Flirting with the "Modern girl": Socialism and cosmopolitanism in packaging a model-laborer in China

Abstract

Huang Baomei was not an average national model-laborer (laomo). The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) granted her this grand title to leverage her social status for promoting its goals of getting workers to work harder, produce more, and consume less. But Huang Baomei longed to look and act like a “modern girl” (modeng nülang), the well-dressed and well-groomed image which Shanghai women had aspired to over generations. She not only survived through political movements such as the Anti-Rightist Campaign, but also took advantage of the movement discourse to win the hearts of many. She faced tough opposition, but the CCP Shanghai Municipal Committee helped to elevate her popularity over more than a decade in Communist China. In examining her career, this paper shows how Huang introduced debates among CCP cadres and both reshaped and directed key concepts in CCP propaganda at local and national levels.