Françoise Lauwaert
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199580910
- eISBN:
- 9780191723025
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199580910.003.0020
- Subject:
- Law, Comparative Law
This chapter takes up the methodological challenge to consider a series of 18th- and 19th-century juridical texts as a particular kind of anthropological corpus. The reading of a part of that ...
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This chapter takes up the methodological challenge to consider a series of 18th- and 19th-century juridical texts as a particular kind of anthropological corpus. The reading of a part of that literature unveils a rich and complex reflection on causality, responsibility, and guilt. But what is most remarkable for an anthropologist is the way in which these categories were altered, to the extent of being inverted, when applied to the field of kinship defined by three instances: mourning, genealogy, and gender. The main sources are various editions of the code of the Qing dynasty, imperial edicts, and a huge collection of cases entitled Conspectus of Penal Cases (Xing'an huilan). Compiled by two officials of the Board of Punishments, this book belongs to a genre called ‘government books’ (zhengshu) including manuals for the magistrates, technical treatises on administration, and compilations of cases judged in all the provinces of the empire.Less
This chapter takes up the methodological challenge to consider a series of 18th- and 19th-century juridical texts as a particular kind of anthropological corpus. The reading of a part of that literature unveils a rich and complex reflection on causality, responsibility, and guilt. But what is most remarkable for an anthropologist is the way in which these categories were altered, to the extent of being inverted, when applied to the field of kinship defined by three instances: mourning, genealogy, and gender. The main sources are various editions of the code of the Qing dynasty, imperial edicts, and a huge collection of cases entitled Conspectus of Penal Cases (Xing'an huilan). Compiled by two officials of the Board of Punishments, this book belongs to a genre called ‘government books’ (zhengshu) including manuals for the magistrates, technical treatises on administration, and compilations of cases judged in all the provinces of the empire.
Christopher A. Ford
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813192635
- eISBN:
- 9780813135519
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813192635.003.0012
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the political legitimacy of China's imperial system would be challenged simultaneously by popular uprisings, collectively called the Boxer movement, against ...
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Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the political legitimacy of China's imperial system would be challenged simultaneously by popular uprisings, collectively called the Boxer movement, against encroachment by Western powers and the Qing dynasty's perceived loss of the Mandate of Heaven. Although the Boxer movement caught many legations in Peking off-guard, a multinational invasion force quickly drove the imperial court off into the hinterlands, leaving China with no other option but to surrender. The post-Boxer settlement heavily emphasized ostentatious symbols of China's guilt and contrition for wrongs done to the allies during the uprising. It wasn't a coincidence that the settlement's symbolic laden terms were imposed on an empire whose domestic political legitimacy depended on its unassailable adherence to Confucian notions of virtue and unquestioned superiority over all foreign peoples. From all the defeats and humiliation they suffered during this period, China did learn that familiarity with Western international law could protect them in their dealings with the Europeans on foreign affairs, national standing, and proper diplomatic methods. After the assaults on its traditional bases of politico-moral legitimacy and subjected to forced immersion in an international world dominated by Western-derived notions of coordinate, coequal identities, China began to develop a sense of nationalism. Realizing how weak and vulnerable China had become during this period, Western powers became open to the idea of revising some of the most notorious provisions of their unequal treaties with China. Nevertheless, foreign diplomatic relations did not always go China's way despite the Westerners' more conciliatory approach.Less
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the political legitimacy of China's imperial system would be challenged simultaneously by popular uprisings, collectively called the Boxer movement, against encroachment by Western powers and the Qing dynasty's perceived loss of the Mandate of Heaven. Although the Boxer movement caught many legations in Peking off-guard, a multinational invasion force quickly drove the imperial court off into the hinterlands, leaving China with no other option but to surrender. The post-Boxer settlement heavily emphasized ostentatious symbols of China's guilt and contrition for wrongs done to the allies during the uprising. It wasn't a coincidence that the settlement's symbolic laden terms were imposed on an empire whose domestic political legitimacy depended on its unassailable adherence to Confucian notions of virtue and unquestioned superiority over all foreign peoples. From all the defeats and humiliation they suffered during this period, China did learn that familiarity with Western international law could protect them in their dealings with the Europeans on foreign affairs, national standing, and proper diplomatic methods. After the assaults on its traditional bases of politico-moral legitimacy and subjected to forced immersion in an international world dominated by Western-derived notions of coordinate, coequal identities, China began to develop a sense of nationalism. Realizing how weak and vulnerable China had become during this period, Western powers became open to the idea of revising some of the most notorious provisions of their unequal treaties with China. Nevertheless, foreign diplomatic relations did not always go China's way despite the Westerners' more conciliatory approach.
