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Nanxiu Qian Rice University

The Writing of “Biographies of Exemplary Women” ( Lienü zhuan ) in Meiji Japan and the Late Qing Transformation of Chinese Womanhood 日本明治時期列女傳書寫與晚清婦女 楷模由列女、賢媛、至女傑之演变. Nanxiu Qian Rice University. Introduction.

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Nanxiu Qian Rice University

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  1. The Writing of “Biographies of Exemplary Women” (Lienü zhuan) in Meiji Japan and the Late Qing Transformation of Chinese Womanhood日本明治時期列女傳書寫與晚清婦女楷模由列女、賢媛、至女傑之演变 Nanxiu Qian Rice University

  2. Introduction Two genres, “Exemplary Women” (Lienü 列女) and “Worthy Ladies” (Xianyuan賢媛), had contributed to the writing of women’s history in the Sinosphere, and each therein generated an ideal womanhood. While the free-spirited Xianyuan stepped forward in late Qing China as independent thinkers and activists during the reform era, the Confucian rules abided Lienü, or Retsujo, assisted the imperial ambition of the Meiji regime. As Japan turned its emulation to the West, the Meiji Retsujo works also included translations and compilations of western women stories and thus narrowed the exemplary women into only heroines (nüjie / joketsu女傑). Nüjie accompanied Social Darwinism into China and, in joining the surging nationalism, quickly became the mainstream ideal womanhood. This new discursive concept was enthusiastically promoted in Japanese feminist articles published in Chinese women’s journals and received favorable response from Chinese nationalistic revolutionaries. The conventional Confucian moral codes that had already lost its grip during the late Qing reform era swept back in revolutionary guise, embodied by heroic women images. This radical womanhood would sway Chinese woman’s emancipation movement throughout the twentieth century.

  3. The Han Confucian Liu Xiang’s 劉向 (77–6 BCE) Biographies of Exemplary Women (Lienü zhuan 列女傳) inspired both the Lienü and the Xianyuan Traditions. They later however became very different.(The Song version of Liu Xiang’s Lienü zhuan)

  4. The classification of Liu Xiang’s Lienü zhuan • Muyi母儀 (Paragons of Motherhood) • Xianming賢明(Worthiness and Intelligence) • Renzhi仁智(Benevolence and Wisdom) • Zhenshun貞順 (Chastity and Subservience) • Jieyi節義 (Integrity and Righteousness) • Biantong辯通 (Eloquence and Erudition) • Niebi孽嬖 (Vicious and Depraved Women) But late imperial Lienü zhuan as an indispensable chapter in the official historical writing, became overwhelmingly “Chastity and Subservience” oriented, making the chapter a shrine of suicidal women on defending their chaste bodies.

  5. The discursive Formation of the Xianyuan tradition and the transmission of the Xianyuan spirit through the Shishuo xinyu 世說新語 (A New Account of Tales of the World) (compiled ca. 430, primarily through the chapter “Xianyuan.” The Components of the Xianyuan Discourse exemplified by its poster child Xie Daoyun謝道韞 (ca. 335-after 405). • The Bamboo Grove Aura (Linxia feng 林下風) • The Chanting Willow Catkin Talent (Yongxu cai詠絮才) • The Gauze-veil Virtue (Shawei de紗圍德) • The Family Tradition of Willow-catkin and Salt (Yanxu Jiafeng 鹽絮家風)

  6. Seven Worthies of the Bamboo Grove (Zhulin qixian竹林七賢) (fl. 260) exemplified the Wei-Jin concept of “xian” l to r, Ji Kang, Ruan Ji, Shan Tao, Wang Rong

  7. Seven Worthies of the Bamboo Grove (l to r, Rong Qiqi, Ruan Xian, Liu Ling, Xiang Xiu)

  8. The Japanese Lienü zhuan writing appeared in the early Togugawa period (1603-1867), beginning with Abe Hirotada’s 阿倍弘忠 (aka Kurosawa Hirotada 黒澤弘忠 1612–1678) Biographies of Exemplary Women of This Dynasty (Honchō retsujoden 本朝列女傳) (1655)

