Introduction
This study investigates the everyday bodily practices of middle-aged and older Chinese women (known as ‘damas’), and especially one of their favourite leisure activities – plaza dance (guangchangwu) in urban China. The word ‘dama’ consists of ‘da’, which implies big, great and elder, and ‘ma’, which refers to a mother. Hence, ‘dama’ literally means ‘big mama’. There is no clear-cut age range for this term, and it is generally used to refer to middle-aged and older women. In Chinese, ‘guangchangwu’ combines two words ‘guangchang’ and ‘wu’. ‘Wu’ is a general term meaning dance, and ‘guangchang’ literally means open and public space. As a kind of leisure activity, plaza dance, a mixture of dance and gymnastics, is an exercise routine practised by older Chinese people, especially damas. Most of these plaza dancers are retired and living in cities and towns. In the mornings and evenings, they go to plazas, squares, parks or any public space and dance to music in groups. Depending on the different dance types, they dance to Chinese folk songs, old or new pop songs (e.g. Chinese pop, K-pop, western pop music), or occasionally patriotic songs.
Wang (Reference Wang2015) identifies three major reasons for the emergence and popularity of plaza dance: the government's policy of promoting plaza dance for its public health potential; the commercial value of plaza dance and the rise of the silver market; and finally older women's need for sociality. The origins of plaza dance might date back to ‘loyalty dance’ (zhongziwu) during Mao's era and the popularity of ballroom dance, either indoors or outdoors, in cities between the late 1970s and early 2000s (Fang, Reference Fang2015; Wang, Reference Wang2015). The exact date when present-day plaza dance began varies regionally, but it is generally acknowledged that the government has implemented two state policies since 2005: ‘creating civilised and clean city activity’ (chuangwenchuangwei) and ‘national fitness activity’ (quanminjianshen), which then fostered the spread of plaza dance nationwide (Wang, Reference Wang2015). There are approximately 100 million plaza dancers, mostly women in their fifties to sixties (Fang, Reference Fang2015; Wang, Reference Wang2015). Born during the 1950s and 1960s, the majority of plaza dancers experienced Mao's era, went through the economic and social reforms of the 1990s, and are now witnessing the rapid industrialisation and economic boom of the 21st century. They have not only lived through rapid socio-cultural transformations but also changes of ideals, especially shifting conceptualisations of womanhood.
The exploration of women's bodies should take account of philosophical thought, aesthetic representations and power struggles, which are historically and contextually specific (Man, Reference Man2016). In terms of the ageing process, different from European philosophy that prioritises the destination and concentrates on the End or finality, Chinese thought emphasises the transition and gradual alterations: ‘it is really a consistent sequence … of which the “I” is the successive product’ (Jullien, Reference Jullien2011: 7). In line with the concept of ‘the silent transformations’ (mohua) suggested by Jullien (Reference Jullien2011), this study of damas’ ageing bodies is based on a larger project exploring the everyday lives of these women. As soon as I began my research, I already felt how these damas presented and regulated their own bodies in their daily lives. After I talked to one of my earliest interviewees, Cao (aged 61), I wrote in my fieldnotes:
Later, when I asked Cao whether she would like to have some green tea, she said, ‘No, thank you. I'm taking pills to reduce my blood pressure, and green tea will decrease the effectiveness of the pills.’
Cao also told me that she could not read the consent form clearly as she had forgotten to bring her glasses. Unlike Cao's bodily unfitness, I was at the same time amazed by a dance performance on an online television (TV) show, in which a group of damas in their fifties or sixties, wearing heavy make-up, short skirts and high heels, danced beautifully to Korean pop songs on stage.
The experiences of Cao versus those of the dancing damas on TV seem to set up two contradictory bodily images of older women, and there seems to be a tension between my participants’ biophysical decline and their active bodily control. By transcending the conventional dichotomy between nature and culture, scholars suggest that we need to ‘develop a better understanding of the social place of the body and of the ways in which we experience ourselves as embodied’ (Morgan and Scott, Reference Morgan, Scott, Scott and Morgan1993: 6). Understanding biology as historically and culturally located requires not only that researchers perceive the body as made up of biological parts but also that they explore how embodiment is structured by factors such as gender, class and age.
In terms of the lived experience of ageing, Katz (Reference Katz, Casper and Currah2011: 192–193) considers it ‘a materialising process whereby the vicissitudes of physical and biological ageing are grounded in bodywork practices, routines and environments’. This cohort of older Chinese women's bodily experiences seem to shift over time. While today's Chinese damas have witnessed monumental socio-cultural changes, their ageing bodies may also be affected by their biographies as well as major changes in history. Despite the differing philosophical traditions of western and East Asian societies and their varied histories and social conditions, bodily standards for women are significantly influenced by western industries and tend to be homogenised in the global economy (Man, Reference Man2016). The impact of western beauty ideals may cause some degree of body dissatisfaction and changes in body management across cultures (Calogero et al., Reference Calogero, Boroughs, Thompson, Swami and Furnham2007), which may have varied consequences for Chinese damas. In light of these considerations, this article will discuss damas’ bodies from two perspectives: older women's material bodies (e.g. bodily fitness or illness) and their self-presentation and adornment (e.g. skincare) under the transforming economic and socio-cultural landscape of Chinese society since Mao's era. Neither from the perspective of control nor decline, this paper focuses on damas’ everyday strategies and struggles as they experience ageing. By analysing how damas’ bodies are moderated and regulated through plaza dancing and beauty products, I aim to reveal the shifting gender ideology and age hierarchy behind these damas' bodily aesthetics and wellbeing.
