| |
Valentine's yes, 'Vagina Monologues',
no
By Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING - Once puritanically critical of
occasions that paraded love, China has now embraced the
celebration of Valentine's Day - "the imported Western
festival" - as a succession of consumer opportunities
coated in romance.
Valentine's Day in China
these days means vogue. It means red roses and
heart-shaped chocolates, fat Cupids and a commercial
victory for fashion brand names, whose signature bags
hang proudly on the arms of many couples.
Valentine's Day means practically anything
involving love and romance, anything, that is, but
vagina. Even after acquiescing to blatant public
displays involving sentiments of love on February 14, a
day which in Chinese is dubbed "Lovers Day", China
continues to shun the word "vagina".
Vagina in
Chinese translates as the "road to Yin" where "Yin"
symbolizes the feminine side of nature as opposed to
Yang, the masculine side. While the juxtaposition of Yin
and Yang is one of the essential principles of Chinese
philosophy, the dissection and flaunting of female
sexuality is still regarded as a cultural phenomenon
imported from the West.
As such, a pioneering
performance of the internationally-acclaimed play "The
Vagina Monologues" was banned in Beijing on Valentine's
Day - a week after its staging was canceled in Shanghai,
China's most avant-garde and trend-setting city.
In Beijing, the drama was banned ostensibly for
"loopholes in the approval procedures", according to
Beijing arts officials. "We were told we haven't
obtained permission from the cultural authorities," said
Angel An, one of the curators of the private Today Art
Gallery, which was to host the show.
But for
everybody even vaguely familiar with the modus
operandi of Chinese censors of taste, it is clear
that applications of the "examination and approval
process" are ordered only when there is a problem with
the cultural product.
"If all plays and
performances had to go through the approval process from
A to Z when being staged, then we wouldn't get to see
very much," grumbled a woman touring the displays at the
Today Art Gallery on Valentine's Day.
The
producers of Eve Ensler's controversial play tried to
minimize the sensation caused by its debut in China by
pledging all profits from the show to a Chinese group
that works with domestic violence. Yet the commendable
goal did not spare the play the ax.
After having
sold most of the 500 tickets for this single show in the
capital, producers had to call it off. Proceeds of up to
250,000 yuan (US$30,000) were lost for the organizers,
chief among them the Network for Combating Domestic
Violence of the China Law Society.
"I'm not
surprised by the ban," said Hong Ying, a female writer
whose own novels have raised controversy in the past.
"It is the name of the play that counts. 'Vagina
Monologues' sounds so scary to Chinese officials. What
could a vagina say, they think, and fear that a name
like this would attract far too much attention.
Attention means discussions, means gatherings, in one
word it means trouble."
In Shanghai, the play
was canceled because "the authorities said it doesn't
suit China's national situation", Reuters news agency
quoted an employee at the Shanghai Drama Center as
saying.
However, the play has already generated
a lot of buzz in Internet chatrooms - a testimony to
quite the opposite: the presence of interest and
divergent opinions on the subject of openly discussing
female sexuality.
Eve Ensler's play created a
wave of cultural shocks when first in 1996 it tried to
examine publicly touchy subjects like orgasm, menopause,
sexual abuse, rape and lesbian experiences. Based on
interviews with 200 women from different walks of life -
including prostitutes and women raped in war - the play
has grown into an international movement used to fight
violence against women and has given birth to a "V-day",
in place of Valentine's Day.
The play has been
translated into 25 languages and has been staged in over
40 countries, including Chinese-speaking Singapore and
Hong Kong.
In China however, V-day appears more
easily associated with Valentine's romantic appeal and
commercial boom rather than with the fight against
domestic violence. Declaring public passion for one's
significant other by spending money has now become the
trademark of celebrating Valentine's Day in China.
A survey conducted by Horizon Research in 2002
found that people in three of China's main cities -
Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou - spend the most on
Valentine's Day. On average, they spent 192 yuan per
person to celebrate Lovers Day, only slightly less than
people in the United States, who spend $25 per person on
average.
Yet behind the commercial spree in
China, there is also a hunger for romance that a nation,
once denied the whims of fancy and fun by communist
austerity, is now trying to make up for.
Had
Chinese cultural gurus declared that "The Vagina
Monologues" was too loaded with gruesome stories of
war-related rapes and unsuitable for a romantic festival
as Valentine's Day, the cancelation of the show would
have hardly generated such fervent anticipation.
But by banning the play because of national
sensitivities, they seem to have made the show all the
more sexy and appealing to audiences. "I hear that the
Shanghai organizers of the show are moving to try and
stage it in Nanjing," said one of the Beijing producers.
In the capital, the ban has already driven the
play underground. Amateur actors are preparing to stage
the show in cameo performances and DVDs of the play are
said to be expected on the market shortly.
(Inter Press Service)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
