秋菊은 어떻게 ‘골칫거리’가 되었는가 ― 張藝謀의『秋菊打官司』를 고쳐 읽으며

Abstract

This study began as a part of looking for the way of researching Chinese rural problem. The way of it takes a form of rereading Zhang Yi-mou's movie The Story of Qiuju(秋菊打官司)(1992). Zhang Yi-mou's this movie describes a changing agricultural society in the time of reformation and open. This time, Qiuju raised a problem against violence of a village chief. She takes this matter from township to county level, and again to the city level to get an apology of the village chief. The chief here is a person who has double character as an agent of government power and a representative of the township. So the Qiuju's this raising of the problem is aimed to the government power and also aimed to inner side of the township society. This time Qiuju could be seemed like a 1980's style ‘warrior for enlightenment' or a 1990's style representative of the liberalism. But we find another ‘Qiuju' in recent Chinese agricultural society. For example, in case of disturbance which happened in township of Wukan, Haifeng county, Guangdong, the ‘Qiuju's' here appear as headaches which are different from the Zhang Yi-mou's movie. The ‘headache' here is not used with ethical meaning, but with meaning of image carrier of structural inconsistency. In the agricultural area in which township autonomy system was actually broken down, in case that delicate matter like local government's land purchase occurred, the farmers tried to talk to the government directly. This time they express their opinion in a form of petition or mass disturbance. So there exists a kind of ‘grey area' between township society and government power. This couldn't be explained by a dichotomy of civil administration or governing by law. The academic study of this problem is important part of researching rural problem.