Older Chinese women's bodies and socio-cultural transformations: past and present
Recently, work on body and embodiment in the new cultural gerontology, in which social locations such as gender, class and ethnicity are emphasised, has been flourishing in western literature (Tulle, Reference Tulle, Twigg and Martin2015; Twigg and Martin, Reference Twigg and Martin2015). Scholars advocate that ‘it is time for ageing studies to consider other ways of thinking about the body that neither ignore, mask [n]or reify the corporeality of later life but seek to embody it within the social’ (Gilleard and Higgs, Reference Gilleard and Higgs2013: 1). Both the social construction approach and phenomenology help us to develop new perspectives because ‘body matters are at the heart of ageing as experience but also as the target of social and cultural practices’ (Tulle, Reference Tulle, Twigg and Martin2015: 127). By exploring the Confucian and Taoist concepts of beauty and femininity, dominant ideologies during Mao's era (1949–1976), and the socio-cultural transformations after the economic reform (1978 to present), this article will contribute to existing studies on older women and their embodied experiences of ageing in a changing society.
In the Chinese context, traditional ideal femininity was evaluated from two perspectives: while Taoist teachings asked that women's appearance serve men's sexual pleasure, Confucian doctrines prioritised women's ‘inner beauty’ (neizaimei) and stated that female virtues (e.g. chastity, filial piety and marital fidelity) were of more significance (Man, Reference Man and Brand2000; Luo, Reference Luo2013). There are also idioms like ‘beauty is a curse’ (hongyanhuoshui) that are used to devalue women's femininity and sexual attractiveness and teach them to be modest. After the establishment of the New China, the Mao era was a period of major upheavals, such as the Great Leap Forward Movement (1958–1962), the associated famine (1959–1961) and the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). These political movements impacted upon how women were seen and how they understood their embodiment.
During the Cultural Revolution, the Communist Party of China promoted an ideology that ‘attacked the four olds’ (posijiu): old ideas, old culture, old customs and old habits, ‘as well as anything that they felt represented the influence of the Soviet Union or of the western capitalist countries’ (Mao, Reference Mao2012: 35). ‘Interest in fashion and adornment was regarded as bourgeois and counterrevolutionary’, and was taboo (Honig and Hershatter, Reference Honig and Hershatter1988: 42). The Cultural Revolution, as part of the Maoist social movement and a significant period in Chinese national discourse, has long been studied by scholars in both China and the west. In Some of Us, a collection of memoirs of women growing up during Mao's era, when commenting on his reforms and revolutions, various writers celebrated their gender-free teenage years; Naihua Zhang, born in 1952, writes:
Unlike many young people who grew up in the post-Mao China surrounded by increasing emphasis on differences between men and women, high interest in fashion and beauty, and commercialized sex in the media, I was actually quite ‘ignorant’ about my body and the traditional sense of femininity. (Zhang, Reference Zhang, Zhong, Zheng and Di2001: 15)
During Mao's time, particularly during the Cultural Revolution, there was an assumption that equality between male and female comrades could be achieved by women having short hair, muscular bodies and wearing the same kind of military clothes as men, which led to a masculinisation of the female body, a body that could ‘do what men could do’ in the revolutionary workforce (Rofel, Reference Rofel1999; Yang, Reference Yang1999; Luo, Reference Luo2013; Yang, Reference Yang, Elias, Gill and Scharff2017). There was a strong emphasis on women being just like men.
However, since the end of Mao's era and the initiation of the economic reform, gender ideologies have undergone a radical shift. The post-Mao reform highlighted distinctions between femininity and masculinity, celebrating beauty, youth and sexual attractiveness in women, and linking gender to consumerism (Rofel, Reference Rofel2007; Yang, Reference Yang, Elias, Gill and Scharff2017). There has been a deep connection between the promotion of feminine beauty and China's economy through the catchphrase ‘beauty economy’ (meinüjingji), which refers to every aspect of the beauty industry, including advertisements, TV programmes, cosmetics and modelling competitions (Yang, Reference Yang2011; Luo, Reference Luo2013). Throughout China's history, the pursuit of beauty has been more than an ideal desire traditionally guided by both Confucian doctrine and Taoist canons, but also an element of state governance (Yang, Reference Yang2011; Luo, Reference Luo2013). There was a household slogan: ‘“four beautifications” (simei) promoted by the government during the 1980s that call[ed] on citizens to beautify their speech, beautify their souls, beautify their behaviors, and beautify their environment’ (Yang, Reference Yang2011: 343). While the state project of ‘four beautifications’ emphasised the cultivation of ‘inner beauty’, what is promoted in the beauty economy in the reform era is more about the body that houses the soul rather than the soul that inhabits the body (Yang, Reference Yang2011).
In western societies, owing to their rapidly growing ageing populations, consumerism and leisure are placing ‘a new emphasis in body-beautiful culture on self-preservation and self-maintenance as part of moral responsibility’, which means that the changing self-presentation of older people has become closely associated with ‘activity, fitness and preventive medical care’ (Turner, Reference Turner1992: 165). Responsibility for health and social care has become highly individualised and privatised, and is placed in the hands of older people themselves in order to solve the problem of health-care costs for the government. A similar emphasis on self-care can also be identified in contemporary Chinese society. Over the last few decades, in the daily lives of individuals there has been a remarkable transition from ‘a more collective-oriented sense of virtuous living and the purpose of life to the reality of an increasingly fragile body, declining health and a growing need for age care in the era of privatization’ (Sun, Reference Sun2016: 910). The Chinese government is advocating a new ethical norm that calls on older people to correct inappropriate habits and adopt a healthy lifestyle in order to fulfil their responsibilities to themselves, their families and the state (Sun, Reference Sun2016).
