2020.1: Nicolas El Haik-Wagner, Selling Baguettes and Marketing Romanticism in Contemporary China
I want to reflect here on some awkward moments and personal dilemmas that lasted throughout fieldwork I conducted in China, at the Food & Beverage Unit of a Shanghai-based French government agency in charge of economic diplomacy. As an intern and anthropology student, I was doing documentary research on the changing eating habits of the growing Chinese middle class and helping with the organization of multiple events aimed at promoting French gastronomy and wine. I used this opportunity to study the consumption of French gastronomy among upper middle-class female professionals belonging to the Franco-Chinese business circles of Shanghai.
Walking in the crowded streets of Shanghai and taking the subway is an unsettling experience. In the context of urban life, I am used to a certain degree of invisibility, what Erving Goffman termed “civil inattention.”[i] In large cities, interactions with people encountered in public are unlikely to reoccur and as such, tacitly avoiding the eyes of others in public spaces is for many a norm. In contrast, in Shanghai, although the city hosts a significant number of expatriates and tourists, I was an object of constant scrutiny and surveillance on the part of Chinese citizens. This experience of “civil attention” was amplified by my structural privileges as a white male, my nationality, and my job at the French Consulate.
As soon as people learned that I was French, I became the object of particularly exoticizing discourses regarding the “romanticism” of my country. France was assumed to be ontologically romantic, and I was similarly assumed to intrinsically embody it - I must say that my home country was under media spotlight following its unexpected victory at the 2018 FIFA World Cup! Telling people that I was working on the promotion of French gastronomy and wine certainly helped to reinforce these representations. Romanticism is in no way restricted to French culture, but in our conversations, my Chinese colleagues and informants frequently stressed an ontological difference between French and Chinese romanticism. I gradually came to realize that for people I interacted with, French romanticism “is viewed as invasive, out of control, unbridled, with no necessary meaning or raison d’être: it has an overflowing emotional nature, a hold of pleasure and subjectivity which constitute a total rupture with the profound will of rationality and stability.”[ii] In contrast, they viewed Chinese romanticism as much more socially controlled and normative, embedded in a state-sponsored biopolitical natalist and heteronormative project which puts a particular kind of pressure on youth to find a heterosexual partner, marry early, and, for women, to get pregnant.
Awkwardness was in no way restricted to the streets of Shanghai; a different kind of awkwardness was also constitutive of my experience at work. The paradox of contemporary workplaces lies in their democratized yet hierarchical environment, which offers egalitarian spaces, such as cafeterias and elevators, within which everyone is supposed to navigate freely.[iii] These seemingly democratic spaces call for a specific management of equality and distance since individuals of different hierarchical positions in the workplace may face each other and have to navigate small talk. The French Consulate in Shanghai was no exception, and this was amplified by class, race, and gender dynamics. Most were expatriates and benefit from advantageous legal and financial conditions. On the other hand, Chinese nationals, as local hires, received far fewer benefits. As such, and compared to Chinese interns, I received a higher monthly stipend, worked on more political projects, was put in a position of leadership vis-à-vis external providers, and was invited to participate in monthly staff meetings and official receptions. These situations made structures of privilege particularly visible and happened in a specific political context of surveillance which could create rumors and a diffuse sense of discomfort in everyday interactions.
Working as a French intern in a diplomatic setting abroad also means cultivating the ethos of a member of a cosmopolitan, globalized elite. French diplomats at the consulate had been educated at prestigious French business, engineering, or public policy schools, and possessed the social capital and habitus fitting with the expectations of diplomatic social life that values demonstrations of appearance. Knowing how to wear a suit, eat oysters while standing, and comment in a politically correct manner on official speeches were all part of a shared habitus among these diplomatic circles.
However, French diplomats did not necessarily all understand their cosmopolitan capital in the same way. The diplomats with whom I spent most of my lunches and did some fieldwork were divided between participants in the International Volunteers in Business or Administration (IVBA) program, a French government scheme to encourage the internationalization of young graduates, and short-term assigned expatriates (STE), usually a bit older, sent abroad by the French government. Beyond heated debates about French politics, one of the underlying dividing lines between them was the extent of their integration into or openness towards Chinese society. The debate opposed the STEs, who usually did not speak Mandarin and acknowledged putting little effort in learning it and integrating themselves, and the IVBAs. The latter had usually pursued an interest in China or Asia in their studies, sometimes had a Chinese partner, and frequently stressed the extent of the efforts they put into not remaining in what they called the “expats bubble.” For these reasons, they were likely to criticize the visions and experiences of the STEs. Finally, I was constantly faced with the “Occidentalist sexualization of the white, English speaking Western male.”[iv] My informants assumed my interest in China was tied to a romantic or sexual interest in Chinese women. Hence, in a number of interactions, the lines were blurred between what I considered a naïve invitation to better know my informants and build mutual trust, and what was perceived on the other side as a romantic date offer, as the suspicious smiles and communicative chuckles of other female colleagues revealed. Beyond subtle sidesteps and self-mockery, these awkward situations required a constant self-justification of my motivations and my inherent dedication and passion to study the eating habits of Chinese female professionals. I must also admit that these situations of “semi-dates” also helped to break the ivory tower and could prove in some instances helpful to my research, providing me with insights on the private lives of my informants, while nevertheless raising ethical questions on the emotional politics of fieldwork. Was there a need for me to explicitly state the borders of intimacy before interviews?
Reflexivity has become an injunction in gender studies, albeit at the risk of reifying gender categories, whereas it remains a minor endeavor in a number of disciplines.[v]From these experiences, one can clearly see the importance of reflecting on awkwardness not only in the discussion of one’s positionality in the field, but also in terms of epistemological inquiries, given the importance of structural gender or racial lines it sheds light on.
Nicolas El Haïk-Wagner is a graduate student at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris and holds a Bachelor in Anthropology from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. His undergraduate thesis examines Western food consumption of post-reform China’s millennials and its interplay with gendered strategies of social distinction. His research interests include socio-cultural change in Asia, masculinity studies and identity politics in contemporary France.
References
Bailey, Keiron. 2007. “Akogare, Ideology, and ‘Charisma Man’ Mythology: Reflections on Ethnographic Research in English Language Schools in Japan.” Gender, Place and Culture 14 (5): 585-608.
Becker, Catherine. 2011. “La Marque France vue de Chine : À Travers le Prisme du Pavillon Français à l'Exposition Universelle 2010.” Revue Française de Gestion 9 (218-219): 45-51.
Blidon, Marianne. 2012. “Géographie de la Sexualité ou Sexualité du Géographe ? Quelques Leçons Autour d'une Injonction. » Annales de Géographie 687-688: 525-542.
Goffman, Erving. 1956. "Embarrassment and Social Organization." American Journal of Sociology 62 (3): 264-271.
Goffman, Erving. 1963. Behavior in Public Places:. Notes on the Social Organization of Gatherings. New York: Free Press.
Notes
[i] Goffman 1963.
[ii] Becker 2011, 46.
[iii] Goffman 1956.
[iv] Bailey 207, 599.
[v] Blidon 2012, 538.