A Study On Relationship Culture Of British Chinese Novels In English Since The 21st Century

British Chinese novelists writing in English have gathered in groups in the 21 st century because of their ethnic origin,community imagination of spiritual identification and common paradigms of emotional expression.While inheriting the inherent tradition of diasporic overseas Chinese literature,their creations reflect distinctive characteristics of the era.In the past two decades,three generations of British Chinese writers,“post-50s”,“post-60s” and “post-70s”,have clustered together.In their artistic practice of two-cultural integration of Chinese and English cultures,personal autobiographies,family biographies as well as local chronicles become common narrative models,and longing for the homeland,ethnic history,blood relationship and integration process become shared motifs.Influenced by the social spirit of their time,the motif of the three generations change from diasporic rootlessness,reminiscing at the crossroad to root-seeking and settling-down.The identity appeal has changed from self-exile to conscious search and then voluntary return.The creative state has changed from physical and mental disconnection to bodily exhaustion but emotional preoccupation and then peaceful mind and expression.The emotional change undergoes transition from wasteland to lost land reminiscence and then interior peace,therefore the spiritual orientation of root seeking and soul casting is reflected.The explicit features of emotional narrative in group identity of British Chinese novels in English since the 21 st century are embodied in the following aspects.Emotional narrative attaches importance to the reinforcement and complementation of the writing of kinship,blood relationship and spirit relationship.It also emphasizes that blood ties generate kinship,and kinship cultivates spirit relationship.By multi-directional writing and composite display of kinship and blood relationship,kinship and spirit relationship,kinship,blood relationship and spirit relationship has become an important means and norm for writers to represent overseas Chinese social network,which is manifested in showing kinship by blood relationship,showing spirit relationship by kinship,and the same object containing multiple relationships.The creative perspective of two-culturally and multiply integrated relationships forms the consistent pursuit of novelists’ emotional writing.The emotional recovery and spiritual migration brought about by the change of geographical backgrounds of overseas Chinese constitute the thread and details for writers such as Davies,Liu Hong,Helen Tse and Xiaolu Guo to conceive their works.The artistic presentation of peaceful and rational emotional placement has become thematic orientation of English novels by British Chinese writers since 2000.The important characteristics of mapping of geographical symbols in spatial identity of British Chinese novels in English language since the 21 st century are shown in the following ways.Most of the geographical symbols are initiated by bloodline,and kinship often promotes the formation of geographical symbols.The geographical relationship is written symbolically,and the connotation of the symbol is interpreted in multiple relationships.Geographical symbols with built-in kinship and externalized blood relationship are hidden in the creative subject’s origin-generated and locale-concerned emotion,but revealed in the presentation of kinship reflected in geographical image.The mapping of original geographical symbols in the novels of Tash Aw,Liu Hong and Xiaolu Guo reflects writers’ resolution to concentrating on one locality,sketching one symbol,holding one locale dear to their hearts,and keeping their emotion consistently.From Timothy Mo to Helen Tse,the personalized mapping of regenerated geographical symbols by three generations of writers symbolizes emotional projection of settling-down and homesickness,which reflects the evolution of overseas Chinese spiritual identification from rootlessness to in-betweenness of two cultures.Meaning-conveying images in social identity is the artistic construction principle of British Chinese novels in English since the 21 st century.Primordial cultural symbols and artistic classics,together with ethnic symbols and spiritual totems are widely used in the writing of substance relationship,business relationship and kinship.Under the ideal of embodying meanings in images,expressive structures of substance and business symbols of British Chinese writers represented by Liu Hong and Helen Tse present creative characteristics of multiple relationships in one symbol,expressing meaning in the form,and concentrating connotations on images.The use of substance and business relationship symbols to record family history,mark the entrepreneurial process and pass on enterprising spirit has formed a paradigm of multi-relationship writing of British Chinese novels in English,taking substance relationship as form,business relationship as layout and kinship as connotation,which reflects the spiritual return of blood relationship of British Chinese writers.In the 21 st century,the group spirit of English novels by British Chinese writers has gone out of the paddleless pain from “post-50s”,the wandering bitterness of“post-60s”,to sail for a “post-70s” style of steady journey of root-seeking and soul-shaping.The emotional core of British Chinese novels is evolving,and the subject spirit is gathering.The writing of kinship,which carries the mission of writing family genealogy and national history,together with artistic expression of sentiment of families and homesickness,has broken through stereotypical diasporic literature.The display of kinship is inseparable from the extension of blood relationship,and the exhibition of spirit relationship is often based on the expression of kinship.Its geographical symbol mapping often uses the original geographical literary symbols of homeland and the regenerated geographical literary symbols of host country to express nostalgia complex.Its substance relationship symbolizes affection and aspiration,and is often interwoven with kinship and geography,functioning as cohesion of family ties and local affiliation.Its business writing focuses on the inheritance of business and ethnic spirits,and reveals natural bond between business and kinship.The cohesion and complementation of kinship,blood relationship,spirit relationship,geographical relationship,substance relationship and business relationship means that seeking roots and shaping souls have become the creative pursuit of “post-60s” and “post-70s” writers.British Chinese writers gather in community by kinship,represent shared themes by overseas Chinese identity and express group emotion by homeland memories.Since the 21 st century,in the artistic practice of integration of the two cultures,three generations of writers’ willingness to seek identity has been gradually enhanced,and their spiritual belonging has become increasingly clear-cut.Seeking roots and shaping souls have become common aspiration of creation by British Chinese writers.Memories or expectations of kinship from their homeland,faith and transition of geographical affection,diaspora or knot of spirit relationship,mapping and coherence of ethnic symbols,desire and demand for integration in the host country,and return or arrival of creative mentality have become shared pursuit of creation characterized with two-culturally and multiply integrated relationships by British Chinese writers.