  9. As Meiji Japan (1867-1912) turned its emulation to the West, the Meiji Retsujo works also included translations and compilations of western women stories. Here shows an early example, the Seiyō retsujoden西洋列女傳 (Biographies of Western exemplary women), a selected trans from Elizabeth Starling, Noble Deeds of Woman, by Miyazaki Yoshikuni 宮崎嘉國 (published in 1879).

  10. The first women’s public gathering in Shanghai on December 6, 1897 that prepared for the 1898 campaign for women’s education, as an important part of the 1898 reform movement. About 120 women, Chinese and Western, attended meeting, at which and throughout the campaign, women called each other xianyuan (Nü xuebao 2 [August 3, 1898]).

  11. The 1898 Nü xuebao(12 issues, July 24 to late October 1898)

  12. Xue Shaohui 薛紹徽 (1866-1911), leading contributor to the 1898 Nü xuebao

  13. The 1898 Nü xuetang 女學堂 (Classroom) (Nü xuebao 7 [September 1898])

  14. Modern historiography forgot about the reform-minded 1898 mothers but celebrated their revolutionary daughters • The Zhongguo jindai qikan bianmu huilu中國近代期刊編目彙錄(The collected catalogues of modern Chinese periodicals, hereafter the Collected Catalogues) (Shanghai Library, 1965) asserted Chen Xiefen’s陳擷芬Nübao女報 (Women’s journal) to be “the first periodical for women in China.” According to the Collected Catalogues, Chen started her Nübao in 1899. Soon stopped, she then republished Nübao as a monthly in 1902 and renamed it Nü xuebao女學報 (Journal of women’s learning) in 1903. • This catalogue totally eliminated the memory of the 1898 Nü xuebao.

  15. Chen Xiefen’s Xuchu Nübao續出女報1 (May 8, 1902)

  16. Chen Xiefen’s Nü xuebao女學報1 (February 27, 1903)

  17. Chen Xiefen’s Nü xuebao女學報4 (November, 1903, Tokyo)

  18. This collective neglect of the first Chinese women’s journal, started as early as in Chen Yiyi’s 陳以益 Shenzhou nübao 神州女報, entailed complicated interplays of issues related to gender, race, and nationalism. The modernized Chinese patriarchy has preferred more nationalistically oriented daughter to her culture-bound founding mother of Chinese women journalism. In the process, Chen Xiefen’s 1902-03 Nübao/ Nü xuebao played a crucial passage that continued, and simultaneously broke away from, the 1898 Nü xuebao. A close comparison between this mother/daughter pair will manifest a rapid change of late Qing envisioning of women’s roles in China as well as in the world. By examining the motivation, the ideal of womanhood, and the resources of values of each of these two journals, this paper will try to answer the following questions: Why would the 1898 proto-feminist program that was inspired by, and consciously modeled after, a traditional literate culture of elite women, be rejected by later generations? Why would the self-confident voices of the mother generation of women reformers give way to more patriarchal value abided, heroically vengeful daughters?

  19. I. The Mother Nü xuebao: Continuation of the xianyuan Tradition • In their effort to continue the cainü tradition, the 1898 women reformers consciously modeled after a literate culture of elite women known in China as xianyuan賢媛 (worthy ladies). Rooted in the free-spirited Wei-Jin 魏晉 era (220-420), with its celebrated "Bamboo Grove aura" (Linxia fengqi林下風氣), xianyuan represented the earliest example of cainü—women of talent, knowledge, and intellectual independence. Women reformers in the late nineteenth century enthusiastically embraced the xianyuan tradition in conscious opposition to the call of men reformers for a break with cainü culture. In the xianyuan ideal Chinese women found a firm ground of subjectivity and a strategy for self-renovation and self-realization—a means by which to construct their own ideal of womanhood within the context of imperialism and globalization.

