Status Updates From The Fragile Scholar: Power ...

WHAT!!?? He refers to the teenage boy castrating himself in the story of a male mencious's mother as "repudiate his male identity and show his loyalty to his master´ and refers to Dong Xian as a catamite? Xian was an adult man so can't be a catamite and the former boy did not repudiate his male idenity, he castrated himself because his master said he would lose his beauty, be interested in women etc. I am done!!!

homosexuality in the Red Chamber... which one? The guys who die, the students whoring themselves to the teacher or the nonsense of Bao Yue again? And does it not bother this author that he refers to the six-dynasties period of late antiquity just to jump to late Ming and Qing when referring to the women imitating catamites? And why even always imitate women in the first place if it was for sexual pleasure?

Now he goes back to the Tang dynasty.... oh boy. And he even claims the husband-wife stuff is like that between emperor and subordinates? And of course he refers to Bret Hinsch and "transgenerational homosexuality", for those of my followers not in the know: that is a euphemism for pedophilia as it never includes e.g. a 30 year old and a 60 year old, it is always an adult and a child/teenager.

Oh, so now he acknowledges the hierarchical nature of confucianism? Something that is much more prevalent than Daoism? Took him long enough. Then again, it fits as it seems as it seems he just argues to fit his own views as he again talks of yin-yang gender fluidity. And what homoerotic relations between emperors and court jesters? At least I know what aristocrates and catamites refer to even if he exaggerates.

what a bunch of nonsense. He argues that cross-dressing actors, Hua Mulan and a woman that I think is from the butterfly lovers as some sort of argument pro-chinese gender fluidity without adressing that all three examples were due to the restrictions placed on women. Not to mention that the name "Hua" only came in the 16th century so his "pre-modern" china is really imprecise, once again.

So now he, of course, claims "relative tolerance" towards homosexuality in pre-modern China, never mind how vague both terms are. Not to mention that only have certain "feminine" aka refined traits was considered permissable among the literati but definitely not effeminacy as stated here. And I doubt he will even mentioned the distain for effaminate and sexually passive men in "pre-modern China."

Gosh, it took him this long to get to the topic of the fragile scholar and of course he starts with Focault and talk about how everything is about power. Which reminds me: Isn't it classic to consider people who constantly talk about power and think in nothing but that as villains? And how does someone thinking like this go through life?

what does any of this stuff about romance stories, a very specific kind to be clear, to do with the fragile scholar? And just based on stuff like the civic examination being nonpresent during mongol rule or the neo-confucianism of the Song would already speak against the consistent "china" that he presents.

What the author describes here in terms of this ciazi-jiaren romance story and what it is defined by sounds way too narrow to be seen by the masses or even to apply to all classical chinese literature (which he defines as pre-republican period). Did the masses really just see romance stories were both are nobles, poets plus a bunch of other stuff?

I skimmed over the rest of the introduction and it was basically a bunch of nonsense and vagueness and nothing more. It was everything wrong with "gender discourse."

This is getting worse and worse. He brings up Said, constantly refers to "pre-modern China" as if nothing ever changed, he claims PRC whining about lack of real men is due to internalized western notions of masculinity despite this already happening in the qing and ming empires and so much more. I already wonder whether I can make it past the introduction.

Gosh, the author even claims masculinity is nothing more than an ideology of oppression towards women and I suspect he will claim china had no homophobia.

I have a bad feeling about this book. Not only does he start with an east vs west narrative, he first acts as if the soft man is the only "chinese" masculinity and then says it isn't, claims a binary of male/female and homosexual/heterosexual were not present in China and only brought there by colonization and modernization but even cites Butler and Focault. Oh boy, this will not be an easy book to read.