So, what could be some of the conclusions one can get by exploring the case of GTB? This seemingly minor term actually involves multiple issues, each of which is worth much more thinking, researching, and writing. Rather than trying to come up with one single conclusion, I will here lay out several points for future investigation, hopefully with richer ethnographic data.
The most obvious and least controversial conclusion is closely connected with the concept of citizen sociolinguistics. For a long while, too long indeed, in academia there is an assumed line between researchers and the researched. Lay people are treated as if they were a dupe of power, not knowing their own conditions, mechanically going on with everyday life and that only researchers in the ivory tower had the power to make sense of their life and tell their stories correctly. By examining the origin, development, usage, and debate about GTB, however, hopefully I have illustrated that even as lay people, individuals have a high reflexive awareness of the linguistic choices they make and the values behind them. Also, rather than being passive recipients of structural influences, individuals behave like citizen linguists, they observe, learn, modify, and make use of the existing linguistic resources to express themselves. They are highly aware that meanings of most, if not all languages, are artificial and context-sensitive, and that the meanings should be debated about and changed along with the broader social environment.
Also, probably much more than structuralists and post-structuralists are willing to admit, individuals have a wider consciousness of their existence and that their ability to resist structural influence by displaying human agency is much stronger. This is especially true in the case of women who identify as GTB and tell their stories online. By narrating their stories, they are also trying to make sense of their lived experiences. By making it public, they are undertaking a risky yet brave task of justifying their life choices as reasonable and understandable, if not respectable and worthwhile. By narrating their stories, they are also trying to maximize the worth of their existence, if not to you and me, at the very least, to themselves.
Furthermore, as any topics on gender and sexualities, GTB is never about gender and sexualities alone. To say the very least, one can see the deep, pervasive, but hard-to-notice anxiety among Chinese people of climbing the social ladder and getting rich. Anthropologists have been extensively writing about how late modernity/neoliberalism/late capitalism etc. generate a palpable desire to get rich and an anxiety of securing social status in contemporary Chinese society (see, for example, Croll 2006; Osburg 2013; Zhang 2010). Along this anxiety is a pathological sense of competition described in Li Zhang's monologue. Because social class is still being forged and reconstructed in Chinese society, according to Zhang (2010), no one is secured about one's social status. Thus, one needs to assert one's position in society by constantly keeping an eye on people around them and competing with them. Under this context, it is not that surprising that some people will bear such antagonism against GTB who climbs the social ladder and become materially prosperous faster and, seemingly, easier than most people can possibly dream of. The relative lack of moral judgments among netizens indicates that commodification of sexuality is not really the issue. Getting rich fast is. Maybe the Douban post asking why people dislike GTB is right. Maybe some people dislike them because they are jealous, because they cannot ascend the social ladder in this way for this or that reason. That probably also explains why when stories about GTB who fail to achieve their goals or who live in poor and difficult conditions are told, the public generally have a miler and more understanding, if not positive, attitude towards the women in the stories.
It's probably helpful to state here that I'm not supportive of using gender slurs. The very fact that there exist numerous gender slurs that cover all kinds of women (as one netizen puts it, "no matter what kind of woman you are, they always have a slur ready for you") but almost none for men tells something about how desperately patriarchal our society is. However, the existence of these gender slurs also provide a ground for discussion, debate, and negotiation. By engaging in conversations about gender slurs, it is not far-fetched to hope that citizen sociolinguists will gradually come to a broader awareness and consciousness of their existence and subjectivities. To some extent, thus, gender slurs such as GTB can be seen as opportunities that make possible meaningful discussions and desirable changes in the social landscape of Chinese society.
REFERENCES
Croll, E. (2006). China’s New Consumers: Social Development and Domestic Demand. London and New York: Routledge.
Osburg, J. (2013). Anxious Wealth: Money and Morality among China’s New Rich. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Zhang, L. (2010). In Search of Paradise: Middle-Class Living in a Chinese Metropolis. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.
The most obvious and least controversial conclusion is closely connected with the concept of citizen sociolinguistics. For a long while, too long indeed, in academia there is an assumed line between researchers and the researched. Lay people are treated as if they were a dupe of power, not knowing their own conditions, mechanically going on with everyday life and that only researchers in the ivory tower had the power to make sense of their life and tell their stories correctly. By examining the origin, development, usage, and debate about GTB, however, hopefully I have illustrated that even as lay people, individuals have a high reflexive awareness of the linguistic choices they make and the values behind them. Also, rather than being passive recipients of structural influences, individuals behave like citizen linguists, they observe, learn, modify, and make use of the existing linguistic resources to express themselves. They are highly aware that meanings of most, if not all languages, are artificial and context-sensitive, and that the meanings should be debated about and changed along with the broader social environment.
Also, probably much more than structuralists and post-structuralists are willing to admit, individuals have a wider consciousness of their existence and that their ability to resist structural influence by displaying human agency is much stronger. This is especially true in the case of women who identify as GTB and tell their stories online. By narrating their stories, they are also trying to make sense of their lived experiences. By making it public, they are undertaking a risky yet brave task of justifying their life choices as reasonable and understandable, if not respectable and worthwhile. By narrating their stories, they are also trying to maximize the worth of their existence, if not to you and me, at the very least, to themselves.
Furthermore, as any topics on gender and sexualities, GTB is never about gender and sexualities alone. To say the very least, one can see the deep, pervasive, but hard-to-notice anxiety among Chinese people of climbing the social ladder and getting rich. Anthropologists have been extensively writing about how late modernity/neoliberalism/late capitalism etc. generate a palpable desire to get rich and an anxiety of securing social status in contemporary Chinese society (see, for example, Croll 2006; Osburg 2013; Zhang 2010). Along this anxiety is a pathological sense of competition described in Li Zhang's monologue. Because social class is still being forged and reconstructed in Chinese society, according to Zhang (2010), no one is secured about one's social status. Thus, one needs to assert one's position in society by constantly keeping an eye on people around them and competing with them. Under this context, it is not that surprising that some people will bear such antagonism against GTB who climbs the social ladder and become materially prosperous faster and, seemingly, easier than most people can possibly dream of. The relative lack of moral judgments among netizens indicates that commodification of sexuality is not really the issue. Getting rich fast is. Maybe the Douban post asking why people dislike GTB is right. Maybe some people dislike them because they are jealous, because they cannot ascend the social ladder in this way for this or that reason. That probably also explains why when stories about GTB who fail to achieve their goals or who live in poor and difficult conditions are told, the public generally have a miler and more understanding, if not positive, attitude towards the women in the stories.
It's probably helpful to state here that I'm not supportive of using gender slurs. The very fact that there exist numerous gender slurs that cover all kinds of women (as one netizen puts it, "no matter what kind of woman you are, they always have a slur ready for you") but almost none for men tells something about how desperately patriarchal our society is. However, the existence of these gender slurs also provide a ground for discussion, debate, and negotiation. By engaging in conversations about gender slurs, it is not far-fetched to hope that citizen sociolinguists will gradually come to a broader awareness and consciousness of their existence and subjectivities. To some extent, thus, gender slurs such as GTB can be seen as opportunities that make possible meaningful discussions and desirable changes in the social landscape of Chinese society.
REFERENCES
Croll, E. (2006). China’s New Consumers: Social Development and Domestic Demand. London and New York: Routledge.
Osburg, J. (2013). Anxious Wealth: Money and Morality among China’s New Rich. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Zhang, L. (2010). In Search of Paradise: Middle-Class Living in a Chinese Metropolis. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.