Caring in Times of Precarity A Study of Single Women Doing Creative Work in Shanghai CHOW YIU FAI PALGRAVE STUDIES IN GLOBALIZATION CULTURE & SOCIETY Palgrave Studies in Globalization, Culture and Society Series Editors Jeroen de Kloet Centre for Globalisation Studies University of Amsterdam Amsterdam, The Netherlands Esther Peeren Centre for Globalisation Studies University of Amsterdam Amsterdam, The Netherlands Palgrave Studies in Globalization, Culture and Society traverses the boundaries between the humanities and the social sciences to critically explore the cultural and social dimensions of contemporary globalization processes. This entails looking at the way globalization unfolds through and within cultural and social practices, and identifying and understanding how it effects cultural and social change across the world. The series asks what, in its different guises and unequal diffusion, globalization is taken to be and do in and across specific locations, and what social, political and cultural forms and imaginations this makes possible or renders obsolete. A particular focus is the vital contribution made by different forms of the imagination (social, cultural, popular) to the conception, experience and critique of contemporary globalization. Palgrave Studies in Globalization, Culture and Society is committed to addressing globalization across cul- tural contexts (western and non-western) through interdisciplinary, theo- retically driven scholarship that is empirically grounded in detailed case studies and close analyses. Within the scope outlined above, we invite junior and senior scholars to submit proposals for monographs, edited volumes and the Palgrave Pivot format. Please contact the series editors for more information: [email protected] / [email protected] More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15109 Chow Yiu Fai Caring in Times of Precarity A Study of Single Women Doing Creative Work in Shanghai Chow Yiu Fai Hong Kong Baptist University Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong Palgrave Studies in Globalization, Culture and Society ISBN 978-3-319-76897-7 ISBN 978-3-319-76898-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76898-4 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018954418 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the pub- lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institu- tional affiliations. Cover illustration: Artwork by Justin Wong, photograph taken by Jeroen de Kloet. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland A cknowledgements It just occurred to me that I should write my acknowledgements—now that I am back in Shanghai to do fieldwork once again. I am staying in the same neighbourhood, wandering through the same streets and alleys, and going to the same noodle shops and cafés. Inertia, insistence, intimacy. This is where I met all the women you will meet in this book, where I listened to their stories, felt their trust, and was enthralled by their struggles, pleasures, and above all, sheer accomplish- ment of living their lives in this place, at this time. These memories and impressions have morphed into a constant susurration as well as a resound- ing reminder for me to write this book well. I hope I have done a good job, at least good enough that I would dare to let them read it. I thank all of you, who were willing to talk to me. I know it was not always easy; let us continue trying to make it easier. Without the Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA) proj- ect “Creating the ‘new’ Asian woman: entanglements of urban space, cul- tural encounters and gendered identities in Shanghai and Delhi (SINGLE)”, this book would not exist at all. In 2013, the European Commission funded the research proposal to investigate single women in the two cities, and the principal investigators—Christiane Brosius, Melissa Butcher, and Jeroen de Kloet—invited me to join their research team. I thank these three PIs. And I also thank my fellow researchers, Laila Abu- Er- Rub, Lucie Bernroider, Maddalena Chiellini, Penn Ip, and Pi Chenying, for all the wonderful moments in Heidelberg, Delhi, Shanghai, and Leiden. Remember the karaoke night? I thank Lena Scheen, who was not in the team, but was one big reason why I was in the team. I will not v vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS explain this beyond calling it serendipity. Through the HERA project, I also had the pleasure to get to know the scholar Kinneret Lahad, whose work on single women remains inspiring and empowering for me; the curator and academic Wayne Modest, whose energy and engagement con- tinually enlighten me; as well as artists Li Xiaofei and Guo Qingling, who became one of my anchor points when I was in Shanghai, and my friends. Talking about Shanghai, I would like to thank Afa, Ah Ching, Anna, Jude, Melody, Tingyun, and many others, who made me feel less like a stranger. This book project was my very first monograph. Monograph. How daunting! Luckily, I was guided or cautioned—“What? You have not started writing yet?”