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How is feminism shown in traditional Chinese and Western culture?

1. Introduction

Feminism refers to the belief in the economic, social, and political equality of all sexes. (Britannica) It is widely manifested in both Chinese and Western society nowadays. In this analytical film review, Raise the Red Lantern and The Piano will be used to discuss feminism in Chinese and Western culture respectively. Raise the Red Lantern is a 1991 drama, historical and romantic film, which has won the Silver Lion Award for Best Director at 48th Venice International Film Festival, the British Academy Film Awards for Best Foreign Language Film, and the 64th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film nomination. It is directed by Zhang Yimou, leading by Gong Li, Ma Jingwu, He Saifei, Cao Cuifen and Jin Shuyuan. Similarly, The Piano is also a drama and romantic film, directed by Jane Campion, starring Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitalm Sam Neill and Anna Paquin in 1993. The film won three Academy Awards (Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Screenplay) out of eight nominations. Jane Champion is also the first female director to receive the award of Palme d'Or in the Cannes Film Festival.

In the 21st century, many claim that they share equal rights and opportunities. Since the fourthwave feminism has further pushed the focus on the empowerment of women and intersectionality. The utilization of social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram creates “hashtag activism”, and has greatly raised the new awareness of social and legal rights (Peroni & Rodak, 2018). Though there is a vast improvement in levelling the opportunities between genders, it is still a necessity to constantly redefine the position of women in society (Isabelle Osborne, 2020). In other words, feminism remains a significant issue for many cultures. The two selected movies are good choices for investigating this theme because they clearly shown the relationship of women to literary tradition and cultural representation.

2. Synopsis 2.1 Raise the Red Lantern In the 1920s’ Northern China, a nineteen-year-old university student Songlian is forced to marry into the wealthy Chen family after her father died, become the fourth wife of the elderly landlord. Though Songlian is treated like royalty at first, she soon realizes not all the concubines receive the same luxurious treatment. The wife who Master Chen intends to spend the night with can receive sensuous foot massages, brightly-lit red lanterns and the choice of menu items. To gain these privileges, the most attention and respect from the servants, three concubines are pitted in fierce competition against each other.

Songlian chooses to feign pregnancy to keep one step ahead of her rivals. However, her servant, Yan’er is in league with Zhuoyun, the Second Mistress reveals the fraud and summons the family physician to examine it. She is then being punished by covering her lanterns with thick black canvas bags. For the sake of this, Songlian blames her maid and discovers that her room is filled with red lanterns and has even slept with her husband. She burns the lanterns and punishes Yan’er to kneel in the snow. She refuses to apologize and dies ultimately. Since then, Songlian feels depressed and starts speaking of suicide. On her birthday, she is drunk and inadvertently blurts out the fact that the Third Mistress, Meishan is having a love affair with Doctor Gao in front of Zhuoyun. Meishan is then hanged to death by the servants, which Songlian witnesses the entire scene. Following, the master marries another concubine; in the meantime, Songlian has already become completely insane (IMDb).

2.2The Piano In the nineteen-century, a speechless Scotswoman named Ada McGrath has been sold into a marriage to a New Zealand frontiersman, Alistair Stewart. Bringing her nine-year-old daughter, Flora, the piano, and their belongings there. After they have spent one night on the beach, Alistair with a Maori crew and his friend, Baines came to greet Ada and help her to carry the belongings. Yet, they abandon Ada’s piano, which caused strong opposition from Ada.

Ada strikes to reunite with the piano. In turn, she is still not able to compromise with her husband. Thus, Ada and her daughter find Baines for bargaining and obtain the consent of Alistair regarding the trading between the piano lessons from Ada and Baines’s lands. During the

lesson, Baines just simply listens to what Ada playing rather than playing himself. Baines finds her attractive and openly approaches Ada. Finally, she also fell in love and had sex with him.

Although Alistair begins to suspect the relationship between them, he chooses to believe his wife that she will not go to find Baines when he departs. However, Ada asks her daughter to send a piano key, which inscribes a declaration of love to Baines. Alistair discovers as Flora shows it to him, he then chops off his wife’s index finger, not allowing her to play the piano. After the recovery, Ada, Flora and Baines leave New Zealand. While three of them settle down in England, Ada started her career as a piano teacher and learnt how to speak again. (IMDb) 3. Comparison and contrast 3.1 Similarities Raise the Red Lantern and The Piano both show the issue of arranged marriage. In Raise the Red Lantern, Song Lian was a pampered eldest lady and a well-knowledgeable university student. However, the death of her father has dramatically changed her life. Song Lian’s family was bankrupted, and she had no financial support to continue to study. Therefore, she had no choice and forced to marry into a wealthy Chen family arranged by her stepmother. Figure 1 shows that Song Lian does not have the right to choose whom she wants to marry. As she tearfully compromises the arranged marriage and be the fourth concubine. This scene illustrates the custom of arranged marriage in Chinese society. Under the feudal system, marriage is just for inheritance and abiding the law of ‘Three obedience, four virtues’ (三從四德) (Xiao, 2020). Hence, concubines are needed to have more offspring. Those parents who need money were used to arrange for their daughter to marry a big family as a concubine, even though the man’s age is old enough as her father. Similarly, nineteen years old Song Lian is forced to marry a man who is already 50 something for the sake of getting financial benefits. There is a well-known Chinese saying—父母之命 媒妁之言, which means to arrange a match by parents’ order and on the matchmaker’s word. In a nutshell, arranged marriage in traditional Chinese society is persecuted by feudal patriarchy, which causes the low status of female (Xia Ying Movie, 2018).

