Ka-ming Wu
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252039881
- eISBN:
- 9780252097997
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252039881.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
The final destination of the Long March and center of the Chinese Communist Party's red bases, Yan'an acquired mythical status during the Maoist era. Though the city's significance as an emblem of ...
More
The final destination of the Long March and center of the Chinese Communist Party's red bases, Yan'an acquired mythical status during the Maoist era. Though the city's significance as an emblem of revolutionary heroism has faded, today's Chinese still glorify Yan'an as a sanctuary for ancient cultural traditions. The book examines the relation between the government and local communities for heritage preservation and cultural tourism in the age of runaway urbanization by focusing on the moments of mobilizing and representing folk traditions in both socialist and late socialist Yan'an. This ethnographic account of contemporary Yan'an documents how people have reworked the revival of three rural practices—paper-cutting, folk storytelling, and spirit cults—within (and beyond) the socialist legacy. Moving beyond dominant views of Yan'an folk culture as a tool of revolution or object of market reform, the book reveals how cultural traditions become battlegrounds where conflicts among the state, market forces, and intellectuals in search of an authentic China play out. At the same time, it shows these emerging new dynamics in the light of the ways rural residents make sense of rapid social change. The book uses “Yan'an and folk culture” to connote a historical model of the Chinese Communist Party appropriating folk traditions to promote rural reform and national state campaigns.Less
The final destination of the Long March and center of the Chinese Communist Party's red bases, Yan'an acquired mythical status during the Maoist era. Though the city's significance as an emblem of revolutionary heroism has faded, today's Chinese still glorify Yan'an as a sanctuary for ancient cultural traditions. The book examines the relation between the government and local communities for heritage preservation and cultural tourism in the age of runaway urbanization by focusing on the moments of mobilizing and representing folk traditions in both socialist and late socialist Yan'an. This ethnographic account of contemporary Yan'an documents how people have reworked the revival of three rural practices—paper-cutting, folk storytelling, and spirit cults—within (and beyond) the socialist legacy. Moving beyond dominant views of Yan'an folk culture as a tool of revolution or object of market reform, the book reveals how cultural traditions become battlegrounds where conflicts among the state, market forces, and intellectuals in search of an authentic China play out. At the same time, it shows these emerging new dynamics in the light of the ways rural residents make sense of rapid social change. The book uses “Yan'an and folk culture” to connote a historical model of the Chinese Communist Party appropriating folk traditions to promote rural reform and national state campaigns.
Ka-ming Wu
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252039881
- eISBN:
- 9780252097997
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252039881.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This chapter examines how folk paper-cuts have served as a site of intellectual expressions and debates about the meanings of—and the entangled relationships between—culture, gender, history, and the ...
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This chapter examines how folk paper-cuts have served as a site of intellectual expressions and debates about the meanings of—and the entangled relationships between—culture, gender, history, and the state in modern China. It first takes up the question of folk traditions, gender, and modernity before discussing the practice of paper-cutting in the Yan'an period (1937–1947) and in the late 1970s. It then considers how gender figures in the narrative of the folk cultural form of paper-cuts in Yan'an and its later deployment by urban intellectuals in various nationalist campaigns. In particular, it looks at women paper-cutting artists in contemporary Ansai County and describes how folk paper-cuts have become that “site of awkward engagement” where the agenda of the state, global capital regimes of values, and local tradition forces interacted with each other. The chapter suggests that, through the representation of paper-cuts, the binary oppositions of gender and rural–urban divide have become part of the meanings of Chinese modernity itself.Less
This chapter examines how folk paper-cuts have served as a site of intellectual expressions and debates about the meanings of—and the entangled relationships between—culture, gender, history, and the state in modern China. It first takes up the question of folk traditions, gender, and modernity before discussing the practice of paper-cutting in the Yan'an period (1937–1947) and in the late 1970s. It then considers how gender figures in the narrative of the folk cultural form of paper-cuts in Yan'an and its later deployment by urban intellectuals in various nationalist campaigns. In particular, it looks at women paper-cutting artists in contemporary Ansai County and describes how folk paper-cuts have become that “site of awkward engagement” where the agenda of the state, global capital regimes of values, and local tradition forces interacted with each other. The chapter suggests that, through the representation of paper-cuts, the binary oppositions of gender and rural–urban divide have become part of the meanings of Chinese modernity itself.
Ka-ming Wu
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252039881
- eISBN:
- 9780252097997
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252039881.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This chapter examines how Xiaocheng Folk Art Village in Yan'an was transformed into a container of tradition and the practice of paper-cutting into an intangible cultural heritage. It first considers ...
More
This chapter examines how Xiaocheng Folk Art Village in Yan'an was transformed into a container of tradition and the practice of paper-cutting into an intangible cultural heritage. It first considers the origin narrative of Xiaocheng Folk Art Village before discussing how China's urban intellectuals in the fields of folklore, religious studies, and anthropology have sought to re-understand the meanings of their work in the broader national and international framework. It then explains how Xiaocheng Folk Art Village emerged as a site of local, national, and international interests, with particular emphasis on the birth of creative rural subjects, reconfigured domestic relations, and a new public life in the village. It also describes the village's democratic struggles over folk art and concludes with an analysis of the politics of cultural authenticity and the invention of tradition in the broader context of intense urbanization and agrarian crisis in China. The chapter argues that heritage making in China is a process of “narrative battle” in which various actors construct differentiated meanings of history and tradition against the official party-state narrative.Less
This chapter examines how Xiaocheng Folk Art Village in Yan'an was transformed into a container of tradition and the practice of paper-cutting into an intangible cultural heritage. It first considers the origin narrative of Xiaocheng Folk Art Village before discussing how China's urban intellectuals in the fields of folklore, religious studies, and anthropology have sought to re-understand the meanings of their work in the broader national and international framework. It then explains how Xiaocheng Folk Art Village emerged as a site of local, national, and international interests, with particular emphasis on the birth of creative rural subjects, reconfigured domestic relations, and a new public life in the village. It also describes the village's democratic struggles over folk art and concludes with an analysis of the politics of cultural authenticity and the invention of tradition in the broader context of intense urbanization and agrarian crisis in China. The chapter argues that heritage making in China is a process of “narrative battle” in which various actors construct differentiated meanings of history and tradition against the official party-state narrative.
