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CHINESE FILMS IN FOCUS II

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Edited by Chris Berry

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12 Ermo: (Tele)Visualising Urban/Rural Transformation

Ping Fu

Focusing on Zhou Xiaowen's 1994 film Ermo, this essay asks how contemporary Chinese film-makers use visual motifs to delineate the new urban space that has been socially reconfigured by transnational capital and globalised cultural practices. The corre- sponding urban-rural dichotomy dynamics reflect new political asse rtions, ideological underpinnings, historical conditions, social transformations, and cul- tural practices and negotiation. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a striking number of film s about rural migration, and the plight of rural women migrants in particular, appeared on the screenscape, counter- intuitively focused more on economic reform than gender issues per se. For example, one of the earliest films about rural women seeking business opportuni- ties in the city, Peng Xiaolian's 1987 Womens Story, attracted the attention of international film critics for its portrayal of women's changing role in the labour force. And Zhang Liang's 1990 film, Girls from the Special Economic Zone, tells the story of a group of rural women becoming employees of a joint-venture electronic factory in Shenzhen, the Special Economic Zone near H ong Kong in the 1970s.

Film- makers started to question economic reform, re-embracing humanitarian themes concen- trating on women's identities and their social reposi- tioning in the course of unanticipated side effects from this socio-economic revolution. Based on the novel by Xu Baoqi, Enno keenly depicts the disloca- tion of gender, society and culture faced with the lure of new work roles and economic prosperity. Rural women like the leading figure, Ermo, embody all the contradictory effects of this 'dislocation' in rela- tion to transnational capital and heterogeneous cul- tural practices.

women's bodies in the formation of power. 1 My proj- ect is to treat the 'technologi.ed visuality'

2 ofboth ~c

film itself and its televisual theme as a discourse 1n which the filmic spectacle demand) further critique

by pointing to it:> own ideological connotations and social implications. Bv elaborating on how these ele- ments interact with the story, I analyse the urban-rural dichotomy a~ it is condensed into the vivid depiction of a rural woman in pursuit of th e

biggest TV in town. . . . cn- My close reading aims to supplement exiting

tiques by unpacking visual clues to scrutinise the rep- . d" 1 y and resentational value of the commodity-on- 1sp a

its cinematic iconography. I di cuss how experiencing the power of a spectacle 1s transmitted by the film, and how post-socialist consumerism and the n~w urban phantasmagoria are turning the commodity form into an ideology in its own right. If, as Mic~e! Foucault puts it, 'urban s pace has its own dangers.'d how does 'danger' intersect with emergent hybn political and economic cultures and change human

·al· China, behaviour? How do people in post-soo ist d including the film-maker, comprehend and resPo

0 .

to modernity in this period of political and economic

transition? b ·den-

Cultural representations of rural and ur an 1

tities are taking on increasing significance in China d ket· today under conditions of state retreat an mar d

isation. These conditions are creating a space share by the desirable and profitable grandeur of rransn~­ tional capital, and the unexpected and debatab e

rom- splcndour of the global culture - the two most P. al

Most of existing writing on Enno examines how the film's content demonstrates issues concerning the ~wer of capital, economic development, technolog- ical phantasmagoria, consumer culture and the role of

incnt inputs from Western culture. Transnauon d

capital provides Chinese people with m~biliry\~ autonomy while global culture moves sooety to . post-industrial ideological practice. In this filmtc . cul al inputs instance, the parallel economic and tur

Ii . cs at reflect the political economics and cultural po 0 . la . . . And 1n P Y in contemporary Chinese modernisaaon.

ERMO

this mirrored hybridity, we sec un emerging dichotomy of China and the world, the rural and the urban, the individual and the collective, the tradi- tional and the modern, and woman and man.

