Anthropologists’ observations of ordinary life have been superb in their recognition and description of daily behaviour. Their analytical explanations, however, have often been undermined by limitations implicit in their models of human motivation that guide their research. This is especially evident in the domain of love. In the last twenty years, research has produced excellent studies of love around the world. We can no longer regard love's presence as a by-product of Westernization or globalization. We are fully aware that love is not Europe's contribution to world culture. It has its own local history and forms of expression, but not necessarily its own unique cultural psychology. Love is a rich phenomenon that requires renewed scholarly investigation, so that we can better distinguish, and appreciate, what is universal to the human experience and what has been historically constructed.
Yi Zhang's study is not an ethnographic investigation into love as a subjective or behavioural phenomenon. Rather it is a social critique on Chinese failed dreams and misplaced and unreachable love aspirations that have contributed to their angst and unvoiced suffering. This is because their “love” aims, aspirations and life goals are cultural fabrications formed in a “borderless Loveland” filled with dreadful desires aptly encapsulated in the folk expression: “work hard, dream big, and die slowly” (p. 97). Consequently, migrants and others experience a life of frustration, disillusionment, and feel betrayed by false promises encouraged and embedded in “neoliberal” state policies. The book's aim is to explore how China's shifting political economy has changed gender interaction and family organization, while expanding class inequality.
Zhang used the standard anthropological methods tool kit that relies upon informal and focus group interviews. In 2014 he talked to over a hundred rural migrants, local farmers, workers (half worked in construction industry), factory owners, small business, housing developers, labour agents and so forth. The majority of male workers were married and over thirty years old. There are only two chapters (four and five), however, that are organized around his analysis of field data, the remaining four chapters are analysis of popular media and related cultural products are used to critique Chinese society's growing ennui.
The chapter on danmei (or fictional same-sex male relationships) is ethnographically grounded and provides rewarding insights into heterosexual women's ideas of pure love. Fans of the genre considered the male-male love relationships beautiful and pure in contrast to heterosexual romance which they deemed less pure and, thus, less satisfying. Zhang assumes, without providing supporting data, that Chinese heterosexual couples have less interest in creating and maintaining a “pure” love relationship.
This is not a conventional ethnography that integrates other research findings to understand the nuances of ordinary life. He offers instead his take on what he finds disturbing in Chinese society. Given this orientation, it is not surprising that the first interview quoted does not occur until page 102. His research data along with citing other ethnographic findings is secondary to non-existent.
Zhang repeatedly invokes “neoliberalism” as the primary causal agent for most of China's social change and discontent. He does not comment on state policies that lean heavily, however, on government nourishment and a firm control over its nascent and core industries (e.g. data analysis, robotics, high tech, pharmaceuticals, health care and education); or how the lingering socialist policies contribute to normative continuity. Contrary to the “neoliberal thesis” (which he, at times, acknowledges), young workers often make life decisions based on salient values (i.e. preference for more leisure time) other than the maximization of monetary gains. He does not comment on whether the youth's alternative “love” aspirations have made their life more satisfying.
His analysis makes, at least for this reviewer, too many sweeping and unsupported generalizations: marriage is the subjugation of authentic love (which is never defined); the state shengnu policy of trying to shame women in their late twenties into marriage is invoked without mentioning whether it has been successful (it has not); well-educated professional women are considered undesirable and thus cannot find a lover due to men's but not women's inflated mate selection criteria. He then writes later that male youth see women as their equal and women are expected to go to college and become successful in the marketplace.
Zhang is adamant that state policies have resulted in the exploitation of its citizens. But he is never clear on who and in what context someone is being exploited, other than to assume it is everyone most of the time. To be fair, Zhang's study is not designed to explore the domain of the ethnographic nuance. It is designed for one reason: to make a sweeping condemnation of what he believes China has become – a horrible, confusing world of broken dreams and savage lives.