It can be argued that both the physical and aesthetic bodies have become crucial sites for Chinese people's subject formation. The significance of the body in today's Chinese society has attracted the attention of several scholars. Researchers explore the forces behind Chinese senior citizens’ health-keeping (yangsheng) discourse and consumption practices within a neoliberal regime (Sun, Reference Sun2016; Lin, Reference Lin2020). Derived from the notion of immortality in Chinese philosophy, contemporary yangsheng phenomena involve various health-keeping activities such as diet regulation and physical exercise, which are also related to family duty in an intergenerational context (Lin, Reference Lin2020). However, relatively few studies have been specifically devoted to older Chinese women's own embodied experiences of (anti-)ageing. This article is attentive to this gap and will examine how older women's attention to their physical and aesthetic bodies is intertwined with both the state and the market in urban China.
Methodology
The data were gathered from a study of middle-aged and older Chinese women who participated in plaza dance in Nanjing, focusing on the everyday lives and leisure time of damas by presenting their life stories. From mid-April to late July 2016, I undertook three months of ethnographic fieldwork in Nanjing, the capital city of Jiangsu Province, located in eastern China. I conducted participant observation in three plaza dance groups and 29 in-depth interviews with their members. When talking about the goals of feminist ethnography, researchers point out the significance of documenting the activities of women and understanding their life experiences, not only from their own perspectives but also as an expression of socio-cultural contexts (Reinharz and Davidman, Reference Reinharz and Davidman1992; Ribbens and Edwards, Reference Ribbens and Edwards1998; Crary, Reference Crary2001). In order to record the everyday lives of my participants, I stayed with each plaza dance group for one month, and my attendances at Groups 1 and 2 were generally on a daily basis.
Before my data collection, my study was approved by the Economics, Law, Management, Politics and Sociology (ELMPS) Ethics Committee at the University of York, United Kingdom (UK). Acknowledging the importance of research ethics in western social science, during my whole research process, I followed the detailed ethical guidance and institutional regulations in the UK such as informed consent, ‘do no harm’, beneficence and reciprocity, autonomy and justice (Beauchamp et al., Reference Beauchamp, Faden, Wallace, Walters, Beauchamp, Faden and Walters1982; Murphy and Dingwall, Reference Murphy, Dingwall, Atkinson, Coffey, Delamont, Lofland and Lofland2007; Park and Lunt, Reference Park and Lunt2015). It is also important to consider how to carry out research between two cultural and ethical contexts. During my fieldwork, I showed my respect for the local Chinese traditions (e.g. politeness, respecting the elderly, offering customary gifts, etc.) (Liu, Reference Liu2007). Also, I was aware of cultural sensitivities (e.g. memories of misfortune, personal relationships, etc.) and expressed my understanding and empathy when I did interviews.
One of the major reasons for choosing Nanjing as my research site is because it is my hometown. In terms of field practicalities, studying one's own culture and conducting research in one's own country do bring a number of benefits. As an ethnographer in her hometown, Wang (Reference Wang2015: 22) emphasises that, within a limited time, the ‘native perspective’ helped her ‘hit the ground running’ and her usage of the local dialect facilitated access to the field. As most plaza dance groups in Nanjing are based on residential closeness, being a female researcher who grew up in Nanjing and knows this city well helped me to locate my potential dance groups and made me less ‘intrusive’ when I first entered the field. Some scholars also point out the challenging aspects of ‘doing anthropology at home’, such as the issue of positionality, moral and political restrictions in the home country, negotiating the relationship between autobiography and ethnography, and the ignorance and partiality of knowledge (Jackson, Reference Jackson1987; Visweswaran, Reference Visweswaran1994; Mughal, Reference Mughal2015). Living overseas for years, I had limited knowledge of damas and their later lives in my hometown, and they were the Other in my research. Acknowledging these problems of doing anthropology at home requires more attention and consideration in every stage of my fieldwork.
There are four main positions researchers can take in the ethnographic field: the complete participant, participant as observer, observer as participant and complete observer (O'Reilly, Reference O'Reilly2009). As a researcher who had little experience of plaza dancing, I decided to participate in dancing as much as I could when I joined the first two groups. Unlike my positions in Groups 1 and 2, I took an ‘observer as participant’ role in Group 3 because all the members were focused on practising professional dances and formed specific lines for each dance during their training sessions. Most of the time I observed their dance movements and conversations. Later, when I was used to the procedures of their training sessions, I was also put in charge of the music and helped to do chores such as recording videos, moving desks/chairs, cleaning, etc. Participant observation not only allowed me enough time and space to witness my participants’ everyday lives as an observer, but also helped me to learn more about them as part of their communities. Many younger people complain about plaza dance owing to damas’ ‘bad taste’, loud music and dominance of communal areas, which has led to some biased images of older Chinese women and intergenerational misunderstandings (Wang, Reference Wang2015; Huang, Reference Huang2016; Chao, Reference Chao2017). Although there is increasing media interest in Chinese damas and plaza dance, few older women's life stories or opinions have been heard. Interviewing 29 middle-aged and older Chinese women individually enabled me to present and explore the lived experiences of today's older Chinese women from their personal narratives and own perspective.
Group 1 was a mixed-gender dance group (approximately 85% were middle-aged and older women). It is a relatively large dance group with over 150 registered members. Their dances were more like gymnastics (e.g. waving hands, stretching arms, kicking legs, etc.). The dance usually started at 7.30 pm and finished at 8.30 or 9 pm in a plaza next to where I lived. Group 2 focused on folk dances (including various types of dance from ethnic groups in China, such as Mongolian or Tibetan dance). Its members’ dance movements were more graceful and elegant. Group 2 was an open group, so anyone could attend their dance sessions without any registration (every day from 7.30 to 8.30 pm). Group 3 was a semi-professional, female-only dance team, and every week they had two indoor dance training sessions, each session lasting from two to four hours. It had 14 members. They mainly performed fashion shows and various kinds of plaza dances on stage.
