Gender, Development, and Morality in Postsocialist China

1. Gender, Development, and Morality in Question among Korean-Chinese in Postsocialist China젠더, 발전, 도덕성의 담론:후기 사회주의 중국의 조선족 사회를 중심으로 노고운 (서울대 비교문화연구소)

2. What was my doctoral research about? • Title: • Life on the Border: Korean-Chinese Negotiating National Belonging in Transnational Space • It examines the contested ideas of economic success and moral citizenship that emerge among the Korean-Chinese population in Northeast China • It locates the process of transformation from a socialist to a postsocialist society in Yanbian within the context of not only the China’s economic reform, but also the transnational connections between China and South Korea

3. Korean-Chinese: • The descendants of Korean migrants who moved to China between the late 19th Century and 1945 • Chinese citizens, who ethnically identify themselves as Koreans • Yanbian: • The Korean-Chinese Autonomous Prefecture located in Jilin province in Northeast China • Yanji: • A capital city of the Yanbian Korean-Chinese Autonomous Prefecture

5. The Yanbian Korean-Chinese prefecture Yanji city China North Korea South Korea

6. Fieldwork • One of the field sites: Chengbao department store • Interlocutors: middle-aged Korean-Chinese women business owners (laoban) and their women employees (sales clerks; fuwuyuan) and their families • Main theme of the research: • It explores the processes through which the Korean-Chinese women of this generation have become major economic contributors of the prefecture by participating in transnational businesses and labor/marriage migration. • The stories of women seeking economic strategies in market-driven economy between China and South Korea show how this economic and social transformation is a gendered process that produces different national subjects from the socialist period.

7. Yanji, the capital of the Yanbian prefecture

8. Chengbao department store which sells South Korean products

9. Two contradictory images on the K-C women in Yanbian: • breadwinners of their families and faithful citizens of the ethnic prefecture who are bringing economic development and success • More working women are visible than working men • More women sending remittance from foreign countries • the object of money fever: unethical and greedy, chasing money regardless of whether or not they are breaking with traditional Korean-Chinese morality and China’s social norms

10. Two contradictory images on the K-C women in Yanbian: • Then, • in which circumstances do the Korean-Chinese intellectuals and public at large differentiate the social understandings of pursuing wealth and self-governing techniques in neoliberal China as either the correct transition of self or the shameful and erratic symptoms of money slavery? • And • through which process do the Korean-Chinese women settle in or challenge the contradictory images about themselves?

11. Money fever: • a tendency of excessive longing for money • The local languages that indicate the term are: • ‘kumjunzuyi(금전주의)’: a belief of money • ‘kumjunyok (금전욕)’: desire for money • ‘don yeolbyung(돈열병)’: money pyrexia • ‘don baram(돈바람)’: a fad of money • the local terms are used to depict one’s contorted, distorted, or perverted desire of seeking, having, cherishing, and being obsessive for money.

12. Money fever as the women problem: The rise of sex industry The rise of consumption oriented economy The increase of international marriage (Korean-Chinese women marrying into South Korean families) Family discords: The increase of divorce, break-down or separation of Korean-Chinese families The decrease of the ethnic Korean population in the prefecture

13. Money fever as the women problem: The rise of sex industry: Mr. Yi during an interview “Korean-Chinese in Yanbian have a very special situation. Through interacting with South Korea, Yanbian has been developed rapidly. But people also started losing morality. For example, in the early and middle of 1990s, South Korean-style karaoke bars and coffee houses were spread in Yanji and Longjing. I mean, they were the place you could buy women, the prostitutes. These places were expensive, but became very popular among Korean-Chinese and South Korean men to have socials and banquets. One day in the mid 1990s, the Yanbian government sent local gangsters and destroyed all of these shops down with axes. After that incident, Korean-Chinese in Yanbian became to be known as degenerate people.”  The loss of morality due to money fever is an important problem to care about not only because it is problematic itself, but also because it is related to social reputation of Korean-Chinese as an ethnic minority in China.

14. Money fever as the women problem: Unethical marriage relationships and family problems: The increase of divorce Break-down or separation of Korean-Chinese families The increase of international marriage

15. Money fever as the women problem: Unethical marriage relationships and family problems: The increase of divorce Break-down or separation of Korean-Chinese families The increase of international marriage which are considered to be the causes of the decrease of the ethnic Korean population in the prefecture “As we addressed these reasons of the decrease of population (which includes transnational marriage and shortage of young women residents in Yanbian), women’s recent tendency of living without marriage or married without children in order to pursue their self-achievement only, and/or changed consciousness to pursue their own life’s indolence and pleasure-seeking causes the decrease of the Korean-Chinese population” (Jin and An 2001: 154).

16. Money fever as a cause of the social problems in the ethnic community • Many Korean-Chinese are afraid of the possibility that the Korean-Chinese ethnic prefecture may be disbanded within next 10-20 years, if the Korean-Chinese population in Yanbian continues to decrease.

17. Money fever as a cause of the social problems in the ethnic community • Some are concerned about the cultural consequences of money fever, presumed to be the loss of Korean-Chinese identity, an identity which for them confirms cultural superiority (“cleanness,” “politeness,” “diligence,” “uprightness,” and “righteousness”).

18. Money fever as a cause of the social problems in the ethnic community • The economic activities driven by calculating maximum profits by lower-wage laborers in the process of adopting postsocialist changes are often considered to bring moral danger, population decrease, and political weakness to the Korean-Chinese ethnic community.

19. Conclusion • The discourse of money fever is an intellectual product—the purpose of which is to criticize postsocialist transformations and unequal connections between Korean-Chinese in Yanbian and South Korea through global capitalism. • The intellectual criticisms and contemplation of postsocialist transformations, to which the general public consents, then, target women’s bodies and morality, rather than the exploitative nature of global capitalism. In particular, the money fever discourse only scapegoats women from lower-income backgrounds while business women are socially immune from the discourse.

20. Conclusion • As many anthropologists examine, the woman’s body, especially that of lower class women, is seen as a womb for the nation’s population, and yet their body must be controlled in order to maintain the racial/national purity of the population (Greenhalgh 2005; Kanaaneh 2002, 2005; Stoler 2002). In the case of Yanbian, women’s sexual and reproductive relations face overbearing scrutiny from the national community, and women’s sexuality is debated as a form of gendered discourse about morality. The discourse of money fever, I argue, also shares in this sexist and classist expression of nationalism and has produced new social meanings of traditional virtues within the ethnic community’s patriarchal structure.