Bright Moon in Mountain Wind

Student Name: Yuqi (Amanda) Han
Majors: Chinese Studies, Biology
Advisor: Ziying You & Mark Graham

Best Creative Exploration Award

The danmei, called tanbi in Japanese, also being understood as Boy’s Love (BL), became a popular romantic artistic genre in contemporary Chinese society. Danmei is created by women and focuses on the pure love between two beautiful young men (danmei literally means “beauty addiction” in Chinese). Danmei fiction has widely spread on the Internet; one of the famous online creative writing websites is Jinjiang Literature City, which primary serves danmei fans. While the danmei fans’ population increases, the description of two beautiful young men’s romantic love stories also shows a certain degree of deviation from danmei’s original purpose. Queer issues are not fully addressed, and female characters are designed as a background board role to create boys’ love story. My creative writing IS project intends to correct the mistaken direction for current popular danmei fiction. First, the main characters need to explore their self-recognition and reveal their tenderness. The vague design of both sexes’ personalities is a way to decrease the social stereotype of gender roles. Second, there is a powerful female image in my novel. My claims are that women’s social responsibility is not to give birth or promote male protagonists’ love development. My IS will become an important step in the danmei culture and guide other authors to think about roles that should not be limited to stereotypes in future danmei writings.
Click to view Yuqi’s presentation (NOTE: You will need a Wooster login to view this presentation)
Yuqi (Amanda) will be online to field comments on April 16:
2-4 pm EDT (PST 11am-1pm, Africa/Europe: evening).

Posted in I.S. Symposium 2021, Independent Study on April 7, 2021.