No man's land: Migration, masculinity and Ouyang Yu's The Eastern Slope Chronicle

The Eastern Slope Chronicle is a novel about migration, focusing on Dao Zhuang, a male Chinese migrant who seems unable to belong anywhere. It is also about the protagonist’s self-discovery and discovery of his home and host countries. This paper examines the impact of migration on gender norms and how tensions between different gender norms, particularly models for masculinity, play out in the novel. While previous criticism has addressed The Eastern Slope Chronicle from the perspective of cultural, ethnic, or national identity,1 issues surrounding the impact of migration on gender identity remain virtually unexplored.