New York Times’ Article on Mu Zimei
Jim Yardley of New York Times wrote a very good article on the phenomena of Mu Zimei: “Internet Sex Column Thrills, and Inflames, China.” The article explains not only how the Internet made this 25 years old sex columnist into a national controversy and celebrity, but also tells interesting details behind Sina’s promotion of Mu Zimei’s blog, and the government’s recent ban of Mu Zimei’s coming book.
I cannot help but link Mu Zimei with Du Daobin. Both of them have “fully expressed” themselves on Internet. Mu’s writing is about her private sex life, and Du’s is about his critique on public life, that is, politics. Mu is now a national celebrity while Du is in prison. Sex is promoted and politics is forbidden on Chinese cyberspace. Can we find a clearer indicator than these two cases?
POSTED COMMENTS: 4 Responses
I watched a telephone interview of Muzimei this morning. Her voice was qutie pleasant. She talked about the double standard in society, and how the media has ignored the literary quality of her book. She was quite bothered by this instant fame and people’s constant discussion. But she said she would not change her lifestyle because it’s how she wanted to live.
From the way she talked, she didn’t sound like a rebellious person, in fact, quite normal just anybody else.
What is interesting about the Mu Zimei phenomenon is that while she is iconoclastic and even “revolutionary” in her way, she is not “political.” With direct political expresion still curtailed in China, expressions of dissent have moved into other areas. It is as if the urge to express criticism, frustration, displeasure has had to take on disguises. And, this is what makes Chinese art, literature and film so interesting. These forms of expression can be vague, playful, and ambiguous and they are amost always powerful expressions of individualism. Inherent in much of the nihilistic work we see in these areas of artisitic endeavor is a deep, but always indirect, expression of diaffection. And, it is usually from these margins that things slowly move into the center and then finally burst out in some more overtly political form.
What is so confusing (for guanfang, or officialdom)in China about someone like Mu Zimei, is that, because she is trading in sex (the ultimate form of self-expression) she is deeply subversive to everything the Party (not to mention the almost forgotten “revolution”) stands for. She is, in fact, “digging up dirt right under the Buddha’s nose,” to use an old Chinese chengyu.
Someone should write something about “displacement theory,” when it comes to alternative forms of dissident expression.
Orville Schell
i just noticed that this NYT article on Mu Zimei was published, essentially in full, on the
People’s Daily English language site .
It’s unusual for the CCP mouthpiece to run a full, uncensored article from a foreign paper, especially an article about China, and seems to be an indication of just how prominent her case has become within China. It’s also an example of how online versions of official papers in China often have more leeway to publish materials that would not be acceptable in the print press.
mu zimei is artist, and hero -
i record painters, poets - they are also heroes-
mu zimei, email me, i want to takk to you about a spoken word cd for my sooj company-
i’m in new york - i dont speak chinese-
but i know art and poetry when i see/hear/read it
jef
sooj@frontiernet.net
(yang yang - where can i email you?!?!?
dec 23)