Joseph P. McDermott
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622097810
- eISBN:
- 9789882206557
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622097810.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter shows the general validity and significance of Inoue Susumu's and Katsuyama Minoru's statistical claims, but only after stressing the considerable coincidence of the overlap of these ...
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This chapter shows the general validity and significance of Inoue Susumu's and Katsuyama Minoru's statistical claims, but only after stressing the considerable coincidence of the overlap of these figures with the actual general trends. The use of the number of woodblock imprint titles to indicate book output tends to underestimate the scale of production levels and the extent of readership for Chinese books. The evidence presented indicates that large private libraries were few up to the early sixteenth century; that they usually held between 10,000 and 20,000 juan and seldom more than 30,000 juan until the latter half of the sixteenth century; that normal scholar-official collections were considerably smaller; that even high officials in the capital of Hangzhou had trouble acquiring copies; that the situation improved then in Hangzhou but not noticeably in large, nearby cities like Ningbo; and, that a shortage of books was reported in all these places from the fourteenth up to the early sixteenth centuries. The chapter also emphasizes that the ascendance of the imprint in the sixteenth century did not end the influence or the use of manuscripts in late imperial China.Less
This chapter shows the general validity and significance of Inoue Susumu's and Katsuyama Minoru's statistical claims, but only after stressing the considerable coincidence of the overlap of these figures with the actual general trends. The use of the number of woodblock imprint titles to indicate book output tends to underestimate the scale of production levels and the extent of readership for Chinese books. The evidence presented indicates that large private libraries were few up to the early sixteenth century; that they usually held between 10,000 and 20,000 juan and seldom more than 30,000 juan until the latter half of the sixteenth century; that normal scholar-official collections were considerably smaller; that even high officials in the capital of Hangzhou had trouble acquiring copies; that the situation improved then in Hangzhou but not noticeably in large, nearby cities like Ningbo; and, that a shortage of books was reported in all these places from the fourteenth up to the early sixteenth centuries. The chapter also emphasizes that the ascendance of the imprint in the sixteenth century did not end the influence or the use of manuscripts in late imperial China.
Jonathan Karam Skaff
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199734139
- eISBN:
- 9780199950195
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199734139.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, World History: BCE to 500CE, Asian and Middle Eastern History: BCE to 500CE
This book challenges readers to reconsider China’s relations with the rest of Eurasia. Investigating interstate competition and cooperation between the successive Sui and Tang dynasties and Turkic ...
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This book challenges readers to reconsider China’s relations with the rest of Eurasia. Investigating interstate competition and cooperation between the successive Sui and Tang dynasties and Turkic states of Mongolia from 580 to 800, this book upends the notion that inhabitants of China and Mongolia were irreconcilably different and hostile to each other. Rulers on both sides deployed strikingly similar diplomacy, warfare, ideologies of rulership, and patrimonial political networking to seek hegemony over each other and the peoples living in the pastoral borderlands between them. The book particularly disputes the supposed uniqueness of imperial China’s tributary diplomacy by demonstrating that similar customary norms of interstate relations existed in a wide sphere in Eurasia as far west as Byzantium, India, and Iran. These previously unrecognized cultural connections, therefore, were arguably as much the work of Turko-Mongol pastoral nomads traversing the Eurasian steppe as the more commonly recognized Silk Road monks and merchants.Less
This book challenges readers to reconsider China’s relations with the rest of Eurasia. Investigating interstate competition and cooperation between the successive Sui and Tang dynasties and Turkic states of Mongolia from 580 to 800, this book upends the notion that inhabitants of China and Mongolia were irreconcilably different and hostile to each other. Rulers on both sides deployed strikingly similar diplomacy, warfare, ideologies of rulership, and patrimonial political networking to seek hegemony over each other and the peoples living in the pastoral borderlands between them. The book particularly disputes the supposed uniqueness of imperial China’s tributary diplomacy by demonstrating that similar customary norms of interstate relations existed in a wide sphere in Eurasia as far west as Byzantium, India, and Iran. These previously unrecognized cultural connections, therefore, were arguably as much the work of Turko-Mongol pastoral nomads traversing the Eurasian steppe as the more commonly recognized Silk Road monks and merchants.
