15Lilong (李龙).广州日报. “立法禁扰民舞，考验公共空间管理 (Prohibit the Disturbing Dance, Test the Public Space Management).” 广州日报 (Guangzhou Daily). At http://gzdaily.dayoo.com/html/201311/14/content_2451489.htm, accessed 1 December 2013. 16The rule wrote that, “From 12:00 pm to 14:00 pm and 10:00 PM to 7:00 am, any fitness or entertainment activities that use musical instruments or loudspeakers are not allowed. Any noise level exceeding 80 decibels should immediately decrease the volume, or stop using the loudspeaker, or musical instruments.”

15

all its benefits, conflicts with an increasing desire among many for a less chaotic

urban lifestyle as public spaces are squeezed by development, according to the

Wall Street Journal’s interview with her on March 27, 2014. “The exuberance of

this communal culture is being hushed,” she says, “and the modern idea of what a

city should be is taking its place.”17

Disputes over the Use of Spaces

Another piece of news triggered a public discussion on the topic of whether

guangchang wu dama occupied public spaces unreasonably. Last November,

Modern Express reported a conflict between guangchang wu dama and another

property owner in a xiaoqu in Taizhou city. One dancing dama put up a note to

stop other property owners from parking where she wanted to dance. Similar

cases were also reported in Changzhou city where guangchang wu aunties posted

a note saying “no parking from 18:30 to 20:30.”18

These reports ignited the public dialogue on the use of public spaces. One

camp argued that the dancing aunties were taking advantage of public spaces and

disrespecting other people’s rights. Furthermore, they called on the Chinese to

cultivate good public space awareness. Zhang Tianpan argues that “at (collective)

times there has been little awareness because historically ‘public’ venues, squares,

streets, parks, playgrounds, and auditoriums were spaces belong to the

17Josh Chin. 2014. “In China, Retirees Dancing in Public Raise a Ruckus.” Wall Street Journal (online). At http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/03/27/chinese-retirees-raise-a-ruckus-by-getting-down/, accessed 28 March 2014. 18Zhang Min (张敏). 2014. “大妈占地跳广场舞 贴条阻止停车称后果自负 (‘Parking Car Here Will Cause a Damage.’ Dama Make a Threat to Get Place for Guangchang Wu).” 现代快报 (Modern Realtime News). At http://news.qq.com/a/20140107/000773.htm, accessed 7 January 2014.

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institutions (gongjia kongjian 公家空间). This legacy means that the Chinese

people have little experience in coexisting with strangers in public spaces.”19

The other side contends that it is not the dama’s dancing that influences the

private spaces, but the extension of private spaces that erode the public spaces

often sought out by the elderly. Lu Zhoulai, an economist from the National

Defense University, holds such opinion and he uses a vivid analogy to

demonstrate: In Africa, there are more and more elephants invading human

settlements. However, the truth is that humans are encroaching into elephant

territory. He reveals that from a social economist’s perspective, the reason why

people increasingly favor collective activity is because their public spaces and

collective lives are being intruded upon. He says:

In Chinese cities, the expansion of mega chain-store supermarkets is an invasion of public spaces. In the meantime, private property is also invading public spaces. However abroad, all public spaces are kept at a distance from private houses. In China, in order to use the land with the greatest densities, there are almost no distances between private houses and public spaces. So, it is not the guangchang wu that has affected others’ private spaces, instead it is the expansion of the private spaces that erodes the old people’s public space…20

Lu raises a great question. Isn’t it the expansion of the private spaces that

erode the old people’s public space? His point of view is that guangchang wu

dama themselves are victims of excessive property development. One informant

put it this way: if the property manager of our xiaoqu complained to us, I would

ask them why they didn’t provide us a dancing space in the first place! Her reply

19Zhang Tianpan (张天潘). 2014. “广场舞：从集体空间到公共空间 (Guangchang Wu: From Collective Space to Public Space).” 南风窗 (South Reviews). At http://www.nfcmag.com/article/4877.html, accessed 23 July 2014. 20Lu Zhoulai (卢周来). 2014. “大妈广场舞现象的背后 (The Reality Behind Dama and Guangchang Wu).” 北京青年报 (Beijing Youth Daily). At http://epaper.ynet.com/html/2014-05/10/content_57398.htm?div=-1, accessed 10 May 2014.

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revealed that she felt they have the right to take up the spaces around xiaoqu to

dance because they are not provided such spaces in the first place.

Symbol of The Cultural Revolution?

Another typical opinion considers guangchang wu as representative of the

collective era. This camp believes that Guangchang wu is linked to China’s

revolutionary past, a view that has both negative and positive connotations.

“These dancers are immersed in the joyful music, immersed in the nostalgia for

the past collective life,” wrote Zhao Yan in Guangchang Wu, Collective

Nostalgia. “The louder the decibel, the deeper their immersion.”21

Zhao just pointed to the link without an obvious value judgment. Others

offered direct and harsh commentary. Xin Lijian, an education expert, called it a

perniciousness from the Cultural Revolution (wenge liudu 文革流毒). His

comment article asserts guangchang wu is simply a revival of the Maoist Loyalty

Dance. For him, the motions of both dances are exaggerated, symbolic, and rigid.

The dances—how well they are known and performed—“test the loyalty of the

mass grassroots people (laobaixing 老百姓) to the party.”22 Yan Lieshan, a

well-known commentator, said the practice carries “certain diseases of an era

(shidai bing 时代病).” The disease, in the author’s eyes, is that the Cultural

21Zhao Yan (赵妍). 2013. “广场舞，一场集体主义怀旧 (Guangchang Wu, a Collective Nostalgia).” 时代

周报 (Time-Weekly) 261 期 (No. 261). At http://www.tim-eweekly.com/index.php?m=content&c=index&a=show&catid=13&id=23305, accessed 03 December 2013. 22Xin Lijian (信力建). 2014. “从广场大妈舞看文革流毒 (Guangchang Wu, the Perniciousness of Cultural Revolution).” At http://www.guancha.cn/society/2014_04_14_221939.shtml, accessed 14 April 2014.

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Revolution occurred during an era when individual rights were severely

disrespected.23

Critics may simply dismiss guangchang wu as part of the legacy of Maoist

China. Some of them shared these views on Zhihu (知乎, a popular Chinese

website for knowledge sharing, similar to Quora), like these two:

My mother also said they were the worst generation of people; they encountered movements ever since they were young, they stayed at schools only several days, and what they witnessed is people struggling against people (rendouren 人斗人). I do not know other places, but in Tianjin, it is exactly this group of people around their fifties who are most troublesome (zuishifei 最是非), who always make profit at other people's expense. They are people who run red lights, who cross the fence, and who spit on the street and throw garbage carelessly.

Those people all experienced the Maoist era. They are lazy and eat from the work unit. At that time, they danced, played drums all day long to dance the Loyalty dance, they gathered together to sing the red song, to shout out slogans, and to loudly recite from the book of Chairman Mao Zedong (Mao zhuxi yülu 毛主席语录). It is their habit, and they never take disturbing people into consideration....24

These comments shed light on why the guangchang wu dama are stigmatized.

They are believed to be the “Generation of Cultural Revolution,” which carries a

very negative, backwards connotation.

However, Zhong Xueping, a scholar from Tufts University, offers a

romanticized understanding of guangchang wu. She criticizes the “petty

bourgeoisie (xiaozi 小资)” for not truly understanding the legacy of the Cultural

23Yan Lieshan (鄢烈山). 2014. “广场舞与时代病 (Guangchang Wu and Modern Weakness).” 南方都市报 (Southern Urban Daily). At http://gcontent.oeeee.com/6/70/6709e8d64a5f4726/Blog/aa8/fd8f3b.html, accessed 8 June 2014. 24Chen Zhanzhu (陈斩竹). 2013. “我国的中老年广场舞到底是怎么形成的 (The Deeper Reason of the Emergence of Guangchang Wu).” At http://www.zhihu.com/question/21928879, accessed 25 November 2013.

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Revolution. By giving Cultural Revolution a positive spin, she tries to argue for

guangchang wu. She says,

…The controversy around guangchang wu dama has its hidden messages just as many other social topics…. The group dancing suggests the revolutionary square culture.... Some criticizers ignore the mobilization meanings of the square culture in history, instead just negatively defining it as brainwashing and propaganda…. It is the guangchang wu dama, using their consciousness and capability, reminding people that China has its own tradition, which is an imperfect yet quite significant tradition. It is a tradition and resource that is enjoyed yet rejected by the contemporary Chinese petty bourgeoisie.

Zhong indicates that the interpretation of guangchang wu is highly related to

ones’ class and generational background. Just as Zhang Huiyu and Mao Jian, two

significant film critics, point out, “…guangchang wu represents a special value,

which is in contrast to the rising value of the urban middle class. This is why it is

so hotly debated.”25 Mao Jian later asserted that only guangchang wu offers a

different value that could contend with the contemporary worship of money. The

debate is therefore significant because it helps observers understand how

guangchang wu is used to advance different interests based on different positions

in the society, as in Bourdieu’s practice theory (1977).

Aesthetic and Moral Criticism

The dance has also been subjected to aesthetic and moral judgments. Dou

Wentao, the well-known TV host from Phoenix TV, Hong Kong, put it this way,

“Guangchang wu is disliked by people not only because of its disturbance issue,

but also because it is not aesthetically beautiful.” According to a survey done by

25Mao Jian (毛尖) and Zhang Huiyu (张慧瑜). 2014. “能对抗‘郭韩’的，只有大妈的广场舞了 (Only guangchang wu can contend with Guo Jingming and Han Han).” 蝉歌杂志 (Journal of Chan Ge), 第一版 (Vol.1).

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South China People Weekly and the Sina website, 56% of Chinese who

participated in guangchang wu found the dance “funny (kexiao 可笑), weird

(qipa 奇葩), incomprehensible (feijie 费解), unreasonable (bukeliyu 不可理

喻).”26 Generally, non-participants of guangchang wu hold ambiguous, even

negative ideas about the aesthetics of guangchang wu.

Even worse, the aesthetic discrepancy easily lifts to a moral issue. Due to an

overwhelming nationalistic atmosphere in contemporary China, dama’s

behaviors are interpreted as politically harmful to the image of the nation, which

in turn results in a moral criticism. As The New York Times reported, Chinese

dama were already politicized.27 The author, Wang Junling, rightly notes that “at

first, media persons and netizens use ‘Chinese dama (zhongguo dama 中国大妈)’

just for fun, however, since the word ‘China’ has been politicized and became

‘venerable,’ any word accompanying China would become political. If dama

dance domestically, that’s only a matter of personal suzhi,28 but when it happens

abroad, it is about national image.”

Foreigners, however, often find the dance appealing. The mayor of Sydney,

Australia praised guangchang wu, saying in a news report that “… guangchang

wu is a vivid factor for the city space and community. I would like to bring it

back to Sydney and localize it in our community.”29 Mr. Bean, the British comic

actor, also enjoyed the dance when he traveled to Shanghai and was invited to 26Guan Jun (关军). 2014. “你好，红舞鞋 (Hello, Red Dancing Shoe).” 南方人物周刊 (South People Weekly) 第 406 期 (No. 406). At http://www.nfpeople.com/story_view.php?id=5866, accessed 19 September 2014. 27Wang Junling (王俊岭). 2014. “中国大妈为什么被赋予政治含义？(Why was Dama in China Given a Political Connotation).” 纽约时报中文网 (The New York Times). At http://cn.nytimes.com/china/20140212/cc12wangjunling/, accessed 12 February 2014. 28Suzhi, literally means quality or human quality. It describes a person’s qualities measured in terms of behavior, education, ethics, etc. In daily life, it has already become an encompassing term that all moral/immoral judgment can go into this word. 29Guangzhou Daily (广州日报). 2014. “悉尼市长：广场舞值得学习，要移植到悉尼 (Mayor of Sydney: It is Good to Bring Guangchang Wu to Sydney).” At http://ent.sina.com.cn/j/2014-05-27/12134148794.shtml, accessed 27 May 2014.

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join a group of Chinese guangchang wu dancers. Another widespread Twitter

picture sent by Bao Beibei, a young public intellectual living in New York,

showed three elderly Chinese women leading three elderly American women in

the dance. When sensing the positive impression of guangchang wu from a

Westerner’s perspective, one Chinese media representative responded positively

to the picture saying that guangchang wu dama could be a great cultural export.30

Despite the controversy that surrounds guangchang wu, research remains

limited. The dance is more than a fitness fad. It is a confluence of rights regarding

the use of space, esthetic values, cultural politics, and as such, it provides a rich

“cultural text” to aid in the understanding of contemporary China. As Susan

Brownell reminds us, “In order to remake Chinese society one must start by

remaking the body” (Brownell 1995:30). My research rejects the stereotypical

perception of guangchang wu as the revival of collective culture or “uncivilized”

activity, and draws attention to the rich potential of dance for anthropologists

studying China and other parts of the globe as well.

Research Sites

I chose to study guangchang wu in Lingyang, a non-capital city in Henan

province in the central part of China for two reasons. First, the city is

medium-sized and has undergone tremendous change since reform. Lingyang

continues to experience increasing levels of urbanization; many new residential

areas have recently been or are currently being constructed. Some local

30Observer (观察者). 2014. “中国大妈带美国大妈跳广场舞 (Chinese Dama Lead American Dama to Dance Guangchang Wu).” At http://www.guancha.cn/society/2014_08_22_259284.shtml, accessed 22 August 2014.

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inhabitants move to bigger cities for education or work, but at the same time rural

and urban immigrants from the perimeter of the city move into Lingyang.

Second, other similar studies have been conducted in much larger cities such

as Beijing, Shanghai, or Guangzhou. In this research, a small city was chosen to

complement the current intellectual comprehension on public leisure. Migration

from small cities such as Lingyang—to find work or further educations—has

created the “empty-nest” women, who are active participants of guangchang wu.

I also chose Lingyang because I know it well. Living in Hong Kong for three

years of study has trained me well in the logistics of conducting research

anywhere, but with only three months31 to conduct my fieldwork, I felt my

“native perspective” of Lingyang would help me hit the ground running. Like

many other cities on mainland China, local residents speak local dialects. I speak

Lingyang dialect, which qualifies me as an ethnographic researcher in Lingyang.

An overhead shot of The Great Square (part)

31Officially there were three months assigned to the MPhil students to conduct fieldwork, but due to problems with my HK student visa, I was delayed and spent nearly four months in the field site.

23

My field sites covered five guangchang wu groups, including one in The

Great Square in the city center, and four in the southern part of the city. Built in

2000, The Great Square is located in the center of Lingyang’s new town area, just

opposite of the city government offices. It is the largest and newest recreation

center. Designed with Renaissance symmetry, elegant gardens, and Chinese-style

pavilions, The Great Square is commonly seen as the symbol of Lingyang’s

urban modernity. Due to its symbolic significance and convenient

location—surrounded by dozens of xiaoqu within a 10-minute walk—the park

attracts visitors from throughout the central city to participate in leisure and

cultural activities.

There are three other dance groups32 found near residential areas where

there are several adjacent xiaoqu. I named the three dance groups associated with

Jade Garden xiaoqu, Blue Coast xiaoqu, and Queen’s yard xiaoqu, after their

xiaoqu names. All teams practiced at venues about 10 minutes from each other.

The Jade Garden troop is located in a well-designed garden at a crossroads,

the central position of that residential area and only two minutes walk from the

west gate of Jade Garden. This was the oldest dance group in this area, and had

gathered its members from different xiaoqu nearby. They had purchased “team

costumes” online: black fitted T-shirts and short pink skirts. Blue Coast troop was

located in front of the gate of a private kindergarten, working within an

“improvised space.”33 Queen’s Yard troop was located in one of the best street

gardens34 I have ever seen in Lingyang. It was quite spacious and new. The

paved concrete was quite flat and not too smooth, so quite perfect for dancing.

32There is one also in the southern Lingyang in front of a circuit shop, but I did not follow it closely. 33A similar phenomenon was also observed in Caroline Chen’s research on Yang’ge. 34Street Garden, in Chinese, Jiexin Huayuan, is much smaller than the park. The former is normally smaller than 1,000 square meters.

24

The dance space was surrounded by trees, sculptures, flowerbeds, and wooden

benches.

Guangchang wu gatherings occur in parks, squares, street gardens, and

empty spaces near residential areas. Previous research is almost all about dancing

in the parks, while fewer studies have examined residential areas. Thus, my

research complements the existing research.

