ABSTRACT
This book explores how political, economic, social, cultural and technological forces are (re)shaping the meanings of love and intimacy in China's public culture. It focuses on a range of cultural and media forms including literature, film, television, music and new media, examines new cultural practices such as online activism, virtual intimacy and relationship counselling, and discusses how far love and romance have come to assume new shapes and forms in the twenty-first century. Love Stories in China offers deep insights into how the huge transformation of China over the last four decades has impacted the micro lives of ordinary Chinese people.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|2 pages
Marriage in trouble
chapter 2|18 pages
Is it better to cry in a BMW or laugh on a bicycle?
Television shows, marriage and the production of class in urban China
chapter 4|19 pages
Holding virtual hands
An ethical practice against male infidelity in digital China
part II|2 pages
Rural–urban inequality
chapter 5|14 pages
‘Phoenix men’
Changing representations of urban–rural marriages in contemporary China
chapter 6|16 pages
Negotiating class and the rural–urban divide in urban homes
Configuring the maid in literature and popular culture
part III|2 pages
Gender, race and class
chapter 9|17 pages
Tiny Times, persistent love
Gender, class and relationships in post-1980s bestsellers
chapter 11|18 pages
International romance
Changing discourses of Chinese–foreign intimacy in the decades of economic reforms
part IV|2 pages
Queer voices
chapter 13|18 pages
‘Revolution plus love?’
Online fandom of the television drama series The Disguiser