Tiantian Zheng
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780816691999
- eISBN:
- 9781452952499
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816691999.003.0002
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
By elucidating the historic continuities of diverse, malleable, ambiguous, and fluid sexual imaginations in China, chapter 1 critiques the postsocialist construction of heteronormativity and the ...
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By elucidating the historic continuities of diverse, malleable, ambiguous, and fluid sexual imaginations in China, chapter 1 critiques the postsocialist construction of heteronormativity and the portrayal of homosexuality as a representation of a decadent lifestyle imported from the West. It argues that recasting the past and linking the past to the present can enrich our understanding of the present and challenge the current discourse. During the ancient and imperial periods in China, same-sex desires were deemed normal and were enjoyed by many emperors and upper-class scholars and bureaucrats. There was never a fixed or reified sexual identity linked to a certain sexual preference. Sexual fantasies during these many centuries in China were fluid, diverse, and in constant flux. At the turn of the twentieth century, the onslaught of Western medical knowledge changed this cultural tradition and indoctrinated in society heteronormativity and a pathologized and vilified vision of homosexuality. This inaugurated the repression of same-sex-attracted people during the Communist era. The normalizing of heterosexuality and disavowing of China’s past continued in the postsocialist era.Less
By elucidating the historic continuities of diverse, malleable, ambiguous, and fluid sexual imaginations in China, chapter 1 critiques the postsocialist construction of heteronormativity and the portrayal of homosexuality as a representation of a decadent lifestyle imported from the West. It argues that recasting the past and linking the past to the present can enrich our understanding of the present and challenge the current discourse. During the ancient and imperial periods in China, same-sex desires were deemed normal and were enjoyed by many emperors and upper-class scholars and bureaucrats. There was never a fixed or reified sexual identity linked to a certain sexual preference. Sexual fantasies during these many centuries in China were fluid, diverse, and in constant flux. At the turn of the twentieth century, the onslaught of Western medical knowledge changed this cultural tradition and indoctrinated in society heteronormativity and a pathologized and vilified vision of homosexuality. This inaugurated the repression of same-sex-attracted people during the Communist era. The normalizing of heterosexuality and disavowing of China’s past continued in the postsocialist era.
Wen-hsin Yeh
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520249714
- eISBN:
- 9780520933422
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520249714.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
In hindsight, it seems obvious that a salient feature of China's twentieth-century concerns was the rise of economism and the challenge it presented to morality. Under Chinese Communism, economic ...
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In hindsight, it seems obvious that a salient feature of China's twentieth-century concerns was the rise of economism and the challenge it presented to morality. Under Chinese Communism, economic issues not only defined the Party line and dominated the state agenda, but also functioned as the most important set of constitutive factors in the determination of individual social identity. This chapter examines the maritime merchants who appeared along the China coast in the decades after the Opium War (1839–42). These merchants, many of them comprador agents for foreign firms in Shanghai, evolved from the culturally compromised to the officially honored by the late nineteenth century. Late imperial China had developed one of the world's most sophisticated mercantile economies, in which commercial wealth and official honor coexisted.Less
In hindsight, it seems obvious that a salient feature of China's twentieth-century concerns was the rise of economism and the challenge it presented to morality. Under Chinese Communism, economic issues not only defined the Party line and dominated the state agenda, but also functioned as the most important set of constitutive factors in the determination of individual social identity. This chapter examines the maritime merchants who appeared along the China coast in the decades after the Opium War (1839–42). These merchants, many of them comprador agents for foreign firms in Shanghai, evolved from the culturally compromised to the officially honored by the late nineteenth century. Late imperial China had developed one of the world's most sophisticated mercantile economies, in which commercial wealth and official honor coexisted.
Isaac Yue and Siufu Tang (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9789888139972
- eISBN:
- 9789888180967
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888139972.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
The culture of food and drink occupies a central role in the development of Chinese civilization, and the language of gastronomy has been a vital theme in a range of literary productions. From ...
