Chinese Women and Leisure

By Ma Huidi

Email: mahuidi@china.com

Home Page: http://www.chineseliesure.org

Abstract: In the present age, the vast majority of Chinese women are still largely limited in their understanding of “Leisure” from a cultural perspective; it is especially difficult for them to realize at a deep level the inner connections between leisure and people’s living quality and life quality. The present article attempts to analyze the causes for such limitations by investigating the traditional values and outlook on life held by Chinese women; furthermore, it aims to point out that a rapid change to Chinese women’s traditional views on leisure, a higher level of women’s education, and a deeper understanding of leisure in a cultural sense by women are of great and practical significance to reconstructing the female image and realizing women’s inherent values.

Key words: Chinese women, leisure culture, life quality

In the present age, the vast majority of Chinese women are still largely limited in their understanding of “leisure” from a cultural perspective; it is especially difficult for them to realize at a deep level the inner connections between leisure and people’s living quality and life quality.

As is known by all, China is a populous country, the female population of which takes up approximately 20% of the total population of women in the whole world. Chinese women are the balkbore of the Chinese society and family. During the past twenty years of China’s reforms and openness to the outside world, with the continuous improvement of people’s material living level, women’s leisure time has been constantly increasing. Leisure in a cultural has provided necessity and probability for women’s all-round development.

As we know, leisure in a general sense refers to two kinds of activities: it can mean to get rid of physical fatigue, and it can also mean to obtain spiritual comfort and consolation. Leisure in a cultural sense, on the other hand, refers to a state of life and a mode of behavior that one is in during her or his spare time, a state in which one is engaged in cultural creation, cultural appreciation and cultural construction in order to satisfy one’s needs in a variety of fields, through various modes of activities such as the conduct, thoughts, emotions and art of a human individual or a group, such leisure creates cultural atmospheres, transmits cultural information, and bulids up the cultural mood so as to achieve the all-round, comprehensive development of both the body and the mind of an individual. The nature of such leisure is a representation of a person’s spiritual life. Leisure in a cultural sense is a special mode of culture as well as an important realm of one’s life; it is closely related with a person’s daily life. It often influences people’s behavior modes and ways of life through various forms such as osmosis, fusion, affection, condensation, edification, and catharsis, thus improving people’s life quality. Leisure in a cultural sense is usually connected with one’s economic situation, education, knowledge and ability, and also inclinations, personal interest, etc.

Investigated in this sense, the situation of Chinese women’s leisure can be said to be quite complex. Many factors, including especially the huge population of China, its diversity in nationalities, the wide distribution of its people, the disequilibrium in its economic development, people’s different educational backgrounds, the great differences between the city and the countryside and so on all seriously limit people’s experience of leisure in an approximately cultural sense.

Besides, leisure as a kind of government behavior and state institution has only appeared for several years. China began its 5-workday system on a nationwide scale in 1995; in the latter part of the same year, the state promulgated “A-Healthy-Body-for-Every-Citizen Plan”, encouraging a civilized, healthy, and scientific way of life. The two events indicate that China has just entered the process of the world’s leisure culture.

A deeper problem is that the inculcation of several thousand years of feudal culture and the backwardness of the whole society and economy are still exerting a profound influence on the entire female group as a powerful inertia. In the long cultural history of China, the confucian culture has always taken a dominant position. Chinese women’s traditional values put the women into the need value system (represented by the emphasis on “human relations” and “human desires”) of the phallocentric society: This has not only formed the cultural frame of mind and ideology of Chinese women which have been passed on for several thousand years, but also become the fetters and shackles of generations of Chinese women, severely hampering their development and emancipation.

Chinese women’s social values of necessity also reflect and determine their outlook on life. “The three obediences and four virtures” are the best footnotes for women’s traditional outlook on life. In a traditional Chinese society, married women had no independent identities or positions and this fact determined that women were their husband’s accessories from form to content; it also determined the inequality between husband and wife in their human dignity, in their rights and obligations, and in their sexual life.

With the loss of the values of life for women, they have suffered great sacrifice in their freedom, rights, and dignity. They no longer existed as a social group but were merely objectified human beings. From such a miserable condition it is easy to conceive the great limitations women confront in their attempts at leisure with a view to recovering from physical fatigue, letalone those they find when they want to enjoy leisure in a cultural sense.

Over the past century, with the awakening of Chinese people’s critical awareness of culture, such situations for women were at first perceptionly improved among the better educated females’ circle. After the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, the Party and the government have paid much attention to increasing women’s social status. But, ideas of women were brought into with politic and ideology. During the Cultural Revolution especially, ideologized ideas about woman interpreted females as “irongirl” or “iron lady ” and produced such slogans as “what men can do, women can also do”. Such ideas robbed women of their inherent femininity and left them desired. In reaction against tradition, Chinese women went to another extreme. During this period, what is peculiar to woman, such as exquisiteness and delicacy, inspiration and artistic institution, and pulchritude as well as gentleness, were all distorted. People had such a diseased frame of mind that they could use the filthiest words to destroy any rare female individual who still pursued some kind of artistic and spiritual life of her own.

Over China’s past twenty years of reforms and openness to the outside world, with the upsurge of women studies and the introduction of western feminism, and especially owing to the economic independence of Chinese women, great changes have taken place in both the social values and the outlook on life held by Chinese women. Women’s situation has also been substantially changed for the better. But we cannot neglect such a fact, that is, people’s current conceptions of women’s values still show some die-hard historical influence and the existence of unfavorable cultural genes. In the country especially, where the women lack leisure in a cultural sense and necessary spiritual nourishment, they demonstrate a conspicuous, talk in fresh and vibal individual personality as well as in outward gracefulness and attractiveness, which is obvious in both their talk and behavior and their appearance and disposition. In recent years, despite the increase in people’s leisure time, there is still little cultural connotations in people’s leisure activities; there are still many misunderstandings about the appropriate spiritual quality and leisure behavior.

In the city, especially in a metropolitan, the women have generally improved their self-consciousness and awareness of independence. Women who have received good education not only are active in all kinds of positions in their work, but also are the principal part of women who fully enjoy leisure in a cultural sense. They make use of every minute of their spare time to fulfill themselves and to show themselves. After their becoming rich in material terms, they begin to put more emphasis on pursung a better spiritual life, They try to enhance their personal charm, to life up their taste of life and to construct their own beautiful spiritual home through scholarly meetings, art appreciation, and through taking exercise, receiving beauty treatment, and learning social etiquette. They are no longer content with passively receiving the wholesaled enjoyment “a set dish” provided by leisure industry and equating leisure with consumption; rather, they are actively taking control over their time, using it to achieve a appreciation of the charm and glamor of nature, art thought, and sports. Leisure in a cultural sense constantly follows their own inner independent wills.

In recent years, many women engaged their leisure time in realizing their social obligations for others and for communities. Sources show that many women are using their leisure time to take part in social services provided by volunteers, such as environmental protection, showing their love and care for others in need, humanitarian relief work, etc; thus they are patting new meanings into their lives.

Leisure is the harbor of individual freedom, the soul’s post station, the originating place of truth, kindness, and beauty, the eternal home of human nature, and is doubtless a great stage to demonstrate female charm. Women’s spiritual world includes the richness of cultural and psychological structures; it vividly and perfectly shows the colorful diversity of women’s peculiar nature and represents women’s special values. It is only natural, therefore, for us to connect women with leisure in a cultural sense. It is not hard to imagine that the arrival of this state will turn a new page in our meanings of life.