THE SOCIAL BACKGROUND AND SYNOPSIS Launched in the late 1970s, reform of the old social- ist state-owned economy has penetrated every fibre of people's li\'es with irresistible force. The leading- edge sectors of this economic tran formation arc for- eign investment and domestic private enterprise. The influx of imported goods .md foreign culture, and the experiences and expectations that travel with them, have followed three decades of relative isolation.'1

The combination of these two sectors with the con- tinued existence of the old state-run sector signals the emergence of a hybrid state and society, Less politically and ideologically harsh policies ha~e pro- vided farmers, in particular, with more chances to take advantage of the market economy, leading many to seek out business opportunitie~ and new role in the urban landscape. In major cities, the presence of '.11u~tinational corporations signifies speedy modern- isation of the economy while also posing a challenge to domestic enterprises. I l ence the contest and com- ~romise of the domestic and the foreign, the tradi - tional and the modern, and the rural and the urban, forming a landscape of hybridity. These hetcroge- n~~us cultures, politics and regional practices and tra- ditions have found common ground to invent the Ch·

tnese urban scenario of the 1990s. But the global reach of capitalism, which has transformed China's old integrated economic system and hybridised its c~lture, has come at the price of human and culrural dislocation.

'Enno' in the Chinese north-western dialect liter- ally ~eans 'the second daughter' of the family. 'Jfo' in clhassic Chinese refers to a plain woman. Nevertheless, t e female p · E · · d h

rotagomst ~rmo 1s a good-looking an ard-worki ng peasant woman, whose journey to

modern· · ity is one of spatial transition and mental transforrnaf A . . 10n. s a mother and the wife of a phys1- c~y, sexually and politically impotent man, Ermo is ~ 1 e breadwinner and decision-maker in her family.

. er aspirations include buying a huge colour televi- sion set for h h h . er son, w ose spare time is spent watc - tng the television of a sharp-tongued neighbour with a daughter his age. The neighbour's husband Xiazi

99

{literally meaning 'blind') is the nouveau riche owner-driver of the only truck in the village. He encourages Ermo to take her roadside business sell- ing twisted noodles and hand-woven baskets to the cin. There she sets her sigh rs on a 29-inch colour tele- \;~ion that attracts daily crowds and that not e\'Cn the mayor can afford. Her new obsession with the large television fuels her ambition to enter the city market- place and increase her earning power. She commutes with Xiazi, and, through his connections, becomes a noodle-making expert in a city restaurant. Her new job requires her to relocate to an urban women's hostel When a co-worker suffers an accident demanding a transfusion, she discovers that cash is paid for blood. Selling her blood regularly, her health

declines. Sharing rides with Xiazi promotes their relation-

ship. He praises her ability to support her family and produce a son. Denigrating his own wife as a narrow- minded couch potato, he suggests they each divorce their spouses to be together. This intensifies their clandestine love, until she discovers that Xiazi secretly boosted her wages through an arrangement with the restaurant manager. Outraged at being treated like a whore, she quits her job and returns home to resume making and seUing twisted noodles in the local

market. Finally, Ermo makes enough money to buy the

highly sought-after 29-inch television set and bring it home. Jt has to be manoeuvred in through the window and placed on the bed - the only place large enough to hold the monstrosity. As soon as the television set is settled in, Ermo collapses from exhaustion. As the coloured light display of the television and the prom- ise of viewing the outside world attracts the villagers to squeeze into the room, Ermo leans on the set, help- lessly turning herself into part of the show.

SEARCHING FOR MODERN CIVILISATION Ermo does not have the typical Chinese glamour that Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige intentionally and effectively created to attract the gaze of the international film market. It is not a tale of'a help- less victim or self-sacrificing saint who has suffered the usual varieties of sexist exploitation'.

5 Nor does

the story reveal feudal Chinese oppressiveness in the form of an unreasonable and domineering male figure, which was Zhang Yimou's trademark 'secret

r

100

Erma: to market with twisted noodle•

weapon' in international film festivals. Rather, Ermo, anchored in contemporary rural China, depicts a ~trong-willed peasant woman on a mission to buy a 29-inch television. According to director Zhou

Xiaowen, the film is about 'a peasant's pursuit of a new lifestyle and her wish for upward mobility'.6

In other words it is, as most Chinese critics say, about 'modem civilisation'.

