Love Without Marriage

392 China Review International: Vol. 2, No. 2, Fall 1995 Love WithoutMarriage Bai Hua. The Remote Country ofWomen. Translated by Qingyun Wu and Thomas O. Beebee. Honolulu: University ofHawai'i Press, 1994. viii, 377 pp. Hardcover $38.00. Paperback $14.95. To most of us, matriarchal communes are something outside the realm ofreality. One may have learned about them in high school history classes, or in popular readers on anthropology, or in natural history museums. It is difficult to imagine, however, that such a culture could be a reality in today's world. The Remote Country ofWomen, a 1988 novel by the Chinese writer Bai Hua, presents to the reader a modern-day matriarchal lifestyle—the Mosuo communities in Yunnan province, in the People's Republic of China. The author embodies his folklore subject in the life of the young Mosuo village girl Sunamei. The novel begins when she is thirteen and experiencing the first awakening oflove, and concludes when she reaches young womanhood. Using the process ofher sexual maturation as a background, the author introduces the Mosuo matriarchal way oflife, and presents a picture ofa unique community which centers entirely on women. The community here is depicted as rather similar to a jungle tribe, with an elderly woman as the tribe's leader. The community is divided into yishe, a unit similar to a conventional family, again with a woman as leader. In a yishe, modern husband-wife relationships do not exist. The only male members here are the offspring ofthe women of the yishe. Each female member who has reached the age ofthirteen is given separate living quarters called huagu. Here she receives her axiao (male lover) at night. Relationships range from a one-night stand to a lifelong association. Whatever its duration, however, a relationship does not lead to marriage or to any commitment on either side. No marriage system exists, and sexuality entails no lust and exploitation, as it sometimes does in other cultures. In short, life in the community is that of a heavenly, pastoral-like "Land of Peach Blossoms" (shi wai tao yuan). Parallel to the main storyline runs an antithetic subtheme—the mainstream patriarchal Han culture—set against a background of the Cultural Revolution. Here the story centers on Liang, a male university student who is majoring in fine arts. Liang is an active member of the Red Guard during the height of the period ^ ,„„„ , TT . of social upheaval. Soon after this period, he is sent to a state farm to work under© 1995 by Universityr r ofHawai'iPress^e surveülance °fme PLA (People's Liberation Army). Later, he is jailed as a political prisoner. In contrast to the peaceful and contented life ofthe Mosuo people, life here, as elsewhere throughout the country, is depicted as harsh and miserable. Reviews 393 Han culture is depicted in sharp contrast to Mosuo culture, particularlywith regard to gender relationships. In the Han culture, life is dominated by males, and is replete with men ofauthority: the PLA representative who exercises surveillance over Liang and others on the farm; the "newly emerged man ofenormous power," who rapes the Chinese American woman Jane; and the leader of the Rebels ofthe Municipal Medicine Circle, who accuse a doctor ofbeing a follower ofHitler because he had once studied in Germany—to name a few. In spite oftheir different capacities and characteristics, they are the same in one respect: they make life unbearable for others. Quite the opposite ofthe traditional dominant males are the traditional married females. For women, marriage is the norm, and all the major female figures are married: Gu Shuxian, the leader ofthe team sent by the Central Committee to the Mosuo village; Xie Li, the Red Guard activist; and Liu Tiemei, the doctor of the state farm. Their marriages, nonetheless, are invariably the result of ulterior motives rather than true love, and none of them is happy. The author's appreciation ofMosuo culture and his condemnation ofHan culture become clearly marked when he brings the two worlds together— Sunamei, an entertainer in a state singing and dance group, and Liang, the manager ofa state-run cinema, meet and fall in love. Liang tries hard to make Sunamei...