Pessimistic Chinese Cosmopolitanism and Jia Zhangke's The World

Optimism permeates every vein of neoliberal globalization, be it in the capitalist West or in postsocialist China. Politically-correct multiculturalism, transnational travel autonomy, and neoliberal affluence indebted to the economic globalization all create a promising vision of an egalitarian free world enjoyed by most privileged elites. At the other end of the spectrum, some American scholars resist the bland optimism with a pessimistic but lucid insight into the exploitation, dislocation, and inhumanity that exists and persists in the hidden background of cosmopolitan fantasies. The theoretical term "discrepant cosmopolitanisms" coined by James Clifford (108) and the "inhuman conditions" observed by Pheng Cheah shift our sight to the dark side of cosmopolitanism and deliver a deep sense of pessimism (10). Pessimism, in this sense, defies any simple or convenient understanding of cosmopolitism or globalization. Pessimism, translated as beiguan zhuyi (悲观主义, sad-perceptionism) in a Chinese cultural context, not only connotes the vigilant mind against the dominant rhetoric of progress and hope but also carries an affective weight of sadness and melancholy. This paper examines the phenomenon of pessimistic Chinese cosmopolitanism through a case study of a Chinese film, The World (Jia Zhangke, 2004), a cultural crystallization of pessimism towards the wish-image of Chinese cosmopolitism.

The World presents China's ongoing desires, eagerness, and disquietude in its process of becoming a cosmopolitan or global center so as to assert national unity and hegemony. Taking place in the World Park in suburban Beijing, a miniature of a world of transnational mobility, the story revolves around the contrast between the celebratory, multicultural cosmopolitan life on stage and the abject lives of disenfranchised, exploited migrant workers off the stage. Tao, her boyfriend Taisheng, and other migrant workers in the park represent the millions of subalterns who strenuously produce the happy spectacle of Chinese cosmopolitanism but simultaneously are entrapped and devoured by it. Broken interpersonal relations, transgressive ethical boundaries, and liberal-market selfhood serve as everyday horrors in ordinary workers' lives who are mobilized within the homeland to create the glorious image of Chinese cosmopolitanism. The pessimism, be it a notion or a feeling in this compelling film, complicates the precariously optimistic discourse of cosmopolitism in contemporary China and delivers a deep sense of sadness and disillusionment.

A master signifier of cosmopolitan culture

The World Park, in reality as well as in the film, is a place that accumulates abundant counterfeits of famous world landmarks from five continents. Manhattan, Egyptian pyramids, the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal in India, the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy all appear as major backgrounds in the filmic narrative. All of these tourist sites create a master signifier of happy multiculturalism and progressive cosmopolitan culture. Since the nineteenth century, modernity is characterized by a desire to possess the world due to technological advancements in transportation and photography. The world possession is thus primarily achieved through travel and image. Martin Heidegger famously coined the notion of "world picture" to describe this state of affairs. As he writes, "world picture, when understood essentially, does not mean a picture of the world but the world conceived and grasped as picture" (129). When the world becomes picture, the world can be aggressively appropriated by images. Without any boundaries between, those ersatz national icons are very close to each other, signifying a time-space compressed world, in David Harvey's notion.¹ Benefiting from the technological revolution in media and transportation, as well as economic globalization, the world is indeed becoming a utopian global village, giving people the impression that "the whole world [is] within reach," as Tom Gunning puts it (25).

A slogan of the World Park shown in the beginning of the film, "See the world without ever leaving Beijing," explicitly reveals the selling point of this huge adult toy: convenient world-travel experiences that can meet consumers' desire to possess the world in an economical and practical fashion. According to the diegetic tour-guide introduction, it only takes fifteen minutes to circle the whole park with the in-park train. Tourists get to experience the pure joy...