Dance troupes in neighborhoods and the squares differ from each other in

notable ways. First, the age distribution is more mixed in The Great Square where

as many as 200 dancers participate. The majority is middle-aged and senior

women, but there are also young participants. The regulars are out in front. The

rows behind them are made up of a mass of “casual dance (xiatiao 瞎跳)”

individuals. There were a few male participants, some of whom accompanied

their wives. By comparison, residential spaces attract lone women, and the

numbers are much smaller. Jade Garden attracted about 40 women; Queen’s Yard

had 50 members; the Blue Coast group only had about 20 female participants.

These three groups, interestingly, rejected men, and became all-female troupes.

The Great Square Space is better for dancing. The ground is flatter, audio

equipment is more modern, and the dance is simpler. Comparatively, the

community spaces were cramped, the terrain was rougher, and the sound

equipment was not as new. Yet, the participants in the great square do not pursue

high-quality performance, whilst dancers in the neighborhood area have stronger

enthusiasm for honing their craft through continuous learning. The atmosphere is

more like a self-study group.

The bonding effect of the dance varied according to venue. The greater

number of persons in the square meant that backgrounds were more diverse.

25

Fewer participants in the residential areas meant that individuals got to know

each other better, and a tighter communal bond was formed.

None of these groups tried to get approval from the sub-district office (jiedao

banshichu 街道办事处).35 The sub-district office did not object to the activities,

but did ask me once to mobilize the guangchang wu groups to prepare some

performances for a summer festival. This prompted the Queen’s Yard group to

register in the hopes that this legitimacy would give members more performance

opportunities.

The groups had contact with sub-district office staff from time to time.

Sometimes, dance leaders bribed the public toilet keeper so they could tap into

the electricity there; they “paid” a box of cigarettes every month. The male

organizer of The Great Square group was a government driver, who worked in

the government and knew some sports bureau leaders; he encouraged his team

leaders to register the “mass sports instructors” from the local sports bureau.

Guangchang wu incorporates a hodgepodge of dance styles. Some

participants referenced the social partner dances once held by the labor unions

(gonghui 工会) in their work units in the 1990s. Participants at The Great Square

danced the three-steps, 36-steps, as they are simpler. The Jade Garden troop

preferred the cha-cha, the favorite dance of their leader, a primary-school teacher.

Blue Coast women favored Tibetan, Mongolian, and traditional Chinese dances.

All of these troops learn new dances every week. This ensures attendance as

no one wants to miss out. Not only do they consider it fun to learn something new,

they believe learning and remembering body movements exercises the brain and

prevents Alzheimer’s disease. Since all the groups I studied were at least a year

35In China, the sub-district office is the fundamental civil organization of government, which connects social foundation and citizens with political power.

26

old, participants told me they had already learned hundreds of dances. Organizers

decided to dance the most newly learned dances and the most popular ones as a

means of keeping existing participants and attracting new ones.

A typical movement of Tibetan dance in Guangchang Wu

One group loved Tibetan dance and they rented the Tibetan costume for participating the guangchang wu competation (A picture taken by one informant)

27

Although some groups held dance practice in the morning around 6 am for

two hours, dances in the evening attracted more participants and lasted from 8 pm

to 9 pm, or to 9:30 pm, depending on the location. Most groups danced almost

every day except for special holidays such as the Chinese spring festival. Before

the dance, women chatted as they walked to the venue and waited for the dancing

to begin. They talked about health issues and family chores, shared gossip, etc.

When the dance was over, some women went home immediately. Some did not.

Instead, they continued to practice the steps or chat for half an hour or more. The

friendship continued outside of the dance arena.

Data and Methodology

This ethnography is based on a participant observation and in-depth

interviews from June through September in 2013,supplemented by shorter trips

taken in the early summer of 2014. I regularly attended dances. Most dance

regulars knew that I was doing research. They offered insightful information and

in some cases became friends and dependable sources of gossip. In July and

August, I was also involved in their preparation for a public dance competition.

We got up as early as 5:30 am to rehearse. As an experienced dancer, I became

their consultant on dance patterns and formations. I also acted as photographer

and videographer, helped with music selections, and fixed sound equipment.

I participated and observed in the field as mostly a follower. Equality with

the other dancers relaxed interviewees. Also, existing instructors did not welcome

new instructors because they threatened her authority. To avoid conflict, I chose

not to be an instructor except in one case. The Blue Coast Group invited me to

teach after reaching a consensus among the membership. The organizer of this

28

group, Zhao Fengling, who was a 56-year-old retired nurse, was well respected

by the group because she founded it and had an easy-going personality. I heard

later from other participants that they persuaded Zhao Fengling that allowing a

newcomer like me to teach would demonstrate what a big heart she has and win

her even more support from team members.

I was able to conduct in-depth interviews with 23 participants, including

seven organizers. Among the interviewees, 5 were men and 18 were women.

Informants were mostly female because the dancers are mostly females. Also,

women find it easier to share their life stories and feelings, especially with

another woman. I approached my informants in three ways. First, I walked up to

individuals at the dance, explained my research and chatted freely for a while,

and then asked for an interview. I did not use my social network to get to know

park dancers, but went directly to the field site. I assumed that informants would

not tell an acquaintance much because they would be afraid I would share the

information with others. On the contrary, the informants felt safe sharing their

inner-most thoughts with a stranger.

I had been hanging around at the field sites for a couple of weeks when

participants began to get curious about me and approached me to ask about my

research and my time in Hong Kong. I then asked them to be a part of this study.

I also selected informants by snowball sampling. After becoming familiar with

several dancers, especially instructors, they were quite willing to introduce me to

other dancers they thought danced well or often.

29

The interviews lasted from half an hour to an hour and a half, and were

conducted mostly after dances, which means from 9 pm on. Some in-depth

interviews were done over the course of several meetings. Some were conducted

in informants’ homes.

“Every person is fond of teaching others,” is a popular proverb in China. My

informants, mostly older than me, were especially interested in asking me about

my study experiences, family situation, personal issues, etc. I also naturally asked

their advice on how to keep healthy, happy, and energetic. They were passionate

about sharing their experiences and advice about how to get along with a partner,

how to maintain good relationships with children, and so on.

I recorded almost all of my in-depth interviews. Interviewees were usually

willing to talk about their life stories, their motivations to participate in dance,

and how guangchang wu had changed them. I always carried a small notebook,

and during observations, I took notes about what people did and what they said. I

wrote field notes either immediately when I got home that night or the next

morning. The themes and subthemes of this ethnography were derived from my

coding of interview transcriptions and field notes.

I use the “inductive and iterative” method and “grounded theory” to identify

phenomena in relation to multiple themes and to preserve their complexity. My

search for patterns and similarities amongst units of collected data generated

analytical categories or hypotheses to be tested with the collection of more data. I

pay special attention to disconfirming observations until hypotheses can “account

for all known cases without exception” (Stewart 1998: 22; Lincoln and Guba

1985: 309). Moreover, grounded theory subscribes to the idea that theory in

30

naturalistic inquiry is necessarily grounded, that is to say, follows the data

(Lincoln and Guba 1985: 204). An interpretive framework or theory emerges

after data collection and analysis. Social constructionism and practice theory

shape much of my thinking.

31

Chapter Two

Literature Review and Organization of Thesis

My discussion of guangchang wu in contemporary China owes much to

Susan Brownell (1995)’s book on sports and body culture in China, especially

her discussion of seniors dancing disco. She makes three main assumptions when

discussing Chinese sports: 1) Sports should be analyzed as part of the entire

culture of the body; 2) The culture of the body is strongly shaped by the

state/society, class, gender and ethnicity; 3) Sports occupy an important place

within the culture of the body as a cultural artifact is publicly displayed. These

three assumptions may also be made about guangchang wu. I believe

guangchang wu is a cultural performance “in which the production of an image

of the ‘legitimate body’ is contested behind the scenes and a consensus

temporarily reached in the public performance” (Brownell 1995:8). I also draw

on the widespread hypothesis that contemporary collective leisure activities in

China are a hybrid or “complex web” of traditional, socialist, and market logics

(Chen 2010; Farquhar and Zhang 2012; Qian 2014).

Body Culture

The notion of “body culture” was defined by Brownell (1995) as “daily

practices of health, hygiene, fitness, beauty, dress, and decoration, as well as

32

gestures, postures, manners, ways of speaking and eating, and so on.” She also

uses this term to include “the way these practices are trained into the body, the

way the body is publicly displayed, and the lifestyle that is expressed in that

display”(Brownell 1995:11).

Brownell owes her concept “body culture” to Bourdieu’s habitus (1984).

Habitus conceptualizes the internalization of culture everywhere. Specifically,

habitus describes the deeply internalized dispositions and schemas acquired by an

individual through early childhood socialization. Bourdieu believes that habitus

has “an endless capacity to engender products—thoughts, expressions,

actions—whose limits are set by the historically and socially situated conditions

of its production” (Bourdieu 1977:95). Habitus is created and reproduced

unconsciously, “without any deliberate pursuit of coherence… without any

conscious concentration” (Bourdieu 1984:170). Brownell avoids use of the term

habitus, calling it jargon with limited currency. She uses the flexible and

debatable concept of culture in her research of theories about the body (Brownell

1995:11).

Building on Brownell’s concept of “body culture,” I use the term “space

culture” when referring to the way people appropriate space, especially to how

these practices are trained. Following Brownell’s “body culture” also allows me

to draw on works that utilize a cultural perspective, such as Turner’s assertion

that “cultures are obsessed with bodies” (1992), Polhemus’s opinion that

“women’s dance styles showcase the ideal woman in their cultures” (1998:

33

176-177) and “in dance, people ‘crystallize their social experiences (1998:178).”

Discourse and Body Culture: Bodies and Dances Shaped by Power Relations

The conception of discourse from Foucault proves useful in understanding

the body culture in guangchang wu. Brownell provides a great understanding of

this discourse:

I understand discourse to refer to the symbolic order that serves as a frame for statements, making it possible for subjects to understand one another because it creates a common understanding of what may and may not be said. Power differences are what shape this schema, but the shaping process is complex and does not necessarily represent a simple act of censorship on the part of any one group. The concept of discourse reminds us that it is not enough to pay attention only to verbalized expressions: we must look at the expressed, the unexpressed, and the inexpressible (Brownell 1995:24).

Following Brownell, attention should be paid to the ways in which power

relations shape the culture of the body (Brownell 1995:23). The main sources of

power difference analyzed in this thesis are gender, generation, and class.

Foucauldian discourse analysis is close to social constructivism, as the researcher

tries to understand how society is being shaped (or constructed) and in turn

reflects existing power relationships.

The concept of stigma is also applicable to my thesis. Under the power of

discourse, people persuade themselves to follow certain cultural and social norms

while devaluing others. It is these power relationships that determine the social

and moral order, and stigma is a product of existing power relationships.

34

According to Erving Goffman (1963), the reason why individuals or groups of

people are stigmatized is because some of their characteristics are different from

the normative social expectation, or the so-called cultural norms. Stigmatization

reflects which group of individuals is disadvantaged in the existing power

structure. How people talk about guangchang wu and use the word dama

indicates how guangchang wu and its participants have been severely

stigmatized.

Class as a Source of Power

The body is a physical site where class is embodied and practiced. Bourdieu

(1978) points out that “it is the relation to one’s own body, a fundamental aspect

of the habitus, which distinguishes the working classes from the privileged

classes” (Bourdieu 1978:838). He suggests that:

Taste, a class culture turned into nature, that is, embodied, helps to shape the class body. It is an incorporated principle of classification, which governs all forms of incorporation, choosing and modifying everything that the body ingests and digests and assimilates, physiologically and psychologically. It follows that the body is the most indisputable materialization of class taste (Bourdieu 1984:190).

If one considers dance in the same vein as sport, Bourdieu’s in-depth

investigation of the relationship between sport and social class in his works such

as “Sport and Social Class” (1978) and Distinction (1984) also has application

here. He states that leisure practices become important locators of social class as

persons from different classes spend different amounts of time participating in

35

different leisure activities (Bourdieu 1984:310). Bryan Turner (1991) also

mentions that persons may train their bodies to showcase their rise in society.

It is tricky to discuss the idea of class in China. In Chinese it can be

translated to jieji (阶级) or jieceng (阶层), and sometimes to social background

(beijing 背景). From 1966 to 1976, the term jieji was used by almost everyone to

refer to political struggle during the Cultural Revolution. Now jieceng is

preferred in daily usage to avoid that connotation. China recently witnessed an

emerging “middle class (zhongchan jieceng 中产阶层)” economically, and it is a

desirable social status that pursued by many. Outsiders recognize this growing

middle class, as it now makes up most of China’s population acquiring luxuries

and traveling abroad.

Driven by this “middle class” image, many Chinese practice fitness daily in

pursuit of a superior image (gaoduan xingxiang 高端形象). As a result, certain

dance forms are embraced by commercialization and market logic, and become

recognized as superior. Yoga is an example; yoga today is thought to be a more

exclusive upper-class exercise form. Maggie Lin’s (2009) ethnographic study

concludes that the yoga industry in Hong Kong is strongly related to social

distinction regardless physical yoga or philosophical yoga. Today’s many fitness

training in many cases is a commodity that is not natural but constructed, through

which people express and acquire their identity.

36

Sensuality, Femininity of Older Women

The sensuality and sexuality of older women is always debatable. Because

middle-aged and older women are stereotyped as asexual (Brown et al., 1982),

their sensual dancing differs from normative social expectation, and is therefore

easily stigmatized.

Though the normative social expectation usually dismisses the sexuality of

middle aged and older women, sensuality and sexuality is an important theme in

middle-aged and older women’s dancing after opening up and reform in China.

As reminds by Farrer (2000: 240), in Shanghai’s social dance clubs during the

1990s, Middle-aged Shanghainese were enjoying the “everyday erotic freedom”

in dancing. His research found that people used the dance hall and the dance

itself to explore and express sexual themes that were off-limits in other social

spaces. He found that middle-aged women in the dance hall sought approval in

the sexual attentions of others, but they were less public in their physical contact

due to their marital status and social backgrounds.

Middle-aged and older yang’ge dancers, as researchers discovered, chose to

discard the stereotypes others assigned them, and pursue a different self in

contrast to the social normative expectations of asexuality. This is because leisure

is a “liminal,” or in-between, period set off from the normative social structure

represented by the world of work (Turner 1982:40). The liminal quality of leisure

activities means they can potentially bring new social structures into existence

(1974:16). This happens when members of a society experience moments of

37

detachment from everyday life when they can reflectively examine their own

customs, choosing to discard old ones and adopt new ones if they wish. In

diagramming the social norm for senior citizens and their performed ideal in

yang’ge, Noble (2003:126-127) contends that, “If the social norm is for senior

citizens to disavow sex, sexiness, and sensuality, through their performance of

yang’ge—with their caked make-up, showy costumes, and the flirtation in

dramatic narratives—they transform themselves through the performance into the

subjects of sensual pleasure for each other.” Also if the social norm is for seniors

to be marginalized by society, their performed ideal is instead “the center of

attention.”

Worth mentioning, I paid special attention to the literature of yang’ge

because yang’ge is believed to be the predecessor of guangchang wu. Yang’ge

(秧歌, literally ‘rice planter’s song’) is a dance that originated among peasants in

northern China, traditionally performed for special celebrations on the

agricultural calendar (Holm 1991). During Mao Zedong’s Yan’an period, this

traditional dance was appropriated and politicized by the Chinese Communist

Party as a vehicle for communicating the party’s message (Holm 1991; Hung

2005). Young and old alike enthusiastically danced yang’ge until the Cultural

Revolution banned many art forms. In the late 1980s, control over daily life and

leisure time was relaxed and yang’ge began to rise in popularity once again

(Chen 2003; Farquhar and Zhang 2005; Gerdes 2008; Graezer 2004). Recently in

2006, China honored the dance as a National Intangible Cultural Heritage

38

(ihchina.cn). Yang Yi, the president of the Chinese Guangchang Wu Association,

said in an interview with Chinese Youth Daily that many Chinese grew up in the

culture of yang’ge, and that guangchang wu uses folk music as yang’ge did.

Guangchang wu expresses Chinese’ passion from one’s heart. Guangchang wu

and yang’ge are thirst and eagerness running in Chinese’s blood.36

In Chapter Three, I show that sexuality is indeed a critical theme in

guangchang wu among women, yet sensual pleasure is not the only pleasure

middle-aged and older women pursue. Women also experience a non-sexual

empowerment from dancing. What I observed in guangchang wu was that some

women were oblivious to men watching them in ways that might have sexualized

their movements; they were concentrating on improving their dance skills. I made

the point that traditional Confucian norms, the Maoist gender erasure project, and

post-reform liberated sexual norms all influence these women. The complexity in

the expression of femininity in guangchang wu reflects the contested body

culture in modern China.