  20. The Daughter Nü xuebao: Valorization of the Nüjie (Heroines) Ambition Patriotism: “Yaoyou aiguo de xin” 要有愛國的心 (We must embrace patriotism) (XuchuNübao 3 (June 5, 1902]) “I wish you all not say something like: if men do not even know what patriotism is, why do we care whether our nation is strong or not? You should know, though, men do not love our nation all because we women do not love it” (愿諸位不要說他們男人都不曉得愛國，我們女子管他什麽強不強？要曉得男人的不愛國，就是由於女人不愛國上來的)

  21. NüjieAmbition • Alas!I miss the six gentlemen who lost their heads at Firewood Market;I miss Mr. Tang Caichang who was killed on the Han River;I miss Mr. Sheng Jin who was beaten to death in a Beijing prison.Why is it that no struggle yet to involve a female?To this day the history of bloodshed has no glory for women! • 吁嗟乎，吾念柴市駢首六君子，吾念漢江飲刃唐才常，吾念北京杖死沈漁隱 (藎)，何不波及一女子，乃使流血史内女界無輝光。 (Nü xuebao 4 (1903): 51-52)

  22. Some Tentative Explanations of Women Reformers’ Generational Differences • 1) the 1900 boxer rebellion and the invasion of the Eight Joint Forces empowered nationalistic discourse; • 2) the die-hard disparagement of the cainü tradition under the traditional patriarchy was resurrected under the new call for patriotism; the conventional cainü vs. lienü (exemplary women) dichotomy was transformed into that between cainü and nüjie; and • 3) the sweeping influence of the Social Darwinism introduced by Japanese women amid Chinese intellectuals’ intention of learning from Japanese experience.

  23. Shimoda Utako’s 下田歌子 “Lun Zhongguo nüxue shi” 論中國女學事(On the education for Chinese women)(XuchuNübao 9) • Today’s world is a world of racial competition. The superior wins and the inferior loses; the strong survives and the weak extinguishes. The five continents, as large as they are, cannot tolerate any weak and inferior nations to co-exist on the earth. • 今日之世界，乃列族競爭之世界，優者勝而劣者敗，強者存而弱者亡。五洲雖大，豈能容此弱劣之民族，並立于大地之上乎？

  24. Fukuda Hideko’s 福田英子 “Zhi Xue Jingqin shu” 致薛錦琴書 (Letter to Xue Jingqin) (Nü xuebao 1 [Feb. 27, 1903]). • I think today’s competition of human beings does not occur between nations but between the East and the West. Westerners are often strong and bullying, and Easterners humble and restraint. Such a situation seems to have been decided by Heaven. . . . The world is however every one’s world, not something belonging only to Westerners. Westerners willfully trample the other peoples’ freedom to set up their authority, and offend the other peoples’ rights to boast their valor. By doing this, they have make themselves the dead enemies of Easterners. • 妾思今日人類之競爭，非在國與國之間，而在東洋與西洋之間。而西人常強梁，東人常屈抑。西勝東敗，殆如天數使然。……天下者，天下之天下也。豈西人所得而私之哉？然西人既絕無忌憚，以壓抑人之自由為威，侵害人之權利為勇，若是則西人直東人不共戴天之寇讎矣！

