Romance in Post-Socialist Chinese Television

"Surveying the latest Chinese TV shows centered on romantic relationships, this book joins the expanding body of literature on the ever-evolving structures of feelings while breaking new grounds in media studies. With its thorough investigation of a wide range of genres, narratives, and public discourses, the volume makes timely and significant contributions to the fields of media studies, China studies, and the cultural history of love and romance."--Hui Faye Xiao, University of Kansas, USA

"What does romantic love mean for Chinese people today? How is love represented in popular Chinese television programs? Huike Wen's fascinating and important book explores how romantic love promises young Chinese urbanites individual freedom, fulfillment, and purpose in life, yet also plays an ideological role in creating social cohesion and maintaining traditional patriarchal values in post-socialist China. An entertaining and thought-provoking insight into how love functions incontemporary Chinese society."

--Hsu-Ming Teo, Macquarie University, Australia

This book examines how representations of romantic love in Chinese television programs reflect the contradictions inherent to changing dominant values in post-socialist Chinese mainstream culture. These representations celebrate individual freedom, passion, and gender equality, and promise change based on individual diligence and talent, while simultaneously obstructing the fulfillment of these ideals.

Huike Wen is an Associate Professor at Willamette University (Salem, Oregon). Her research focuses on the intersection of genders, emotions, media technology, and nations in transnational Chinese and East Asian media and culture.

Auteur

Huike Wen is Associate Professor of Chinese at Willamette University, Oregon, USA. She has focused on studying romantic relationship, marriage, and intimacy on Chinese television in recent years. Her research focuses on gender in Asian media.

She is the author of Television and the Modernization Ideal in 1980s China (2013). She has also published in English in ASIA Network Exchange: A Journal for Asian Studies in the Liberal Arts, Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture and Media Studies, Journal of Communication Inquiry, and in Chinese in various Chinese academic journals, such as Journal of Sichuan University, Journal of Southwest University for Nationalities, and Light Vehicles. She has authored the Auto Forum discussing auto culture for Sohu.com, one of the two largest Chinese internet portals. She has also contributed to Chinese Reading World, an online reading practice system designed for Chinese learners.

Résumé
This book is about how the representations of romantic love in television reflect the change and the dilemma of the dominant values in post-socialist Chinese mainstream culture. These values mainly center on the impact of individualism, consumerism, capitalism, and neoliberalism, often referred to as western culture, on the perception of romantic love and self-realization in China.
The book focuses on how romantic love, which plays a vital role in China's ideologically highly restricted social environment by empowering people with individual choice, change, and social mobility, must struggle and compromise with the reality, specifically the values and problems emerging in a transitional China. The book also examines how the representation of romantic love celebrates idealsindividual freedom, passion, and gender equalityand promises changes based on individual diligence and talent while simultaneously obstructing the fulfillment of these ideals.

Contenu

1. Introduction.2. Dwelling Narrowness - Mistress Love.3. Every Step is Startling - A Time Travel Woman's Love.4. If You Are The One - Love in Public.5. Enlightenment on Life - Love Between an Older Woman and a Younger Man.6. Apartment Building of Romantic Love/ipartment - Young Urbanites' Love.7. Conclusion