Generation as Source of Power

It is generally assumed that the elderly patriarchs still rule China so this

group can control the younger population. For example, Brownell noted that the

popularity of disco dancing among elderly women in the 1980s and 1990s might

be a means by which older women sought to control younger women (especially

36Ci Xin (慈鑫). 2013. “广场舞何以成为“洪水猛兽” (How Does the Guangchang Wu Become a Fever).”

中国青年报 (China Youth Daily). 11 月 24 日(24 November), 第三版 (No. 3).

39

daughters-in-law) by reasserting their claim to youthful energy and sexuality

(Brownell 1995:287). She concluded that disco dancing among elderly women

illustrates the age-graded nature of body culture in China. Elderly disco dancers

were breaking some strongly held taboos about how they should behave and what

they should wear: no brightly colored clothes, sweatsuits, or tight pants, no

bouncy or energetic movements (Brownell 1995: 282). These taboos were the

product of traditional Confucian norms, which made sedate behavior an essential

element of one’s “face.” The breaking of these taboos was what stimulated the

most public discussion about disco (Brownell 1995: 283).

The rapid change of Chinese society, however, had already begun to

influence “the heart of the Chinese social order—the generation/gender axis

(Brownell 1995: 287).” I doubt if the elderly patriarchs still rule China because

the younger generations are getting more and more power because they are more

educated, and better at utilizing medias and new technologies such as the Internet.

In other words, the younger now take control of the discourse power. In the

family domain, as argued by Zhang (2009), filial piety is declining and the family

system of caring for the elderly is weakening. In his study of Xiajia Village in

northeastern China, Yan (2003) noticed that “unconditional filial piety” has been

replaced by “a new logic of intergenerational exchange.” Accompanied by

increased “disrespect” towards the elderly, this new logic is deconstructing the

authority of the elderly in Chinese culture.

Hence I believe the situation is already different from Brownell’s

40

observation in the 1990s when the elderly at that time were perceived as “the

Generation of The People’s Republic of China.” In other words, most of elder

population in Brownell’s observation was the post 1940s or the post 1930s.

Perceived as the “Generation of Cultural Revolution”, today’s middle-aged and

elderly in China is under societal devaluation and rejection. This connection with

the “backward” and “humiliating” history of The Cultural Revolution is

accelerating the decline of elderly authority in China. This is supported by the

case of the “loyalty dance.” China’s Maoist era “loyalty dance (zhongzi wu 忠字

舞)”37 was a symbol of the red, socialist, Maoist China and was prevalent at a

time when all of the nation’s citizenry was involved in the collective worship of

Mao Zedong. Today, the “Loyalty Dance” carries negative connotations for the

Chinese people because it is associated with national quintessence—the adoption

of socialism, being “brainwashed” by propaganda, and the blind worship of a

political leader. Similarly, Srilanka’s Kandyan dancers have become identified

with a tradition that ties them to a “backward” past (Reed 2002:270). Herzfeld

(1997a:7) says the dancers “embody the national quintessence” and are

simultaneously identified as unsuitable representatives of the modern nation.

Dance, Creating Alternative Social Relations

Dance can also create alternative social relations. Communitas is a concept

used to describe a social relation that differs from every day life. Turner (1974)

37The Loyalty Dance was a dance that demonstrated dedication to Mao Zedong during the Cultural Revolution. It was quite popular among The Red Guards.

41

sees communitas as “rituals in which egalitarian and co-operative behavior is

characteristic, and in which secular distinctions of rank, office and status are

temporarily in abeyance or regarded as irrelevant” (Turner, 1974: 238). Spencer

also points out that it is the structured aspect that dominates day-to-day existence,

but when there is some disruption in the normal routine, during periods of anxiety

or “at ceremonies marking changes in status, boundaries shift, gaps in the

infrastructure are laid bare and the underlying force of communitas rises to the

surface” (Spencer 1985:28). Undoubtedly, most, if not all types of dancing,

create some level of communitas. For example, O’Connor (1997) argues the

sense of communitas in Irish step dancing is expressed in a number of ways: the

friendliness of the people, the ease of communication, etiquette and conventions

surrounding the dance and the form and content of the dance itself. In Cooper and

Thomas’s (2002) observations of modern sequence dancers, they also argue that

the strongest feelings of communitas are found among the dancers. Even when

the feeling or notion of communitas is not expressed verbally, it can exist as a

lived experience that affects and is affected by the bodies of the dancers

(2002:700) Moreover, dance can generate or recover a feeling of communitas, an

experience that is particularly important to the age group (2002:706). Graezer

believes that the dancers form and strengthen social networks within their

communities. They create a “minjian kongjian (space managed by the people 民

间空间). These minjian kongjian provide for fitness training and an opportunity

to socialize in ways that the government does not (Graezer 2004: 76).

42

China’s Public Dance In Rapid Social Transition

The rapid and dramatic social change in China means a rapid transition in the

power relationships as well. Class (i.e., urban-rural division), gender, and

generational differences are important domains where power relationships are

under transition. Chinese public dance such as yang’ge, elder’s disco and

carnivalesque dancing are not only shaped by these powerful social forces but

also help preserve and reproduce the existing social and moral order, and create

new structures. Following Spencer’s words in his book Society and Dance, “In a

very important sense, society creates the dance, and it is to society that we must

turn to understand it” (Spencer 1985:38). I believe public dance such as

guangchang wu is a mirror that reflects social transition. The dancers are trying

to “put new life into the system” and to rehearse a “new order” (Brownell

1995:285). Qian (2014:46) reveals that urban inhabitants challenge established

social categories and social structures through public leisure such as

carnivalesque dancing. Meanwhile new possibilities for social connectedness are

created through these public dancing performances.

Dance and Social Disparity

The deepening urban-rural division in post-Mao China especially in the past

decade is reflected in public leisure activities, and in turn, some public leisure is

believed challenge the urban-rural divide.38 In his research on public leisure

38China’s reform and opening up since 1978 is believed to result in social disparities among its citizens. The most inequality is embodied in the urban-rural division. The urbanization process and household (hukou) registration system is one of the driving force for an increasingly advantaged urban population and disadvantaged rural population.

43

including low-end carnivalesque dancing in Guangzhou, Qian (2014) provides

examples that rural migrant workers have been marginalized by the existing

social structure. They have been unable to consume cultural resources such as

watching films and theaters, etc. But through carnivalesque dancing, they resist

the encompassing market logic. Qian (2014) finds that members of groups

involved in Kongfu and Cantonese opera—activities that require competencies,

education and sophistication—frequently state that only those who are less

educated and less sophisticated, such as rural migrants, participate in

carnivalesque dancing. Those who believe their activities are of high quality

identify themselves as “city people.” They view carnivalesque dancing as

unsophisticated relaxation and say that these dancers would not be able to

integrate into the “culturally dense ambience” of high-quality activities. There are

anecdotal accounts of rural migrants quitting high-end activities after one or two

weeks of “tentative participation” (Qian 2014:44), further consolidating symbolic

boundaries between classes, and in this case, the urban-rural divide. In Chapter

Four, I supplement his research by making the point that this division also exists

within the guangchang wu community. From the perspective of space

appropriation, I apply Marc Auge’s framework of “traditional anthropological

space” vs. “non-place” to explain the differences between urban and rural

people’s understanding of space. I show that urban residents tend to be

influenced by the idea of non-place whist rural populations still employ

traditional space.

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Dance and Gender

Some former researches failed to consider womanhood and motherhood in

transition while some others only mentioned it without nuanced evaluation.

Qian’s article generalized the impact of political liberation in post- reform China,

said it provided autonomy for individuals and spontaneous organizations (2014)

without consideration of the impact of gender and family. Zhang (2009)

mentioned that China’s market reform has had a gendered impact on middle-aged

women as they were disproportionately made “redundant” in the economic

restructuring and many were forced to retire “early” (Zhang 2009:210). As Zhang

noticed, the almost universal enforcement of a one-child policy among urban

families in the past thirty years means less child-care time for urban mothers and

grandmothers and hence more leisure time for dancing (Zhang 2009: 210). In

urban China, the legal retirement age is fifty for women workers, fifty-five for

women cadres and professionals, and sixty for men.

I take an intimate view into how economic liberalization in post-reform

China has affected middle-aged and older women in particular. In Chapter Five, I

discuss why economic liberalization is neither a favorable milieu or a factor that

simply victimizes guangchang wu participants. Paying special attention to the

lifestyle described by my informants as “geguge (to each his own 各顾各),” I

argue that these women are perhaps “the first generation of lonely mothers” in

Chinese history. These mothers are home alone for the most part as husbands

work or pursue other activities and children go to school or begin families of their

45

own. Also I find three patterns that contribute to their geguge situations: aging

and the empty nest, migration, and failed marriages.

Dance and Generations，Knowledge Gap

Previous research about the relation between dance and generation has

mentioned the social transition has a generational impact on middle-aged and

older women. Zhang (2009) points out that the exercises in the park shared

among aging people are “cultural transcripts for old age problems” in general. It

is believed that public leisure includes dance appropriates socialist cultural

legacies to resist social transformations in the present (Xing 2010). Especially for

groups composed mainly of retired cadres and workers who lived through the

Maoist era, public leisure is often described as the continuation of habits and

cultural preferences bred by the Maoist collectivist values. The research on

yang’ge has agreed with the “resistance” opinion. Caroline Chen argues dance

yang’ge helps the older population “escape from modernization” (i.e., Chen

2010). Chen believes Beijingers’ dancing in the streets existed long before

post-reform urbanization and modernization, that the practice was largely hidden

from view when fast-changing cities gave practitioners less space in which to

dance their beloved traditional fan dance. Dance practitioners unselfconsciously

find ways to create continuity in their lives in the face of disruptive and massive

social and urban change (Chen 2010).

46

However, our understanding of the relationship between dance and

generation remains limited because 1) the generational differences within a

certain dance form are seldom mentioned in the literature; 2) the mixed and

contested body culture embodied in certain dance form is seldom noted in former

research, much less given a detailed evaluation. Among the dancing women in

my ethnography, some are much younger, with the youngest only 35, and hence

they belong to a different generation from those ones carry socialist legacy. In

Chapter Three, I describe that guangchang wu exists in two generational groups:

the middle-aged (zhongnian 中年) and older women (laonian 老年) groups,

which show obvious different patterns of their body culture.

Guangchang wu in my thesis is different from Chen’s description on

Beijingers’ dancing essentially because the generations of the participants are

different. Chen described the dance from 2004 to 2005. A decade later, the young

women then have grown older and begun to participate in guangchang wu. In

Chapter Three, I provide a description of who these women are. In Chapter Four,

I evaluate the dilemma of today’s “older women” in Lingyang. Along with the

explosion of the aging population, the parks alone cannot meet their demand for

dance space. The dances must take place near residential areas such as xiaoqu for

the sake of convenience and safety. As a result, dancers have to negotiate with

nearby residents. It is hard to say there are spaces where they can “escape”

urbanization and development. They don’t have their own Eden.

47

“Guangchang wu prince” Wang Guangcheng perform in front of Sydney Opera House (Photo provided by Wang Guangcheng with permission to use). Wang’s guangchang wu movements with the music of “Little Apple (Xiao pingguo 小苹

果) was promoted by The General Administration of Sport of China as a “standard movements” in March, 2015.

Also Chen’s argument is kind of essentialist because if yang’ge is happening

in the present, why think of it as old? I argue that there is no absolute distinction

between traditional and non-traditional. “Traditional” forms are constantly

changing and shifting. Inspired by Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983), I believe the

sharp distinction between what is traditional and what is modern is often invented.

Many “traditions” that appear or claim to be old are often quite recent in origin.

And interestingly, many informants believe guangchang wu is modern instead of

traditional. Some believe the dance is popular worldwide instead of merely a

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Chinese activity.39 There are informants who told me that the “guangchang wu

prince” Wang Guangcheng, has taught Americans guangchang wu in Times

Square in New York, evidencing their opinion that guangchang wu is also

accepted in “Western countries” and thus is “modern.”

Rehearsal for the New Order?

Dance as public leisure is idealized as a means to break down existing social

structure. For example, Zhang Hong believes peer socializing, including dancing

in the park, is “new coping mechanism” for aging in China (Zhang 2009: 197).

Qian believes that the existence of an active “public man”40 in collective leisure

suggests an alternative cultural configuration to the individualization and

commercialization in other spheres of post-reform China (2014). In his research,

he compared theater and cinema (expensive entertainment options) to public

leisure and found the latter to be ordinary urbanities’ tactical resistance to

capitalist economic relations and commodity logics (Qian 2014:34). Commitment

to shared activities exerts a transformative power, turning presumptively

superficial interactions between strangers into intimate secondary relationships

(Lofland 1998)—long-lasting social relationships loaded with positive emotional

overtones, and everyday forms of social validation and support. In Chapter Five,

I also made the point that new friendships in the city space are emerging. For

instance, my richest informant Ma Yanli enjoyed a close friendship with Deng

39This was shown in the 98 questionnaires I spread out in the dancing groups as supplemented data collection method. 40Qian uses this term generically, and he uses this term to include public woman.

49

Lihua because she was touched by Deng Lihua’s spirit after overcoming cancer.

Their friendship bridges the gap between their different backgrounds. Hence, I

believe that alternative social relationships are created within the guangchang wu

community, relationships that seek common ground upon which the women build

friendships.

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Chapter Three

Mixed Body Culture in Guangchang Wu

Wu Yuhua’s personal dance history made me realize that guangchang wu

may be more complicated than a revival of Maoist dance as argued by many

intellectuals. Her personal history of dance mirrors the history of mass dance in

the People’s Republic of China. Wu was a retired radio factory worker. She was

born in 1955, a teenager when the Cultural Revolution began, and 23 years old

when the “opening up” began. In the 1960s, she was a primary school student,

representing her school in performances at coal mines by performing “Happily

Sun-Dry the Grains for the War (xishai zhanbei liang 喜晒战备粮).” This dance

was quite popular during the period of “sent-down youth” and served as a

national calling to prepare for war. It was a dance that aimed to mobilize women

for work on farms. When Wu was in her 20s, she learned “social dance (jiaoyi wu

交谊舞)” in the radio factory where she worked. Later in life, she became a big

fan of guangchang wu. Wu’s loud voice easily fit the image of women of the

“Cultural Revolution Generation.” Her voice was quite different from my female

peers, who were much more accustomed to speaking gently. When Wu was

learning a new piece of dance, she put her all into it with the precise movements

of a gymnast.

It is perhaps not new that the younger generation defines themselves as

superior and modern through “othering” practices directed at their elders. During

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her years in China in the 1980s–1990s, Shea noticed that many mature adults

were subjected to public criticism and other indignities as a result of their coming

of age during the Cultural Revolution (2014:33). Rofel (1999:190), also rightly

pointed out, “One proves oneself a modern subject by expunging what the

Cultural Revolution generation has come to represent.”

Although they are represented as the “Generation of Cultural Revolution,”

whether guangchang wu is truly a part of the Maoist legacy needs a serious and

nuanced evaluation. A direct and unavoidable question is why do some dancers

dress in short skirts and high heels, and wear makeup, which are in direct contrast

to the gender-neutral normative in the Maoist era?

My curiosity starts from if and how guangchang wu is a product of Maoist

body culture. I start with a brief summary of women’s body culture in China,

emphasizing the display of femininity and sexuality. I later find social dance

(jiaoyi wu 交谊舞) is a predecessor of guangchang wu. I discuss why, for

cultural reasons, most women stopped dancing the jiaoyi wu but embraced

guangchang wu. I finally distinguish middle-aged (zhongnian 中年) women

from the elderly (laonian ⽼老年) women among guangchang wu participants. The

term, dama, is too general to be helpful in understanding who they are and how

they differ historically and as individuals. Finally, I make the point that the

acceptance of guangchang wu among middle-aged and older individuals reveals

their internalization of a mixed body culture: Confucian body culture, Maoist

body culture, and the post-reform feminized body culture.

