중국의 “발 없는 새들”, 그들이 내려앉은 공간- 영화 『첨밀밀(甛蜜蜜)』과 『먼 훗날 우리[後來的我們]』 속 현대 중국 청년들의 이주 양상 비교를 중심으로

Abstract

This paper examines the direction of the movement that Chinese youths have chosen at the time, and what it means in 1990, amid the ongoing tensions between “movement” and “settlement” due to the global COVID19 pandemic. The author compared the movie narratives of the 1980s and 2010s. This thesis aims to interpret the historical nature of their affection plot while grasping the time and space of modern China in two films, 『Tian mi mi』, and 『Us and Them』, and their inner ideology, and also examined the substance of the boundary surrounding the young Chinese people who were differently named as “New immigrants” and “Beipiao” (people who wander around Beijing) with 20-years gap is, and the production of modern urban spaces and the relationship between epistemological changes occurring inside them. The previous film, 『Tian mi mi』, was released in the 1990s when the influence of world-historical ideological structures with the collapse of the post-war Cold War system existed. The youth of China moved from the socialist continent to Hong Kong, the capitalist island within socialism, then to the United States, the home of capitalism through the love story of migrating to the continent, the reorganization of the capitalist world order, and the relocation of China's lower class are reproduced. In this era, the new immigrants' movement direction firmly maintained the ideologically expanding toward the outside and globalization. On the other hand, the movie 『Us and Them』 accurately expresses what traces the restrictions before settlement caused by the family registration problem in Chinese society leave behind the young subjects flowing over urban spaces. Those who still do not have the right to settle have not escaped the formal social discrimination structure but are constantly pushing themselves toward new forms of life or breakthroughs, and they are making small achievements. Previously, peasants or Beipiao's concept was perceived as simply discriminatory language or low-level citizens in the city. Also, this thesis attempted to analyze how the two symbolic urban spaces, Hong Kong and Beijing, were perceived and recognized by contemporary Chinese youth through two films and whether they were re-signified or appropriated. Hong Kong was recognized as an intermediary space that transitioned to the space of capital in terms of the world system's spatial distribution at that time. At the same time, Beijing is now a cultural symbol and the meaning of the dominant space in Chinese society, which has already experienced the process of capital maturity to some extent. The meaning of power was added, and it was accepted as an exclusive space by powerful outsiders. This paper analyzes where the breakthroughs are heading for, paying attention to the changes in Chinese youths' meaning and perceptions of urban spaces. It is expected that this expansion of awareness will be an important guideline for the future policy direction of the Chinese government's city and generations.