Instead of contacting the leaders of these groups directly as an awkward young researcher, I decided to find personal connections to reach them. Using personal networks is one of the most efficient ways to find participants in East Asian relational societies, and it is notable that the term ‘guanxi’ (relation or relationship) has become the principle for social survival and success in Chinese society (Liu, Reference Liu2007; Mao, Reference Mao2012; Park and Lunt, Reference Park and Lunt2015). Admittedly, the use of guanxi might place undue obligations and pressures on my (potential) participants. However, Barbalet (Reference Barbalet2018) suggests that, in some parts of China, guanxi as social exchange indicates positive connotations by emphasising unity, respect and reciprocity. My successful access to the field largely relied on the use of personal connections, but it needed to be guided by careful ethical considerations in this highly relational society to ensure my participants’ voluntary participation, anonymity and confidentiality. The names of my participants are all pseudonyms and any information that might identify them has been omitted or disguised.
The group leaders helped me to recruit interviewees. I interviewed ten dancers in both Groups 1 and 3, and nine in Group 2. These damas’ ages ranged from 51 to 73 years, with 70 per cent having been born in the 1950s. Many of them had confronted the food shortages during the Great Leap Forward Movement in their childhoods and had experienced the Cultural Revolution during their adolescence, and this generation is referred to as Mao's children (Jiang and Ashley, Reference Jiang and Ashley2000). Some of my interviewees did not finish their primary or middle-school education due to various reasons, such as a poor family background or the Cultural Revolution. Many damas had not attended universities but went straight to join the workforce after graduating from middle school or high school. Although their own educational levels and occupations were varied (e.g. factory workers, businesswomen, accountants), taking their family backgrounds and relations into consideration, many of my interviewees could be classified as middle class or new middle class. Most of them lived in middle-class residential communities and enjoyed a relatively comfortable life because of their and their husbands’ decent pensions or the career success of their adult children.
The magic of plaza dance: bodily fitness and body shape
When I asked my interviewees why they attended plaza dancing, most of them highlighted the medical reasons behind dancing. The dance teacher in Group 1, Cao Qin, said:
I was busy with family and work when I was young, and I didn't have too much time to exercise. I worked in my danwei (work unit) during the day, and after work I picked up my daughter from kindergarten. When I got home, I was busy with housework and looking after my daughter … Now I realise the importance of exercising. Doing housework is not exercising. (Cao Qin, 61)
When talking about the dance movements in her group, she also made it clear that the age and potential infirmities of members mattered:
When I design the dance movements for my group, I try to avoid some movements, such as turning around. Some older people may have high blood pressure like me, and doing such movements is dangerous. So our group's dances are like doing gymnastics. The steps are steady and simple. (Cao Qin, 61)
In terms of how ageing changes people's usage of time, Biggs (Reference Biggs1993: 43) argues that ‘changes in the perceived relevance of passing time would also change life's priorities, forming a specific instance of difference between first and second halves of life’. Cao's words indicate a general shift in the focus of people's lives when they enter older age, from making money and fulfilling domestic responsibilities to caring for their own bodies. With increasing life expectancy in contemporary society, there has been a shift from curing to preventing and caring, as chronic illnesses tend to be dominant among older people (Nettleton, Reference Nettleton2006). In a Chinese context, Sun (Reference Sun2016: 918) calls this ‘defensive yangsheng’ (defensive health-keeping), ‘whereby health-keeping is not so much a regime of routine to enhance and improve their well-being, as a series of everyday tactics used to minimize the risk of harm to one's health’. A series of social problems (e.g. unsafe food and medicine, water and air pollution, distrust of medical and health professionals, inadequate and expensive health services) have arisen recently as side-effects of China's booming economy. When investigating the reality of ageing in urban China, Sun (Reference Sun2016) suggests that older Chinese people's health-related literacy is a strategy for living in relative safety against the backdrop of these social problems and insecurities. Damas’ plaza dancing practices may be a kind of ‘defensive yangsheng’ that assists older Chinese people to reduce the fear and anxiety resulting from ageing and social transformations.
Throughout my interviews, I heard a number of stories about how plaza dance had cured or relieved the pain in these damas’ ageing bodies. Ye Chaomei, who moved to Nanjing in her early forties owing to her husband's job change, told me excitedly that doing plaza dance had cured her cervical spondylosis and improved her health:
I started to dance here in March of 2012. In 2011, I found that I had a problem with my neck … At that time, I spent a lot of time playing computer games and sitting in front of the screen all the time. Then, I felt dizzy from time to time and it became worse as time went by, and the doctor said that I had cervical spondylosis. I had an IV [intravenous] drip for four days in the hospital, but I still felt dizzy sometimes. However, after doing plaza dance for three months, I never felt dizzy again. My friend is an accountant, and she needs to sit for a long time to read documents. I asked her to dance with me. After dancing for over five years, she's got rid of her lower-back pain. I used to take a lot of medical pills, but now I seldom feel unwell. It's a continuing process. I think dancing can make me live longer (laugh). After dancing for several years, I feel that I can dance and jump like a young lady. (Ye Chaomei, 51)
The Chinese understanding of body (shenti) implies not only a lived body but also the notion of self, which is distinct from the Cartesian mind–body dualism in western thought (Schwaiger, Reference Schwaiger2012; Cao, Reference Cao2018; Lin, Reference Lin2020). With the increasing critique of the body–mind split, recent western research explores self-identity formation through the embodiment of ageing, whereby older women's control of bodies and agency are no longer marginalised (Paulson and Willig, Reference Paulson and Willig2008; Humberstone and Cutler-Riddick, Reference Humberstone and Cutler-Riddick2015). Ye's case may show that ‘ill health was again a predicator of “feeling old”’ (Biggs, Reference Biggs1993: 59). Her narrative of recovery and pain relief suggests that plaza dancing not only helps some older people to regain bodily fitness through exercising, but also helps them to form a sense of having a younger self. Through this routine of bodily moderation and maintenance, many older people (especially older women) hope to attain an ideal of being healthy, able and active.