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Normative Womanhood and Body Culture in Transition

Body cultures are reflected in dance. When importing new forms of dance,

different cultures always localize them according to their own norms. For

example, the British transformed the sexually charged tango into a more

“acceptably erotic” dance by adding upright comportment, staccato action, a

sharper and more compact bodily hexis (Karatsu 2003:429). Tango was less

changed when exported to Japan because the closeness of bodily touch was not

unfamiliar to the Japanese since physical closeness is an expression of the

collective nature of Japanese society (Karatsu 2003:429).

Women’s body culture reflects normative womanhood in a given culture,

and is subject to historical transformation The changes in China have been

dramatic. Before the establishment of The People’s Republic of China, women

were constrained within the domestic sphere and defined by their roles therein

(Croll 1995; Watson 2004; Yang 1999). Thus, women were valued for making

family life their highest priority.

In Maoist China, women’s performance in social productions added another

layer to their virtue. Under the state’s direction, women were called on to leave

home, participate in social productions, and to enjoy their collective identity in

public spaces. While they were still expected to care for their families, these

social productions were usually the main standard by which they were judged.

After the Reform and Opening-up, the “double burden” of family and

support for the state still existed, but the focus shifted back to their domestic roles.

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Increasingly in the 1980s and 1990s, there were calls for women to return home

and once again make family life a priority, as in “Women! Go back home!

(nüxing huijia 女性回家).” The post-Mao era sought to reshape normative

womanhood by returning women to home and hearth (Rofel 2006). One can even

interpret it as a revival of Confucian womanhood.

Maoist Body Culture, the Gender Erasure Project

In Maoist China, the display of sexuality in public was taboo as reflected by

women’s clothing. Many feminists have come to a consensus that there was a

“gender erasure” project in socialist China, meaning females were “masculinized”

(for example, see Yang 1999; Dai 1995a). The Maoist era was a time when

feminine grooming concerns were considered bourgeois. In addition to wearing

Mao suits, women had to cut their hair into short straight bobs; more “feminine”

hairstyles including braids, ponytails, and perms were disallowed (Shea 2014:32).

Clothing such as dresses, skirts, patterned cloth, and bright colors also became

taboo. Yang (1999) interviewed women who were in their twenties in the 1960s.

They recalled that they wore large olive green army uniforms, or blue or gray

clothes. From behind, females were easily mistaken for males.

The mainstream attitude towards sexuality also was reflected in the model

opera (yangban xi 样 板 戏 ). White hair woman (baimaonü 白毛女 ), a

well-known female character, was turned into a pregnant virgin. These cases

dramatically revealed a de-sexualization discourse on femininity.

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Maintaining Distance from Men: From Jiaoyi Wu to Guangchang Wu

Many women who stopped dancing the jiaoyi wu but embraced guangchang

wu attribute this change to sexual discipline and family values. Guangchang wu,

in a sense, is a “collective solo” activity. However, the footwork and rhythm of

the music in guangchang wu are deeply rooted in social dances such as the

jitterbug. Women in their 60s still prefer the basic steps from jiaoyi wu, and

sometimes they even pretend to dance with a partner.

Women Dance Jiaoyi Wu with Women (picture taken by the author in Shenzhen, October, 2013)

Social dance was imported to Lingyang in the 1990s. Many of my

informants were taught jiaoyi wu in their work units, under the banner of

“National Fitness,” (quanmin jianshen 全民健身 ). However, such national

outreach programs sponsored by work units and encouraged by the state only led

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to a temporary popularity of social dance at the grassroots level. A considerable

number of women in Lingyang said they danced jiaoyi wu before they learned

guangchang wu, but they abandoned jiaoyi wu because of the stigma attached to

the dance.

Deep-rooted Confucius Gender Asymmetry

In his research, Farrer (1990) found a sexualized social dance culture among

the middle-aged in Shanghai dancing halls. However, Lingyang is a much

smaller and conservative society. Jiaoyi wu was rejected more harshly in

Lingyang.

Zhang Xiufang was a 47-year-old talkative, shorthaired, middle school

teacher. She had a son in his second year of high school. She volunteered to teach

the dances because she was relatively younger than other members of the Blue

Coast group and was more proficient at searching for videos from which they

learned new dances. Yet, she had a fear of dancing with men she did not know.

She explained it this way,

The dancing people are from different levels. Some are dancing for dancing. Some are dancing for social (jiaoji 交际) reasons, but… bad things happen to those who dance jiaoyi wu. It is only when one reaches upper society… high level (cengci 层次), that jiaoyi wu can become a pure artistic enjoyment. In the name of social or managing guanxi (gao renjiguanxi 搞人际关系 ), men are actually taking advantage of women. They have intentions (sexual intimacy). They hug you, get close to you…

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Likewise, Liu Mingju, a 54-year-old woman who worked in an epidemic

prevention station, did not like dancing with strange men:

I just do not want to dance with other men, especially old men… Their bodies are smell bad (qidao 气道). It is true! An old guy who has already retired from our department this year has the stink. It is really annoying! But young men do not qidao... my husband does not have it. My son and husband have a really good scent…. People themselves do not know they are smelly, but we can smell it…. I just cannot get close to them as it makes me want to throw up.

The physical closeness in dance with strangers was seen as a danger and

taboo in Lingyang. Zhang Xiufang told me she only danced jiaoyi wu with her

husband or her male colleagues at banquets under the close watch of friends. She

even told me a rumor about a murder happening in a jiaoyi wu field on the Great

Square because of a love triangle triggered by jiaoyi wu.

The common perception that dancing with strange men is dangerous is

socially constructed and culturally differentiated. Mary Douglas (1966), a British

anthropologist whose analysis of purity and impurity in different societies is

considered key text in social anthropology, found that intimate bodily

experiences are social in nature; any feelings of revulsion stem from our need for

boundaries. Those boundaries vary from culture to culture. In China, the

deeply-rooted Confucious gender asymmetry teaches women to believe they are

disadvantaged, consumed, stared at, and always under threat of being taken

advantage of by men. The only way they maintain a virtuous image is by

maintaining distance from men (with the exception of one’s husband).

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Family as Highest Priority

I once asked Zhang Xiufang and Wu Yuhua, dancer and retired factory

worker, how they liked jiaoyi wu. Zhang Xiufang said, “I do not want to dance

jiaoyi wu. Yongjun (her husband) does not want me to dance that.” Wu

responded with her loud voice and joked, “Is he afraid that you are easily

changing (your heart)?” Wu continued,

Because jiaoyi wu involves unavoidable body touch, then it is easy to cause problems. Think about the motions (Wu then started to mimic the body positions in jiaoyi wu with Zhang Xiufang. The two got really close and her crotch touched Zhang Xiufang’s crotch.) Look, it got touched, then it got really sensitive, and then it has (biological) reactions and then it sparked (cachu huohua 擦出火花) (giggling)…

Emotions can be triggered by the dancing, especially when partnering with the same person night after night. Because the two dancing partners matched really well. For example, you have a good move, and he has a good move. After the dance, you talk and find you have much in common. He likes you and will seek you out every night. If you did not go there to dance, you would miss that. Later, the two of you will go out to a play and have dinner together. And after a while, you are just off the track and fly away (from the family and marriage). There are too many cases happening in my factory.

Wu said she did not go to jiaoyi wu because her family opposed it. “I do not

want to quarrel with them because of this (shengxianqi 生闲气),” she said.

“Can’t I choose other activities? Do I necessarily have to dance jiaoyi wu? If I

had danced it when I was young, it would be more realistic; if I go to jiaoyi wu

now, there are no people who would want to dance with me as I am already too

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old. I was really beautiful when I was young, but I was scared (of possibly

destroying my marriage).”

The point is not about whether jiaoyi wu has a negative impact on marriage.

It is the fear of jiaoyi wu’s disruptive power over marriage that reflects the depth

of women’s self-monitoring on the issue of sexuality. The theory of Foucault’s

sexuality and surveillance (1979) suggests that every society regulates sexuality.

Social order is maintained through surveillance and by differentiating and

punishing those who fail to follow the social norms. The level of regulation

reaches its peak in the modern world. Self-monitoring reflects the success of the

institutional influence. Under surveillance, individuals internalize ideology and

social rules, and self-monitor their behaviors. I argue that by degrading the image

of jiaoyi wu into something shady and dangerous, women persuaded themselves

to follow certain conservative sexual norms.

This case demonstrates the patriarchal structure still in place in China and its

impact on these women. The gender structure is double standard because it

values men yet devalues women. In Lingyang, according to what I have been told

by locals, women are supposed to take responsibility for ensuring domestic

stability. On the other hand, it is believed that extra-marital affairs are normal for

men.

The social expectation defines women of virtue as those who make their

families their priority. Under such a mainstream and gendered norm, almost all

females internalize such expectations. Despite this influence, the changing

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landscape of dance practices among women indicates that they are seeking

pleasure while maintaining family values.

Transition from Jiaoyi Wu to Guangchang Wu, Two Cases

On one night in May 2014, I sat in the pavilion watching dance teams on the

Great Square. Liang sat beside me to take a break and watch the dancers. She was

in her 60s, the housewife of a factory owner. Liang had danced for almost a year

and already knew many gossips in the dancing troop. When I asked about the

woman in the first row, dancing with her ponytail swinging to and fro. Liang

said,

She also danced jiaoyi wu before, for quite a long time, but later she was dragged out of the dance hall by her husband and was beaten by him in public. She then quit jiaoyi wu and came here to guangchang wu. It is all fine dancing here, but she still dances with her feet barely touching the ground (indicating she is a flirty woman), it is not an honest (shizai 实在) way of dancing… There was also another woman who told me that if she danced jiaoyi wu, her husband would not allow her to go outdoors.

From this gossip, we can tell that jiaoyi wu can elicit severe objections from

husbands, and such severe objections often involve domestic violence. Hearing

one woman joke about another woman who was beaten by her husband because

of dancing the jiaoyi wu was really sad. The emphasis on domestic violence

further demonstrates a social fear of jiaoyi wu. According to Liang, guangchang

wu can help women avoid this violence.

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Wang Shuying was a big fan of jiaoyi wu, but only danced with her husband.

Later, when her husband became too busy at work and had no time for jiaoyi wu,

Wang began to dance guangchang wu because her husband was reluctant to let

her dance with other men. For the women who were jiaoyi wu dancers before,

guangchang wu became a way to reconcile their pursuit of pleasure through

dance with gendered constraints. Wang Shuying told me,

My husband is selfish. All men are like this. I turned to guangchang wu because I cannot dance jiaoyi wu as he did not want me to. Why should I quarrel with him because of this? Even though I like jiaoyi wu, how elegant and decent (gaoya 高雅) it is! Once I dance it, the femininity (qizhi 气质) will be revealed.

I noticed that there was a discursive practice of “othering” presupposing a

clearly defined “we (guangchang wu dancers)” superior to the “other (jiaoyi wu

dancers),” thereby reinforcing male-female dichotomies and their power

relation. Guangchang wu dancers believe they represent the ideal image of proper

womanhood rather than jiaoyi wu women. As another informant, Ms. Li put it,

The reputation of jiaoyi wu in our xiaoqu was made shady. The dancers were already older than 60, but still hung around and mingled together. They were people with husbands and wives! It wasn’t until a wife came to quarrel with her husband that we knew there was this issue… few people go to the jiaoyi wu places now…. I would like to thank the person who invented guangchang wu. This is really a good deed.

For Li, guangchang wu was good and jiaoyi wu was bad. And the standard

behind such dichotomy is sexual discipline. Fengling, a 47-year-old woman

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offered similar comments. She said, “At first my husband did not agree with me

about dancing. I persuaded him by saying guangchang wu will not lead to

extramarital affairs as here are all women. It was not jiaoyi wu.”

Men’s Attitudes as a Point of Reference

Men’s attitudes towards guangchang, moving from suspicion to acceptance,

are usually mentioned as evidence that guangchang wu is beneficial. Liu Junxia,

a 42-year-old woman who had been laid off from her job, led the Queen’s Yard

group. She told me that several husbands of women on her dance team follow

their wives to make sure they are not dancing jiaoyi wu. They also want to make

sure all participants are women and there is nothing erotic happening. As she

described,

These women’s husbands felt uneasy. During the dancing,

the women told me, ‘look, they are coming to see us.’ They laughed and laughed, and told me to turn a blind eye on the men. Many women’s husbands came to observe. All they saw were detachment of women (niangzi jun 娘子军),41 not a single man. Then these husbands have nothing to say back home.

She continued,

You know, at first they thought we were dancing the jiaoyi wu…. it is not OK since jiaoyi wu disrupted many marriages, and husbands and wives become upset and annoyed with each other. However, once they saw it is all women, they all became supportive. Once it was for exercise, and it is guangchang wu, they became supportive.

41This expression has a military connotation .The Red Detachment of Woman (Hongse Niangzi Jun) was one of only six movies made in China during Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).

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Guangchang wu therefore has largely addressed the conflict between

domestic and social spheres and allowed women to seek expressions of beauty,

sexuality and pleasure without the insecurity and fear of being harshly judged.

Ironically, although guangchang wu is less problematic to the stability of the

family than jiaoyi wu, it is still is stigmatized by the younger generation who now

exert powerful influence on public discourse. It seems that the contemporary

revival of Confucian womanhood among the younger generation is one of the

stimulants of public discussion about guangchang wu. In recent decades, the

younger generation has increasingly taken control of public opinion, and during

reform when they could continue their educations, it is exactly the kind of revival

of traditional Confucian womanhood take control and redefine the virtue of

womanhood. The revival of national study (guoxue 国学 ) and virtue of

Confucius womanhood (nüde 女德 ) both indicated this. The widespread

standard for good women has become increasingly more absolute and

homogenous: should be contented with her lot (anfende 安分地) and play

caregiver in the domestic sphere. Yet guangchang wu dama’s dancing activities

put them at odds with this standard of virtuous womanhood. They are too easily

misunderstood. They are interpreted as a group of women who are only

concerned about their hobbies and do not care about their families. Another

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criticism leveled at the women is that they have no self-respect (weilao buzun 为

老不尊),42 which is not the case.

Differentiating Dama: Zhongnian or Laonian?

The word, dama, indicates a distinct attitude among Chinese towards

middle-aged and older women. In published literature and everyday

conversations, middle-aged and elderly women are frequently lumped into the

category zhonglaonian which literally means middle and old age merged together,

or the fuzzy transition between them (Shea 2014:31).

Building on Shea, I make the point that the zhonglaonian needs to

differentiate the age groups. In guangchang wu, my female informants ages 35 to

55 had much in common, while women older than 55 tended to have more in

common.43 I refer to the first group as the zhongnian or middle-aged group, and

the latter as the laonian or older group.

I find that the zhongnian dancing women are not the “Generation of Cultural

Revolution” in a strict sense because they were not growing up during that period

of time. The laonian dancing women belong to the “Generation of Cultural

Revolution.” But they are affected by the body culture of both the reform era and

Maoist body culture. Moreover, they seem to prefer the latter, in which

42Yang Xinyu (杨新宇).2014.“为登羊年春晚 12 位花样奶奶集体整容 Twelve dancing nanny got plastic surgery for the Spring Festival Gala Evening. 重庆晨报 Chongqing Morning Daily). At http://dongying.dzwww.com/shxw/201410/t20141017_11191571.htm, accessed16 June 2015. 43Following Shea, the notion that being “old” begins at age 65 was rare in China in the 1990s. Then, women were thought to be old at age 50, 55, or 60—all female retirement ages for various occupations. Also, age 60 is the traditional Chinese entrance into old age, as in five cycles of twelve years.

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sexualized femininity is dominant.44 I argue there is no essential difference

between these women and the younger women in China. They are all influenced

by a commercialized and “westernized” standard of female beauty. Older women

are even more eager to pursuit such beauty because they feel their time to display

their assets is limited.

Zhongnian and laonian dance styles are quite different. Sincere pursuits of

femininity and sexuality happen most often among zhongnian women, who

prefer colorful and tight dresses. They twist their waists, swing their hips, spin

around and happily revel in the music. These women spent time and money on

their clothes and make-up in an effort to look their best in public. One of my

informants, Zhao Lanxing, 51, a civil servant, told me proudly that through

dancing, she had become a more feminine woman. She also said, “guangchang

wu is not a tiny issue, but has big ramifications that affect women’s egos, such as

posture… and the confidence of the person.” Later she distinguished herself from

her former high school classmates who had already become “old nanny (laotaipo

老太婆),” meaning they had lost their physical appeal. In local terminology,

women use “monkey (hou 猴 )” to describe individuals who wear showy

costumes and make-up. Some of my informants call themselves “hou” as

self-mockery to cover their shyness about grooming. When asked why she had so

many different kinds of clothes and shoes for guangchang wu, one informant, Liu

Ruihong, said, “the older the women are, the more ‘monkey’ we behave (yuelao,

44Wang Qianni (王芊霓). 2014. “从暗灰到粉红 (From Dark Gray to Pink).” 南方人物周刊 (South People

Weekly), 第 406 期 (No. 406).

