Jun Lei. Mastery of Words and Swords: Negotiating Intellectual Masculinities in Modern China, s-s. Series Transnational Asian Masculinities. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, . x, pp. Hardcover HK$., ISBN ----. Jun Lei’s Mastery of Words and Swords draws on a range of literary and visual sources to analyze the complex construction of masculine identities by China’s intellectual and cultural elites during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Her study is divided into two parts, the first of which contains a pair of chapters that establish disciplinary and theoretical frameworks for the four chapter-long case studies in the second. Chapter , “Performing Chinese Masculinities on the World Stage: An Introduction,” acknowledges Kam Louie’s pioneering role in extending the study of gender in Chinese literature and culture from its original focus on women to include the consideration of masculinities as well, and draws on Louie’s influential model of traditional Chinese masculinity as constructed through the negotiation of the categories of wen (civil, literary) and wu (military, martial). The premodern prioritization of wen qualities in the masculine ideal—both for the educated elite and for most of the society whose apex they occupied—was challenged during China’s encounters with global modernity in the form of Western imperialism. Racialized colonial discourse characterized scholarly models of masculinity as effeminate and associated them with the allegedly congenital weakness of the “sick man of Asia.” Internalization of this discourse by Chinese intellectuals led to a crisis in masculinity and calls for a more militant manhood. By opening her review of this familiar story with Lu Xun’s critique of female impersonator Mei Lanfang, Lei skillfully highlights the imbrication of what she sees as some of its most significant elements: the performativity of masculinity, the concern for the gaze of a global audience, and the national stakes in gender identity. She proposes that her own contributions will be threefold. Empirically, she will offer the first systematic study Chinese masculinities during the crucial transitional periods of the late Qing and the early Republic. Methodologically, she will venture beyond canonical literary texts to examine a wider archive of literary, print, and visual culture. And theoretically, she will develop a new set of models and categories that will facilitate a response to a key question: “Can we locate agency, or any form of Reviews© by University of Hawai‘i Press counter-orientalist discourse in reconstructing Chinese masculinities in spite of the power imbalance in the semicolonial settings?” (p. ). The second introductory chapter, “Violence and Its Antidotes: Theorizing Modern Chinese Masculinities,” casts a wide net in gathering the materials from which Lei will construct her own theoretical apparatus. Lei duly notes the need to attend both to cultural difference and to cross-cultural commonalities in “drawing on strands of scholarship within and outside of China studies, more specifically, poststructuralist theories of gender and masculinities, scholarship on cosmopolitanism, and relevant postcolonial theories of uneven transcultural exchange between the East and the West” (p. ). Balancing Judith Butler’s ideas about subjugated performativity against Erving Goffman’s more agentdriven notion of performance, she argues that the masculinities of this period were characterized by a heightened degree of performativity and staged with reference to both the “elsewhen” of the Chinese past and the “elsewhere” of the West and Japan. She then outlines two strands that will inform the remainder of the study. The first is the “brutalization of scholars,” that is, the alignment of a new scholarly identity with hypermasculine traits, including violence, both physical and discursive. This “brutalization” both emulates and serves as a form of resistance to the hegemonic militaristic masculinity of nineteenth-century Western colonialism. The second is a complementary occupation or appropriation of what she calls “feminine space,” a discursive terrain accommodating qualities, emotions, and desires disallowed by the dominant constructions of masculinity. While this “feminine space” might seem to echo or recuperate some of the qualities of premodern wen masculinity, it differs from its predecessor in being shaped by the demands and limitations of the brutalized scholar-warrior model. In chapter , “The Sick, the Weak, and the Perilous: Colonial Stereotypes and Martialized Intellectual Masculinity in Late Qing...