In analysing social dance among older people in Essex and south-east London in the UK, Copper and Thomas (Reference Cooper and Thomas2002) argue that, besides its cosmetic and social benefits, dance generates a sense of continuity in the Third Age. The able and active bodies of dancing damas may provide such continuity through the feeling of being a younger self. However, in reflecting upon biological ageing and functional decline, scholars question the truth-making in the link between exercise and physical competence. Tulle (Reference Tulle2008) maintains that, in terms of the anti-ageing purpose of exercising, there is an emerging norm of ageing that requires embracing a malleable body under reconstruction and control. However, owing to the complexity of bodily systems, the claims about prevention and cure are not necessarily self-evident or substantiated (Tulle, Reference Tulle2008). The active and fit bodies of these dancing damas, as well as their joy in feeling a younger self, may be, in Cooper and Thomas's (Reference Cooper and Thomas2002) words, both real and mythic.
In this intertwining of truth and myth, it is also notable that the concept of ‘du’ plays an important role in the Chinese discourse of ‘health-keeping’. When analysing the bodily regulation of Chinese young men in relation to Confucianism, Cao (Reference Cao2018: 103) introduced the concept of du: ‘a unique tool for measuring balance and appropriateness is phrased as “du”, meaning degree, position, quantity or proportion’. Instead of being a fully repressive norm, du ‘allows individual and situational adjustment’ (Cao, Reference Cao2018: 103), and when the du is out of control, it is one's responsibility to ‘put the problematic body “back into order”’ (Cao, Reference Cao2018: 111). An example of bringing du back is an incident that occurred in Group 3. In one of the dance practice sessions, members of Group 3 were preparing for an on-stage performance in early July. After I observed their rehearsal, I wrote:
Feng Lanlan suddenly said that she needed a break while other members continued to dance. I could recognise Feng's aching knees from her facial expression. After about 10 or 15 minutes, when the leader Tong asked her to rejoin their rehearsal, Feng refused and said, ‘I'll just watch you dancing this time.’ ‘You won't be able to remember all the dance steps if you only watch us dancing. You need to practise with us,’ Tong commanded, a bit annoyed. However, Feng said that her aching knees could not stand jumping and squatting any more, and she remained seated during the rest of the practice session. (Author's fieldnotes)
Later, in the interview, when talking about this incident, Feng commented:
At first, I joined this dance group in order to keep fit. But later I found that sometimes I feel rather exhausted after hours and hours of dance practice. When my knees got hurt during the dancing one time, my husband advised me not to dance any more. He said, ‘you need a rest. After your knees are fully recovered, you can dance again’. But, you know, we're a team and our team's performances need me. Now, I'm controlling the time spent on dancing. I can't dance for more than two or three hours without a break. Stop where it should stop (shike'erzhi). No matter how the leader persuades me, I won't dance if I feel that my legs are aching. (Feng Lanlan, 58)
Her aching knees made Feng aware of the harm that excessive exercise could do to her ageing body. She tried to practise du by taking breaks and even stopping dancing during dance practices. When investigating the health-keeping discourse in Chinese culture, Liu and Zhang (Reference Liu and Zhang2015) state that Confucianism places importance on the personal responsibility of restricting du, and that the accumulation of each aspect of bodily control helps people to form a ritual and cultivate their morality. Compared to the demanding dance practices that Feng experienced in Group 3, the daily dancing of older people in Groups 1 and 2 seems to be more like a ritual that may bring various benefits under the guidance of du.
Apart from its medical function, the cosmetic benefits of plaza dance cannot be overlooked. Many damas mentioned mid-section weight gain in their older age. Yao (aged 60) from Group 2 said: ‘When I was a young girl, I weighed about 50 kilograms (kg). But now I weigh more than 55 kg. My belly is fatter than before.’ Ye Chaomei (aged 51) also added that, ‘dancing helps improve body shape. Have you seen the flat bellies of the plaza dance teachers in our group? Their waists are so slender, so they look rather young.’ These damas’ words show that slender bodies and waists have become one of the major indicators of the youthful norms of feminine beauty. Many damas try to attain this idealised body shape through plaza dance in order to regain sexual attractiveness, and their regular exercise seemed to be paying off.
Bodies are carriers of age, class, gender and wider social meanings (Morgan and Scott, Reference Morgan, Scott, Scott and Morgan1993). In traditional Chinese contexts, fatness represented wealth and good luck, owing to the general lack of material support for average families in the past. It is interesting to note that, in the Chinese language, the phrase for ‘take care’ is ‘baozhong’, which literally means ‘avoid losing weight’. However, with the improved living conditions of today's damas, among these plaza dancers, one of the strategies for taking care of themselves becomes weight loss instead of adhering to traditional ideas. Apart from losing weight and regulating body shape, damas’ efforts involved a number of forms of bodily moderations (e.g. wearing make-up, dyeing hair), which may help them to survive in a time of socio-cultural transformation, or even to gain ‘freedom’ and ‘success’.
