Place and Social Anxiety in Xianfeng Yi and Ying Yang's Doctor Zhang and Doctor Wang

ABSTRACT The group biography Doctor Zhang and Doctor Wang (2021) portrays the life narratives of two doctors and their families from the Northeast (dongbei) of China. This article analyses the spatial and social anxieties in contemporary Chinese society as represented by doctors. As Northeasters(dongbei ren), the doctors regard this region as ‘lagging behind’, thus they aspire to migrate to Southern China or Western countries. However, they are unable to relocate geographically and instead choose another type of movement, to that of ‘society’(shehui), which can be translated as well-connected or sophisticated in social relationships. Both movements—geographical and social—signify a desire for social mobility within a system of intense competition. Whereas many studies have focused on low-skilled Chinese migrants, Doctor Zhang and Doctor Wang is at the forefront of texts on an overlooked demographic: educated and skilled professionals. This article will argue that by depicting competition within ‘society’ through a topic-driven biographical format, the text reinforces socio-economic justifications that diminish the individuality of the figures, thereby constructing the opposite result of what the biography aims to achieve, that is, to criticise the material success-centred values that impede autonomy.