Desires and Anxieties in Self-Centred Relationships
This chapter explores individualized desires and anxieties in personal relationships, which play an important role in understanding the identity of young Chinese professionals as regards love and intimacy in the post-reform era. By introducing Bauman’s (L
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Desires and Anxieties in Self-Centred Relationships
Since the introduction of the open-door policy in 1978, new emotional, material and sexual desires, as well as anxieties, have emerged in personal ties under the influence of globalization and the modern commodity culture (Rofel 2007; Yan 2010a; Wang and Nehring 2014). Influenced by Bauman’s (2003) work Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds, which explores the changing nature of love and romance in the West by looking at the problematic aspects of dating and relationships in a liquid modern-life setting, this chapter examines the unfulfilled feelings and emotions of young people towards relationships in modern Chinese societies. According to Bauman (2003), as an important avenue to identify and achieve personal needs and expectations, the self-centred or individualized relationship, which involves conflicting desires and anxieties between the security of togetherness and a feeling of wariness towards long-term commitment, has been increasingly seen in modern Western societies. As an important part of the transformative processes affecting the identities of the younger generation in post-reform China (Hansen and Svarverud 2010; Wang 2006; Yan 2003, 2009, 2010a, b), self-centred values may further help understand the mate-choosing as well as relationship-operating strategies of Chinese youth nowadays. Encased in the global media and cultural flows, Western advanced values such as romantic love and free-choice marriage are widely accepted by Chinese youth in the social-reform era (Higgins and Sun 2007;
© The Author(s) 2017 C. Yang, Television and Dating in Contemporary China, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-3987-4_3
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3 DESIRES AND ANXIETIES IN SELF-CENTRED RELATIONSHIPS
Yan 2003). It has been observed that contemporary Chinese society is characterized by a high incidence of separation and divorce (Ministry of Civil Affairs of PRC 2007; Tan 2010). With growing interest in diverse dating practices such as homosexual relationships, multiple relationships, triangular relationships, one-night stands and extramarital relationships in urban China (Donald and Zheng 2008; Li 2002; Wang and Ho 2007a, b, 2011), dating practices may have become more complicated, with various forms and intentions. In the context of increasingly fragmented and diversified personal ties in modern Chinese societies, Section 3.1 explores the changing feelings and understandings of young Chinese professionals towards true love or a lifelong relationship, which may reflect the changing meaning of love and intimacy, as well as the malleable identity of urban youth nowadays. The one-child policy (OCP) in the late 1970s and the nationwide ruralto-urban population movement have facilitated a nuclear family culture as well as the rise of the individual in modern Chinese societies (Fowler et al. 2010; Hesketh et al. 2005; Starr 2001). According to Pan (1993), Western values and the culture of small families have been the driving forces of a sexual revolution since the 1980s, in which ‘romantic love and sexu
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