Such a cultural issue can also be reflected in The Piano. Ada and Songlian are like in that they both forced into the confinement of their marriage rather than being able to find love. Figure 2 indicates that Ada has to marry a man whom she never met before. Her marriage to a man from

New Zealand is arranged by her father. Due to World War II in the mid-nineteen centuries, the economy of the United Kingdom was in disarray. Whereas New Zealand’s economy began to boom after the war (Easton, 2010). Hence, Greenwood & Guner (2009) states that ‘At the time, most marriages were arranged by the parents of young adults.’ (p.232). This shows that arranged marriage is a common way to raise the financial status in the United Kingdom. Likewise, in The Piano, Ada’s father arranged for her daughter to a remote bush in New Zealand. To conclude, Raise the Red Lantern and The Piano show the same cultural issue of arranged marriage.

Figure 1. Arranged marriage in traditional Chinese society. Scenes adapted from “Raise the Red Lantern“

Figure 2. Arranged marriage in Western society. Scenes adapted from “The Piano“

Another similarity between these two films is the matter regarding external affairs. In the Raise the Red Lantern, the Third Mistress, Mei Shan, used to be an opera actress. She said ‘We are all inferior, who dislikes whom (都是下九流，誰嫌棄誰呀。)’, implies that the social status of an actress is very low under the feudal system (Xiao, 2020). In the era that requires women to

obey the four virtues and abide by women's morality, Mei Shan expressed her dissatisfaction with the patriarchal system by having an external affair with the doctor, Mr Gao. Figure 3 shows that after Master Chen knows the cheating of Mei Shan, he secretly strung her up on the rooftop. This reflected external affair is the most taboo thing in traditional Chinese marriage. Especially in a society in which women are inferior to men, patriarchal power is supreme, and the rules are strict, an external affair is an unforgettable deception for men (Huang, 2020). As a result, women who had affair were undoubtedly having a tragic ending, like what Master Chen does to Mei Shan.

In the same way, the circumstances of Ada and Mei Shan are similar. Figure 4 could be reflected that Ada is being punished by her husband, Alistair, because of her external affair with Baines. She is a pianist, playing the piano is her lifetime hobbies. Chopping her finger off means further silence her or ‘clip her wing’ as she could not play it temporarily. Women status in traditional western society is still lower than men. After marriage, men could control the tangible and intangible property of women, women have very few rights of their own (BBC, n.d.). For example, the piano and freedom of Ada. Consequently, not allowing her to play the piano equals exploiting her freedom. Thus, from the punishment of Alistair, it is believed that marriage is a ‘lock’ for women. Both movies reveal that married women were not able to find true love if they discovered they had been unfaithful to their husband (McMillan, n.d.).

Figure 3. Mei Shan is hanged by neck as punishment of external affairs. Scenes adapted from “Raise the Red Lantern’’

Figure 4. Cutting off Ada’s index finger as punishment of external affairs. Scenes adapted from “The Piano’’

3.2 Differences Nevertheless, there are also some cultural differences between Raise the Red Lantern and The Piano. In terms of respect to women after marriage, Raise the Red Lantern shows little in traditional Chinese society, while The Piano shows Western society gives independence to them. Referring to figure 5, Master Chen suspects the flute is a present from a man that Songlian met in university and burn it without questioning. After knowing that it is a relic from her father, he said ‘It just only a flute, I will let them buy several good ones.’. There is no comfort or apology and even yelled at Songlian, who was in a depressed mood: "I hate others for showing me a look." This scene implicated that Master Chen ignores his wife’s will and disregards how the flute means so much to Songlian. Hence, the burnt flute represents Songlian’s last privacy space is completely squeezed. It also reflected that women are regarded as a product for men. They will not try to understand and care about their wife’s feeling. In the ‘Book of Rites’, the concept of Husband guides wife ( 夫 為 妻 綱 ) implies women are just private property (Chan, 2010). Women’s freedom and independence are restricted by man, they do not receive respect from the Chinese society.