Brook Ziporyn. Zhuangzi: The Complete Writings. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, . xxxvii, pp. Hardcover $.. Paperback $., ISBN ----. The Zhuangzi has done well by English-language translators. For example, every two decades, another Sinologist has given it a new life. In the sixties, Burton Watson took our understanding to new heights. In , A. C. Graham produced an (incomplete) effort marked by rigorous fidelity, philological precision, and philosophical sophistication. In the Oughts, Victor Mair (complete) and Brook Ziporyn (partial) added their productions. Now, Ziporyn has essayed a complete (and much revised) version, which deserves praise and close attention. Watson’s streamlined modernist prose, one-part Waley, one-part Hemingwayesque vernacular, offered the optimal vehicle for conveying the Zhuangzi. Thus, Watson found a powerful resonance between the Zhuangzi and the inclinations of postwar Beat- and Zen-influenced freedom-seeking American culture. Graham’s version, while not usually so smoothly elegant, remains unrivaled for honest and high-resolution insight into the Chinese original. So, what’s left for Ziporyn to contribute? First, Ziporyn’s philosophical acumen, while not quite a match for Graham’s incisive authority, still runs a strong second. Readers can confirm this simply by reading Ziporyn’s introductory “Zhuangzi as Philosopher” (Ziporyn ix, xxi–xxviii). Sometimes, Ziporyn can convey his insights with superb English equivalents. In Zhuangzi ii’s difficult 滑 滑疑 疑之 之耀 耀,聖人之所圖 圖也 : : : 此之謂以 以明 明, Ziporyn comes up with “the Radiance of Drift and Doubt is the sage’s only map.” This nearly rivals Watson : “The torch of chaos and doubt—this is what the sage steers by.” Moreover, Ziporyn neatly conveys the Zhuangzian suggestion that in our darkened world, with our “way” obscured by all sorts of fixations and words (compare 道 道隱 隱於 於小 小 成 成,言 言隱 隱於 於榮 榮華 華), we find our way only by the dimmest and most doubtful of illumination. As the Zhuangzi went on to say, only this gives us a way to “shed light” 以 以明 明. Elsewhere, Ziporyn capitalizes on the spirit of his age to outdo his predecessors. At Zhuangzi i 神人, Ziporyn ’s “spiritlike persons” adds a little woke sensibility to smooth the rendition; note that the original Chn specified neither number or gender. Ziporyn far outdoes the clumsy Watson “Holy Man” (holy cow), Mair “spirit man,” and Graham “daemonic man.” Ziporyn also pays Reviews© by University of Hawai‘i Press close attention to people’s names, often rendering them with brio and invention. Consider his (Zhuangzi xxxii, Ziporyn ) 緩 緩 Slowpoke, or the inspired punning 梱 梱 Jamb (Zhuangzi xxv, Ziporyn )! Elsewhere, when faced with a mindboggling enumeration of obscure old demons (Zhuangzi xix, Ziporyn ), he comes up with “Tufties,” “Antfrogs,” and so on. Ziporyn also makes frequent and sometimes adroit use of the “double translation” technique (see “Introduction,” xxxiv–xxxv). A characteristic example exploits a famously polysemous Chinese graph (Zhuangzi xiii, Ziporyn ): 與人和者,謂之人樂 樂: Harmonizing with humanity produces the music, the joy, of humanity. Here, arguably 樂 樂 at least implies both senses; compare the older English “glee.” Though one might balk at recommending equivocation as solution for translation headaches, what text better rewards pluralist approaches than the Zhuangzi, which so prominently recommends “walk both ways at once” 兩行? An awful asymmetry attends translation reviews. You can only say “this works” a few times before readers begin to nod. But “this doesn’t”—for whatever the variety of potential reasons—needs fuller accounting, both to warn readers and to inform authorial revision. After all, translations have a long commercial life. So, we shall illustrate problems at length, though they occupy a small percentage of Ziporyn’s text. Above all, readers want to beware translations that, while plausible in English, import questionable assumptions into old Chinese texts. Case in point: 若 若夫 夫藏 藏天 天下 下於 於天 天下 下而 而不 不得 得所 所遯 遯,是 是恆 恆物 物之 之大 大情 情也 也. Ziporyn tries “hide the world in the world, so that there is nowhere for it to escape to, then it has the vast realness of a thing eternal.” (Zhuangzi vi, Ziporyn ) The Chinese text did not wax metaphysical about “reality,” nor less did it invoke “eternality.” You would better keep to a more modest and faithful understanding of the last phrase, such as “the grand inclinations that keep things on a relatively constant keel.” Of course, none of the major contenders escaped this passage unscathed. We mentioned “shedding light” above; we must add that Ziporyn – “Illumination of the Obvious” neither conveys the original force nor...