Evidently, 'modern civilisation' here is largely and loosely associated with material abundance, for- eign commodities and modern technology. As a

symbol of Western influence, the city and the tele- vision set embody the new urban phantasmagoria equated with 'modern civilisation'. The term indi-

rectly but forcefully manifests a challenge to the past, a denial of tradition, and a belief in social advancement and historical progress. It is the lure of modern civilisation that initiates Ermo's desperate pursuit of the symbolic television, which is a perfect cipher for the meaning and effect of change in rural China. Nevertheless, the meanings of her mission arc multiple. They include a fight for dignity, an

C HI'<!· S I~ FI I. .'.\I S IN FOCUS II

. . . • . . hbour, an over- emotional competition with her ncig . to

. . h. b. ·t the capacity whelming desire to posse's t c cs • . vi- . . • . 1 ·conom1c en consume within the new nauona c . ver

• cc • domestic po' ronment, a womans euort in a ·ar- d from patn struggle and an uncon~cious eparture

chat tradition . riences I lowever, the misfortune that Ermo expe pas-

d · . all the above in pursuit of her dream un ermm~s . . beco!Tles itives. Modern civilisation and all it signifies d hapes

· · t"fies an s a new hegemony that monirors.JUS 1 . . al What the thoughts and deeds of each indiVJ.du · 1 nm!r

l'k E mo is no o b-most represses rural women 1 e r . If ' n the . ·1· rion itse I traditional ethics but modern Cl\' t 1sa · . cap· . h Enno is

form of the commodity. Showing ow . the end d. and in tured by the power of the commo ity . dreartl

d . alise her turns herself into a com mo 1ry to re d' . on of 'al . d onrra icu further illustrates the d1 ectic an c

the promise of modern civilisation. ll her k ' as she sc s Ermo begins with her haw er s cry f . ...... ed

Th · htlv ra .. . twisted noodles by the roadside. e ng j basket shot of Ermo squatting behind her nood ~ es her becomes the film's visual leitmotif and assOCJat

ERMO

with the arena of commerce, suggesting a woman farmer's separation from the land and changing iden- tity. Her stubborn bargaining demon~trates that she is an inflexible but profit-minded rur.11 busine :.- woman. This new image of a rurul woman suggests this will not be a tale about the countryside but about the city where a \\Oman farmer' odal Statu and identity are dislocated. as indicated b) the ba kct- sclling episode in the film.

After Xiazi has found a hop where Enno can ell the hundreds of surplu) baskets he wove all umrner, she is shown sitting on top of the load of baskets in his truck and heading to the bu y urban marketplace. A freeze-framed clo,c-up of her fearful face cut to a moving long shot, which captures the fully loaded truck rumbling through the village gate and into the distance, where it becomes a dot hovering aero s the mountains. Ermo can hardly be made out .mymore as a human being on top of the pile of basket . This cine- matic effect dislocates Erm<> to a ,odate her with the b~skets, registering the subjugation of human con- sciousness to the form of the commodity, in which ~uman alienation and its rcification find their expres- smn.

The filmic presentation of Ermo's fetishistic desire for a 29-inch colour television set further illus- trates how human desire for material civilis.ttion has ~een alienated by irresistible global commcrcialisa- tJon. 0 sooner does Ermo wander into a city depart- ment store than she finds a horde of people mesmerised by the television se t and watching a ~inese-dubbed tape of a Western soft core sex film. fi e_scene baffies her; she cannot understand why the orcign actors are speaking Chinese. I Ier first

encounter' . h th 'O h • . d" v1t e t er - the foreign commo 1ty as well as th r · h . . e 1ore1gners on television - in such a ~bndised condition 'infuses the fetish's initial role as

t e_ material sign of a cross-cultural agreement' a nd an in-becw · 7 een experience. . As a spectacle, the object - the TV set - becomes imh age and belief, secured by an erotic aura manifested t rough th ,., . 1

c vvestern soft-core sex film. Such a d1s- p ay emphatically registers both the teb1sion show and the s . If

ct itsc as commodities to the consuming wh·orld by directing consumcrs' lib1dinal drives towards t e whole p ka S . ac ge. usan Buck Morss's interpreta- tion of Wal B . . .