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The culture of food and drink occupies a central role in the development of Chinese civilization, and the language of gastronomy has been a vital theme in a range of literary productions. From stanzas on food and wine in the Classics of Poetry to the articulation of refined dining in The Dream of the Red Chamber and Su Shi's literary recipe for attaining culinary perfection, lavish textual representations help explain the unique appeal of food and its overwhelming cultural significance within Chinese society. These eight essays offer a colorful tour of Chinese gourmands whose work exemplifies the interrelationships of social and literary history surrounding food, with careful explication of such topics as the importance of tea in poetry, “the morality of drunkenness,” and food's role in objectifying women.Less
The culture of food and drink occupies a central role in the development of Chinese civilization, and the language of gastronomy has been a vital theme in a range of literary productions. From stanzas on food and wine in the Classics of Poetry to the articulation of refined dining in The Dream of the Red Chamber and Su Shi's literary recipe for attaining culinary perfection, lavish textual representations help explain the unique appeal of food and its overwhelming cultural significance within Chinese society. These eight essays offer a colorful tour of Chinese gourmands whose work exemplifies the interrelationships of social and literary history surrounding food, with careful explication of such topics as the importance of tea in poetry, “the morality of drunkenness,” and food's role in objectifying women.
Grant Hayter-Menzies
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789888083008
- eISBN:
- 9789882207554
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888083008.003.0061
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
While she had not protested Guangxu's reforms until discovering that they came at the price of sweeping her out, Cixi's response was that of a woman fighting for her life on the one hand and fighting ...
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While she had not protested Guangxu's reforms until discovering that they came at the price of sweeping her out, Cixi's response was that of a woman fighting for her life on the one hand and fighting for imperial China's life on the other. Though she had quashed the Guangxu emperor's reforms when she executed his associates who desired her removal, she had not been able to stop the juggernaut of change. The aftermath of the Hundred Days of Reform flew not in the face of the emperor, hidden away in disillusionment and depression, but in her own. This chapter describes her response to this storm and her actions over the next eighteen months.Less
While she had not protested Guangxu's reforms until discovering that they came at the price of sweeping her out, Cixi's response was that of a woman fighting for her life on the one hand and fighting for imperial China's life on the other. Though she had quashed the Guangxu emperor's reforms when she executed his associates who desired her removal, she had not been able to stop the juggernaut of change. The aftermath of the Hundred Days of Reform flew not in the face of the emperor, hidden away in disillusionment and depression, but in her own. This chapter describes her response to this storm and her actions over the next eighteen months.
Catherine Jami
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199601400
- eISBN:
- 9780191729218
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199601400.003.0002
- Subject:
- Mathematics, History of Mathematics
This chapter outlines the beginnings of Western learning in China during the years 1582 to 1644, the last six decades of the Ming dynasty; it discusses the Jesuits' teaching of mathematics in China ...
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This chapter outlines the beginnings of Western learning in China during the years 1582 to 1644, the last six decades of the Ming dynasty; it discusses the Jesuits' teaching of mathematics in China during that period, and the translations that resulted from their work. The most famous of these is the Jihe yuanben (1607), a rendering into Chinese of the first six books of Euclid's Elements of geometry. One of the reasons for the success of the Jesuits' teaching was the perceived relevance of their mathematical knowledge to statecraft. In 1629, some of them were employed to work on calendar reform, the need for which had been felt for almost half a century.Less
This chapter outlines the beginnings of Western learning in China during the years 1582 to 1644, the last six decades of the Ming dynasty; it discusses the Jesuits' teaching of mathematics in China during that period, and the translations that resulted from their work. The most famous of these is the Jihe yuanben (1607), a rendering into Chinese of the first six books of Euclid's Elements of geometry. One of the reasons for the success of the Jesuits' teaching was the perceived relevance of their mathematical knowledge to statecraft. In 1629, some of them were employed to work on calendar reform, the need for which had been felt for almost half a century.
Michael Szonyi
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780691197241
- eISBN:
- 9781400888887
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691197241.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter explores the soldiers' marriage practices, the temples at which they worshipped, and the Confucian schools at which some of them studied to show how soldiers and their families became ...
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This chapter explores the soldiers' marriage practices, the temples at which they worshipped, and the Confucian schools at which some of them studied to show how soldiers and their families became integrated into the societies where they were garrisoned. When sons and daughters of the guard married, both to fellow military households and to other local families, they created new social networks that territorialized military household families in the locale. The chapter also talks about military households and their building of schools and temples for the community. Just as in other towns and villages in late imperial China, temples often served as the main venue for local management, the site where conflicts and tensions were worked out. In general, official military cults tended to be gradually displaced by popular gods, both those that soldiers brought with them from their own native places and those that were already worshipped in the area.Less
This chapter explores the soldiers' marriage practices, the temples at which they worshipped, and the Confucian schools at which some of them studied to show how soldiers and their families became integrated into the societies where they were garrisoned. When sons and daughters of the guard married, both to fellow military households and to other local families, they created new social networks that territorialized military household families in the locale. The chapter also talks about military households and their building of schools and temples for the community. Just as in other towns and villages in late imperial China, temples often served as the main venue for local management, the site where conflicts and tensions were worked out. In general, official military cults tended to be gradually displaced by popular gods, both those that soldiers brought with them from their own native places and those that were already worshipped in the area.