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yuehou 越老越猴).” She continued to defend herself that “everyone desires

beauty.”

In his classic work, anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1973) describes how men

in Bali display their masculinity and get pleasure through cockfighting. Similarly,

middle-aged Chinese women realize joy by expressing their femininity through

guangchang wu in public spaces. Guangchang wu is different from other exercise

activities such as taiji and qigong in the sense that it showcases femininity and

sexuality. Shilling’s (1993) point of view that contemporary women’s

emancipation has led to the over-emphasis of expressions of femininity resonates

with the women in guangchang wu.

Before the “formal” dance started, one zhongnian woman led four laonian women dancing

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The expression of femininity among zhongnian women

The laonian group, however, tends to have different features. For example,

the blue coast tema was one dominated by the older women. The lead dancer was

56 years old and most of her teammates were older than 55. They preferred the

steps dance (buzi wu /cao 步子舞／操)” as they are easier for women their

age.45 Similar to the Jade Garden team, they also learned moves and steps from

online videos, where “feminine styled dances” dominated the Internet. However,

in many cases, they have to change the “model motions” to fit their own

physicality. Many are not flexible enough to fulfill the sexualized movements.

During a visit to Zhao Fengling’s home, she showed me pictures on her Ipad in

which she and her other two dancing friends pose in Zhao’s daughter's belly

dancing clothes, a shiny bra top and a tight long shiny skirt as bottom. Zhao told

me these pictures would “all become beautiful memories when they were too old 45According to my informant, who was believed to be a local expert on folk dance, the step dances were derived from disco dances of the 1990s or from jiaoyi wu, but danced by individuals without partners.

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to wear these clothes.” Another time, when I taught the Blue Coast team a Dai

dance, almost all dama said they would like to dance as femininely (roumei 柔美)

but it is too hard for them. These two cases reveal that the contemporary image of

femininity is so dominate that the older women desire such feminine beauty.

And some laonian women strongly argue for desexualizing the dance. These

cases can be interpreted as either an embodiment of conservative Confucian

culture or an echo of the Maoist “gender erasure” project. In the first case, one

informant in her 60s disagreed with the usage of the Chinese word wu (dance

舞). On June, 2013, I interviewed a dancing enthusiast, 60 years old, about her

interest in guangchang wu. She immediately rejected my usage of “dance (tiaowu

跳舞).” “We are not dancing” she said, “we are performing gymnastics (tiaocao

跳操 ), which is for the purpose of health.” In the local dialect, tiaocao

emphasizes the exercise function of dancing while tiaowu indicates the

performative. Laonian women prefere to use the term tiaocao while zhongnian

women will typically have no problem to use the word tiaowu. Laonian women

do not wear short skirts and high heels. This group of women also tried not to

twist their waists and shake their hips too hard. They tried not to appear

provocative. Women like the dancing enthusiast seriously deny the link between

dance and seeking the sexual attentions of others.

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Laonian women danced guangchang wu in Jade Garden in the early morning

Commonalities: Desiring Attention from Others

The zhongnian and laonian also share commonalities. For example, they

both desire attention from male audiences. They both enjoy being objects of the

“male gaze” (Mulvey 1975). Both of them mentioned to me, by participating in

guangchang wu contests, they want to prove themselves to others (potential

audiences). As put by one member of Blue coast team, “even though we are old,

we can fulfill the dance and show out our own spirits! ” As a case in point, a

40-year-old zhongnian, Deng Lihua, was quite beautiful. She was one of the best

guangchang wu dancers in her neighborhood. There was a 20-year-old man in the

audience who was attracted to her and asked her out. Deng Lihua refused, but this

incident was well known throughout the guangchang wu circle as recognition of

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her physical appeal and femininity. In other cases, a laonian woman would tell

another dancer that she saw a male audience member staring at her as she danced.

One day when 55-year-old Wang Liping told Li Ronghua she saw a man

watching her dance every day, Li Ronghua looked quite happy and shyly replied,

“You only say nice things to please me.” In some cases, older women are no

different from middle-aged and even younger women in their desire to be thought

attractive by members of the opposite sex.

The women also appreciate the attention they receive from other women. In

nearly 100 questionnaires issued in the early stages of my fieldwork, most

dancers said that they hoped to attract audiences. The larger the audience, the

more effort they put into their dancing. Bai Yujie, the leader of one dance team

on the Great Square, recounted how significant it is to have an audience. One day,

in the middle of their dancing, another official performance started. Their

audience turned to look at that performance. The dancers in Bai Yujie’s team

were frustrated. One of them said, “Nobody sees us dance, let’s just leave!” And

they did. Without an audience, they had lost the motivation to continue.

The other case happened online, where videos of performances garner

recognition and compliments from other dancers. In May 2014, I met Wang

Yuling in a guangchang wu contest. Wang was lead dancer of her group, also the

coach and the one responsible for group video shooting, editing and uploading.

Wang introduced me to the online world of guangchang wu. I joined two groups.

One group had 1,918 members, and about 700 people online at any given time

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during the day. One post was from a woman who danced in front of her own

computer camera, letting others watch her. Others did the same. Showing me her

online friends dancing one by one, and looking at them receiving praise or critical

comments, Wang Yuling proudly told me, “I have been well recognized in this

group. I received more than 6,000 roses (a virtual rose is used to express

appreciation for the dancer) overall.” After the dance ended, the audience not

only encouraged the dancer to improve her skills, gestures, etc., but also to

compete. The women were then ranked. For example, as a newcomer, I was only

called “court maid (gongnü 宫女).” The most experienced and respected dancers

were labeled as “queen (huanghou 皇后)” and “Noble Consort (guifei 贵妃).”

This ranking system in the QQ46 group encouraged these dancers to improve

their skills.

There are many times that guangchang wu brings Wang Yuling a sense of

pleasure that is not necessarily related to sexuality but to the improvement she

sees in her dancing. The scenario she described to me was quite impressive.

When she became interested in a dance, she would practice the moves, look at

herself in the mirror, correct every gesture, even the position of her fingers and

toes. This process took several hours every day. Sometimes she was too focused

and ruined a meal she was preparing. The participants from the Blue Coast

team, The Queen’s yard team, as well as Jade garden group are all enthusiastic

about honing their craft through continuous learning. The atmosphere is like a

46QQ is a popular Chinese instant messaging software service. It offers a variety of services, including group and video chat.

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self-study group. Hence, the pleasure that dance brings these individuals is

multi-dimensional and the relevance to sexuality is only one facet.

Conclusion

Guangchang wu has meaning steeped in history, which affects individuals

differently. Rather than speaking of the revival of Maoist body culture, it would

be more accurate to speak of the mixed body culture in the changing landscape of

guangchang wu.

Some guangchang wu participants, who internalized the socialist “gender

erasure” history and who believe in the Confucian conservative body culture,

tend to desexualize their dances. Others tend to embrace the post-Mao gender

normative: the softer, feminine, and sexualized female figure. Still others cared

most about the improvement of dancing skills. In their individual practices, they

see different dances as novelties that could become wonderful memories when

they become too old to dance. It is vital to point out that guangchang wu female

participants do not behave only to reinforce gender asymmetry, they are also

reshaping themselves.

To a great extent, guangchang wu is a reconciliation of the tension between

personal sensual pleasure and sexual discipline. Many guangchang wu dancers

actually had jiaoyi wu experiences but withdrew for fear the dance would damage

their reputations and threaten their marriages. Some had experienced men’s

behaviors that led to a fear of dancing with strange men. Others had witnessed

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the abuse of women at the hands of disapproving husbands. Men didn’t suffer the

same stigmatization, demonstrating the double standard and holding women

solely accountable for ensuring family stability. Guangchang wu dancers,

themselves, dismissed jiaoyi wu because these women had internalized sexual

discipline. In contrast, guangchang wu does not involve physical intimacy with

the opposite sex and avoided any appearance of immorality. Therefore, peers of

the middle-aged and older women accepted guangchang wu. However, it was

still a “stigmatized sociality” in the eyes of younger individuals, who now hold

the power to define normativity for womanhood.

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Chapter Four

Guangchang Wu Spaces , Mutually Constitutive with Historical

and Social Forces

“Our people do not have many places to go for their public life,” according

to Yang Hongshan, vice dean of the Public Governance and Harmonious City

Research Center at Renmin University of China. Yang asserted that the massive

numbers of guangchang wu dancers taking over public spaces was not prevalent

in Western communities because they have enough indoor spaces for exercise.47

Despite Yang’s claim, my research shows that dancing outdoors is actively

chosen rather than passively accepted. I noticed that even if provided indoor

space, these women prefer dancing outdoors. In May 2014 at Queen’s Yard

xiaoqu, I noticed Li Hongmei, a 36-year-old lawyer turned canteen owner,

dancing with others inside a long pavilion. This was the third site in a month that

her group had occupied. They left the first location because the “sun exposure

was too harsh.” They migrated the second time due to complaints from a resident;

a woman said the music disrupted her baby’s sleep. The third site was a narrow

pavilion near the west gate of the xiaoqu. [Insert Picture] The pavilion was far

from satisfactory because the space was too narrow. A resident passed by and

commented “Look, how poor they are, they just cannot find a place to dance!” I 47Li Gang (李罡). 2013. “市民鸣枪放藏獒驱散广场舞者 事发地无人再跳 (A Man in Beijing Shot to the

Sky and Releasing His Tibetan Mastiff to Dispel the Guangchang Wu Group, and Nobody Danced There

Anymore).” 北京青年报 (Beijing Youth Daily). At

http://news.sina.com.cn/s/2013-11-06/021928629821.shtml, accessed 6 November 2013.

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asked Li, “If indoor places were provided for dance, would you like that?” She

didn’t believe such space would ever be provided, but if they were, she said,

“Well, we still would like to dance outdoors as it is more natural, and the air is

better than inside. It is too stuffy (menqi 闷气) inside.” Other informants gave

similar answers.

In everyday experiences and interactions it is a sense of place, rather than the

structure of space, that frames our behavior (Harrison and Dourish 1996:3). Do

outdoor spaces carry a different meaning for these women? How do dancers

perceive performing in outdoor spaces? How are their perceptions constructed?

The concept of “inscribed spaces” is inspiring because it implies that humans

“write” in an enduring way their presence on their surroundings (Low and

Lawrence-Zuniga 2003:13). Chen points out that Beijing residents appropriate

spaces to support their habits and practices, spaces that were not designed with

such uses in mind. They are unintentionally but effectively developing new

typologies of hybrid use (Chen 2010:22). Lingyang guangchang wu dancers do

the same. It is important to note that in Lingyang, of all the spaces I studied, only

one (The Great Square) was designed for mass cultural activities.

Before arguing that people attach meaning to space and transform space into

place, it is important to distinguish “space” and “place.” Steve Harrison and Paul

Dourish, two urban space researchers, put it this way,

Physically, a place is a space, which is invested with understandings of behavioral appropriateness, cultural expectations, and so forth. We are located in “space,” but we act

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in “place.” Furthermore, “places” are spaces that are valued. The distinction is rather like that between a “house” and a “home,” a house might keep out the wind and the rain, but a home is where we live (Harrison and Dourish 1996:3).

The controversy about guangchang is about which “spaces” should be turned

into what kind of “places” and who should have access. “Space” is structural

while “place” is social and cultural. Thus, it is easier to understand why dancers’

appropriation of spaces is met with different responses and even moral criticism.

The Meaning of Place to Guangchang Wu Participants

Five Dance Troops and Their Venues

Lingyang is quite spacious, but it is still hard to find a dance place near a

neighborhood. The town was constructed on former farmland, and the residential

population is small, making it a vast area geographically with a sparse population.

However the population is quite dense around every residential area. And most

guangchang wu teams would like to dance near their homes for the sake of

convenience. As a result, some can find satisfying spaces for dancing; some

cannot, especially if they are late in gathering. Chen (2010:29) summarized five

idealistic material conditions for dance: (1) flat, paved areas; (2) overhead

lighting for nighttime dancing; (3) overhead protection from undesirable

“skin-browning” effects of the sun; (4) a large enough area to accommodate 30 to

60 dancing bodies; and (5) distance from residential areas or office buildings to

ensure dancing and drumming will not disturb nearby non-dancers who dislike

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loud music. In Lingyang, the fifth condition is the most difficult. Some women

still choose convenience as their top priority while others will travel farther afield.

As a result, guangchang wu in Lingyang takes place in a wide range of physical

sites: the city square, open spaces in front of shopping malls, street gardens near

gated commercial communities, and sometimes even parking lots.

Dancers in Lingyang seldom dance inside a xiaoqu, but prefer to be just

outside. These outside spaces are available to all nearby residents. Based on

fieldwork, I became quite familiar with five dance troops: the Great Square

Group, the shopping mall group, Jade Garden, Queen’s Yard, and the Blue Coast

group. These five troops utilized spaces different in size, amenities and other

conditions. Dancers made the best use of space even when “ideal conditions”

were lacking.

The Great Square troop occupies the largest and most popular site. It has

about 200 practitioners including around 20 men. The large size of this troop was

fundamentally determined by the space. It is located in the largest and earliest

square in Lingyang. The square was 10 square kilometers with an additional 4

square kilometers of green space. The Great Square troop took a sixth of it, a

place bordered by a circular lake, long pavilions, and trees. During hot summer

days when no one dances, townspeople sit in the pavilions talking, enjoying the

shade and an occasional breeze off the lake. At night when the Great Square

troop dances there, the pavilions become a resting place for dancers and seating

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for their audiences. There were many times when regulars told me they really

appreciated this pleasant space that helped keep the mood pleasant.

An Over Head Picture of The Great Square (central and southern part)

The shopping mall troop appropriated space in front of the gates to a

shopping mall located at a crossroads in the south of Lingyang. It is bordered by

a paved sidewalk with a flat, even surface. It is spacious and accommodates 100

to 150 dancers. Another advantage of this space is that it is well lit and

encompasses a wide staircase to a landing that forms a small stage where five

instructors can simultaneously lead the dances. Passersby gather on the roadside

to watch the dancers. Because this is a commercial area, this troop has little

chance of disturbing the neighbors with its music.

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The Shopping Mall Troop

The Jade Garden troop, the earliest to emerge, was located two minutes’

walk from the west gate of the Jade Garden xiaoqu. The site, located in the center

of the residential complexes, offers the unique advantage of a public toilet where

organizers can get electricity for their music players and amplifiers. [Insert

Pictures] The disadvantage is that it is crowded. At the periphery of this street

garden are concrete seats used by the audience. The Jade Garden group is not

satisfied with the space, but has no other options as other nearby open spaces are

occupied. The limited size of the space affects the number of dancers and even

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the mood of participants. In some cases, dancers quarrel with each other because

they do not feel they have enough personal space.

The Blue Coast is the smallest space at 30 meters long by 5 meters wide. It is

located in front of the gate to a private kindergarten. It only accommodates two

lines of dancers for a maximum of 20. It offers the advantage of convenience

because it is located only 50 meters away from the gate of the Blue Coast xiaoqu,

and one street over from the south entrance to the Queen’s Yard xiaoqu. Also the

lamp board hanging above the gate scatters red light on the dancers, creating a

dramatic and romantic ballroom-like ambience.

The Blue Coast Site

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The Queen’s Yard Team in a group photo at their dance site

Queen’s Yard is one of the best street gardens in Lingyang. It is spacious and

new. The concrete ground is flat and not too smooth, so quite perfect for dancing.

Trees, sculptures, flowerbeds, and wooden benches surround the space. A public

toilet was under construction when I visited. The space also attracts other

activities such as roller-skating. Liu Junxia, organizer of the Queen’s Yard troop,

finds this annoying and tries very hard to persuade children not to skate here and

possibly run into the dancers.

Space Determines Mood

A significant reason for dancing outdoors is that outdoor space is linked to

the women’s affinity for nature. Many anthropologists have noticed the

correlation between individual emotions and spaces. In parks, people seek and

acquire different moods than they do in the workplace or at home. Chen

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(2003:351) says, “Public spaces such as parks are arenas where urban dwellers

seek refuge and attain a semblance of privacy in anonymity from work or home.