ter en1amms Arradu Projtcl gives an even more .

precise account of the quietly persistent process of commodity fetishism:

101

For Benjamin ... the key to the new urban phantasma-

goria was nor so much the commodity-in-the-market

as the commodity-on display, where exchange value no

le ~ than u'e value Jo,t practical meaning, and purely

rqiresc:nrational \0.iluc came to the fore. Everything dcsir-

.1ble, from ex to 'iOCt.tl starus, could be transformed into

commodities .is fcti he~·on-display that held the crowd

enthr:tllcd m:n when f>CMC,.sion was beyond their reach.

Indeed, an un.mainabl) high price tag only enhanced a

commodity» symbolic value. l\1oreover, when newness

hccame a li:ti•h, history itself became a manifestation of

the commodity form.8

Indeed, what attracts Ermo's gaie are the represen- tational value of the television set, its giant size, its unaffordable price and the incomprehensible com·er- sation on it. Its status 'beyond reach' transforms the telcnsion into a spectacle, in the sense elaborated by Debord. Debord's core thesis is that the spectacle con~t1tutes a 'ocial relationship mediated by images:

The spectacle j, both the outcome and the goal of the dominant mode of production .... It is the \'Cf) he:ut of society's re.ti unreality... [It] epitomizo the prevailing model of social life. It is the omnipresent celebration of a choice alrcad~· made in the sphere of production, and the consumm~te result of that choice. In form as in content the spectacle serves as total justification for the

conditions and aJms of the existing system [rransmincd

visually).9

In Ermo's case, the affect of visuality that upholds the power of the spectacle is not just individual; rather, it is group-based. Collective viewing in the department store leads to collective enthusiasm for the TV show and comments about the unaffordability of the set, reflecting a shared vision of the mod~rn, t_hc f~re ign and the Other, as well as shared and visualised imag- ination of the near furure. The Chinese dubbing of the US soap opera Dynasty minimises verbal signifi- cation and further emphasises the visual. In the end, it is the visual - both the show and the set - that

counts and haunts. The spectacle is what drags Ermo into the imag-

inary space where she can fantasise the power of pos- session, and also propel herself towards empowerment. 'The real consumer, in this case, thus becomes a con

f .ll si·on •!O This illusion enriches and sumer o 1 u · enlarges her original goal, which was simply to buy a

102

television for her son so he would not have to run next door to endure the neighbour's insults while he watched their television.

The iconography develops further by emphasis- ing her compulsive viewing of the television, demon- strating the perfect logic of capitalist commercialism whereby 'watching' leads to 'wanting'. Ermo is cap- tured by this cunning logic in the name of pursuing modem civilisation. Through the other visual leitmo- tif of counting money, which draws attention to her role as bread-winner, decision-maker and book- keeper, Ermo anticipates being able to count body hair in the clearness of the television image: 'the TV set is so big, its colour is so beautiful, and its picture is so clear that you can see every strand of the for- eigners' blond body hairs.' This demonstrates her naive perception of the foreign/Other through the window of the 'global village', 11 which also perfectly echoes Anne Friedberg's analysis of a 'mobilised vir- tual gaze':

Cinema and television - mechanical and electronic

extensions of photography's capacity to transform our

access to history and memory - have produced increas-

ingly detemporalised subjectivities .... The cinema

developed as an appararus that combined the 'mobile'

with the 'virrual'. I Jenee, cinematic spectatorship

changed, in unprecedented ways, concepts of the pm- tnl and the rea/.12

The department store television set and the television show have profound effecti. on Ermo. They open up her'optical unconscious', 13 letting her experience what they present and represent as rtal. The set attracts her 'virtual gaze' and the show mobilises her desire to pos- s~ss the ~et, which holds the promise of foreign eroti- osm. This opening of her 'optical unconscious' makes her more desperate than ever to pursue the set as icon of modem civilisation. She takes more aggressive steps to reach. her goal, such as leaving home for a city job and selling her blood. The latter underlines the fact that she .is turning her body into a commodity valued only for tts exchange value - its worth as another com- modity. Her reaction to 'the external culture•l4 turns civilisation into fetishism.

