Masculinities at the Margins: Imagining the Jianghu Space in the Past and Present

Abstract

Jianghu (rivers and lakes) refers to the (imagined) spatial arena in Chinese literature and culture that is parallel to, and sometimes orthogonal to, mainstream society. Dwelled by merchants, craftsmen, beggars and vagabonds, and later bandits, outlaws and gangsters, the jianghu space constitutes an interesting “field,” to borrow Pierre Bourdieu’s term, that produces and re-negotiates alternative subjectivities in traditional Chinese culture. In most representations, jianghu is primarily a homosocial world of men and honors masculine moral codes such as en ('grace', 'favour'), yi ('righteousness'), and chou ('vengeance', 'revenge'). The literary construction of jianghu as a fictional space inhabited by male adventurers and rebels can be traced back to at least the Song and Yuan dynasties, with the 12th-century masterpiece Water Margin (Shuihu zhuan) exemplifying and canonizing the jianghu ethos. This paper examines jianghu as gendered space at the margin of society and, in particular, focuses on its reappearance in popular imagination in recent years. By a critical reading of the jianghu space in recent Chinese TV dramas, such as the 2015 hit drama series Nirvana in Fire (Langya bang), the paper unravels the contesting and shifting discourses around the imaginaries of jianghu and examines how masculinity is constructed, negotiated and performed through the jianghu space. In the context of the nationalist reinvention of Chineseness, of which Chinese masculinity is a salient example, jianghu not only represents marginal male order in China’s past but also responds to the globally hegemonic masculinity in today’s world.