The leading Party cadre of Lin Village in Southeast China describes in this book forty years of turbulent events that affected individuals and families in the village: the downfall of the landlords during the Land Reform, the rise of poor peasants to political power, the political fanaticism of the Great Leap Forward and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, and recent efforts to restore rational, pragmatic policies in China's countryside.The magnitude of change in Lin Village since 1949 has been considerable. Most villagers have benefited from tangible improvements in agriculture, education, and medicine, and they have developed a sense of political participation and integration into the national political arena. Significantly, while these dynamic changes have been taking place, the observance of cultural tradition has persisted. Attempts made by the government to change "feudalistic" beliefs and practices have yet to make any lasting impression on village life.More than an account of one village, this book documents for readers the cataclysmic changes of China's entire post-liberation era, detailing their effects in a personalized style. An American anthropologist of Chinese descent, Huang Shu-min employs participant-observation and personal interviews to shape this unique view of rural China today and to delineate some of the misconceptions held by Western academics.
“An exceptional look at contemporary rural China,” stated Library Journal when The Spiral Road first appeared. The Spiral Road has since become essential reading for understanding the dramatic transformations reshaping the lives of China’s peasants. Through the eyes of Party Secretary Ye Wende, anthropologist Huang Shu-min combines a life history approach with participant observation to illustrate the path of change in a village in southeast China. Beginning with the Communist Party’s rule and Mao’s Great Leap Forward in the early 1950s to privatization and economic development in the 1990s, Huang’s compelling work unravels turbulent events that affected individuals and families in Lin Village, including government control in peasants’ daily lives. Based on the author’s continuing trips to China, the second edition provides in-depth details of the effects of change—Taiwanese investment, large-scale production, international marketing, new lifestyles—and the ongoing story of Mr. Ye: his ideas for expanding the villagers’ wealth, his manipulation in establishing lucrative businesses in Lin Village, and his arrangements to secure jobs for his family members and close kin. This multidimensional account reveals the challenges of balancing traditional customs and values with vibrant changes imposed by governing authorities.
The leading Party cadre of Lin Village in Southeast China describes in this book forty years of turbulent events that affected individuals and families in the village: the downfall of the landlords during the Land Reform, the rise of poor peasants to political power, the political fanaticism of the Great Leap Forward and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, and recent efforts to restore rational, pragmatic policies in China's countryside.The magnitude of change in Lin Village since 1949 has been considerable. Most villagers have benefited from tangible improvements in agriculture, education, and medicine, and they have developed a sense of political participation and integration into the national political arena. Significantly, while these dynamic changes have been taking place, the observance of cultural tradition has persisted. Attempts made by the government to change "feudalistic" beliefs and practices have yet to make any lasting impression on village life.More than an account of one village, this book documents for readers the cataclysmic changes of China's entire post-liberation era, detailing their effects in a personalized style. An American anthropologist of Chinese descent, Huang Shu-min employs participant-observation and personal interviews to shape this unique view of rural China today and to delineate some of the misconceptions held by Western academics.
The leading Party cadre of Lin Village in Southeast China describes in this book forty years of turbulent events that affected individuals and families in the village: the downfall of the landlords during the Land Reform, the rise of poor peasants to political power, the political fanaticism of the Great Leap Forward and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, and recent efforts to restore rational, pragmatic policies in China's countryside.The magnitude of change in Lin Village since 1949 has been considerable. Most villagers have benefited from tangible improvements in agriculture, education, and medicine, and they have developed a sense of political participation and integration into the national political arena. Significantly, while these dynamic changes have been taking place, the observance of cultural tradition has persisted. Attempts made by the government to change "feudalistic" beliefs and practices have yet to make any lasting impression on village life.More than an account of one village, this book documents for readers the cataclysmic changes of China's entire post-liberation era, detailing their effects in a personalized style. An American anthropologist of Chinese descent, Huang Shu-min employs participant-observation and personal interviews to shape this unique view of rural China today and to delineate some of the misconceptions held by Western academics.
Reproducing Chinese Culture in Diaspora discusses how a group of anti-communist Chinese exiles from Yunnan Province have managed to establish a rural livelihood in Thailand's northern hills over the past half century. When faced with the seemingly invincible Communist forces that were sweeping across the Mainland, these nationals retreated in 1949 or shortly thereafter to the Golden Triangle that sits astride the borders of Burma, Laos, and Thailand in voluntary exile. This book mainly concerns their hardships as they have struggled to carve out a new life along with their attempts to find an agricultural identity in the area. Initially gaining power as drug traffickers and narco-kings, the Yunnan exiles have transformed into sustainable farming leaders. Yet, despite their success in establishing themselves in Thailand, their community is facing a steep decline that threatens their long time survival. Part of their rationale in leaving communist China in search of a new settlement in the Golden Triangle, the exiles sought to protect Chinese traditions and ideals in the face of what they felt was Western influence. Yet, in their attempts to maintain their traditions, they've drifted to the opposite extreme, treating those traditions as sacrosanct and adhering to them rigidly. As a result, many of the younger generations are fleeing the communities from this "cultural petrification," and those who stay openly challenge the authoritarian old guard in a desire to modernize. This clash of old vs new severely strains a prosperous yet fragile community, clouding its future in uncertainty.