. Broadly speaking, fetishism involves the attribu- ~1on of autonomous power to a manmade artefact. It is therefore dependent on the ability to disavow knowledge and suspend disbclie( I lowever, the fetish

C H I N l· S F F ll .M S I N F 0 CU S I I

is always haunted by the fragility of the mechanisms that ustain it. Both Freud and l\tarx use fetishism to explain a refusal or phobic inability to understand a symbolic system of v.tlue, one within the psychoana- lytic and the other within the soda! sphere.15 For Freud, the body that i the source of fetishism is the mother's body, uncanny and archaic. For Marx, the source of fetishism is in the erasure of value of the worker's labour. Both arc repressed as the unspeakable and the unrepresentable in commoditv culture.

I lowevcr, the unspeakable and unrepresentable

are openly, cheerfully and sarcastically exhibited by the film-makers through the image of Ermo selling blood and repeating, 'I h.l\'e plenty of blood. Women lose their blood anyway.' To mistaken!) and inno- cently identify medically drawn blood with menstru21 blood signifies Ermo\ need to become 'civilised', or educated, about human phpiology. Instead of show- ing a block or phobic inability of the psyche, her innocence about her own bodv manifests itself as a natural impulse driving her sea:i.ch for modern civili- sation. I lowever, at the end of the film, she appears to be a fragile, totally worn-out and lifeless object com- pared to the gigantic television set with all its vibrant and colourful movement, implying the internal and external dislocation that is the price of achieving modern civilisation.

(RE)ENVISIONING THE GLOBAL-LOCAL AND THE URBAN-RURAL The market economy has speeded up urbanisation as urban migration has become an avenue to make money. Throughout the 1980s, rural migrants inclu~­ ing women like Ermo overturned the social immobil-

16 ity imposed on them by the old collective syste~· The proliferation of markets made commerce a signifi- cant alternative for rural women. Saskia Sassen remarks that migration is a repr~entation of globalil)' in terms of economics, politics and culture. It tran- scends locality, Otherness and marginality, transform-

ing all three into the core of power.17 . The filmic imagery of Ermo's country-to-~ity

trips not only showcases her geographical travelling but also the way in which her identity and power travels, elevating her gender and social status, and releasing her from rural exclusion from the urban, the modern and the global. Ermo's power is never visualised on the screen through her role as a farmer

ERMO

but only in her role as an agricultural mi~rant enter- ing the urban sphere. On the one h;md, her naivete, diligence and enduran in her efforrs to make a better life for herself and her family challenge patri- archal dominance and empower her. On the other hand, the same imagery diminishes the ignitkanC'C offarming in contemporary China and ignifies its constant movement toward further modernisation and globalisatJOn.

The visual juxtaposition of her husband's physkal and political impotence simultaneously ignitlcs the diminution of his male power and his on.:c respected rural leadership. He is almost al"' ays confined to the edge of the frame, con<uming medication as a dietary s'.aple, reminding everyone that he is no longer the village chief. I le pushes for a larger hou~e in,tead of the tele\'ision, insisting that 'A TV set is an egg but a house is a hen'. Ermo's p<mcrful status, as someone mobile and autonomous, is ~ymbolised hv her fre- quent business trips to the citv, her takinK over the role of male labour in her ho~sehold and her new buying power. Her geographic..-al border-cm sing and g~nder-crossing m terms of labour seem to help her win femal e s b" · · d . u ~cct1v1ty an agency. Sassen con- tnbutes a kee · · h · -n 10s1g t into such power formations:

We learn som ti · L. • e img auout power through Its absence and by moving through or negotiating the border.; and terrains that c l . onnect power essncM. to power: Power " not a ~ilence t h bo • h - a t e ttom; its .1bsence is present and

as consequences. 1 s

Superficial] E . y, rmo is empowered. When she fills the

vacancy at th . I e nternational Grand RestaurJnt' as an

expen noodle-maker, she designates a new c:lement in a new urba · r . . . . noodl n_ regime, 1ac1litatmg its operations. Her

e-making • · h f expemse c anges her urban status rom tempo .

h ral) to permanent, and also empowers er as ma t f h . s er o er own family. The film-makers COmmun1cat h" h d . et is to t e audience in a distinctive way unng one fE ,

R 0 rmos rare home visits. ollowing a 1 f the a . c ose-up o two naked male backs, ud1ence secs E . . . f f h half-n k rmo smmg m ron t o t e two

the a ed males - her son and her husband - giving m new sh·

symb 1 . •rts purchased from a city store. This

o ic act not o 1 . . fi h h . . Wifi n Y s1gn1 1es t at s e 1s a caring e and moth b

trol Th . . er ut also that she is in financial con-

pos:t. e visible nakedness and their passive seated 11on sugg h . est t e1r vulnerability compared to her

103

fully dad mobility, as she stands over them and even dresses her husband. From thi s position, Ermo's hus- band looks remarkahl} similar to his son in height and stature, further marking out his loss of power.

Ermo returns ro powerlessness when she breaks up with Xiazi, quits her restaurant job and resumes her position selling twisted noodles in the local market. Iler husband's renewed bossiness signifies the power shift associated with these changes. Power is suddenly lost because of her withdrawal from the city. Furthermore, this loss is exacerbated by her hus- band'~ suspicion of her infidelity. Her infidelity com- pensates for the diminution of his patriarchal power becau~e of his physical mutilation and loss of politi- cal power when he ceased to be the \'illage chief, because it propels him to reaffirm his role as husband and father.

Ermo's body is inscribed by sexual politics demonstrated in the circulation and transformation of power, which director Zhou Xiaowen communi- cates through recurring boundary crossings. 19 These male-female and urban-rural transpositions can be regarded as a modern allegol) of location where power, morality and economics construct and decon- struct the power of individuality, subjectivity and

autonomy. In conclusion, by almost any measure, China's

opening to the world economy has been a spectacu· lar success. Film-makers participate in this transfor- mation when they focus on the geographical and cultural spheres that make up the rural-urban con- text. In John Rcvne Short's analysis:

Citi~-s arc embedded in a world economy; they arc nodes in a global network of production, con~umption ~~d exchange of commodities, goods, and sernces. The cmc:; of the world make solid in time and space the narure of changing economic transactions. They arc the physical embodiment of social and economic changc.

20

H . k echoes Raymond WiUiams's canonical 1s remar _ 21 thesis on the relation of The Cou11try and the City, denoting the city as an achieved cen~re of learning. communication and light (an embodiment of m~­ ernisation). However, because the city is sirua_t~d Ill Jobalised politics, economics and culru~ co~d1oons,

gth . only 'solid' as a snapshot in nme, for-e moment 1s . ever moving forward and then backward in our

banks Furthermore, travelling between the memory- ·

104

city and the country does not necessarily entail a struggle between advancement and backwardness. As Aihwa Ong suggests, understanding it requires the new concept of'flexible citiz.enship'.22 She suggests there is an internal logic in capitalist consumption and that the movement between different spheres is such that, in order to improve one's political and eco- nomic siruation, some fluidity is necessary.

The city as a 'physical embodiment of social and economic change' in the Chinese context sustains a complex hybridisation, which enhances the contact between the global and the local, the foreign and the indigenous, and the centre and the marginal. This loosens the ties between the rural and the urban, and produces a new 'cul rural logic', in which transporta- bility and transformation become possible. In the final frame, the world-weather forecast is ending the China Central Television (CCTV) broadcast on the large 29-inch screen. This underscores the reality and existence of a larger world and climate. This modernisation that has invented the Chinese con- temporary urban scenario - viewed by Foucault as a 'danger', by Jameson as 'commodity production', by Benjamin as an 'aura-killer' and by Debord as a 'spectacle' or as fetishism - does in fact bring Chi- nese people, and especially farmers, substantial wealth alongside the ineluctable confusion that accompanies the rupture and dislocation of their culrure and traditions.

