Nightclub as a Liminal Space: Space, Gender, and Identity in Lisa See’s China Dolls
Dr. Melody Yunzi Li, University of Houston, USA
Nightclub as a Liminal Space: Space, Gender, and Identity in Lisa See’s China Dolls (paper)
Nightclubs flourished in San Francisco’s Chinatown in the late 1930s when it became a nightlife destination. To Chinese Americans, however, San Francisco nightclubs became a new site at the time for them to re-explore their identities. For some, visiting these nightclubs became a way for them to escape from traditional Chinese values. For others, it became a way to satisfy Western stereotypes of Chinese culture. Lisa See’s China Dolls (2015) describes three young oriental women from various backgrounds that become dancers at the popular Forbidden City nightclub in San Francisco in the late 1930s. Through the three girls’ precarious careers and personal conflicts, Lisa See proposes the San Francisco nightclub as both a site for them to articulate their new identities beyond their restricted spheres and a site for them to perform the expected stereotypical Asian images from Western perspectives. It was, at that time, a struggle for the emergence of modern Chinese women but particularly a paradox for Chinese-American women. The space of the Chinese-American nightclub, which is exotic, erotic, but stereotypical, represents contradictions in the Chinese-American identity. Through studying Lisa See’s novel along with other autobiographies of the Chinese American dancing girls, I argue that San Francisco nightclubs, as represented in Lisa See’s novel, embody the paradox of Chinese American identities as shown in the outfits of Chinese American chorus girls—modest cheongsams outside and sexy, burlesque costumes underneath.
Dr. Melody Yunzi Li holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from Washington University in St. Louis, a MPhil degree in Translation Studies from the School of Chinese at the University of Hong Kong, and a BA in English/Translation Studies from Sun Yat-sen University, China. She taught at Transylvania University and Lenoir-Rhyne University before joining the University of Houston as an Assistant Professor in August 2018. Dr. Li also was a visiting scholar at Harvard University 2015-2016. Her research interests include Asian diaspora literature, modern Chinese literature and culture, migration studies, translation studies and cultural identities. Her current project focuses on Chinese diasporic literature from the 1960s to the present. She has published in various journals including Pacific Coast Philology, Telos and others. Besides her specialty in Chinese literature, Dr. Li is also a Chinese dancer and translator.