  25. Jiang Zhiyou’s 蔣智由 (courtesy name Guanyun 觀雲, 1865-1929, one of what Liang Qichao terms as the “Three Heroes of Modern Poetry” [近世詩界三傑]) “Aiguo nü xuexiao kaixiao yanshuo” 愛國女學校開校演説 [Speech at the opening ceremony of the Patriotic Girls’ School] • Therefore, family-ism belongs to the past; global-ism belongs to the future; nationalism belongs to the present and is the one we should endeavor to work on. China has emphasized on the importance of family-ism; hence since from ancient times our women have been filial daughters, integrated daughters, martyred daughters, and chaste daughters. These sorts of women, their will, disposition, and features are still models for us to follow. All we have to do is to inform these women with broadened knowledge. • 故夫身家主義者，可判之為已往之時代；世界主義者，可判之為未來之時代；而國家主義者，則為現在所當努力之時代也。夫中國固重身家者也，是故古之女子曰孝女、曰節女、曰烈女、曰貞女，彼貞節孝烈之女子，其志氣、其性情、其品行、今亦當師法之，而擴充以知識之界斯可矣！XuchuNübao 9 (December 30, 1902)

  26. China’s intellectual women in the past only expected to become the women in idle fictions. Today we open girls’ school for educating girls to be heroines and amazons. The past employed the old way, and today we promote the new way. The past made lower class women, and today we make higher class women. • 中國從前讀書之女子，將使成閒書小説中之女子而已。今開學堂則將使女子為英雄豪傑之女子。前者舊法，而今者乃新法也。前者造就下品之女子，而今者造就上品之女子也。

  27. “Chunan nüzi” 楚南女子, “Zhongguo nüzi zhi qiantu” 中國女子之前途(The future of Chinese women) • : 1) The mind of perseverance (jianzhi xin堅執心), which, having sustained our women to be filial daughters and chaste wives (xiaonü jiefu孝女節婦) for their families, would be easily transformed into patriotism for our nation. • 2) The mind of motherly love (ciai xin慈愛心), which would enable our women to love our race. • 3) The mind of vengeance (baofu xin報復心).

  28. There has been a disparaging expression about women in China: “A woman’s mind is the most malicious!” I know, however, this malice of a woman’s mind is actually the most beautiful feature of our women. We Chinese never know what hatred is. We have been suffering daily from foreigners, yet we never know to hate them. Some of us even hurry to meet their demands. Take, for example, the Manchu aliens, they have been eating out products and trampling our land for two hundred and sixty years! We may not blame those who are ignorant about the history. But there are some of us who are clear about what is going on. Only because they have received a bit of wealth and position from [the Manchus], they ignore how the Manchus kill our compatriots and destroy our land every day! As long as his own person is safe, he cannot care less to differentiate between aliens and compatriots! [Worse even,] if he could see an opportunity to gain for himself, he would help the aliens to kill his own compatriots without mercy! Alas! How miserable! How sad! We women, [on the contrary,] once understand that the Manchus are our aliens, who brutalize our compatriots and cede our territory [to foreign invaders], we will grow strong hatred. Regardless of our own wellbeing, we’ll try all our means to oppose them. Once we know who our enemy is, there will be no turn back! We will make no mistake as swaying between enemies and friends—such is what we call the “malice of a woman’s mind.” (Nü xuebao 4 [November 1903])

  29. “Chunan nüzi” 楚南女子, “Zhongguo nüzi zhi qiantu” 中國女子之前途(The future of Chinese women) • 中國向有謗女子之言曰：“最毒婦人心”。吾知此毒性，亦為吾女子之特美性也。中國人之無恨心也。日受外人之荼毒而不知恨,尚有趨奉之者。即今之滿洲異族，食吾之毛,踐吾之土，二百六十年矣！不明白者尚不足怪。有心内了然，一身稍受利祿，雖其日殺我同胞，日殘我土地，我一身安而已，何論其何者為異類，何者為同胞乎？苟有益於我之利祿，則且助異族而殺同胞不恤也！嗚呼！慘矣！悲矣！ • 我女子若能一旦明白滿洲之為我異族也，殘酷我同胞，斷送我土地，則其仇恨心必堅決，不顧一身之利害，必輾轉設計而對敵之。所謂“最毒婦人心”，既知其非，必與其始終反對，無忽而仇敵、忽而和好之病矣！(Nü xuebao 4 [November 1903]: 2-4)

  30. Thanks!

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