Dangerous Work; Women in Traffic  

Oleh:

Chao, Emily

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Modern China vol. 29 no. 1 (Jan. 2003), page 71-107.
Topik: Women in Traffic
Fulltext: 71MC291.pdf (145.03KB)

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Lijiang is a town in northern Yunnan province occupied primarily by the Naxi national minority. I conducted research there in the early 1990s and again in 1995 and 1997. When I returned to Lijiang in the late 1990s, friends and acquaintances were eager to tell me about the recent changes. Stories about female taxi drivers were conspicuous in gossip and the news. In 1992, there were no taxis in Lijiang, and most traveled by bicycle or foot. By 1997, more than 700 taxis were operating in this town of only about three square miles. What particularly drew the attention of many national and international tourists was the large number ofwomen drivers, rare in other parts of China. Taxis, one of the most conspicuous changes in the local landscape, were proudly pointed to as evidence of “modernization” in Lijiang. At the same time, widespread local ambivalence about women driving taxis was revealed by the numerous stories about their violent deaths. Less common, but more intriguing, were stories that focused on their bodies, which were identified with danger, immorality, ambiguous sex organs, and pollution. It became clear to me that such stories allegorized how capitalist privatizationwas straining the social fabric of Lijiang.

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