Modern Chinese Literature and Culture • 167 In the Name of Enlightenment: Pedagogy and the Uses of Same- Sex Desire in Early-Twentieth- Century Chinese Fiction † Ta-wei Chi Pedagogy occupies a central position in George Bernard Shaw’s 1916 play Pygmalion. As it opens, a character called Colonel Pickering, who has served in the colony of India, visits the linguist Henry Higgins in London just as Higgins is about to leave for India to call on him (Shaw 1994: 9). The two men eventually meet in Higgins’s laboratory, where they come to educate, with an attitude not unlike that of England toward it’s colonial India, a lower-class girl. In the process of transforming her into a lady, Higgins demonstrates his superiority over her but disavows his desire for her 1 —a disavowal that is an oblique acknowledgment of the role of desire in the pedagogical process. Such a camouflaged desire in pedagogy is not unique to the British context and can be found in other cultural contexts, including that of China. An example is Mao Dun’s 1928 story “Creation” (Chuangzao), which David Wang (1992: 81) considers a rendition of the Pygmalion tale. 2 In the story, a husband, always obsessed with chuangzao yu (the desire to create something) (Mao Dun 1982–84: 1: 11), attempts to enlighten his culturally “inferior” wife, whose name, Xianxian, means “feminine elegance.” However, once she is empowered by education, Xianxian leaves † I am grateful to Shu-mei Shih, Theodore Huters, and Russell C. Leong for their inspiration and encouragement. I thank two anonymous MCLC reviewers and Kirk A. Denton for their insights and suggestions. All translations are mine, unless otherwise noted. 1 The colonel asks Higgins not to take advantage of the girl, and the latter denies his interest in her (Shaw 1994: 21). Actually, Higgins betrays his fascination with her throughout the play. The charming girl causes a degree of sexual anxiety in both the scholar and the colonel. 2 Since Shaw was well known in China at the time, it is quite possible that his works directly inspired Chinese writers. Shaw visited Shanghai in 1933 and attracted much attention; he appeared to be a pedagogue of enlightenment to the Chinese. In his sardonic style, Lu Xun often wrote about Shaw (Lu Xun 1998: 4: 30–32, 491–503; Lu Xun 1998: 5: 32–38).