Commodification, Everyday Life and the Spectral Urbanscape in post-2000 Chinese Literature

Abstract

This paper deals with the growth of consumerism in post-socialist China, particularly in cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. While critiquing the way spectacular cities promote empty promises and contribute to the disillusionment of the masses, Wang Anyi and Yu Hua reveal everyday spaces as the sites of ethical discussion at the current critical juncture when China is consolidating its role as world power. Wang Anyi depicts succinctly the struggle of migrant workers between the rural and urban in both Fu Ping (2001) and Yue Se Liao Ren (2008) through the construction of gendered space. In The Seventh Day (2013), Yu Hua uses ghosts to critique both historical trauma and social injustices. Urban spaces are rendered spectral, which reverses conventional time, and Yu Hua makes manifest the undercurrents of a progressive conception of time dictated by universal modernity. The multifaceted everyday world is infernal, oppressive, and highly commodified; however, both writers, in their different ways, also show the possibilities of forming alternative communities and creating alliances among the underprivileged and the diasporic subjects.