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and bombastic vocabulary characteristic of mainstream authoritative
discourse, yet his effort to achieve mainstream assimilation through mimicry
is undermined: the speech is delivered in Fenyang Mandarin, rather than
Putonghua Mandarin.
各 位 父 老 乡 亲 , 亲 朋 好 友 , 首 先 感 谢 大 家 多 年 来 对 我 的 支 持 和 帮 助 。
值 此 本 人 新 婚 之 际 , 我 谨 向 多 年 来 关 心 汾 阳 恒 通 商 贸 公 司 的 各 位 领
导 、 各 界 人 士 表 示 感 谢 。 现 在 我 公 司 决 定 捐 款 三 万 元 , 用 于 汾 阳 的
希 望 工 程 。
Ladies and gentlemen, friends and relatives, first of all I’d like
to express my gratitude to all of you for your support and help
over the years. On the occasion of my wedding, I’d like to thank
the leaders and friends who are always concerned with the
development of Fenyang Hengtong Company. And now our
company has decided to donate 30,000 yuan to support Project
Hope in Fenyang.
11
The term “transgressive qualities”
is borrowed from Shuqin Cui (2001:
77), who writes that “these ‘qualities’
depend specifically on a commitment to
independent filmmaking, and thus to
subverting mainstream production and
official censorship.”
The parody ends with a cut to Xiao Yong back in a private space following
his speech; here he utters vulgarities to his relative (played by Jia himself),
still in Fenyang Mandarin.
Just as the politics of identifying new-generation films as “underground”
or “independent” reveals the preoccupation of Western film festival juries
and art house distributors with the films’ “transgressive qualities,” 11 the
use of local languages in Jia’s films is sometimes interpreted as politically
and ideologically subversive. In analyzing Jia’s own extensive chatter in
Fenyang Mandarin in Xiao Shan Going Home, New York–based critic Kevin
Lee (2003) comments, “Jia’s unapologetic use of dialect” compensates for
“seven decades of Chinese movies that have been dubbed in standard
Mandarin dialect in accordance with government language policy.” A close
reading of Xiao Wu reveals that the local language is so pervasively used in
both public and private spaces that its potential subversiveness is hard to
pin down. Like the nouveau riche Xiao Yong, the policeman Hao Youliang
also speaks Fenyang Mandarin, whether or not he is on duty. In spite of the
172 • The Rhetoric of Local Languages
MCLC 18.2.indd 172
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