BONNIE S. McDOUGALL
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199256792
- eISBN:
- 9780191698378
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199256792.003.0008
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, South and East Asia
This chapter provides a brief sketch of letter writing in China and Western countries, with particular attention to published letters, love-letters, and letters in literature. It was this background ...
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This chapter provides a brief sketch of letter writing in China and Western countries, with particular attention to published letters, love-letters, and letters in literature. It was this background from which Lu Xun and Xu Guangping drew for their own practice. The discussion summarizes the major characteristics of letters in pre-modern China, as well as the features associated with Western letter writing which differ from older Chinese letters. When Chinese writers and readers looked westwards in the early twentieth century, they quickly assimilated almost all of these features. Of particular relevance to the letters written and then published by Xu Guangping and Lu Xun are the porous borders between personal and open letters, between love-letters and other kinds of intimate confessions, and between authentic and imagined letters.Less
This chapter provides a brief sketch of letter writing in China and Western countries, with particular attention to published letters, love-letters, and letters in literature. It was this background from which Lu Xun and Xu Guangping drew for their own practice. The discussion summarizes the major characteristics of letters in pre-modern China, as well as the features associated with Western letter writing which differ from older Chinese letters. When Chinese writers and readers looked westwards in the early twentieth century, they quickly assimilated almost all of these features. Of particular relevance to the letters written and then published by Xu Guangping and Lu Xun are the porous borders between personal and open letters, between love-letters and other kinds of intimate confessions, and between authentic and imagined letters.
Karla W. Simon
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199765898
- eISBN:
- 9780199332540
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199765898.003.0003
- Subject:
- Law, Legal History
This chapter begins by exploring the roots and origins of charity in the various philosophies and religions in China. The discussion examines such practices up through the mid-dynastic era, before ...
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This chapter begins by exploring the roots and origins of charity in the various philosophies and religions in China. The discussion examines such practices up through the mid-dynastic era, before Western Christianity entered China. It then discusses the manifestations of well-motivated acts of charity in individual cases, as well as the charitable practices of associations. Within the scope of organized charity, the internal self-regulatory rules created to govern charitable associations and to ensure that beneficiaries received funds set aside for their benefit are also examined. The chapter shows that both charitable and general associational activities were extremely important for the development of China in the early imperial era.Less
This chapter begins by exploring the roots and origins of charity in the various philosophies and religions in China. The discussion examines such practices up through the mid-dynastic era, before Western Christianity entered China. It then discusses the manifestations of well-motivated acts of charity in individual cases, as well as the charitable practices of associations. Within the scope of organized charity, the internal self-regulatory rules created to govern charitable associations and to ensure that beneficiaries received funds set aside for their benefit are also examined. The chapter shows that both charitable and general associational activities were extremely important for the development of China in the early imperial era.
Helena Y.W. Wu
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781789621952
- eISBN:
- 9781800341661
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789621952.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
By taking the Song Emperor’s Terrace as the main object of analysis, Chapter 4 takes a step into history. The Terrace was once a popular cultural icon, for that it was valorized as a rock that stood ...
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By taking the Song Emperor’s Terrace as the main object of analysis, Chapter 4 takes a step into history. The Terrace was once a popular cultural icon, for that it was valorized as a rock that stood witness to the royal visit paid to Hong Kong by the last two Song emperors at the end of the Song Dynasty in the thirteenth century—because of this event, the terrace became an oft-cited chanting object among the émigré-literati who fled China to Hong Kong during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. To vent frustration at the loss of their home(land), nostalgia for ancient (Imperial) China and adherence to virtues such as loyalty and filial piety, the Terrace became a place of gathering for these literati in everyday life and an object that frequently appeared in their creative works, ranging from verses, calligraphy to paintings. With an eye to the special bond between the émigré-literati and the rock and David Der-wei Wang’s notion of “post-loyalism”, this chapter challenges the presumed collectivity of this literati community by unfolding their varying political aspirations, worldviews and connections to “Hong Kong” through the relationships they constructed with the rock.Less
By taking the Song Emperor’s Terrace as the main object of analysis, Chapter 4 takes a step into history. The Terrace was once a popular cultural icon, for that it was valorized as a rock that stood witness to the royal visit paid to Hong Kong by the last two Song emperors at the end of the Song Dynasty in the thirteenth century—because of this event, the terrace became an oft-cited chanting object among the émigré-literati who fled China to Hong Kong during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. To vent frustration at the loss of their home(land), nostalgia for ancient (Imperial) China and adherence to virtues such as loyalty and filial piety, the Terrace became a place of gathering for these literati in everyday life and an object that frequently appeared in their creative works, ranging from verses, calligraphy to paintings. With an eye to the special bond between the émigré-literati and the rock and David Der-wei Wang’s notion of “post-loyalism”, this chapter challenges the presumed collectivity of this literati community by unfolding their varying political aspirations, worldviews and connections to “Hong Kong” through the relationships they constructed with the rock.
