「洋場」の「洋人」 : 張愛玲小說の外國人

Abstract

Shanghai has played a central role in the development of Chinese Modern literature. China's defeat in the Opium War ushered in the creation of Metropolitan Shanghai. From its birth as a modern city, foreigners (Westerners) have been integral part of Shanghai. The "Shanghai-School Fiction" 海派小説 is characterized by its foreign flavor. The depiction of streets in Shanghai emphasizes imported (mostly Western) materials, revealing an exoticism effectively. Later, during the 1920's and 30's, when the foreign concessions in Shanghai were at their height, characters in novels from different countries served to shape certain stereotypes peculiar to foreigners: British and Americans enjoy a luxurious life; Russian prostitutes tout their customers along streets; Indian people always work as gatekeepers and so on. Most of these fictional characters just served to show "exoticism" in Shanghai; they never showed any individual or independent characteristics. Eileen Chang's novels acquired great popularity in Shanghai during the 40's when it was occupied by Japan. In her novels written during a short period before the time of the CCP's victory, she describes a number of foreigners living either in Shanghai or in Hong Kong. The British, who in novels, were depicted as rich men without any serious anxiety, are now intimidated by their own resentment that they live in a colony, not in Britain, while a Russian woman, who makes ends meet by working as a typist, is afraid of finding a spouse in foreign circumstances. A number of mixed-race people also appear in Chang's novels. All these characters feel anxiety and apprehensions that they are and always will be the "other" within the concession community, however they can go nowhere by leaving Shanghai (or Hong Kong). Chang, in her novels, provides Westerners, who were depicted as the thorough "powerful" or "evil", with the particular characteristic as the "other". They oscillate between inferiority complex regarding their own fellow countrymen living in their homeland and a superiority complex over Chinese, identifying themselves with neither one. Such characteristics correspond with those of Shanghai people to whom Chang herself also belonged. She produced stories of Shanghai people who were unable to identify with either the dominating West or the dominated hinterland China. Her writings bloomed in a linguistic vacuum, created by Japan's control over the literary publications in Shanghai.