The Guodian manuscripts are a cache of literary and philosophical texts from the fourth century BCE, discovered in a Warring States–period tomb in China’s Hubei Province. Through detailed decipherment and textual analysis, Kuan-yun Huang investigates the historical and philosophical contexts of these texts and convincingly proposes their association with Zisi, the grandson of Confucius. Huang not only offers an in-depth portrait of this famous scion from excavated texts and transmitted literary records, but also reveals the connection of the Guodian texts with early intellectual tradition in China, including the teachings of Xunzi, Mencius, Confucius, and the legendary Laozi, as well as the effort of rewriting that transformed Zisi’s original teachings into a conformist line of thinking, which defined and constituted the Confucian tradition of a later time. ------------- In Kuan-yun Huang’s The Lost Texts of Confucius’ Grandson, the shadowy figure of Zisi comes to life as an antinomian thinker whose works fill the lacuna between Confucius and Mencius. What is most compelling about this book is its insistence that in scholarship we must respect the interpretive context. The new putative Zisi materials have to be read in such a way that they are correlated with and situated clearly within what Huang calls “the literary record.” Huang’s synoptic understanding of the literature allows for much “abduction” in his presentation, a kind of academic sleuthing in his best efforts to connect the dots. While an exciting read for those scholars who know the texts and specialize in ancient philosophical literature, at the same time, the story it tells will be of interest to all scholars who work in the field of Chinese studies. —Roger T. Ames Humanities Chair Professor, Peking University Huang carefully explicates what the newly discovered manuscripts teach us about fate, moral cultivation, familial love and obligation, and service in government, as well as other concepts that were originally meant to provide social order in the Warring States kingdoms during the time of Zisi and the generations of thinkers subsequent to him. Through close textual analysis and with each explanation of these ideas, Huang shows that we must shake ourselves loose from earlier assumptions about their significance and embrace what the recently recovered sources tell us. —Jeffrey Riegel Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley The Guodian corpus has transformed our understanding of early Chinese thought. Huang does a masterful job of situating these texts in their historical and philosophical context, relying on the most current scholarly literature as well as insights gained from more recent discoveries, all in a very accessible style. Highly recommended. —Edward Slingerland Professor of Philosophy, University of British Columbia
At the heart of "All Things Flow into Form" (Fan wu liu xing), an ancient Chinese manuscript recently salvaged from the black market, is a concern with the process of self-cultivation, particularly the advancement through the incremental stages and the outcome that awaits one in the end: enlightenment, transparency, and self-possession. Critical to this discussion is a conception of a mind within a mind, the unity of which is obtained through the isolation of an innermost core free from extraneous distractions. Such a state is presented as an ideal for kingship, and the text, despite its possibly very ancient roots, is focused on the ruler's ethical training rather than his political maneuvers, his obligation to Heaven and the spirits rather than his dominance over his subjects. Probing deep into this text, we may observe heretofore unappreciated aspects of many of the transmitted literary sources, and in turn, come to more definite conclusions about the manuscript itself. To the extent that this analysis is successful, it illustrates an approach that can be tested against future efforts to read ancient Chinese texts in the light of newly unearthed documents.
Reproducing Chinese Culture in Diaspora discusses how a group of anti-communist Chinese exiles from Yunnan Province have managed to establish a rural livelihood in Thailand's northern hills over the past half century. When faced with the seemingly invincible Communist forces that were sweeping across the Mainland, these nationals retreated in 1949 or shortly thereafter to the Golden Triangle that sits astride the borders of Burma, Laos, and Thailand in voluntary exile. This book mainly concerns their hardships as they have struggled to carve out a new life along with their attempts to find an agricultural identity in the area. Initially gaining power as drug traffickers and narco-kings, the Yunnan exiles have transformed into sustainable farming leaders. Yet, despite their success in establishing themselves in Thailand, their community is facing a steep decline that threatens their long time survival. Part of their rationale in leaving communist China in search of a new settlement in the Golden Triangle, the exiles sought to protect Chinese traditions and ideals in the face of what they felt was Western influence. Yet, in their attempts to maintain their traditions, they've drifted to the opposite extreme, treating those traditions as sacrosanct and adhering to them rigidly. As a result, many of the younger generations are fleeing the communities from this "cultural petrification," and those who stay openly challenge the authoritarian old guard in a desire to modernize. This clash of old vs new severely strains a prosperous yet fragile community, clouding its future in uncertainty.
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