Michael Szonyi
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780691197241
- eISBN:
- 9781400888887
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691197241.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter reviews some of the ways Ming families dealt with their obligations to provide labor service to the state. It provides broader ways of thinking about the art of being governed in late ...
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This chapter reviews some of the ways Ming families dealt with their obligations to provide labor service to the state. It provides broader ways of thinking about the art of being governed in late imperial China and beyond. The families faced some distinctive challenges because they were registered as military households, but the fact of their having to deal with state institutions did not make them distinctive. For these families, as for most of the people who in the past several centuries have lived in what is today China, the critical political decision was not whether to engage with the state but how best to do so. This chapter also illustrates four cycles of human interaction with a changing institution. Within each cycle, people deployed their ingenuity and elements from their repertoire of cultural resources to better manage individual, family, and communal interaction with the institution. The institutional chronology reveals how the evolution of the institution generated different sorts of challenges for different groups of people, and how they responded strategically.Less
This chapter reviews some of the ways Ming families dealt with their obligations to provide labor service to the state. It provides broader ways of thinking about the art of being governed in late imperial China and beyond. The families faced some distinctive challenges because they were registered as military households, but the fact of their having to deal with state institutions did not make them distinctive. For these families, as for most of the people who in the past several centuries have lived in what is today China, the critical political decision was not whether to engage with the state but how best to do so. This chapter also illustrates four cycles of human interaction with a changing institution. Within each cycle, people deployed their ingenuity and elements from their repertoire of cultural resources to better manage individual, family, and communal interaction with the institution. The institutional chronology reveals how the evolution of the institution generated different sorts of challenges for different groups of people, and how they responded strategically.
Chu Ming-kin
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9789888528196
- eISBN:
- 9789882205543
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888528196.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Political History
This book addresses the politics of higher education in Imperial China during the Northern Song period (960-1127). How did different political agents -- namely emperors, scholar-officials, teachers ...
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This book addresses the politics of higher education in Imperial China during the Northern Song period (960-1127). How did different political agents -- namely emperors, scholar-officials, teachers and students -- interact in shaping the Imperial University and compete over different agendas? Earlier studies often conceived the Imperial University as a static institution and framed questions within the context of institutional and social history. Building on recent insights/developments in new political history, this book is distinctive for its emphasis on the fluid political processes shaping institutional changes and the interaction of the people involved. Based on a close reading of the surviving records of court archives, chronological accounts and biographical materials of individual agents, the author shows the agendas behind the structures and regulations of the Imperial University and the ways in which they actually functioned, among them the assertion of autocratic rule, the elimination of political opposition, and the imposition of strict morality. Competitions and negotiations over these agenda, the author proposes, lead to changes in educational policies, which did not occur in a linear or progressive fashion, but rather back-and-forth due to ongoing resistance.Less
This book addresses the politics of higher education in Imperial China during the Northern Song period (960-1127). How did different political agents -- namely emperors, scholar-officials, teachers and students -- interact in shaping the Imperial University and compete over different agendas? Earlier studies often conceived the Imperial University as a static institution and framed questions within the context of institutional and social history. Building on recent insights/developments in new political history, this book is distinctive for its emphasis on the fluid political processes shaping institutional changes and the interaction of the people involved. Based on a close reading of the surviving records of court archives, chronological accounts and biographical materials of individual agents, the author shows the agendas behind the structures and regulations of the Imperial University and the ways in which they actually functioned, among them the assertion of autocratic rule, the elimination of political opposition, and the imposition of strict morality. Competitions and negotiations over these agenda, the author proposes, lead to changes in educational policies, which did not occur in a linear or progressive fashion, but rather back-and-forth due to ongoing resistance.
