Guanxi as Métis in the Legal Cases of Jin Ping Mei

Han, Ruihui (2024) Guanxi as Métis in the Legal Cases of Jin Ping Mei. ACTA ORIENTALIA ACADEMIAE SCIENTIARUM HUNGARICAE, 77 (3). pp. 491-513. ISSN 0001-6446

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Abstract

Jin Ping Mei 金瓶梅 details the legal activities in Ming society with exceptional vividness. In other pre-modern Chinese literary narratives, the ending usually featured poetic justice. However, Jin Ping Mei is a novel with unique realism in Chinese fiction in that it does not have a happy ending. More importantly, the novel depicts the normal condition and rationale of life based on guanxi 关系, an informal institution that was ubiquitous in Chinese society. Guanxi is a concrete embodiment of métis in the novel. This article sets out to demonstrate the métis in Jin Ping Mei through the analysis of guanxi in two cases. It argues that Jin Ping Mei depicts guanxi as the rationale of legal activities. Through guanxi, which is achieved through the manipulation of li 禮, ganqing 感情, renqing 人情, and mianzi 面子, gifts, banquets, and intermediaries, the culprits can easily find their way out of the unfavorable condition. The blend of rationality and emotion which is embodied in guanxi is the cultural root of the manipulation in the legal activities. The narrative of legal activities in Jin Ping Mei focuses on the métis based on guanxi in microlevel society and thus achieves unprecedented realism in premodern Chinese fiction narrative.

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