Compared to the concrete streets or cramped quarters of the bus, urban parks

provide wide open spaces with trees and fresh air. Anthropologist Philipp

Demgenski finds couples have more quarrels in winter than in summer because

space, or the lack thereof, affects individuals’ moods. He explains that in the

winter, individuals tend to avoid the cold by staying indoors, but cramped

quarters create tension among family members. By contrast, in the summer when

outdoors activities are possible, there are fewer quarrels.48

My fieldwork confirms these observations. Many informants said they got

upset easily and were pickier with their husbands and daughters-in-law if they

stayed at home, but they could forget about annoyances if they went outside and

danced. “… When we quarreled at home… I forced myself to go outside. I stood

behind someone’s back to dance. After dancing a while… the annoyance was

gone,” one informant reported.

For dancers in Lingyang, their subjective mood was, to a great extent,

determined by the physical spaces. Even for those participants who once were

members of sports studios or took yoga or other fitness classes, outdoor dancing

provides an ambiance unmatched by the smelly closed environment of a gym.

One of the women put it this way, “At home it would be hard to breathe and

the still, stale air was stifling (menqi 闷气),” but dancing outside let me have “…

48Philipp Demgenski told me this while sharing his fieldwork in May 2014.

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the fresh freely flowing air (touqi 透气).” Their narratives of happier moods

outside indicate how transformative guangchang wu can be.

Historical Memory, Space Culture

I believe there are two reasons contributing to women’s mindset that dancing

in public is appropriate and legitimate. First, in China, historically, sports have

been a lower-class activity and gender has been grounded more in preordained

social roles and less in innate biology. This is in marked contrast to the West

where sports have played an important role in defining the male identity, and

women encountered hostility when they entered this masculine domain (Brownell

1995:28). In China, women interested in sports found less resistance. “Women in

general, and peasant women in particular, were considered good sports prospects

because their hard lives prepared them for the bitterness of sports (ibid.)” This

might explain why there are more women in guangchang wu than men. Second,

the space culture of Maoist history plays a role in today’s widespread acceptance

of guangchang wu. The outdoor activity is legitimate because it has been the

people’s way of living and source of pleasure since childhood. When asked

whether they feel embarrassed to dance in public, most female informants said no.

I believe this is because they have danced in public since childhood. During the

Maoist era, women were called to the squares, streets, and schools to dance in

support of state propaganda. The 60-year-old Wu Yuhua, 51-year-old Zhao

Lanxing, and 47-year-old Zhang Xiufang all shared with me their childhood

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memories of dancing in public and the pride and happiness they felt. Wu traced

her dancing experience back to kindergarten where she learned and performed a

Tibetan-styled Dance, “Golden Hill in Beijing (Beijing de jinshan shang 北京的

金山上 ).” 49 Zhao and Zhang also remember being selected to perform a

celebration dance of overthrowing the Gang of Four (sirenbang 四人帮) in the

1970s. Although many anthropologists believe the social movement was driven

by a lack of labor resources and was not tantamount to a real liberation of women,

they admit Maoist China put women in the public sphere for the first time.

Dancing outdoors soothes practitioners by keeping them in touch with

nature. I note that affinity for “nature” comes from the association made between

nature and “fresh air”, and open space. Just spending time out of doors in the

fresh air has the ability to lift their spirits. Outdoor guangchang wu also brings

back happy childhood memories of early public dancing.

Undercurrents Everywhere: Guangchang Wu Space as Site of Conflict

Guangchang wu spaces have become sites of structural conflict, such as class

(i.e., urban-rural) divide, generational differences, gender and the state. In the

rapid-change and increasingly complex Chinese society, different stakeholders

have different justifications for the appropriation of spaces. Conflicts occur

because of these differences of opinion, although the urban, the young, and the

state dominate the discussion.

49The lyrics of this song are in praise of Chairman Mao Zedong.

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A Gendered Perspective

Spatial structure and social structure are mutually constitutive, according the

the findings of Spain (2014:581). She addresses the relationship between the built

environment and social structure with an emphasis on gender. Individuals’ use of

space is consistent with their understanding of gender. For example, during the

late 19th and early 20th centuries, department stores, settlement houses, and

women’s clubs were gendered spaces in the industrializing cities, as were saloons,

restaurants, and business clubs. They gave men and women different destinations

in the city. No signs were needed to indicate which sex belonged in which space;

it was simply understood who belonged where. Thus, the idea of separate spheres

became encoded within the public spaces of the city (Spain 2014:584).

Many scholars were among those perpetuating the spatial reification of

gender stereotypes (Spain 2014:586). As mentioned earlier, the current

resurgence of traditional gender consciousness calls on women to stay away from

public places and return home. Thus, guangchang wu damas engender criticism

by “showing the face in public (paotou lumian 抛头露面)” behaviors. Also, their

public dancing leads some men to assume that they are asking to be molested.

These women try hard to resist these negative stereotypes assigned to them.

This resistance is reflected in their appropriation of public spaces as well as their

online presence. Building on Spain’s research, I believe space can change social

structure as well. The changes individuals make to the spaces also reflects their

expectations of change in the social structure. Guangchang wu participants tend

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to be women who exclude men in their cyber spaces to avoid unpleasant

situations with the opposite sex. On May 2014, Wang Yuling, brought me into a

QQ group of guangchang wu, named Happy Hearts. The introductory page reads,

“Male dancers please do not apply to join this group. This group is for female

fans of Happy Hearts guangchang wu only.” Wang hesitated to give me a reply

online as to why the group excludes males. When I asked face to face, she told

me the group accepted male members in the beginning. However, those male

members sent pornographic photos to the group, offending and disrespecting the

women. Wang ran into a similar issue in another QQ dance group. “It seemed

these male members assumed we were available for them to molest, but we need

to be respected,” she said. Thus the exclusion of men made it easier for the

women to create a space where they can be fully respected and appreciated. One

man who is the only member of a group said he had to convince leaders that he

was a big fan of guangchang wu, and then behave politely.

As shown in the case of banning men from their online groups, these women

are doing their utmost to create a safe environment where they can explore their

creativity without the threat of exploitation. While the media continue to debate

the moral intentions of these dancers, they are empowering themselves and

struggling towards a new normative womanhood.

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A Generational Perspective

The social structure also includes other elements, such as generation and

class. So space is also mutually constitutive with generation and class. For

example, it is widely believed in China that coffee shops are spaces that belong to

the middle class, and Karaoke are spaces belong to the youngsters.

The debate on guangchang wu reveals the mainstream ideal that a city

should be young and energetic. Hence the public display of an older body is not

legitimate. In addition to being pelted with feces and threatened with guns and

dogs, some guangchang wu participants were even beaten by neighbors. If they

weren’t older women, if the dancers were a group of young women, would others

object so violently? As shown in news commentary about some practitioners who

danced guangchang wu in front of Le Louvre museum, many young netizens

argued that the dama should return to private spaces. Further, they argued the

dama dancing represents a kind of backward country image. The comments were

one-sided, saying that dama cost China a loss of face.50 As shown by this

discourse, the older are increasingly disrespected by the younger.

The older generation experienced the “Mao era,” and internalized its

message of collectivism, while post-reform youth have been more influenced by

Western culture, which stresses the importance of individual rights. Sadly, the

older generation has been called “Cultural Revolution Generation” and suffered

50Liu Xuesong (刘雪松)，2014. “卢浮宫广场跳舞丢了谁的脸？(Whose face is lost because of guangchang wu in the Le Louvre museum?)” 新浪新闻 (Sina News). At http://news.sina.com.cn/zl/zatan/blog/2014-04-26/11281325/1727461555/66f6f8b30101thv1.shtml, accessed 13 Jun 2015.

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from social contempt including comments such as the “bad guys now become old

(huairen bianlao 坏人变老).”51

A Class Perspective

Guangchang wu is perceived to belong to the lower class for two reasons.

First, its predecessor is a rural peasant dance—yang’ge. Peasant stands lowest in

the social hierarchy in post-reform China. Second, participants are women. This

group also stands lower in the social hierarchy in China. The labels applied to

guangchang wu of “low class” and “tasteless” are confirmed by an official

website. In one comment, the Chinese Civilization Website (wenming wang 文明

网) even called for getting rid of a dance with so little good taste, danced to even

less-worthy music.

The emerging middle class believes that a city’s public spaces should be

quiet, orderly, and modern in stark contrast to the noisy music and low-class

entertainment found in guangchang wu. After decades of reform, the modern city

concept has been embraced by the urban middle class, and they continue to shape

the discourse by crushing the weaker voices of the guangchang wu dama. The

dancers receive little sympathy, and many believe they deserve to be punished

(zuiyou yingde 罪有应得). This is in keeping with China’s current discourse

about a modern and developing society, an argument supported by the middle

51Xu Danei（徐达内）,2013. “媒体札记：坏人变老(Bad people become old)” FT 中⽂文⽹网 The Chinese Version of Financial Times . At http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001053541?full=y, accessed 20 Nov 2013.

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class. This argument appears to be absolutely correct, but does not always stand

on the moral high ground. For example, in Hong Kong, some elderly who like to

sing have had that activity limited and controlled because of complaints from

neighbors. The singers, in turn, have protested with banners. A band named My

Little Airport wrote songs to express support.

The Urban-Rural Divide Embodied in the Dancing Space

In a small city, rural residents can easily get into the city via nearby public

transportation. This convenience means that individuals who live in the country

are dancing in the city. Dance organizers continually compare urban participants

with rural ones and complain about the rural dancers. In these organizers’ eyes,

urban residents pay most of the fees and therefore have high suzhi (quality 素

质),52 while rural residents refuse to pay because they have low suzhi and do not

respect organizers’ efforts. Almost all the guangchang wu troops in Lingyang

charge membership fees. To be specific, The Great Square, the Shopping Mall

troop, Jade Garden, and the Queen’s Yard all charge 10 yuan per month.53 The

organizers keep a ledger as to who paid and who did not, and they ask for

payment in cash during the first 10 days of each month. Blue Coast troop

charges 5 yuan per month because its space is quite narrow.

52Suzhi, literally means quality or human quality. It describes a person’s qualities measured in terms of behavior, education, ethics, etc. In daily life, it has become an encompassing term that includes all moral/immoral judgments. 53These groups charged 10 yuan per month in the summer of 2013, but the price rose to 20 yuan per month in 2014.

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On July 2013, I accompanied Yang Jing, a leader of The Great Square troop,

as she tried to collect dues for the month (five organizers took turns). When I

mentioned that I counted approximately 200 individuals dancing that day, she

snorted and complained,

There are a lot people who pretend that they paid, but they did not (yumu hunzhu 鱼目混珠). There seem to be a lot of people, but it is no use if they do not pay! Even people who stand in the front rows do not pay, but people in the first rows are better than those in the latter. Sometimes we do not make note of their names, and we just look at their faces, look at their appearances. To avoid mistakes (by mixing up the ones who paid with those who did not), we ask them to bring their cards (that prove they already paid). But since many people do not bring the cards, I have to ask them face to face. Sometimes I ask people too many times, and that makes me feel shy and ashamed.

When I asked about the people who do not pay, she continued to

say:

It is those people from nearby rural villages…. when you ask them (to pay), they say they did not bring money. They disappear the days when we charge money, but after and before that period, they come every day.

Another organizer of The Great Square troop, Liu Guoqing, was even more

specific.

Those who do not pay are from Mingli Tun village nearby. They come here but do not pay…. They feel these spaces are their homes.... They just feel that this space belongs to them, and they deserve to jump about (beng 蹦)54 here.

54Beng (蹦) has the same meaning as tiao (跳 as in tiaowu). In local dialect it is an impolite and disrespectful description of dance that carries negative connotations.

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I find it intriguing to attribute not paying the fees to low suzhi, the low

quality of a participant’s character. I prefer the framework of “traditional

anthropological space” vs. “non-place” to explain the differences between urban

and rural individuals’ understanding of space. In his book Non-Places:

Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, Marc Auge implies that the

rate of social mobility determines persons’ understanding of space. Auge

contends that traditional anthropological places contain the memories, the

common history, of a community such as sacrificial space, squares of a village, or

a church in a small town. Over time, these places are shaped by the interaction of

communities and spaces and combine communal memories with physical

environments. In contrast, “non-places” have emerged during the rapid

modernization process — a theme park, shopping mall, subway station, terminal

tower, high-speed road, and other kinds of passageways in cities. In order to get

to these non-places, individuals pay for subway tickets, spend money in shopping

malls and so forth. In the process, they acquire new identities such as member,

consumer, etc. The rising social mobility devalues the traditional anthropological

places (Auge1995).

In Lingyang, it seems that urban dwellers believe in non-place while rural

residents still employ traditional space. Urban Lingyang residents are

accustomed to buying tickets to confirm a certain identity in contemporary

society and to pay for memberships. As a new town in 2005, Lingyang has few

residents with any sense of belonging attached to these public spaces. The urban

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practitioners do not have memories related to these spaces. They followed a

“custom” to appropriate these public spaces and to pay for an activity. Refusing

to pay would be considered improper face-losing behavior. So when someone

began to charge money to access the space, most went along with it. Often,

newcomers would assume they must pay and would approach dancers

proactively asking how much they should pay. The ritual of paying gave them a

new identity: guangchang wu dancer and student. For example, Granny Sun,

who was nearly 80, told me, “You will never cease to learn as long as you live.

Joining in dance is just like taking a course. I don’t think that I am old. I am

especially fond of learning something new. Learning the new dances made me

feel still young.”

The rural population still employs traditional space because they have a

sense of history in the new town that was once their farmland. For example,

villagers from Mingli Tun were the individuals whose farmland had been turned

into The Great Square of Lingyang. Many urban dwellers told me that those

villagers behaved in high-handed fashion in the city, and they attributed such

behavior to the fact that they were once the owners of the land. This situation is

the same in other cities where there are many historical sites. Historical

significance or traditional uses of historical sites in Beijing are still quite

important despite urbanization and new uses for the spaces (Graezer 2004).

Religious festivals and national celebrations continue alongside contemporary

folk dance. Graezer (2004:76) contends that these places, as historical symbols,

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were so revered in history that contemporary yang’ge groups had to internalize

them in order to occupy these spaces for their use. Practitioners of Tian Bridge

(tianqia 天桥) appropriated spaces based on their history (Graezer 2004). In

Lingyang, the mix of urban and rural dancers has resulted in public spaces

where different cultures around space have collided.

What is The Role of the Government?

Dance organizers argue quite reasonably that they make no profit, and that

the money they collect maintains equipment and compensates instructors. Yet

there are still disagreements about fees. Zhao Yue, a 44-year-old primary school

teacher and co-organizer of the Jade Garden group, elaborates on the objections:

I do not take responsibility for collecting money. Wang

Shuying is responsible for receiving the 10 yuan every month…. several times a quarrel broke out, and there was even a woman who brought her husband to quarrel with Wang. They argued that it is not because they cannot afford the money, but because that place is a public site, is a city street garden, so they don’t have to pay.

Zhao was ambivalent about assessing dues. Once I asked if there were any

negative consequences for not charging the dancers. At first, she said, “It is not a

big deal…” Later, she changed her mind and said, “It is not suitable to not charge

money because organizers of other groups would think we are not collecting fees

in order to get more people here, to compete with them.” The default to charge

fees was a common theme among organizers. Although conflicts existed, most

people chose to accept the contract: followers pay money to gain access to the

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exercise; organizers receive money and fulfill their responsibilities to organize the

dancing. One informant once pointed out “If we do not charge money, dancers

will be less punctual.” Indeed, charging fees strengthened dancers’ commitments

to certain groups, and interestingly avoided the suspicion of local governments

who were reassured that the gatherings were about an exchange of money for

exercise and not political by nature.

Do these organizers have the right to charge others for the use of public

spaces? I think the dispute reveals the contested understanding of public space in

contemporary China. It seems that individuals agree on the use of commercialized

or private spaces because the ownership of these spaces is clear. Also because a

public space is more visible, it is often considered as an important place in which

to represent the image of the city, and even about national image. The culturally

contested understanding towards public spaces easily results in social conflict,

which makes it difficult for the government or other related organizations to

manage.

The government is believed by some to play a significant role in

appropriating space. Henri Lefebvre (1991:59) once criticized Soviet urban

planners for failing to include spaces in their modernist model of urban design. He

argued that new social relations demand new spaces, and vice-versa. He believed

that every mode of production produces a certain space. Hence any “social

existence” declaring itself to be real, but not producing its own space, would be a

strange entity (Lefebvre 1994).

