• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.37
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• pp.31-49
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• 2014

Peking has peculiar features as capital city, and has gone through various transformations, with its name changed from Peking to Peiping to Peking. Even when it did not serve as a capital city, it still played an unrivaled role in cultural aspects. Laoshe, a great writer of 'Peking flavour' literature, is famous for works full of cultural charms of Peking. In his works, which show the manners, norms, art, culture and optimistic life style of Peking, Peking culture is described as an extension of cultural traditions of Qiren. In addition, his critical view of reality is also expressed in the works. Linhaiyin's literary works show ordinary hutongs she experienced in the 1920s in Chengnan, the southern part of Peking, and the quiet and simple life of warm-hearted people living there. Her vague memories of Peking, along with her nostalgia for the city, let her describe the city with recreated happy memories of it instead of the harsh critical view. Her works express the city in her recreated memory full of hope, with her dark memories of the city being glossed over. As seen above, Laoshe realistically described the tragic and difficult life of low class people in hutongs of Peking as well as lower middle class people of the city. Meanwhile, in ChengnanJiushi, Linhaiyin expresses the daily routine and ordinary life of people in Peking from the perspective of middle class people. In addition, she showed the sympathetic view of middle class citizens towards their low-class neighbors. In Peking Menghualu, Wangdewei mentioned that the 'castle of memory' which old Peking people in Taiwan tried to establish fills an important gap for the continuity of Peking cultural history and cultural imagination. This indicates that the 'Peking castle of memories,' which Linhaiyin, a Taiwanese writer well known for 'Peking flavour,' has established plays a big role in filling part of such gap. ChengnanJiushi, Wuyigong's film based on Linhaiyin's novel of the same title, also describes the daily sceneries and culture of the southern Peking in the 1920s, which both Taiwanese and Chinese people miss, through sophisticated images with 'profound yearning tinted with calm sadness', accomplishing an artistic achievement different from that of the novel.