—by people who were more experienced than I, to the extent that I knew, at the very least, I must reserve time to concentrate on, very simply put, writing. I thank Hong Kong Baptist University for granting me sabbatical leave. I am particularly grateful to my colleagues, Iris Chao, Gladys Chong, John Nguyet Erni, Leung Pui Man, Lucetta Kam, K.C. Lo, Eva Man, and Daisy Tam, as well as the supporting team of the Department of Humanities and Creative Writing—Chester Chan, Donald Chan, Bonnie Fung, Jacky Ho, and Fiona Lu—for indulging my writing spree. I thank the Amsterdam Centre for Globalisation Studies and the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis—personified as Esther Peeren, Patricia Pisters, and Jeroen de Kloet—for hosting me. That half a year felt so insouciant and quiet. I have just written the word monograph, which is usually understood as a treatise on a single subject, authored by a single person. How I would love to believe that this was entirely my own effort. Of course, it was not. I thank all the scholars who, in their own ways, have been telling me that I can do it. Ien Ang, Kees Brants, Rey Chow, Stephen Chu, Anthony Fung, Joke Hermes, Koichi Iwabuchi, Giselinde Kuipers, Helen Hok-Sze Leung, Song Hwee Lim, Tak-Wing Ngo, Tejaswini Niranjana, Leonie Schmidt, Shu-mei Shih, and my dear PhD supervisor Liesbet van Zoonen, who believed in my potential as an academic much earlier than I did myself. I thank Zoénie Deng, Lin Jian, Tan Jia and Sonia Wong for sup- porting me with literature alerts and other research help. I thank Wang Rui and Yvette Wong, my two primary research assistants for offering me concrete support throughout the entire book project. Both Virgos, even born on the same day, they lived up to the expectations of being meticu- lous and attentive to detail—I owe them for all the reminders of all the details of my research. I meant to list out precisely what they did for me, ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii but then, I realized no long list of tasks would be better than a simple cheer: my dear Rui and Yvette, long live our friendship! I thank Vincent So for helping me with formatting and tidying up all stylistically loose ends (it must have been nightmarish for you); Chen Min, Roman Chen Ziqing, and Cai Qingyang for your great assistance during fieldwork in Shanghai; and Zhang Qian, and all the transcribers. I thank Patrick Jered for copyediting the entire book. It was not only a matter of ensuring the linguistic quality, but much more importantly, of reassuring me that someone like you would always be there. I thank the anonymous reviewer(s), and the (former) editors at Palgrave: Lucy Batrouney, Heloise Harding, and Martina O’Sullivan. I thank David Hesmondhalgh and Fran Martin for gracing the back cover with your endorsements. For the front cover, I thank Justin Wong for allowing me to use your artwork, and Jeroen de Kloet for the photograph of this. Right, finally, Jeroen. These days, you have been somewhat disturbed. Just the other day, you sent a message to me: “I lost Ernie!” I could already imagine the distress and anguish you were feeling. Indeed, you were disturbed, quite seriously. The loss of an “object,” a “toy” that you had been using as the centre point of your photographic project hit you like the loss of a dear one. That kind of immediacy, sincerity, and I think, humanity—it reminds me of a notion in Chinese 赤子之心: the heart of a child (haha, I know you will call me Sinocentric for this). This heart keeps on inspiring me. More than a decade ago, it inspired me to embark on an academic life; during the research and writing of this book, it inspired me through your conversations, your accommodations, and your distractions, ultimately to let me continue believing in what I was doing, if only for the pleasure. Thank you. Chow Yiu Fai This work was supported by the Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA) under the funded-project “Creating the ‘New’ Asian Woman: Entanglements of Urban Space, Cultural Encounters and Gendered Identities in Shanghai and Delhi” (SINGLE Project Nr: 586, 2013–2016). A n l ote on AnguAge All English translations are mine, unless otherwise stated. For citation of Chinese personal names using English spelling, I have followed the Chinese convention, that is, family name first. However, when the persons involved preferred using an English first name, I have followed the English convention, putting the family name last. For citation of other Chinese proper names or titles, I have generally put their English equivalents in the text, followed by pinyin (the standard Romanization of Chinese characters adopted in mainland China) and Chinese characters in brackets. Chinese characters printed in this book belong to the simplified version used in mainland China, unless otherwise warranted, for instance, when the names and titles concerned are from areas where the classical version of Chinese characters remains preferred. ix c ontents 1 Living on My Own, Creatively, Precariously 1 2 Living with Their Own Images 51 3 Living with a Generation—Qilinghou, Balinghou, Jiulinghou 91 4 Balancing Work/Life? 119 5 To Love, to Live 151 6 Living with Us—The Case of Kunqu 189 7 Living with the City 219 8 Living with Themselves, Creating Themselves 253 9 Epilogue 287 xi