8/31/2023 0 Comments Subvert definition in chinese![]() ![]() The idea of liumang is understood as a constructive rather than destructive force in the cultural discourse of contemporary China. Here, liumang regains its noble origin from Yu the Great ( dayu), the legendary ruler of the Xia Dynasty, and finally comes down to a new image of a nomad who has lost his or her identity, still wandering around with haunting anxiety and anti-social impulses. Liumang in Zhu’s book challenges its current position in the dichotomy between inhabitants and vagrants, the state and the underground, the elite and the grassroots. In this book, which is probably his most famous, Zhu rejects the definition of liumang in its narrow and negative sense and extends it to a broader semantic configuration. Zhu Dake, born in 1957 in Shanghai, is one of the most active and renowned cultural critics in China today. Zhu’s groundbreaking book endeavors to establish a competing discourse on this significant but largely overlooked concept in contemporary China. The given English title of the book, which resists translating the Chinese word “ liumang” into English approximations such as “gangster”, “hooligan” or “scoundrel”, reveals the author Zhu Dake’s intention. In the contemporary Chinese linguistic, socio-political and cultural context, however, the word is usually understood to refer to a marginal and dangerous social group. Literally, the two characters “liu-mang” (流氓) in Chinese refer to a floating population. ![]() Reviewed by Pan Lu (Lecturer, The University of Hong Kong Community College HYI Visiting Fellow) ![]()
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