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This chapter outlines transnational masculinities as a field of Study, and scholarship on transnationally inflected representations of Chinese masculinity and transnationally mobile Chinese men. It identifies three key key characteristics in the scholarly literature on Chinese masculinities in the context of globalization. First, the concept of cosmopolitanism is being increasingly used to explore the localization of globally circulating ideas and images in Chinese masculinities. Second, China’s integration with global financial and trading systems, which has been particularly pronounced since the 1990s, has forced the historically dominant intellectual or scholar-official (shi士‎) class to reconcile itself with the business activities traditionally carried out by the merchant (shang商‎) class. Third, the transnational circulation of models of emotionally expressive and caring fatherhood is significantly influencing Chinese discourses and practices of fathering. Through a detailed analysis of the other chapters in the volume, this chapter argues that it is possible to identify five broad patterns in the transformations of Chinese transnational masculinities: the embrace of localized cosmopolitan masculinities that are part-founded on historical notions and practices of Chinese masculinity; the enmeshment of intellectuals in business markets; emotionally engaged styles of fathering and intimate partnership; romantic involvement with non-Chinese women; and widespread anxiety and sensitivity about perceptions of Chinese masculinity. This chapter concludes that Chinese men are not unique in having to face such issues in transnational contexts; but, as the other chapters in this volume demonstrate, they negotiate them in unique—yet explainable—ways.

This chapter investigates the cultural politics involved in the emergence and prevalence of the online epithet of “North American despicable man” (or “beimei weisuo nan” in Chinese and “NAWSN” in short). Combining virtual ethnography and off-line fieldwork research and informed by critical theories of masculinity studies and new media studies, this chapter explores the ways in which race, class, and nationality intersect in constructing and negotiating the cultural meanings of “NAWSN” within overseas Chinese online community. It argues that the emergence and popularity of the notion of “NAWSN” should be understood as a social process of “double emasculation” that feminizes and emasculates well-educated recent Chinese immigrant men with non-elite backgrounds in the United States. A full understanding of the cultural construction of newly emerging forms of Chinese masculinity requires us to attend to not just the gender ideological field in both China and the United States, but also to the transnational dimensions of its construction. Through confronting the “NAWSN” image online, the Chinese immigrant men attempt to compensate for the lack or loss of power in real life, but ironically reinforce the social prejudice against Chinese men and help perpetuate male dominance in the United States.

This chapter examines the representations of masculinity in a recent Chinese reality TV show Dad, Where Are We Going?, which is based on the original South Korean show of the same title. By closely examining its portrayal of five father-son and father-daughter pairs, the essay observes a twofold construction of masculinity in the show’s transcultural format adaptation. On the one hand, the show’s representation of affectionate and expressive father figures reframes and hybridizes traditional scripts of Chinese masculinity by incorporating pan-East Asian soft masculinity. On the other hand, as I point out, its modes of representation betray an underlying logic that recapitulates the dominance of a bread-winning model of hegemonic masculinity and the gendered division of labor. As a result, whereas the show expands on notions of Chinese masculinity, its portrayal of fatherhood as a whole remains ideologically conservative and serves largely as a televisual compensation for the general absence of active and desirable father figures in contemporary mainland China.

This chapter studies the depiction of Chinese protagonists in the crime series Tatort, the most extensive and longest-running fictional television program in the German-speaking countries. The analysis takes four episodes between 1991 and 2013 as case studies, arguing that different images of Chinese characters, and in particular Chinese men, have created some of the most daring and destabilizing scenarios in the series. Carefully negotiating the rules of both the genre of the detective narrative and the serial form, these episodes stage a narrative cycle of crime and solution, crisis and recovery, which is significantly placed within the realm of masculinities. The episodes thus allow unique insights into the ways popular media have confronted and reflected European anxieties facing China’s growing and threatening power in the world since the 1990s.

This chapter examines the novel A Free Life by Ha Jin in terms of (re) construction of Chinese Wen masculinity in a transnational context. The analysis suggests that while the story is mainly about the protagonist Nan’s journey to settle down in the U.S with his wife and son, the plot is parallel with another hidden thread that runs through it, which is his personal transformation from the loss of masculineness to the build-up of a new type of Wen masculinity. The analysis also finds out that the novel seems to use emasculation of the male characters as the signifier of the dark side of Chinese traditional culture and the current political system. Through depicting Nan’s struggle and success in settling down the novel embraces individualism as a remedy to Chinese masculinity, redefining the ideal of Wen Chinese intellectuals in American context.

This chapter investigates the connection between gender and history, drawing on the example of contemporary Chinese rural migrant men who are referred to as bangbang (porters or carriers) in Chongqing, P.R. China. In Chongqing, bangbang experience both masculine domination and marginalization through migration, laying claim to competing models of masculinity in their newly developing urban subjectivities and expressing masculine pride when they return to their home villages. The gender dynamics that they experience during migration is intimately related to the changing notion of masculinity over time in China. Zhang suggests that new theoretical insights can be gained by exploring the fluid and complex relations between masculinity and labor from historical perspective. Zhang argues for the importance of historical constructions of gender in understanding the decisions and experiences of rural migrant men in postsocialist China.

The aim of this chapter is to spell out the differences in the characteristics of manhood in the Chines societies of Taiwan and Hong Kong. We argue that there are different Chinese masculinities in Taiwan and Hong Kong that are resulted from complex articulations between Chinese kinship systems, geopolitics, and other factors and therefore conclude that there is certainly no single essentialized Chinese masculinity. This chapter raises two questions. The first is: can we still say that there is a form of manhood that is applicable to all Chinese societies? The second question is if masculinity is just a dependent variable in the chain of social explanation, should the form of research be relocated to the geopolitics, the family system, and their interrelations?

This chapter provides a summary of the emergence of Chinese masculinity studies in the Anglophone world in recent years and concludes that even though it is a rapidly growing field, good book-length studies specific to researching Chinese masculinity are still limited. The chapter then describes the contents of the book, indicating the reasons for the way the volume is structured and some of the main themes that are discussed. It then gives a rundown of each chapter, showing how they fit in the framework of the book.

The chapter introduces a discussion about what the term 'a real man' means to interlocutors, opening up a wider consideration of hegemonic masculinity and Chinese masculinities. The study diverges from the classic interpretation of Raewyn Connell’s concept of hegemonic masculinity in one important respect. The term is usually associated with negative, toxic, sexist, oppressive male values and behaviours, but the version of hegemonic masculinity that has developed in China is identified as having an ethos that is exhibited in the social and family lives of men in diverse settings. The chapter also describes the research methodology and characteristics of the fieldwork site.

As Singapore began to crackdown on public male sexuality in the early 1990s, prompting sensationalistic media treatments about gay men, the author of this book gradually became more open about Stuart Koe's own homosexuality while studying in the United States. This chapter examines the traditional constructions of Chinese masculinity within Confucianism as a promotion of wen and wu, the intellect and the body, and tracks Stuart Koe's creation of a new “cyber-magical reality” called Fridae.com that by 2004 began to serve as one of the largest computer-based canvases for the grassroots construction of images of the Asian male body and of Asian gay male sexuality in Southeast Asia. It examines the fusion of Western and Confucian male tropes in the individual profiles that begin to be posted by the men of Fridae.