Abstract
The final chapter draws together the empirical accents of the book to argue that perhaps, for the Chinese women included in this inquiry, precarity is a human condition known to them, suitable for them, and available to them. If the question of whether “precarity” is a male-centric and Western-centric notion is posited, it is not intended to ignore the down sides of all these precarious lives of our time, but to foreground the gender and culture specificities of the notion. This epilogue reiterates the proposal to revitalize the politics of recognition alongside the politics of redistribution, to recognize what the women have done, and are capable of. It inspires an ethics of care, a plea for more people to refuse what is expected of them, to live differently, to be more sure of their capacity to take care of themselves, despite and because of all the struggles. After all, they love zheteng.
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- 1.
For a methodological reflection on me as a man doing research on diasporic Chinese women and beauty pageants, see Chow Yiu Fai, “Moving, Sensing Intersectionality: A Case Study of Miss China Europe,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 36, no. 2 (2011): 411–36. For an autographical essay on me as a creative practitioner, vis-à-vis issues of Chineseness, see Chow Yiu Fai, “Me and the Dragon: A Lyrical Engagement with the Politics of Chineseness,” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 10, no. 4 (2009): 544–64.
- 2.
David Herbert Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, 1928. Reprint, New edition (Ware, Herfordshire: Wordsworth Editions, 2005).
- 3.
See, again, Lu Xun, “Shanghai Girls,” in Lu Xun: Selected Works, trans. Xianyi Yang and Gladys Yang, vol. 3 (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1980), 332–33.
- 4.
I used this episode to write a Chinese-language essay musing on the condition of contemporary Chinese women when I was invited by Fangsuo, a major bookstore chain in China, to contribute to their magazine feature on the said theme. See Chow Yiu Fai, “周耀辉:欲醉,欲退,欲睡 [Chow Yiu Fai: To Drunk, to Retire, to Sleep],” 方所刊 [Fangsuo Kan], March 8, 2015, https://site.douban.com/122554/widget/notes/15607165/note/487340549/.
- 5.
For a book-length study on single womanhood from the perspective of time, see Kinneret Lahad, A Table for One: A Critical Reading of Singlehood, Gender and Time (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017). While Lahad’s book takes texts primarily as its object of study, my following project (sponsored by the Hong Kong Research Grant Council, project number 12613117) will again be based on qualitative research tools tapping experiences from single women of different ages. See also Kinneret Lahad and Haim Hazan, “The Terror of the Single Old Maid: On the Insolubility of a Cultural Category,” Women’s Studies International Forum 47, no. Part A (2014): 127–36.
References
Chow, Yiu Fai. “Me and the Dragon: A Lyrical Engagement with the Politics of Chineseness.” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 10, no. 4 (2009): 544–64.
Chow, Yiu Fai. “Moving, Sensing Intersectionality: A Case Study of Miss China Europe.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 36, no. 2 (2011): 411–36.
Chow, Yiu Fai. “周耀辉:欲醉,欲退,欲睡 [Chow Yiu Fai: To Drunk, to Retire, to Sleep].” 方所刊 [Fangsuo Kan], March 8, 2015. https://site.douban.com/122554/widget/notes/15607165/note/487340549/.
Lahad, Kinneret. A Table for One: A Critical Reading of Singlehood, Gender and Time. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017.
Lahad, Kinneret, and Haim Hazan. “The Terror of the Single Old Maid: On the Insolubility of a Cultural Category.” Women’s Studies International Forum 47, no. Part A (2014): 127–36.
Lawrence, David Herbert. Lady Chatterley’s Lover. New edition. Ware, Herfordshire: Wordsworth Editions, 1928.
Lu, Xun. “Shanghai Girls.” In Lu Xun: Selected Works, translated by Xianyi Yang and Gladys Yang, 3: 332–33. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1980.
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Yiu Fai, C. (2019). Epilogue. In: Caring in Times of Precarity. Palgrave Studies in Globalization, Culture and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76898-4_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76898-4_9
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