Jonathan Pease. His Stubbornship: Prime Minister Wang Anshi (– ), Reformer and Poet. Sinica Leidensia, vol. . Leiden, Boston: Brill, . xxx, pp. Hardcover $., ISBN ----. In , Deng Guangming 鄧廣銘, one of the most prominent scholars on Wang Anshi in the twentieth century, advised Jonathan Pease to seek a “living Wang Anshi.” This advice set in motion a project that has now materialized in a hefty -page tome. Drawing on Wang’s poetry, prose, and diary, as well as a wide array of other primary and secondary sources, Pease’s book aims to achieve three overarching goals: (i) “to explore Wang’s point of view,” (ii) “to reconstruct a rudimentary autobiography for him,” and (iii) “to illuminate his ten years of reflection at the Banshan house beneath Bell Mountain” (p. xii). All three goals are admirably accomplished. Arranged in chronological order, the eighteen chapters of the book are evenly divided in three parts. Each part has a one-word title: Service, Reform, Retirement. Part I covers Wang’s life up to , when he served in various posts both in the provinces and in the capital. Part II chronicles Wang’s career from to , when he implemented a wide range of reforms while at the peak of his political power. Wang’s retirement from to is presented in part III. There is no need to summarize each chapter here, as such a summary would be useless for readers who are familiar with the basic contours of Wang’s life and meaningless for those who are not. Suffice it to say that the book is a gripping read. Its information-packed narration is frequently enlivened by a literary flare laced with incisive humor and vivacious imagination. The liveliness of Pease’s book derives in no small part from his imaginative speculations. A prime example is his treatment of the famous “Record of an Excursion into Baochan Mountain” 遊褒禪山記. Wang’s piece describes a failed exploration into a mountain cave he took with four companions. The group came out before reaching the bottom of the cave because one of them got tired and urged everyone to leave on the pretext that their torches would burn out. The account has been appreciated for the lesson it offers on the importance of getting to the bottom of things for attaining true knowledge. Pease, however, spends four full pages (pp. –) speculating on the identity of the person responsible for aborting the trek. While entertaining multiple possibilities, he zeroes in on Wang Hui 王回 (–) as the most likely culprit. Reviews© by University of Hawai‘i Press His evidence is in the name. Hui 回 literally means “turn around” or “go back.” Wang Hui’s courtesy name, Shenfu 深甫, contains the word “deep” (shen 深), which appears five times in the text. Pease also sees hui 回 as a possible semihomonym for hui 悔 (regret), which appears three times in the piece. He even brings to bear the name of Wang Hui’s brother, Wang Xiang 向 (with xiang meaning “toward”). The given names of the brothers form huixiang 回向— literally “re-direction”—a Buddhist term that means transferring one’s merits to others. Pease is very frank that his work as a history detective is based on “tenuous” evidence, that the hui/return/regret hypothesis is “unprovable,” and that “it would be excessive to claim that Wang Anshi built the piece around a pun” (p. ). Nonetheless, he should be commended for offering a hypothesis that may open up new perspectives on a most frequently anthologized piece. When read as a “private joke,” Wang’s account assumes an additional layer of meaning. We get a tantalizing hint of his “sense of humor” (p. ). Humor is a quality that has rarely been associated with Wang, whether in his personal life or in his writings. Speculations spice up Pease’s narration. Sometimes, however, they are based on evidence that seems flimsy at best, as when he imaginatively traces the genesis of Sijia shixuan 四家詩選 (Selected Poems of Four Masters) to Wang’s interaction with Chen Yi 陳繹 (–) during his second stint in Kaifeng (–): “Sometimes the talking and laughing under that wagon-cover [used for the roof of a gazebo in Chen Yi’s garden] turned to poetry. From his library, Chen Yi lent...
