In this context, Naifei Ding interestingly refers to "the new social and political forces at work in Taiwan at the moment, when democratizing momentum is fast transforming into a reticent policing of social and sexual dissidents."
She backs this up by referring to "the police harassment of gays on [Chengde Road]," and the "abolishing of licensed prostitution in Taipei as part of an anti-obscenity and anti-pornography campaign and policy." More from her on this controversial and fascinating topic would have been welcome.
Taiwan is in fact frequently mentioned. There are references to the twilight, "penumbralike" status of its sexual dissidents, plus a story about a "nunnish aunt [who] finds, not so surprisingly, a copy of Chen Xue's book in her tomboyish high-school dropout niece's bedroom."
Professor Ding also refers to "the then-president of Taiwan" taking his entire family to see Li An's pro-gay and Taiwan-related film The Wedding Banquet.
Also mentioned is the way that Filipino, Thai and Indonesian domestic servants in contemporary Taiwan are sometimes perceived as posing a sexual threat to their middle-class housewife employers, a situation comparable to that which existed when husbands had live-in concubines or "junior wives."
Essentially, though, these are marginal points in a dense text largely devoted to literary and historical matters, and aimed at scholarly readers.
The book is part of a proliferating academic genre that promotes radical sexual causes when reading classic literary texts. Such works usually refer to the same set of authorities -- Gayatri Spivak, Julia Kristeva, Georges Bataille and others -- and can, at worst, reduce the range and variety of past literature to a monotonous uniformity, however admirable these critics' socio-sexual aims. Professor Ding's book, however, distinguishes itself from the pack by virtue of its vigor, lucidity, and considerable independence of mind.
An authoritative source informs me that it's rare for a Taiwanese academic to publish with an American university press in this way. But Naifei Ding, the source continues, is fluently bilingual, having been brought up in South Africa (and indeed the country constitutes part of her name). This, therefore, is a significant book, both for Taiwan and for contemporary Chinese studies as a whole. The author is to be complimented, even if some passages proved in the event too specialized for this particular reviewer to grasp in their entirety.
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