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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 12/20/06 2:01:38 PM
Figure 11: Xiao Ji watches news coverage of Falun Gong practitioners’ self-immolation in Unknown Pleasure (2002) Figure 12: Bin Bin watches news coverage of China’s condemnation of U.S. aircraft incursion in Unknown Pleasures (2002) is amusingly portrayed: in one scene, upon hearing an explosion from a local factory, Bin Bin seems alarmed and says, “Fuck, are the Americans attacking again?” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture • 185 MCLC 18.2.indd 185 12/20/06 2:01:38 PM
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Page 5 and 6: living in small towns. Integral to
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Page 11 and 12: Figure 5: Xiao Wu (played by Wang H
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Page 15 and 16: Figure 7: The pair Zhang Jun (playe
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Page 21: native Taiyuan Mandarin even though
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Page 39 and 40: Dai, Jinhua. 2002. “A Scene in th
Page 41 and 42: Lee, Kevin. 2003. “Jia Zhangke.
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