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Informant Li Hongmei revealed that it is the government’s ignorance of how

to arrange for guangchang wu that puts organizers in the awkward position of

charging fees. Her critique points to a bigger problem that contemporary China

also failed to produce socialist spaces. She believes that if Lingyang’s government

had provided space and/or funding for dances, it could have eliminated the

conflicts around space. She also believes that dancing changes the function of

architecture in Lingyang from places that display imagery (xingxiang gongcheng

形象工程) to places of practical value (shiyong jiazhi 实用价值).

After all, the places are public sites, but when dancing occupies them, do these spaces become part of your own home? Is the occupation of the space reasonable? Isn’t the square established for all the people (renmin 人民)? Other people may argue their rights are usurped. For example, some people who just would like to walk around there, their rights are being intruded upon…. Also (the music and dance) affects the students nearby. This is the most disturbing outcome. I think such controversy will be resolved when the government becomes involved (because) if the government provides free dancing (in other places), who will go to places that charge fees? This issue will be solved naturally and immediately. Isn’t it as easy as I said?

She continued,

I would like to provide some suggestions: the government should put a sound system in at the great fountain (another landmark in Lingyang, at the edge of town near the river) so that people who go there can dance as long as they wish every day. Right? The fountain there should not merely be the center of a display, but usable. It would therefore make every person feel that socialism is the best… ‘how good is our government! They not only give us the space, they give us the loudspeaker!’ … that place is a good place for dancing. Guangchang wu should be developed along the river. It would affect no one (because that area is quite dark at night and no residential buildings are nearby).

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Li Hongmei found it difficult to share her thoughts with the city

government, so she finally lobbied the property owners committee of her

xiaoqu to financially support the dancing. Li, as a member of the committee,

said to others that guangchang wu gives women a break from family chores

and contributes to the harmony of the family and the neighborhood. Another

dancer, Wang Yuling, who went to the local government for support, was

rejected because the government considers these dance troops to be

spontaneous organizations (minjian zuzhi 民间组织) that should rely on their

membership for support. It is interesting that these dance organizations would

approach the government for support, yet disavow the socialistic character of

the Chinese government and its impact on society.

Conclusion

Outdoor spaces have special meanings to dancers and have become

irreplaceable. Exercising in nature has long been the Chinese tradition of

nurturing life activities (yangsheng 养生), which is believed to produce positive

emotions among dancers. The Maoist space culture of dancing outdoors triggers

childhood memories that have been internalized as behaviors. All of these

support guangchang wu as an outdoor activity.

Yet, the space taken up by guangchang wu has become a source of social

conflict. First and foremost, I argue that the widely criticized space appropriation

issue is caused by an imbalance between older women’s social status and their

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proprietary feelings for certain spaces. Since old women are often marginalized

and overlooked in society today, they occupy and create spaces to challenge the

stereotype. In cyber space, they have tried to create a pure environment where

they can be fully respected. To some extent, the cyber space empowers the

elderly to struggle for a new normative womanhood.

Second, the conflict over charging fees stems from differences in attitudes

toward feelings for the spaces. Lingyang is a vivid case of urbanization, where

previous landowners live alongside newcomers. Urban newcomers had less of a

sense of history for the spaces, while rural villagers were once owners of the

spaces. Urban residents prefer to conduct their behavior by “spirit of contract.”

They charge and pay money for dancing in public spaces because they do so for

other activities such as admission to amusement parks and shopping in malls.

Through the ritual of paying, they gain a new identity: a guangchang wu dancer.

Rural residents refused to pay because they believed the spaces were public and,

in a sense, they had already paid for them.

The government has been too slow to adapt to the fast-changing social

relations for which new spaces need to be created. New spaces have been

spontaneously created by and for older women in the form of sites for

guangchang wu, but disagreements over the meaning of space remain.

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Chapter Five

The First Generation of Lonely Mothers

There is a theme of social interaction in guangchang wu that goes beyond a

synchronization of movement. What is happening to these women’s social lives

and identities before and after dances? To answer this question, I believe an

intimate look on this topic is necessary. I find that guangchang wu is more than a

collective exercise activity. It is a community where individual participants

experience inward spirit transformation. In some groups, they are proactively

creating a common value. I make the point that this strong social interaction

among guangchang wu participants reveals the impact of the social

transformation on this generation’s women and mothers. I call these women “the

first generation of lonely mothers.”

How They Socialize in Guangchang Wu

Group Loyalty, Stability

Scholars hold different opinions on the depth of social interaction among

dancers. For example, Zhang (2009:210) believes, “there is a strong collective

spirit of camaraderie among the middle-aged and elderly men and women who

exercise together or participate in other group activities.” Differently, Farquhar

and Zhang (2012) contend that yangsheng activities generate small collectives,

but that members do not know each other well because individuals move in and

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out of dance groups frequently. They studied senior group dance as part of their

research on yangsheng (nurturing life activities 养生) in Beijing.

The troop in The Great Square is a “little collectivity.” However, the other

three: the Jade Garden group, Blue Coast group, and Queen’s Yard troop were

quite stable and showed strong collective spirit.

I find there are three things that contribute to the stability of these

guangchang wu groups. First, the transfer to another group may result in a “moral

cost.” If any one transfers to another group, the original group will know since it

is a small community and dancing women are acquaintances. Sometimes a

transfer is considered a “betrayal.” For example, Liu Junxia, the leader of

Queen’s Yard troop was once a follower in Jade Garden group. Her leaving and

transfer was considered by some of Jade Garden members as ingratitude. Some

women were even harsher, saying that Liu took the many dances she learned at

Jade Garden and taught them to the Queen’s Yard troop. Secondly, for the

majority followers, because different groups learn different dances, it means that

they have to start all over again if they move to a new group. Thus, dancers

remained on the same teams because they wanted to keep up with new dances

and not get left behind. Otherwise, they would be embarrassed. Thirdly, dancers

had to pay money every month for access to the dancing. Although the amount

was small, the fee was a contract that restrained both the organizers and the

dancers from transferring to other groups. Worth mentioning, the majority of the

dancers purchased clothes and shoes from online specialty stores. Women

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belonging to the same dance group tended to purchase similar clothes. By buying

similar clothes, they expressed their team identity and acquired a sense of

belonging.

Encourage each other for a better performance in the guangchang wu contest

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Wearing similar clothes for guangchang wu

Based on the stability of the groups, women’s socialization mostly started

because of dances but conducted in many other occasions other than in the dance

site. Without the stability of the group, the sociality would be impossible to

realize. When the dance was over, some women went home immediately. Some

did not, instead, they gathered to continue to practice the steps or to chat for half

an hour or longer. Some women went to the milk bar (naiba 奶吧) to drink and

chat. Some left the dance site, but continued to talk at the xiaoqu. Topics

included planning to learn a new dance, strategies to keep healthy, etc. Quite

often, they visited each other’s homes to deepen their friendship (lianluo ganqing

联络感情). They helped each other download dance videos and learn to type on

computers, etc. Occasionally, they went to the sidewalk snack booth (dapaidang

大排档) , and sometimes they gathered at Karaoke clubs, or for a hike or picnic.

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The author had a group picture after picnic together with one guangchang wu group at the summer of 2013

Understanding Guangchang Wu in the Post-Mao Neighborhood

Dancing groups gather members from the same xiaoqu or neighborhood

xiaoqu. This is because the majority of practitioners walk to the dance sites. In

other words, the options for dancing spaces (and groups) are highly determined

by where individuals live. Most dancers participate in the group closest to their

homes.

For this reason, relationships in the guangchang wu community cannot be

detached from relationships in neighborhoods and should be understood within

the framework of the post-Mao neighborhood relationship. There have been

studies on this topic, which often focused on the disjunction, separation, and

conflict among neighbors, rather than harmony and solidarity. Zhang Li (2010)

has described the neighborhood relations in Kunming, Yunnan province as cold

and apathetic. She believes disparities in educational and cultural capital led to

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this lack of warm relationships. While the same xiaoqu gathers individuals of

similar economic means, it does not capture residents with similar cultural and

social capital. She contends that there is a lack of cultural commonality among

people who live in the same gated community, and many controversies derive

from the lack of cultural consensus. Neighbors simply have different tastes and

may discriminate based on these differences.

I agree with Zhang about the cause for controversy within the same xiaoqu,

and even think it propels women to seek and find warm relationships in

guangchang wu. On the other hand, I notice a paradoxical fact, that neighbors

still have basic trust in each other, especially same-gendered neighbors. This trust

based on “location” instead of “quality” of relationships, and has been described

by Japanese anthropologist Chie Nakane (1994). She contends that Japan is a

society in which people build trust based on proximity, while in many Europeans

countries citizens trust others based on the quality of the relationship.

Lingyang’s situation is quite similar to the case in Japan. Neighbors are still

closer than entire strangers. This trust provides the foundation for developing

deeper connections.

Just as it took a while to make friends after moving to a new neighborhood,

dancers reported that attending dances was a lonely experience until they made

friends. Li Hongmei, Zhao Yue, as well as Grandma Sun, all spoke of the

loneliness they felt when they first moved to town. Li was attracted to a group of

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older women who danced at the west gate of the Queen’s Yard xiaoqu, and she

explained the function of guangchang wu in easing the loneliness very clearly:

When I moved here, I was very lonely and did not have friends. There was a day I wandered (liuda 溜达) to the west gate. There were some aunties dancing. They saw me standing there watching them. They welcomed me warmly to follow and join them. All of a sudden I felt the barrier between one person and the next disappear… once I didn’t go there because I got a cold and felt helpless with pain. They heard this and all came to my home to visit me. I was so moved.

Zhao Yue, who had danced in Xinjiang province since age 4, bought a music

player and started dancing in front of The Jade Garden xiaoqu gate four years ago.

She danced there several days and others began to ask if they could join her, and

this is how the Jade Garden dance troop got its start. The lonely neighborhood

described by Li Hongmei and Zhao Yue prompted them to seek out the small,

warm environments created by the dance groups.

The First Generation of Lonely Mothers and “Geguge”

As mentioned in Chapter 2, China’s market reform has had a profound

impact on middle-aged women as many were singled out by gender in the

economic restructuring and forced to “retire early” (Zhang 2009:210). The almost

universal enforcement of a one-child policy among urban families over the past

30 years meant less child-care time for urban mothers and grandmothers (ibid).

The combination of these two events has given this generation of women more

leisure time for dancing.

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Building on Zhang (2009), I take a closer look at the impact of market

reform on these women, paying special attention to the lifestyle known as

“geguge (to each his own 各顾各) .” The term geguge reveals that the family

bond (both wife-husband and mother-child) is not as tight as before. And because

of geguge, women must take good care of themselves as they are both alone and

empowered with more individual time.

Three Typical Reasons for Geguge

Lingyang residents’ dance practices in the public square indicate that

guangchang wu is a positive solution to the challenges brought by social

transition. Most women I met during my fieldwork were experiencing geguge

due to one or more “structural” reasons: the one-child policy, migration (of their

husbands and/or children for education or work), and failed marriages.

These women are perhaps the first generation of “lonely” mothers in Chinese

history. They are home alone for the most part as husbands work or pursue other

activities and children go to school or begin families of their own. Guangchang

wu reflects the strong desire among these women for emotional affinity and

communication. The guangchang wu community helps them cope with geguge. It

becomes a way to heal their loneliness, especially post reform when not only

health insurance is too expensive for many, the psychological consultants were

inaccessible to many.

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One-Child Policy

Song Aihua’s case demonstrates how the one-child policy contributes to

geguge. Song was a 55-year-old retired saleswoman at a state-owned

department store. Her daughter, Gao Yuan, got married in 2013, and the newly

married couple found work in Xiamen and moved there. Song had danced

guangchang wu for several years, but became even more devoted after her

daughter moved away. “The parents of our generation all focused on their single

child,” she said. “Once this one is grown up, we do not have any more burdens.”

By contrast, Gao Yuan’s grandmother had seven children; there was nearly

always a child in the house to care for. Song continued,

For me it is definitely liberation. But for those parents that have a second child, they have to continue to put their whole hearts on (caoxin 操心) the youngest child, don’t they? Not only food and clothing, but most importantly, education, right? …. I only have one child. Once she is grown up… I only need to take care of my own business.

So the one-child policy changed motherhood in China. The time Chinese

mothers once devoted to caring for their children could now be spent on their

own desires. Song might have envied the generation before hers that had enjoyed

a houseful of children, but she concluded that her generation enjoyed more time

to entertain and please themselves before becoming too old.

Song never described herself as kongchao (empty-nest 空巢) or liushou

(left-behind 留守) although these words were repeatedly used by the media to

describe women and mothers like her. Instead she said, “Now we are just geguge,

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and I have already adapted to this.” Other informants also called their way of life

geguge or guodule (live independently 过独了).

Migration

The second factor behind geguge is migration. This pattern is highly

correlated to the economic liberation. When children are still young they are sent

to a different city for better educational opportunities. Similar to Vanessa Fong’s

(2011) research on Dalian’s students that found this group is driven by

modernization to study in Europe and the United States, increased aspirations for

children also encourages migration from fourth-tier cities such as Lingyang to

second-tier or first-tier ones. Ma Yanli, a 47-year-old bank manager, sent her son

to the United Kingdom for high school. Zhao Lanxing’s son went to Tianjin for

high school. And, there were many others who sent their children to Zhengzhou,

the capital city of Henan province, for middle school or high school. The trend of

migration for educational purposes played a role in Lingyang and elsewhere in

making even young Chinese mothers empty nesters with time on their hands.

It was also not unusual for husbands to migrate to other cities for a

better-paying job. Ma Yanli’s husband, 50, was a bank president. He worked in a

Henan city most days of the year and returned to Lingyang every two weeks or

once a month. Li Hongmei’s husband, 39, was a medicine salesman who worked

in Neimenggu province in the most northern part of China. He visited once every

three months. Wu Yuhua’s husband, 60, worked in Guangzhou as a technician.

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While the local culture encouraged a conservative and traditional ideal of

caring women and masculine adaptable men, many Lingyang men migrated to

places where they could earn a higher income. I never heard of cases in which

women went to work elsewhere, leaving husbands at home. But the left-behind

women were not necessarily left behind. Li Hongmei told me she was scared the

first time she wandered alone inside the xiaoqu, but she also said that she enjoyed

the freedom and having more energy to take care of herself.

I find geguge intriguing because it is neutral. It is different from kongchao or

liushou, terms that make the women sound like victims. Many researchers

emphasize the loneliness and bitterness these women feel when their children

leave home. But if the women themselves do not feel like victims, why use these

pathetic terms? Geguge indicates the change happens not only to the mothers but

also to the children. Both must adapt to the changes in life. Second, geguge

sounds a strategic means of coping with change. When her children have flown

the nest, a mother may be lonely, but she may now find the time to fulfill her own

desires. Whether these mothers need “family support” (Zhang 2009) from their

children is debatable.

Overall, the migration of the only child first for a better educational

opportunity, and then to create of their own families, led to both the loneliness

and liberation to their middle-aged mothers. And guangchang wu is a way to

coping with geguge.

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Failed Marriage

The third situation that brings about geguge is problematic marriages. Jiang

Jie, a retired primary mathematics teacher, did not have a good relationship with

her husband. After 15 years of marriage, the husband had an extramarital affair,

and they fought and quarreled many times about this. Recently, her husband

moved from Lingyang to Lanzhou for work, but partially because he was tired of

the marriage. Jiang blamed her husband for the decline of her mental health (she

had an obsessive-compulsive disorder). By sharing these miserable feelings with

another dancer who had a similar experience, the two developed a deep

friendship. The scene she described to me about how well they understood each

other was quite impressive,

I always cherished money and did not buy the piano because I felt I should save money. After this issue (her husband’s cheating and leaving), I finally decided to buy it without thinking too much. The other day I called her and played the piano for her. It was so sad that I cried on the phone. She was singing on the other end. She was sadly singing, and she also cried…

During a dance to a song titled “Love Forever” Jiang thought with bitterness

about having a life-long happy marriage. She also admitted that the dancing and

the approval she felt from the audience helped her recover the confidence she lost

in her marriage. Similarly, Deng Lihua, 38, once laid-off and now an

intermediary, developed breast cancer (in her own words, qibing le 气病了) as a

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result of her husband’s infidelity. She believed guangchang wu was her spiritual

pillar (jingshen zhizhu 精神支柱).

I believe it is important to understand informants’ own interpretations of how

they are affected by the macro-level societal change. Indeed it is appropriate to

understand the fever of yangsheng and elderly dance in the context of the state’s

withdrawal from health care (Farquhar and Zhang 2012; Zhang 2009). Health

insurance is out of reach for many. “… The costs of medical care are rising fast….