On the other hand, The Piano shows an opposite view in terms of respect for women. In the beginning, Ada wants to bring along the piano to Alistair’s home. However, as shown in figure 6, though she expresses her wishes to Alistair, he thinks it is too heavy to carry and apologizes. After that, he observes his wife is depressed as she could not play the piano, so he tries to bring it back by discussing it with Baines. Therefore, we can see that women are respected in western society. They have an independent mentality to fight for their rights and strive for what they

want. This can be related to the second wave of feminism, which focused more on the workplace, sexuality, and family rights. Women were so concerned about civil rights concerns that they decided to bolster their voices by advocating for gender equality first so that they could be heard (Cavanaugh, 2018). In light of this wave, women could have to rights to say and voice out their opinion. Unlike the traditional Chinese culture, western countries valued the origin of women’s oppression, the nature of gender, and the role of family (Burkett, n.d.). Thus, people appreciate female’s rights, they can fight for what they want.

Figure 5. Master Chen burns the flute belongs to Songlian Scenes adapted from “Raise the Red Lantern’’

Figure 6. Ada is asking Alistair whether he can carry the piano Scenes adapted from “The Piano’’

Apart from that, Raise the Red Lantern and The Piano are different in that reproductivity. Raise the Red Lantern conveys the reproductivity is a source of power in traditional Chinese society. According to figure 7, Songlian pretends pregnant to gain love from Master Chen and the XX, like lighting the red lantern and massage. Yet, figure 8 shows after the master dismantles the lie of pregnant, he furiously orders the lanterns to be sealed and covered all lanterns with black cloth. Mencius has been said that ‘There are three things which are unfilial, and to have no posterity is the greatest of them (不孝有三，無後為大 )’. In traditional Chinese society, the purpose of marrying a wife is to give birth to offspring, and according to the patrilineal lineage principle, only the son can be considered as the offspring of the continuation of the incense (Du, 2020). Thus, Chinese people are paying more attention to the reason of ‘no son (無子)’ in the seven articles of abandoning a wife (七出之條). We can see why there is a big contrast between the two figures, Songlian is fully favoured by master Chen and the fact that she gets punishment because she violates the women’s virtue.

Figure 7. Raise the Red lantern due to Songlian’s pregnant Scenes adapted from “Raise the Red Lantern’’

Figure 8. Cover lantern with black cloth after discovered Songlian’s lying Scenes adapted from “Raise the Red Lantern’’

On the contrary, western society values less on the issue of reproductivity. In The Piano, Alistair marries Ada even though he knows she has a daughter, which shows that remarriage is accepted in western culture. As shown in figure 9, Flora helps her mother to send the piano key that contains some love letters to Baines. For the reason that she is being excluded from the relationship of Ada and Baines, she feels resentful and needs a man to call PaPa. As a result, she considers her stepfather, she believes she has the responsibility to tell him the truth, carries the key to Alistair, the man to whom her mother ‘belongs’ (Jenkins, 1995). Opposite from the traditional Chinese society, single parenting was common, and the remarriage rates are high in

the period of 1980s to 1990s (Poppel, 1998). In western marriage, women will not get any power or any special treatment if they give birth for their husband, no matter it is a son or daughter. Moreover, smaller family size is more likely adopted by western society due to a healthy balance between psychological and financial costs and benefits (Deven, 1985). Hence, the place of women in the family may become higher. The matter of reproductivity in western culture is not as important as in Chinese society.

Figure 9. Flora gives the piano key to Alistair instead of Baines Scenes adapted from “The Piano’’

4. Conclusion By analyzing Raise the Red Lantern and The Piano, there are similarities and differences between the Chinese and Western culture in terms of feminism. It is clear that both cultures resemble each other regarding arranged marriage, as well as the views on external affairs. Nonetheless, Chinese society and Western society do not share the same opinion on the respect of women. Eastern ones tend to restrict women’s independence and sees them as product after marriage, but another one provides rights for them and respect their will. In addition, they also have differentiation regarding reproductivity. There is a strong emphasis on whether women give birth or not in Chinese culture, yet western culture does not. To summarize, I believe that the two chosen films can successfully illustrate the theme since they express the concept of feminism within the family relationship, which can be easily understood. For instance, in Raise the Red Lantern, women are inferior to men is significantly due to the Songlian’s oppression by master Chen. Whereas, The Piano clearly shows the independent mentality of Ada. Thereupon, I would like to recommend these films to those who are interested in cultural studies. They could have a better understanding of feminism in 1980s western society and 1920s Northern China respectively, as well as exploring the differences between the two cultures.

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