Chinese damas’ aesthetics: skin and hair
As Mao's children, many older women's bodies were regulated during their youth by Maoist class and gender propaganda, which exhorted women to dress plainly and identify themselves with the masses. When I asked 29 plaza dancers whether they used cosmetics in their daily lives, many of them told me that they had not worn any cosmetics when they were girls, and this lack of interest had continued into some damas’ old age. Sun Xiuwen, retired from a state-owned company, told me about her embarrassment when she wore make-up during her dancing:
I didn't wear make-up. We're old-fashioned. I have a plaza dance performance tomorrow. The organisers usually ask us to wear make-up, but getting us to do it is a rather difficult task. I even refuse to wear lipstick. If I have to wear it, I only wear a little on my lip. It's usually very light, very very light. I'm not used to wearing cosmetics. I'm afraid to be seen with make-up on. (Sun Xiuwen, 58)
Sun's ambivalence, embarrassment and worries about using cosmetics may be a result of the conflict of socio-cultural values. Unlike Sun, Gu Jing, a retired civil servant, resolutely refused to use cosmetics:
I don't wear make-up (laugh). Once I went to get my hair cut. The hairdresser said that my skin was dry and I needed to go to the beauty salon. I said no. I don't like using cosmetics. When I go out and dance, especially doing performances, they ask me to wear lipstick. Wearing lipstick is bad-looking. I don't like it. I didn't wear any make-up when I was young. (Gu Jing, 64)
These damas’ refusal to wear make-up may be a reflection of the retention of Maoist class and gender ideologies within the current beauty economy. In contrast to the flourishing beauty industry after the Reform, in which cosmetics are closely associated with feminine beauty and bodily ‘perfection’ (Yang, Reference Yang2011), some damas like Sun and Gu may keep the aesthetics that were inculcated in their youth. In their perceptions, as bodily adornment was a taboo in the past, caring about their appearance in older age still has negative connotations. This explains why Gu considered using beauty products ‘bad-looking’.
During the economic reform, there has been a shift away from Maoist gender ideology. Yang (Reference Yang2011: 334) suggests that this transition ‘entails the displacement of the look, voice and subjectivity of women from the labor process to the market. Such ideological transformation generates new desires and new narratives’. Along with the ageing process of this cohort of Chinese women, how they have interacted with both biophysical and socio-cultural changes may tell another story different from the past. Also, not all women related to these changes in the same way.
In contrast to Sun's and Gu's reluctance, almost two-thirds of my interviewees said they did use make-up. In their mid- and later life, many damas had started to care about their looks and find ways to ‘perfect’ them. Wei Ping in Group 2, who worked as a cadre in a factory, described this change:
When I was young, I was ignorant about my appearance. I just wore uniforms when I worked. I needed to look after my daughter and the elders in my family. I was very busy. Now my daughter has her own work and the elders in my family have passed away. I have more time now. When I hang out with my friends and attend parties, I often wear make-up. I like to wear light make-up and dress myself up. If I perform dance on stage, I wear heavy make-up. My friends and I usually offer suggestions on make-up to each other … The living conditions of my generation have improved a lot recently. I've begun to care about my looks. We care about our looks more than the previous generations. (Wei Ping, 59)
Likewise, the leader of Group 3, Tong Yingzhu, also mentioned how the financial improvements in her family had affected her lifestyle during her mid- and later life:
I was too poor to wear make-up or buy clothes. I just had one shirt when I worked in the factory. I wore it during the day and washed it at night, and I wore it again the next day. Life isn't that hard now … I've begun to spend money on beauty products. I bought masks that cost over 1,000 yuan when I travelled to South Korea. (Tong Yingzhu, 63)
It has been argued that, in a ‘somatic’ society, modern cultural categories are essentially reduced and reified to youth and age, being placed in a hierarchical order, where the body becomes central (Woodward, Reference Woodward1991; Turner, Reference Turner1992; Twigg, Reference Twigg2004). This kind of cultural categorisation may also be applied to contemporary urban China. Yang (Reference Yang2011) identifies the discourse of nennü (‘tender’ women) and shunü (‘ripe’ women) in China's beauty economy, which provides various ways for ‘ripe’ women to ‘upgrade’ into ‘tender’ women. Such ‘discourse reinforces the essential role of the female body, feminine beauty, and feminine youth in developing consumer capitalism in China’ (Yang, Reference Yang2011: 335). Not having the freedom to choose could be a form of bitterness and hardship that many damas endured when they were young. Both Wei's and Tong's accounts indicate that being freed from work and domestic responsibilities, along with economic betterment in mid- and later life, may be the main initiators of damas’ interest in ‘perfecting’ looks. At the same time, damas’ bodies, as agents of change and a project to work on, may be actively involved with the celebration of ideal femininity in a consumerist society, and they seemed to be proud of it.
When I asked whether my participants had noticed any bodily changes as they grew older, some damas told me about their facial changes and how they tried to ward off these signs of ageing by using cosmetics. In Group 2, Lin Shuhong (aged 62) confessed: ‘I have a feeling that my skin is becoming loose. It lacks the softness and suppleness that you young girls have. It's certainly changing as I get older. I have more wrinkles and age spots.’ In Group 3, Ji Xia (aged 67), who was a successful businesswoman, told me that the focus of her skincare had shifted as she grew older. Ji said, ‘I have many cosmetic products. Some are for whitening and some are for moisturising. As I'm getting older and older, I'm more interested in anti-ageing products, such as how to get rid of wrinkles.’ Instead of viewing wrinkles as ‘markers of accomplishment’, as one of the positive readings of the older body (Furman, Reference Furman1997), Ji considered them undesirable. As well as using cosmetics, Ji had also had cosmetic surgery. There was an incident during a trip when I was hanging out with my participants in Group 3 near the end of my fieldwork. After being outdoors in the sun, Ji was sunburnt even with sunscreen. While putting aloe vera on her face that night in the hotel, Ji explained: ‘I had Intense Pulsed Light (IPL) treatments before. After the application of IPL, my skin became rather fragile and it can't be exposed to the sun even for a very short time.’