Where their health is concerned, most people realize that they are on their own”

(Farquhar and Zhang 2012:21-22). Women who have been victimized by market

reform and liberated by geguge, have turned to dance as a means of exercise with

the added benefit of psychosocial supports in the form of new friendships.

Inward Spirit Transformation, Proactive Creation of Value

Through guangchang wu, some women experienced a change of

individuality or personal spirit, and some times they enjoyed the “liminalities”

they got from dance. No matter what, it seems the post-dance deep relaxation

helped the women maintain a better balance between their individual lives and

societal expectations.

As shown in Wu Yuhua’s case, after becoming more inwardly positive, she

also found that her relationship with her husband and daughter-in-law improved.

Before participating in guangchang wu, I was quite a reserved person and always looked at the negative side of life. I always compared

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myself to others and always felt others were superior to me. After dancing, the content of my life became enriched. Many family chores and contradictions became less annoying, and the things that angered me became less worrisome. My friends said my personality changed after I began dancing the guangchang wu.

Women were attracted to the dance community not only because of the

physical benefits of exercise, but also because of the liminal ambience. Turner

(1982:40) describes leisure activities as set off from the norm and distinctly

different from the social structures represented by the working world. In a liminal

period or state, individuals consider new possibilities and form new attachments

they might not otherwise presume to do. The dance community offers these new

attachments. Thus, the sociality found in a dance community helps fill the cracks

left by less-than- satisfying social relations. “Trauma” in existing social relations

stimulates the need; the dance community fulfills it.

Wang Shuying’s case showed how a woman disadvantaged by family

politics discovered in dancing a place in which to be reborn. Wang Shuying,

co-organizer of the Jade Garden troop, who was laid off from the state-owned

shopping mall, showed me hundreds of dance videos she collected from the

Youku website. Her story surprised me:

“….He is sterner than me, but I just let it be. What else can I do? ….when I was young, I used all kinds of methods (to try to overwhelm him), but I finally had to admit I was defeated (laugh). He is silent and does not say a word, (but) he is bad.”

“Really? How did he win you?”

“…Let me tell you, actually we… do not… belong to the same level (dangci 档次). He has a higher cultural level than me.”

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“What kind of education did he attain?”

“He did not go to college… only a technical school. But later, he continued to learn, in the work unit. He is assisting the bureau chief… He is a section chief… He is a leader. He is really good at speaking, social skills, etc. He is very literate, I am not good.”

In order to get along, she said,

“I let it go on tiny issues, but whenever it is about big issues, your words should count. You decide. All men are like this. Whenever you (give power to them), you will not have good days! It is true! You should believe me.”

Wang Shuying was a domineering woman and an aggressive leader of the

dance troop, so I was quite surprised about her obedient housewife status at home.

Wang’s lower cultural and economic capital puts her at a disadvantage in her

marriage. The two hours a night she devotes to dance help her keep her balance

all those other hours when she is playing the role of the good wife. She discards

her identity as a passive and obedient wife and takes a deep breath of normal

daily life.

Worth mentioning, some groups also proactively create common values by

setting expectations for members’ behavior. For example, according to Li

Hongmei, the Blue Coast troop forbids gossiping and suggests instead that

members share strategies about how to make families more harmonious. Setting

rules for groups indicates the leaders’ agency in creating collectivity. The

positive rules they learn and internalize in the guangchang wu community help

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them improve relationships with family members. In short, the relationships in

the dance community reshape their identities and change their experiences in

other social domains.

Friendships within the Community

Friendship that Breaks Down the Barrier of Inequality

The dance community involves persons from all walks of life. Hence,

communitas can be established upon the dance platform and create equal

interpersonal relations. I find that guangchang wu participants come from diverse

backgrounds: civil servants, bank managers, middle school teachers, owners of

trading companies, dry cleaners, kindergarten caretakers, as well as housewives

of rural labor contractors.

Dance has been proved to be especially useful in creating harmony among

individuals. As McNeil (1997) contends, moving together in time and place is a

powerful force in the affective bonding of an individual to a group; this has been

associated with dance in many historical periods and societies. Moreover, dance

can help create harmony within a community (Radcliffe-Brown 1948). The music

and the movements generate a sentiment that animates the dancers, transporting

them to a sacred state, creating a realm of virtual power, and inducing ecstasy as

they enter this realm (Langer 1953). Radcliffe-Brown (1922:252-3) believed that

dancing enabled participants to reach a religious state: “As the dancer loses

himself in the dance, as he becomes absorbed in the unified community, he

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reaches a state of elation in which he feels himself filled with energy of force

immediately beyond his ordinary state, and so finds himself able to perform

prodigies of exertion.” Dance is unique in producing a whole-hearted communion

of action, a sustained coordination of physical beings for sheer spectacle. Dance

often has a compulsion that other communal activities such as singing, prayer, or

participation in some sacred act tend to lack (Spencer 1985).

There are also two other reasons that explain why equality becomes more

important in guangchang wu than desire of distinction and competition as in

other social relationships. First, for individuals who have experienced severe

health problems such as breast cancer, brain tumors, high blood pressure, heart

disease, etc., money became “the thing outside of the body (shenwaizhiwu 身外

之物).” This Chinese slang means that the physical body is more important than

anything. Second, older dancers are less likely than younger dancers to compare

and compete with others. Their life experiences had already taught them that

health and happiness are the most important things in life. Role models in the

dance groups were not the ones with more money or higher social status; they

were the ones with spirit. My richest informant Ma Yanli enjoyed a close

friendship with Deng Lihua because she was touched by Deng’s spirit after

overcoming cancer. Ma was a luxury brand consumer. Her son wore an Armani

suit, and she bought Louis Vuitton handbags. She sent her son to the United

Kingdom for high school. Deng Lihua, the 38-year-old laid off from a

state-owned factory later became a usury; her son went to a normal school and

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was addicted to online games. Ma Yanli was much wealthier than Deng Lihua,

but this didn’t stop them from becoming friends. Deng told me,

It is only, you know, those brands…. I did not even know these brands…, Besides, no matter how rich she is, I am not taking money from her. The same is true for those who are poor. They are not taking money from me. I do not make friends by looking at whether they have money or not. I look at whether they have yiqi (being loyal to friends 义气)…

Although Deng Lihua told me privately how sad she felt when she went

through her husband’s cheating and her cancer, she never put a painful face on in

front of the other women. Instead, she was always smiling, energetic, and

enthusiastic. Ma Yanli, found Deng likable,

When I was still a newcomer, (Lihua) stood in the same row with me. In the middle of the practice, I could hardly keep on dancing and said, “I am so tired!” Lihua smiled at me and showed me the infusion tube she carried for curing her breast cancer. I was so surprised and encouraged by her spirits! Under such a severe disease, she still danced and was optimistic. How could I not keep on dancing? Later we also found that we share similar personalities (dui piqi 对脾气), and we became good friends.

By acquiring spiritual capital, an ordinary woman, Deng Lihua could make

friends with a much wealthier one. Class disparities (jieceng chayi 阶层差异)

are seen as quite serious in China. Some scholars and media report extreme the

social hatred towards wealthy people (choufu xinli 仇富心理). However in my

ethnographic research, I found such social hatred to be an exaggeration especially

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among middle-aged and older women. Women like Deng Lihua do not envy Ma

Yanli for being rich, and it is partially because, after a serious sickness, Deng

Lihua found being happy and healthy are more important than wealth.

The community of guangchang wu plays a complementary role to existing

social structures. This group is special. They are middle-aged women, many with

health issues. They tend to care more about spiritual things and the emotional

affinity they feel as part of this community. Other activities do not afford them

the same opportunities.

Social Relationships that Reflect Existing Inequalities

Guangchang wu community creates equality, but all disparities are not

eliminated by it. The urban-rural divide still exists. Women with rural

backgrounds may find it difficult to join an urban dance group. For example, the

leader of the rural guangchang wu team in Julong town,55 Rural resident Wang

Yuling, just bought an apartment in the urban area two years ago so it was

actually more convenient for her to join an urban dancing group just outside her

home. But Wang chose to go to the team in her hometown, which meant an extra

20- to 25-minute drive every day. “Why not just join a group near home?” I

asked. Wang replied, “I am already quite used to our group and I do not want to

go to other groups.” Later I found out that Wang was quite sensitive about her

rural background. Once when their team lost in a guangchang wu competition,

she quarreled with the judges, “Are you looking down upon our nongcun ren 55By using town, I mean� (zhen), a district inferior to a city, with implications of being a suburb or rural area.

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(peasants or villagers 农村人)? Are we losing the contest because we are

nongcun ren? ”

Second, when urban and rural residents mix in the same dance group, they

bring different capital. The housewives of rural labor contractors may have

money but lack cultural capital, for example. These kinds of people are

stigmatized as “vulgar tycoon (tuhao 土豪)” in contemporary China. Two such

women, Li Linghua and Liu Cuiyu, were quiet members of a troop, who

declined to speak much. One explained, “My mouth is stupid (zuiben 嘴笨), and

I do not know how to talk.” No one imagined that they would become leaders in

the urban dancing community, but they did. While they admitted their lack of

cultural capital, they were more than willing to show off their economic capital.

They wore big gold earrings and necklaces. Urban women, by contrast, showed

off other kinds of capital. Zhao Lanxing, always emphasized her superiority to

other women. For example, she had higher suzhi, she practiced yoga (an exercise

favored by those thought to have superior tastes and practiced by the new middle

class in China). In conversation with other women, another urban woman, Zhang

Xiufang liked to reveal her husband’s strong guanxi with authorities and her

travel experience.

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So the dance community is also a place where inequality is reproduced. What

plays out in society also can be discovered inside the dance community.

Conclusion

The dynamic behind the popularity of guangchang wu is dance as a means

of social transition. Many dancing women could be considered as “the first

generation of lonely mothers” because of one-child policy and the contemporary

economic liberation. They are in need of healing and find it among their peers in

the dance community.

They are lonely because the single child they raised has left home for school

or to create his or her own family. Perhaps, they or other family members have

migrated for better education and job opportunities, or they feel alone in a

troubled marriage. The paradox is that they are also liberated because their

obligations as mothers and wives are decreased.

The dance community simultaneously reflects the existing social structures

and creates new possibilities. On the one hand, the group gathers individuals

from various social backgrounds, the most visible of which can be found in the

urban-rural divide. Rural women tend to display their economic capital while

urban women emphasize their prestige by showing off their cultural capital in

educational attainment, travel experience, etc. Older women and those who have

experienced a serious illness have a different perspective on what matters most.

Spiritual capital has emerged as a significant trait of respected participants, often

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allowing them to bridge the gap between “different backgrounds” with friendship.

In short, the alternative social relationship is created within the guangchang wu

community, one that finds the common ground upon which women build their

relationships.

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Chapter Six

How Middle-aged and Older Women Cope

with the Stigma of Guangchang Wu

At the May 2014 guangchang wu contest I observed, the older dance group

members were heavily made up. In this “liminal” public performance, it was

obvious that they wanted to be presentable for this chance-in-a-life-time

opportunity, and they didn’t want to be shown up by younger female participants.

I felt sad to think that they have to go back to the everyday life where the public

display of feminine and sexualized beauty is considered inappropriate for aging

women. After Maoist-era, gender-neutral clothing and grooming and 37 years of

reform, has Chinese society made a linear progress? Are aging women happier?

The cultural logic behind an age-graded body culture is that youth represent

all that is modern and superior, while the aged represent all that is outdated and

backward. But my travel and living experiences in the United States and Finland

made me realize that the Western culture has an appreciation for the beauty of

aging women equal to that of the young. The old and the young just represent

different kinds of beauty. Public displays of middle-aged and older women as

objects of beauty are widely accepted in the West.

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The Waning of Elderly Patriarchs

The dramatic and deep social transformation in China has resulted in a

changing landscape of power relations among different generations, classes and

genders. Guangchang wu as a hot social issue provides an intriguing case in

which to study the power dynamics. As they seek to define normal womanhood,

middle-aged and older women have to negotiate with the younger generation, the

emerging middle class, and the intellectuals, who hold the power in society.

The gaps between generations and classes have a profound impact on the

stigmatization of guangchang wu and its participants. It is becoming

increasingly difficult for Chinese feminists to argue for “we women” since

women are divided about what they want, what they believe they are entitled to,

and how they would like to be viewed by society.

Guangchang wu is an activity chosen by middle-aged women and “approved”

by their husbands (Chapter Three). The change from social dance to guangchang

wu was a choice women made out of concern for family values, Confucian

conservative womanhood, and possibly an internalization of Maoist desexualized

body culture. While men reject the idea of letting their wives dance with other

men, husbands seldom object to wives dancing alone as in guangchang wu.

Guangchang wu is believed to be an antecedent of yang’ge, rural peasant

dancing. Intellectuals criticize guangchang wu’s use of loud music as

“uncivilized,” and the plain lyrics as lacking good taste (Chapter Two). The gap

creates a catch-22 situation for guangchang wu participants: if they dance this

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old-fashioned dance, they will be known as “perniciousness from the Cultural

Revolution;” if they keep up with the times and follow the style of younger

dancers, they will be considered as “doing things inappropriate for the old

(weilao buzun 为老不尊).” It seems that no matter what they choose, they will

be criticized.

Guangchang wu participants are also criticized for taking up middle-class

individuals’ private spatial rights and entitlement for quietness (Chapters Four

and Two). Although dama may not lack for money, they are still perceived as

non-modern and lacking good taste. Guangchang wu offers a different set of

values that contends with the contemporary worship of money celebrated by the

urban middle class (Chapter Five).

In recent decades, the younger generation has increasingly taken over control

of public opinion. This group of educated intellectuals thrived during reform, and

as the growing middle class, they experienced the economic rise of China, the

revival of Confucian thought, and nationalism. They are vocal opponents, via

social media, of guangchang wu (Chapter Two).

Guangchang Wu as a Product of Tradition, Maoist Response, and Reform

Guangchang wu is a product of tradition, Maoist response, and reform.

Tradition affects the dance in many ways. First, because women are valued less

than men, they encounter less hostility from men when they participate in sports

as sports are considered a lower-class activity traditionally. Historically, women

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were considered good sports prospects because their hard lives prepared them for

the bitterness of sports (Chapter Four). Second, the deeply rooted Confucious

gender asymmetry contributes to the preference of dancing individually rather

than with male partners (Chapter Three). Third, the Daoist yangsheng concept

contributes to the preference of dancing outdoors rather than indoors, since

outdoors is believed to be a better place for the circulation of qi from nature

(Chapter Four).

Maoist history also affects the presence of guangchang wu in many ways.

First, the desexualized femininity of the Maoist era is considered normal among

some older women. They deny the link between guangchang wu and seeking the

sexual attentions of others because the display of sexuality in public was taboo

in Maoist time when their concept of femininity was formed (Chapter Three).

Second, the space culture of the socialist era contributed to the preference for

dancing outdoors rather than indoors. The outdoor activity is legitimate because

it has been a part of their public space culture and a source of pleasure during

their childhoods (Chapter Four).

The reform or the tectonic economic shift also contributes to guangchang wu.

First, the impact of social transition on guangchang wu participants can be

summed up in geguge, however paradoxical the term may be. Most women

experience the situation of geguge for the following “structural” reasons: the

one-child policy, migration (of their husbands and/or children for education or

work opportunities) and failed marriages (Chapter Five). Second, some women,

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if not all, seem to be influenced by the sexualized femininity promoted during

reform. Commercialization and globalization play important roles in promoting

such a sexualized femininity (Chapter Two). Images of feminine, soft, sexualized

women can be seen in all kinds of advertisements and stimulate all women

including dama to chase after this kind of beauty. Many guangchang wu

participants learn dance from online videos in which most instructors and

producers are younger women. These videos are quite feminized. The older and

middle-aged also learn from these movements because they believe if “one wants

to stay young, they have to keep up with the young people, be in tune with the

times. ”

As China becomes increasingly “westernized” and “traditionalized,” the

Maoist body culture is disappearing. Guangchang wu is a complex product

subject to traditional, Maoist, and Western influences. The mix results in conflict

and stigma. I believe the role of the state needs further study in the future. The

male participants in guangchang wu and the male companions of female

participants are also good prospects for future studies. In the end, the topic of

guangchang wu tests the whole society to find a solution to conflict and to create

a more diverse and tolerant culture and value system.

124

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