Ermo's overwhelming pursuit of the symbolic icon of the 29-inch television set forces her to take on all the baggage associated with the above- mentioned discursive practices, irreversibly intertwin- ing the beautiful and the ugly. In the end, any judg- ments about either the intent or outcome of China's ongoing modernisation and modernism must be sus- pended, for they cannot be read as more than an unfinished script.

Furthermore, the visuality of Ermo's rural--city- rural journey enacts ceaseless but clueless debates on the dic~otomy between mobility and stability, the domestic and the foreign, and the national and the global throughout the century-long process of Chi- nese modernisation. This specific cinematic visual cipher, to echo Rey Chow's thesis on visuaJiry23 'enables us to notice [our) position of spectator a~d observer'., ~eminding us of the reciprocity of viewing and receiving, and warning us to ponder what proj- ects our gaze upon the spectacle and what shapes our

ClllNESF FILMS IN FOCUS II

vision of the ~ocial panorama, particularly in the age

of globalisation.

NOTES 1. David Le1wei Li, 'What Will Become of Us lf\Vc

Don't Stop': Enno'• China and the End of Globalization', Comparatiw l .itm1lurt, 53, no. 4 (2001): 442-461; Bet~ "·•tar, ' Blood ~lone)~ \Voman's Desire and C •n,umption in Emw',AJian Cin1·ma, 12, no. 2 (2001 132-153; Stephen}. Gould

and Nancy Y C Wong, "Ili lntc:rtorual Construction of Emergi••,.; Con•umcr Culture in .China a.' Qb,ervcd in the \tovie Enno: A Po:.tmodcm, Simuzation Reading'.Joum.i/ of Glohal Marktting, 14, no~.1 md 2 (2000): 151-167;Judith Farquhar, 'Technology of Everyday Life: The Economy of Impotence in Reform China', Cultural Anthropnlogy, 14, no. 2 (1999): 155-179; Anne T. Ciccko and Sheldon H Lu, 'Tclcvisuality, Capital and the Global Villagc',jump Cut, 42 (December 1998): 77-83; Tani E. Barlow, 'Gn:en Blade in the Act of Being Grazed: Late Capital, Fleicible Bodies, Critical Intelligibility', Dijfrrrnu A journal of Ftminist Cultural Studits, 10, no. 3 (1998): 119-158; Tony Rayns, 'The Ups and Downs of Zhou Xiaowen', Sight & Sound, 5, no. 7 (1995): 22-24.

2. Rey Chow, Prim1t1w Passionr: Visuality, Stxuality, Ethnography, and Conltmporary Chi nm Cinuna (New

York: Columbia Univcr.iiy P~. 1995), 16. 3. Michel Foucault, 'Space, Knowledge, and Power', in

Tht Fou<ault RJadtr, ed. Paul Rabinow (New York: Pantheon Book.,, 1984), 243.

4. '.\1argarct Pcrerwn, China's Nf1.IJ BwintJJ Elitt: Tht Politi<al Comtqumm of Economic R.tjomz (Berkeley: Univer11!) of California Pre.s, 1997).

5. Tony Rayns, 'The Position of\Vomen in New Chmef>C Cinema', &nt-Hbt Film journal, 1, no. 2 (1987): 32-44.

6. Chai Xiaofeng, Zhou XiaO'f.UTI is Aho Crazy (Zhou Xiaowm ~ fmgkuang) (Changsha: Hunan wcnyi chubanshe, 1996). 313. For more detailed discussion, sec DaiJinhua, 'Ermo: Modem Allegorical Space' ('Ermo: xiandai yuyan kongjian'}; Wang Dehou, 'Enno: A Crystallization of Sturdiness and Blindness' ('£17110:

zhuozhuang yu mangmu de jiejing'); and Wang Yichuan, 'A Realistic Rep~ntation of Power Exchange and Repetition' ('Rushi biaoyan quanli j1aohuan yu chongfu'), in Film Art (Dianying Yishu). no. 5 (1994): 39-43, 36-38 and 44-47.

