Chinese Sociology & Anthropology

ISSN: 0009-4625 (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/mcsa19

Aspirations: A Historical Evaluation and Its Cultural

Implications

Xu Jilin

To cite this article: Xu Jilin (1995) Aspirations: A Historical Evaluation and Its Cultural
Implications, Chinese Sociology & Anthropology, 27:4, 46-48

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.2753/CSA0009-4625270446

Published online: 20 Dec 2014.

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Download by: [New York University] Date: 24 June 2016, At: 04:13
 Aspirations: A Historical
Evaluation and Its Cultural
Implications*
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I would like to discuss the enormous effect that Aspirations has

had on our society fiom the perspective of cultural studies. What,
after all, is it that this film so strenuously extols? It is nothing but
the traditional Conhcian mode of interpersonal relationships that
existed under the clan-law system (zongfa zhidu) and that empha-
sized the values of familial paternalism and benevolence. The
author deliberately downplayed the historical background of the
story and emphasized, instead, the importance of kinship ties and
blood relations. From the perspective of the structure of the nar-
rative, what is described here is all kinds of interpersonal rela-
tionships within a closed clan or family, the love and kindness
among the various members of this extended family, and a primi-
tive sort of equality among them. A key figure in the story is the
foundling. It is through her that the author brings forth and real-
izes the ideal that "every old person will be cared for and every
child will be nurtured." Some people may not understand why
Liu Huifang would abandon her own son and instead lavish so
much attention on this other child, who had been abandoned and
taken in by the Liu's. In fact, the intention of the writers and
producers is to emphasize that the abandoned child stood in even
greater danger of being excluded fiom the large family structure,

*Xu Jilin, "Lishi de pingjia yi ji wenhua neihan" (Aspirations: a historical

evaluation and its cultural implications). This article was originally published in
Wenhuibao (Wenhui News), Shanghai, 17 January 199 1.
 DEBATES OVER THE TV SOAP OPERA ASPIRATIONS 47

and therefore needed special attention and treatment. That Aspi-

rations elicited such an enormous response indicates that the cul-
tural subconsciousness of the writers and producers resonates
with the cultural subconsciousness of the viewing public, and
emphasizes the fact that for two thousand years under the domi-
nation of Confucianist doctrine our culture has lacked a collec-
tive consciousness. The responses are not all positive either. Quite a
number of intellectuals, who have been influenced by the last ten
years of reformist ideas, do not feel that Aspirations is such a
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great thing. For example, the character of Wang Yaru is taken to

task by some viewers from the working class for her fickleness in
love and marriage, and she is dismissed as a ruthless and faithless
woman. And yet, there is a rationality in her attitude; it is just
that the writers and producers of the series intentionally failed to
develop them. As for the character of Liu Huifang, there is actu-
ally nothing particularly new or refreshing about her. She is sim-
ply an inheritor of the legacy of Dou El and Qin Xianglian. As a
literary device and image, she is familiar to us already. She is
actually incongruous to our lives today. To set her up as a moral
paradigm for today's world and today's society is a complete
failure. People's praise and criticism of the characters in the
show reflect a conflict between two sets of cultural conscious-
ness-one that identifies with the common people and the other
that identifies with the intellectual stratum-as well as a conflict
between two sets of values and two sets of morality. If it is true
that a gap is being formed between the stratum of the ordinary
people and workers on the one side and the intellectuals on the
other, then I believe that the primary factor for the formation of
such a gap would be none other than the conflicts listed above,
and not a conflict over distribution of interests. Throughout the
last ten years of reform, people's behavior has certainly changed
a lot with the proliferation of dance halls, karaoke bars, coffee
houses, and the emergence of household electrical appliances and
increasing "Westernization" in the way that people decorate their
homes, and so on. However, in terms of the way people relate to
one another, people's overall mindset, and deeper cultural con-
 48 CHINESE SOCIOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY

sciousness-there have not been any fundamental changes in

these things. Aspirations leads me to think about the Japanese
production Ah Xiu, and the American television drama Growing
Pains. Behind each of these productions there are progressive
views on culture and value that are positive. Ah Xiu represents
the history of the struggle of a "matriarch" as Japan entered the
stage of "modernization." It promotes the ideas of outward ex-
pansion and unity within. As for Growing Pains, it promotes the
idea of harmonious democracy and transparency in society. It,
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too, has a very clearly articulated and explicit educational role.

However, in the case of these productions, they are both in con-
formity to and synchronized with social development; they go
along with modernization, and serve to promote it. Aspirations,
on the contrary, seems to me to be antimodernization. In fact,
even people fiom the May 4 period would have found it hard to
swallow some of the ideas put forth in Aspirations. As one single
production, we need not wony much, but if such productions
continue to be churned out, then there will be a real problem. I
hope that whatever it is that lurks behind this kind of narrative
form can be modified, at least so that it can be more easily
acceptable to modem people.

Notes

1. Dou E is a character in a Yuan dynasty dramalopera. The storyline is

that Dou came from a very poor family and was sold [into marriage] to the Cai
family when she was very young. Afterward, her husband died, and Dou E and
her mother-in-law became totally dependent on each other, and had a very
difficult life. In the end, Dou E was accused and incriminated by some evil
people and died at the hands of the government.
Qin Xianglian also met a tragic fate.