Peter van der Veer
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231170802
- eISBN:
- 9780231541015
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231170802.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
This essay discusses Confucianism in China in the Axial Age, Jesuit visitors, the late Qing, and its revival in the post-Mao PRC in the light of the question of the distinctiveness of Chinese ...
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This essay discusses Confucianism in China in the Axial Age, Jesuit visitors, the late Qing, and its revival in the post-Mao PRC in the light of the question of the distinctiveness of Chinese civilization.Less
This essay discusses Confucianism in China in the Axial Age, Jesuit visitors, the late Qing, and its revival in the post-Mao PRC in the light of the question of the distinctiveness of Chinese civilization.
Andrew B. Liu
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780300243734
- eISBN:
- 9780300252330
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300243734.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This introductory chapter provides a background of Chinese and Indian tea. It was in early imperial China where tea was first ritually imbibed as a medicinal and religious drink, and it was ...
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This introductory chapter provides a background of Chinese and Indian tea. It was in early imperial China where tea was first ritually imbibed as a medicinal and religious drink, and it was eighteenth-century Chinese merchants who helped popularize it as a global commodity, enabling it to become the most consumed commercial beverage in the world today. And yet, over the course of the next century, the Indian tea industry—operated by British colonial planters and based in the northeast territory of Assam—suddenly overtook China as the world's top exporter. British and, later, Japanese propagandists seized upon this inversion in the global division of labor. Propagandists dismissed Tang- and Song-era (618–1279) records of tea in China as unreliable, asserting instead that the true “birthplace of tea” must have been in India or Japan. This book presents the histories of Chinese and colonial Indian tea as a dynamic, unified story of global interaction, one mediated by modern capitalist competition. Their implications challenge many of the conventional assumptions about capitalism in China and India—or its absence thereof—and in so doing, they provocatively contribute to a more global conception of capitalism's history as a whole.Less
This introductory chapter provides a background of Chinese and Indian tea. It was in early imperial China where tea was first ritually imbibed as a medicinal and religious drink, and it was eighteenth-century Chinese merchants who helped popularize it as a global commodity, enabling it to become the most consumed commercial beverage in the world today. And yet, over the course of the next century, the Indian tea industry—operated by British colonial planters and based in the northeast territory of Assam—suddenly overtook China as the world's top exporter. British and, later, Japanese propagandists seized upon this inversion in the global division of labor. Propagandists dismissed Tang- and Song-era (618–1279) records of tea in China as unreliable, asserting instead that the true “birthplace of tea” must have been in India or Japan. This book presents the histories of Chinese and colonial Indian tea as a dynamic, unified story of global interaction, one mediated by modern capitalist competition. Their implications challenge many of the conventional assumptions about capitalism in China and India—or its absence thereof—and in so doing, they provocatively contribute to a more global conception of capitalism's history as a whole.
Andrew B. Liu
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780300243734
- eISBN:
- 9780300252330
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300243734.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter traces the history of tea cultivation and consumption in imperial China, its popularity in Euro-American markets, and experimental colonial projects to transplant cultivation to eastern ...
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This chapter traces the history of tea cultivation and consumption in imperial China, its popularity in Euro-American markets, and experimental colonial projects to transplant cultivation to eastern India. For these regions in East and South Asia, participation in the global tea trade entailed a transformation from an early modern luxury trade to a decisively modern competition between capitalist industries. This competition between Chinese and Indian tea simply marked the next chapter in an ongoing story of expansive world trade featuring the exchange of tea, opium, sugar, cotton, and silver. As commodities, their exchange also connected countless systems for employing, organizing, and disciplining producers. In the “tea countries” of Huizhou, the Wuyi Mountains, and Assam, it was during the nineteenth century when falling prices and productivity pressures asserted themselves upon local populations.Less
This chapter traces the history of tea cultivation and consumption in imperial China, its popularity in Euro-American markets, and experimental colonial projects to transplant cultivation to eastern India. For these regions in East and South Asia, participation in the global tea trade entailed a transformation from an early modern luxury trade to a decisively modern competition between capitalist industries. This competition between Chinese and Indian tea simply marked the next chapter in an ongoing story of expansive world trade featuring the exchange of tea, opium, sugar, cotton, and silver. As commodities, their exchange also connected countless systems for employing, organizing, and disciplining producers. In the “tea countries” of Huizhou, the Wuyi Mountains, and Assam, it was during the nineteenth century when falling prices and productivity pressures asserted themselves upon local populations.