ERMO

7. See Patricia Spycr, ed., Bt'rd1r Fetishism. '\4atm11I

Objects in Unstable Spius (New York: Routledge, 1998)

for details. 8. Susan Buck-Morss, Tix Dialtrtits of Suing: Ufzltrr

Benjamin and the .Amults Prr;j«t (Cambridge, i\H: :.\UT Press, 1991 ),81-82.

9. Guy Debord, Th( Srxir(v of the S/wtudr, tr.ms. Donald Nicholson·Smich (:\cw \Ork: Zo11c Books, 1994), 13.

10. lbid., 32.

11. ln Marshall :.\1cLuhan and BnKC: Power's book, Tht Global Villagt (New fork: Oxford Universicy Pre"" 1989), McLuhan imcnts chis term to refer co globaliscd telccommuniation. AccorJing to

McLuhan, all Western ciencific models of communication are linar, ~quential and logical as a reflection of efficient camality. ;\lcLuhan thinks

speed-of-light technologies could be used to postulate possible futures (glohalimion). The 'global village' (or 'international arena') is controlled by those with the mo~t advanced technology. To a great extent, an advanced relecommunil-ation determines the

legitimacy of speech, information flow and, in short, global control in this 'global village'.

12. Anne Friedberg, Wind~· Shopping: Cinema and tlx Postmodern (Berkclc)~ Univer.;ity of California Press, 1993),2-3.

13. The term originate~ from Walter Benjamin's thesis of mimesis with reference to the camera, which he

suggests is capable of generating 'the aura' of works of

art in the age of mechanical reproduction. For a derailed analysis of the notion, see Michael Taussig's Mimesis and Alterity (New York and London: Routledge, 1993), 44-69.

105

14. Georg Simmel ~tates that 'the deepest problems of modem life derive from the claim of the individual to

preserve the autonomy and individualicy of his existence in the fae of O\·erwhelming social fon:~. of historical heritage, of external culture, and of the

technique oflife'. See his 'The Metropolis and Mental

Life', in Cl11Ssic Essays 011 the Culture of Cities, ed. Richard Sennett (New JeN!y: Prentice Hall, 1969), 47.

15. See Sigmund Freud, 'Fctishi~m', Standard Edition of the Campletr Psy<hological Jforh, \'OI. 21 (London:

Hogarth Pre:;~. 1961) and Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1 (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House,

1961) for det2ils. 16. Ashwani Saith, ed., The Rr-emrrgmu of the Chinese

Prasuntry (London Croom I I elm, 1987), and Kate Zhou, Hc-w the Farr>ierJ Changed China (Boulder, CO: West View Press, 1996).

17. Saskia Sa<scn, Globalization and Its Discon/mis (New

York: The ~cw Press, 1998), 81-111.

18. lbid.,86. 19. Rong Weijing, 'Zhou Xiaowen, a Director Knocked

Dead by HJ ms' ('Zhou Xiawen bci dianying kesi de daoyan~, Film Art (Dianyingyishu), no. 3 (1994):

45-49.

20. John Short, Nt'W Jf&rlds Nt'W Geographies (New York:

Syracuse, 1998). 21. Raymond Williams, The Country and the City (New

York: Oxford Universicy Press, 1973).

22. Aihwa Ong, Flexible Citiunship: The Cultural Logics of Transnatio11ality (Durham, NC, and London: Duke

Univcrsicy Press, 1999). 23. Rey Chow, Primiti'llt! Passions-. Visuality, Sexuality,

Ethnography, and Cantrmporary Chimu Cinema (New

York: Columbia Univcrsicy Press, 1995), 6.