Haunted Modernization: Urban Legends and Cultural Transition in Contemporary China

Abstract

Over the past half-century, a series of reforms in China have brought about economic prosperity and rapid urban development. Urban legends in contemporary China constitute an essential part of folk culture, reflecting the distinctive features of Chinese urbanization and its subsequent problems. This article aims to explore some of the most representative popular urban legends, including the ‘Legends of the Campus and Shopping Mall’, ‘The Vanishing Hitchhiker’, and the ‘Legends of Phoenix Men’, in relation to social development in the period of rural–urban transformation. The article argues that Chinese contemporary urban legends provide an alternative narrative of cultural transition and fragmentation, stretching from the rural traditions to modern urbanization. They express Chinese people’s wishes, hopes, and desires for a better world, yet at the same time they also reveal their fears, anxieties, and concerns about the rapid pace of social change and the subsequent problems it brings, such as higher crime rates, political corruption, a deeper class divide, and a shaken cultural foundation. It is hoped that this article will provide a fresh insight into studies of folk culture and urban legends.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a grant from the National Social Science Fund of China (22FWWB003).

Supplementary Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/0015587X.2023.2282281.

Notes

1 The National Bureau of Statistics conducts an investigation every decade. See https://www.gov.cn/guoqing/2021-05/13/content_5606149.htm (accessed 2 October 2023).

2 The year 1998 was a watershed, as the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China released the ‘General Higher Education Undergraduate Enrollment Plan’ which changed the original policy of allocating students by province into an allocation plan based on institutions and students’ majors. This means that colleges and universities can enrol students independently. See Department of Development Planning, Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, 1998 nian quanguo jiaoyu shiye fazhan tongji gongbao 1998 年全国教育事业发展统计公报 [Statistical bulletin of the Development of National Education in 1998], https://www.edu.cn/zhong_guo_jiao_yu/tjsj/zhsj/jiao_yu_fa_zhan/200603/t20060323_11626.shtml (accessed 3 May 2022).

3 The urban legends selected in this article were collected orally from friends, family members, and students, and found on online platforms and in academic articles. The example that Wei uses here offers a general representation of the plot we find in this particular legend. This campus legend can also be seen on the Bilibili video Kongbu gushi zhi hao jiemei bei kao bei 恐怖故事之好姐妹背靠背 [Horrible stories: good sisters, back-to-back], uploaded on 18 February 2020, https://www.bilibili.com/video/av89888423/ (accessed 3 October 2022).

4 A Douban group named Shandong daxue 山东大学 [Shandong University] was created on 5 April 2014, which has been discussing campus legends of Shandong University: https://www.douban.com/group/topic/10654049 (accessed 3 October 2022).

5 There are many articles about this legend online. The following is an article published on 20 March 2021: Zhongshan daxue xiaoyuan lingyi gushi chuanshuo 中山大学校园灵异故事传说 [Campus legends of Sun Yat-sen University], http://www.zhfengshuiw.com/5708.html (accessed 3 October 2022).

6 Also see https://www.163.com/dy/article/GDTTB5I105522XPA.html (published 9 July 2021; accessed 3 October 2022).

7 Also see https://www.163.com/dy/article/ICRKE88D05563SJT.html (accessed 3 October 2022).

8 See https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1EG411p7Bz/?spm_id_from=333.788.recommend_more_video.-1 (accessed 3 October 2022).

9 Their original work was considered and remains the most complete folkloristic analysis of the Vanishing Hitchhiker. See Beardsley and Hankey (1943).

10 Also see https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/146759099, uploaded 8 June 2020 (accessed 3 October 2022).

11 https://culture.ifeng.com/c/87d8tvbuwid, published 5 July 2021 (accessed 3 October 2022).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Fang Tang

Dr Fang Tang is an Associate Professor in the School of Humanities, Yangtze University, China. She has a PhD in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies from the University of Nottingham, UK. She has published widely on literary fantasy and folklore of ghosts, myths, and folktales. Her main publications are: Literary Fantasy in Chinese Diasporic Women’s Literature (Lexington Books, 2020); ‘Reproductive Justice and Surrogacy in Chinese American Literature of the New Millennium’ (in The Palgrave Handbook of Reproductive Justice and Literature, 2022); and ‘Traumatic Memory and Narrative Healing in Contemporary Diasporic Chinese British Women’s Writing’ (in Trauma and Recovery: Challenges to Motherhood in the Contemporary Literature and Culture, Palgrave Macmillan, 2021).

Gan Lu

Dr Gan Lu is a Lecturer in the School of Foreign Studies, Yangtze University, China. She has a PhD in Literature from the Central China Normal University. Her main research areas focus on folk literature and children’s literature. Published articles include: ‘Study on the Influence of Folk Fairy Tales on Children’s Fantasy Literature in Victorian Period in England’ (International Journal of Social Science and Education Research, 2021) and ‘The Influence of Folk Culture on British Novel’ (International Journal of Social Science and Education Research, 2020).