ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the evolving discourse surrounding and contributing to the establishment of a new female-centric profession in China, peiliao “ 陪聊 chatting companion”. I argue that this profession, in which women provide warmth, comfort and care for suffering people in their homes, distills several key features of Chinese discourse. While practical in that peiliao reemploys women workers laid off from state-owned enterprises as a result of privatization and downsizing (see Yang, 2007, 2013), on a deeper level, the profession reinforces a gendered discourse about the appropriate (female) agents of care amidst mounting distress. It also provides a related discourse emphasizing productivity and social harmony in China. This gendered discourse of care and productivity reflects the new relationship between language and gender in China amidst the country’s economic restructuring.