When discussing the modernisation of patriarchal power, Bartky (Reference Bartky1990) suggests that it is not reproductive obligations but the presumed heterosexuality and appearance of women's bodies that has become the essential to normative femininity. Similarly, in the context of China's beauty economy, Yang (Reference Yang2011: 336) argues that: ‘instead of fulfilling productive and reproductive imperatives, the post-Mao (female) body and its erotic-aesthetic functions are celebrated to enhance consumption’. Ji's application of IPL enabled her to ‘upgrade’ her looks to achieve this ‘female normalcy’ (Luo, Reference Luo2013), but at the same time it made her body subject to cultural control and increased physical limitations. As I previously discussed, compared to their everyday bodily management by using light make-up, Wei Ping (aged 59) and her friends in Group 2 wore heavier make-up when they were doing on-stage dance performances. During the trip, Tong Yingzhu, the leader of Group 3, also mentioned that she had successful surgery to make her eyes slightly bigger. Big eyes are usually associated with girls’ vigour and beauty in youth culture (e.g. female characters in mangas). This modification made Tong feel more confident when she was on TV. Among my 29 interviewees, Ji and Tong were the only two participants who confessed their cosmetic surgery, so they were not representative. However, to some extent, the stories of these on-stage performers show that, by wearing heavier make-up and undergoing cosmetic surgery, some damas may be under increasing pressure to meet beauty standards when facing up to public gaze, which often disapproves of signs of ageing and lack of ideal femininity among women.
In analysing the ‘double standard of ageing’, Arber and Ginn (Reference Arber and Ginn1991) suggest that it is more than a matter of aesthetics but rather a typical part of an oppressive system that women's value tends to be sexualised, while the marks of ageing in men are not considered to be as significant as those in women. As female sexual attractiveness continues to reside in youth, under such an unequal structure where the loss of youthful appearance indicates incapacity and brings social devaluation, women's status remains vulnerable (Arber and Ginn, Reference Arber and Ginn1991; Twigg, Reference Twigg2004; Heinrichsmeier, Reference Heinrichsmeier2019). There is a traditional Chinese saying that ‘when entering their thirties, men are like flowers but women are like bean dregs (nanren sanshi yizhihua, nüren sanshi doufuzha)’. Young girls’ skin is usually depicted as fair and soft as tofu in Chinese literature. When women's value is judged by their appearance and sexual attractiveness, during the progress of bodily ageing, mature women may be categorised, as well as seeing themselves, as useless ‘bean dregs’ compared to younger women's attractiveness. My participants’ pursuit of ‘perfect’ and age-less looks may reflect that, irrespective of age, Chinese women's value seems to be closely dependent upon their feminine and youthful appearance.
Apart from wearing make-up, colouring their hair had become another common solution to ward off signs of ageing among the damas whom I interviewed. Altogether, 21 out of 29 damas told me that they had been regularly dyeing their hair since they began to go grey. When I asked why they wanted to do so, most of them talked about paying attention to their ‘xingxiang’ (image) and negative readings of grey hair. Dong Fang, in Group 2, told me about her experience of colouring her hair:
I colour my hair. It's been quite a long time since my hair turned grey. I often colour it brown instead of black. Compared to brown hair, the grey hair is more obviously seen among hair that is very black. Brown and burgundy are my favourite hair colours. My hair is burgundy at present. It looks purple in the sunlight. I colour my hair three to four times every year. I have a lot of grey hair. My hair turns grey very quickly. I need to re-colour it after about three months. When your hair becomes grey, people may think you're old. After colouring my hair, I look younger instantly. Most importantly, I need to care about my xingxiang when I dance outside and during performances. If you have grey hair, you may look several years older than the other dancers. (Dong Fang, 56)
As going grey has been depicted as ‘a significant threshold’ of older age and ‘the sign of age’ in western societies (Bytheway, Reference Bytheway, Johnson, Bengtson, Coleman and Kirkwood2005; Ward, Reference Ward, Twigg and Martin2015; Lodge et al., Reference Lodge, Carnell and Coleman2016; Heinrichsmeier, Reference Heinrichsmeier2019), I can assume that the grey hair of older people may be more easily visually identified than the signs of ageing on their faces. In today's China, when grey hair becomes a major signifier of the xingxiang (image) of being old, this means that, while for some damas wearing make-up might be merely a choice and individual pleasure, colouring their hair becomes an imperative in order to maintain a younger image. These damas’ bodies were constantly being evaluated and corrected, which made them both the consuming and the consumed through their xingxiang in their dancing and social lives. The social requirements of femininity and youth give rise not only to ‘gender pain’ but also to ‘age pain’ (Morris, Reference Morris1991; Pickard, Reference Pickard2016). These damas’ reluctance to accept wrinkles, age spots and grey hair reflects not only the ‘double standard of ageing’ but also the trend towards the cultural devaluation of old age in contemporary Chinese society. Their impulse to resist ageing may signify a break with the tradition of venerating old age.
