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Figure 10: Xiao Ji (played by Wu Qiong) and Bin Bin (played by Zhao Weiwei) in Unknown
Pleasures (2002)
and symbolic capital. That they are able and willing to speak unaccented
Putonghua indicates their desire for upward social mobility. By comparison,
their underprivileged parents, mired in the lower social strata, speak the
local Datong Mandarin. Bin Bin’s mother, a dedicated practitioner of
Falun Gong, works at a failing textile factory. Xiao Ji’s father fritters away
time working in a shabby motorcycle repair shop. The two native Datong
teenagers never speak their parents’ Datong Mandarin, implying that
they are uncomfortable with their local identity, if not eager to abandon
their local roots altogether. In one scene, Xiao Ji expresses his wish to
have been born in the United States instead of Datong. The influence of
the upwardly mobile society is often revealed in their daily speech, as in
their use of terms such as “international trade” and “laptop.” Eager to
embrace the outside world, they watch Hollywood videos such as Quentin
Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction and television news programming transmitted in
Putonghua, including stories of China’s effort to enter the WTO, Beijing’s
successful bid to host the 2008 Summer Olympics, Falun Gong practitioners’
self-immolation on Tian’anmen Square, and China’s condemnation of the
controversial U.S. surveillance aircraft incursion (figs. 11 and 12). Their
readiness to link their immediate surroundings with the outside world
184 • The Rhetoric of Local Languages
MCLC 18.2.indd 184
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