Emily Baum
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226580616
- eISBN:
- 9780226580753
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226580753.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter discusses how madness was understood and treated in late imperial China. Arguing that madness was considered a simultaneously biological, social, supernatural, and moral issue, it shows ...
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This chapter discusses how madness was understood and treated in late imperial China. Arguing that madness was considered a simultaneously biological, social, supernatural, and moral issue, it shows how the insane were cared for by a range of healers, including literati physicians, herbalists, shamans, and faith healers. The chapter begins with a discussion of Qing dynasty legal codes, which mandated that the insane be confined within the home. The remainder of the chapter explores different modes of understanding, explaining, and treating the mad condition during the late imperial period. Practitioners of Chinese medicine traced madness to biological, environmental, gendered, and emotional causes. Supernatural healers posited a relationship between madness, demonic possession, and the displeasure of deceased ancestors or gods. Finally, many families attributed the onset of madness to social causes, such as financial insecurity, heartbreak, or the pressure of preparing for the civil service examinations.Less
This chapter discusses how madness was understood and treated in late imperial China. Arguing that madness was considered a simultaneously biological, social, supernatural, and moral issue, it shows how the insane were cared for by a range of healers, including literati physicians, herbalists, shamans, and faith healers. The chapter begins with a discussion of Qing dynasty legal codes, which mandated that the insane be confined within the home. The remainder of the chapter explores different modes of understanding, explaining, and treating the mad condition during the late imperial period. Practitioners of Chinese medicine traced madness to biological, environmental, gendered, and emotional causes. Supernatural healers posited a relationship between madness, demonic possession, and the displeasure of deceased ancestors or gods. Finally, many families attributed the onset of madness to social causes, such as financial insecurity, heartbreak, or the pressure of preparing for the civil service examinations.
Wilt L. Idema
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- January 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781501758362
- eISBN:
- 9781501758386
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501758362.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, World Religions
This book shows how problematic the practice of Buddhist piety could be in late imperial China. Two thematically related “precious scrolls” (baojuan) from the Ming dynasty, The Precious Scroll of the ...
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This book shows how problematic the practice of Buddhist piety could be in late imperial China. Two thematically related “precious scrolls” (baojuan) from the Ming dynasty, The Precious Scroll of the Red Gauze and The Precious Scroll of the Handkerchief, illustrate the difficulties faced by women whose religious devotion conflicted with the demands of marriage and motherhood. These two previously untranslated texts tell the stories of married women whose piety causes them to be separated from their husbands and children. While these women labor far away, their children are cruelly abused by murderous stepmothers. Following many adventures, the families are reunited by divine intervention and the evil stepmothers get their just deserts. While the texts in The Pitfalls of Piety for Married Women praise Buddhist piety, they also reveal many problems concerning married women and mothers. The text translations are preceded by an introduction that places these scrolls in the context of Ming dynasty performative literature, vernacular literature, and popular religion. Set in a milieu of rich merchants, the texts provide a unique window to family life of the time, enriching our understanding of gender during the Ming dynasty. These popular baojuan offer rare insights into lay religion and family dynamics of the Ming dynasty, and their original theme and form enrich our understanding of the various methods of storytelling that were practiced at the time.Less
This book shows how problematic the practice of Buddhist piety could be in late imperial China. Two thematically related “precious scrolls” (baojuan) from the Ming dynasty, The Precious Scroll of the Red Gauze and The Precious Scroll of the Handkerchief, illustrate the difficulties faced by women whose religious devotion conflicted with the demands of marriage and motherhood. These two previously untranslated texts tell the stories of married women whose piety causes them to be separated from their husbands and children. While these women labor far away, their children are cruelly abused by murderous stepmothers. Following many adventures, the families are reunited by divine intervention and the evil stepmothers get their just deserts. While the texts in The Pitfalls of Piety for Married Women praise Buddhist piety, they also reveal many problems concerning married women and mothers. The text translations are preceded by an introduction that places these scrolls in the context of Ming dynasty performative literature, vernacular literature, and popular religion. Set in a milieu of rich merchants, the texts provide a unique window to family life of the time, enriching our understanding of gender during the Ming dynasty. These popular baojuan offer rare insights into lay religion and family dynamics of the Ming dynasty, and their original theme and form enrich our understanding of the various methods of storytelling that were practiced at the time.