When discussing how older people present their bodily image, Woodward (Reference Woodward1991) sees their activities as a ‘masquerade’. For these older Chinese women, masking (e.g. colouring their hair) may not only be an effective way to rebuild their youthful xingxiang (image), but it also helps to deal with the age discrimination that some older women fear, especially when they continue to work in later life. The dance teacher in Group 1, Cao Qin, who was an accountant, said that she had been dyeing her hair for years:
I need to colour my hair. I've had grey hair since mid-life. In the past, I didn't dye it as I only went grey in the inner layers of my hair and the outside layers were still black. However, as I got older, I began to have more grey hair. So I decided to colour it. I was working in my danwei (work unit) at that time. I had a lot of grey hair. If I hadn't coloured it, it would had been rather inconvenient for me to attend meetings or go on business trips. (Cao Qin, 61)
When discussing femininity and contemporary service industries, Yang (Reference Yang2011) points out the notion of aesthetic labour, whereby female bodies and their physical characteristics tend to signify the ethos and aesthetics of the workplace, which makes the moulding of female workers’ bodies a necessity. Cao's example, as an accountant, may indicate that such aesthetic labour is not limited to service industries like beauty salons. People of advanced age used to retreat from work because there was a stereotypical assumption that old age was related to declining productivity. Arber and Ginn (Reference Arber and Ginn1991: 45) argue that ‘in a society which penalizes old age severely, a woman's efforts to avoid the appearance of ageing may be a rational response to the prevailing prejudice, a means of escaping the consequences of age discrimination’. Some damas, like Cao, had to modify their hair colour to make sure that their ability to work was not undervalued owing to the visible signs of ageing. Unlike these older Chinese women's efforts, recent findings show that, although negotiating with different age-related norms, many older women in western societies are becoming tired of bodily modifications and there is a rejection of the youthful norms of beauty (Dumas et al., Reference Dumas, Laberge and Straka2005; Ward and Holland, Reference Ward and Holland2011; Heinrichsmeier, Reference Heinrichsmeier2019). As my participants’ past indifference to their appearance was largely owing to Maoist legacy, whether the current or future cohort of older Chinese women may embrace a more inclusive concept of ageing needs further investigation.
Conclusion
These urban Chinese damas were members of a cohort who had witnessed a number of social upheavals and reforms in China from the Mao era to the present. Despite their own varied biographies, many damas’ mid- and later lives are also interactively affected by these social transformations, as well as by rapidly changing cultural ideologies. Old age in contemporary society is associated with living with chronic illness, which makes prevention and self-care management highly significant and dominant (Nettleton, Reference Nettleton2006; Chan and Ma, Reference Chan, Ma, Twigg and Martin2015). Many older Chinese people may change their life priorities during the second halves of their lives. While ill-health and a declining body may lead to damas’ feelings of ‘being old’, they try to regulate their ageing bodies by doing exercise (especially plaza dancing). Plaza dancing has also become a common way for older Chinese women to lose weight and achieve an ideal body shape in order to present an apparently younger self. These damas’ stories of an ‘improved and younger self’ through the magic of plaza dancing may challenge the stereotypical negative image of Chinese damas (and older people in general) as being unattractive, unhealthy, dependent, etc.
In today's beauty economy, some older Chinese women have started to use beauty products and new technologies to make up for the ‘lost femininity’ in their youth and mask their ageing bodies in their daily later lives. To a certain extent, such a transition reflects some Chinese women's economic betterment in their middle and later lives after the Reform. There is also a shift in modes of bodily governance from Maoist conformity to neoliberal choice and individual responsibility. However, this ‘freedom of choice’ and autonomy co-exists with surveillance and social judgement. With a disapproving public gaze embedded in the wider discourses of gender and ageing, some older Chinese women's embodied practices, as well as their aesthetic evaluation and subjective aspirations for ‘upgrading’ and ‘improvement’, result from the socio-cultural construction of beauty standards and can thus be conformist. Meanwhile, my participants’ maintenance activities to ward off signs of ageing (e.g. wearing make-up, dyeing their hair, undergoing cosmetic surgery) also indicate the unequal power structures in Chinese society, such as the double standard of ageing by which women's worth may still be judged by their erotic-aesthetic function, and they may be devalued owing to their older age. Thus, as both subjects and objects, they strive for a youthful appearance in order to avoid discrimination in their daily lives, dance performances or workplaces. This may also reveal older women's struggles and vulnerability in the face not only of gender and age inequality but also of new (and perhaps problematic) social norms.
While their active participation in plaza dance may be an indication of ‘successful ageing’, damas’ changing life priorities, health concerns and self-care management may also imply that they are worried about impending dependence. With the falling birth-rate (as a result of the one-child policy), the general ‘4-2-1’ family structure in the city, low pensions and greater demands on care services in old age, large numbers of older people take plaza dance as their daily embodied practice of anti-ageing to fight against loss and lack in their later lives, which may accelerate age-consciousness and allow ‘the fear of ageing into old age to predominate’ (Hepworth, Reference Hepworth, Bunton, Nettleton and Burrows1995: 177). My participants’ notion of ageing seemed to be less inclusive compared to their counterparts in the latest western studies. More importantly, influenced by the state's new ethical norm that emphasised older people's self-care, many older parents tried to avoid causing any burden to their only-children (Liang, Reference Liang2011; Sun, Reference Sun2016; Tu, Reference Tu2016; Lin, Reference Lin2020). Some of the older plaza dancers’ efforts can be more than a choice for personal pleasure or duty, and their lifestyle and wellbeing can also be a way to fulfil their responsibility to their family and the state. As this study is based on a certain group of older Chinese women's everyday lives and a small sample, the personal embodied experiences of damas who do not attend plaza dancing are excluded from my research. As a result, it can only depict a fraction of older Chinese women's conditions. When analysing the varied experiences of ageing (either positive or negative), Biggs (Reference Biggs1993: 66) argues that the elderly tend to ‘interpret their well-being as a sign that old age has not been reached and that they are exceptions to the common sense of normal ageing. This results in adherence to the label “middle-aged” as a signifier of successful ageing.’ However, whether the achievement of an ‘age-less’ or ‘middle-aged’ self is the only criterion for successful ageing or could be categorised as an ideal status for every elder, remains open to question.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank warmly the helpful comments of the editors and two anonymous reviewers. I truly appreciate Professor Stevi Jackson's support during every stage of my project. I would like also to express appreciation to Dr Siyang Cao, Dr Maria Jaschok, Dr Ann Kaloski-Naylor, Professor Sarah Nettleton and Professor Sue Scott for their suggestions on the early drafts of my work.
Ethical standards
The study was approved by the Economics, Law, Management, Politics and Sociology Ethics Committee (ELMPS), University of York, UK, in March 2016.