Dongfeng Xu. Friendship and Hospitality: The Jesuit-Confucian Encounter in Late Ming China. Albany: State University of New York Press, . Xi, . Paperback $., ISBN . Friendship and Hospitality: The Jesuit-Confucian Encounter in Late Ming China, authored by Dongfeng Xu, focuses upon On Friendship, the first text written by Matteo Ricci (–) in classical Chinese to procure friendship and hospitality from Confucian literati. All chapters are accordingly tasked to study certain aspects of the text. Chapter illuminates the Ignatian spirituality underlying the Jesuit missiology of accommodation, and highlights the problematic idea of the human “self” versus God in the Ignatian spirituality. Chapter canvases how Ricci adapted both pagan and Christian writings of friendship to the Confucian culture of the time. Chapters and attend to the Confucian side of the encounter, and analyze respectively the historical, cultural, and textual basis of the so-called Confucian Sino-centrism which Ricci tried to accommodate, and the varying ways in which Confucian literati responded to the Jesuits. Chapters and investigate the impact of Ricci’s new world map on the Ming empire, and present one significant component of Ricci’s mission that remains underexplored by the scholarship to date, viz., the auxiliary, yet decisive role of Western science and technology in the mission. Despite having exhibited such a panoply of historical details surrounding the text of On Friendship, the central argument of the book is not as historical as it appears to be. Hovering over all historical investigations of the encounter are postmodern philosophical theories of “the other” and “the difference” constructed by Levinas and Derrida. Throughout all the chapters of this book, Xu utilizes these postmodern theories as the sword of Damocles to scrutinize, critique, and, in more than a few cases, condemn the absolutist self-concepts of Jesuits and Confucians evidenced by their historical encounter, which concepts the author unrelentingly characterizes as “narcissistic” (p. ), “Machiavelian” (p. ), “chauvinistic” (p. ), or hegemonic (p. ). The final conclusion of the book is dialectical, and complies with the spirit of deconstruction heralded by those cited postmodern thinkers: on the one hand, Xu argues, notwithstanding the Jesuit accommodation of Confucian culture was undergirded by their narcissistic devotion to the absolute truth of Christian belief, the actual unfolding of Ricci’s Reviews© by University of Hawai‘i Press mission proves the opposite. In other words, for any kind of rapport to take place, Jesuits had to take in the difference of the accommodated alterity, and hence, had to admit that there exists something impossible and unruly beyond the presumed totality of Christendom. On the other hand, Confucians did utilize a variety of intellectual tactics to absorb the evidently advanced Western science and technology brought in by Ricci’s mission, and tried to maintain the complete truth of Confucianism. However, the reformation of the calendar mandated by Ming emperors (chapter ) and the response of some Confucian literati to revive the ancient theistic Confucianism (pp. –) particularly prove that the other takes an equal, if not predominant, role to the self in any hospitality offered by a cultural host. Although the twofold conclusion confirms that the values of the other, as uncovered by postmodern theories, is a de facto result of the historical encounter, Xu highlights that amid the process of the encounter, the absolutist One self-concepts of Jesuits and Confucians have led to “the oppression and repulsion of many deemed to be different and other to the ideal of the One” (p. ). The author therefore urges readers to take precautions against the seemingly inviting and charming idea of “one history, one culture, or one civilization” which is “completely free from or exclusive of alterity,” since the strife that arises from the desire of constructing such an idea is “dangerous and detrimental” (p. ), and causes “so many troubling moments for the missionary friendship promoted by the Jesuits and the hospitality displayed by the Confucians” (p. ). If the postmodern theories are treated as tenable interpretive lenses, I appreciate that the author’s consistent utilization of them succeeds to reveal certain aspects of the encounter history which has not yet been sufficiently studied. The following are some examples. First, the author carefully analyzes the concept of human self versus...
Qiquan Zhong. The Logic of China’s New School Reforms: Selected Essays on Education. Translated by Hua Wan. Leiden and Boston: Brill, . pp. Hardback $., ISBN ----. The official launch of the New Curriculum Reform (xin kegai) in Chinese elementary and secondary schools in June marked a crucial milestone in the history of educational reform in the country. This unprecedented nationwide education reform aims to promote quality-oriented education (suzhi jiaoyu) through reforming multiple aspects of Chinese education such as its curriculum goals, structure, and content; pedagogical approaches; curriculum assessment; teacher training; and school management systems. Qiquan Zhong’s The Logic of China’s New School Reforms: Selected Essays on Education addresses the wide scope of the new curriculum reform in China. The book discusses a series of educational theories undergirding the New Curriculum Reform and the educational practices emerging in the reform. As Zhong highlights in the preface of the book, curriculum reform is at the center of school reform, and it is also key to reconstructing China’s outdated education system. The core of curriculum reform is classroom activities while teachers’ professional development is the primary concern of classroom reform. Thus, the twelve chapters of the book focus on the issues particularly related to curriculum reform (chapters – and ), classroom teaching and culture (chapters and ), teacher education (chapters , , and ), as well as various reflections on relevant theories (chapters and ). Many readers of this journal may still want to know: Who is Qiquan Zhong? Qiquan Zhong is a professor in the School of Education at the East China Normal University (ECNU). He serves as the Honorary Director of the Institutes of Curriculum and Instruction and of International and Comparative Education at ECNU. Born in China in , Professor Zhong is the author of more than books and journal articles on educational research and new curriculum and education reform in China. He has been selected and has served as Chair Councilor of the national Experts Working Committee for the New Curriculum Reform in Basic Education. He is also a leading scholar in the field of education in China who advocates for student-centered education in the current curriculum reform. Since the s, Zhong has been a visiting scholar in several Japanese universities and has been invited to various universities in Reviews© by University of Hawai‘i Press the United States and European countries for academic activities. These experiences not only enrich his international perspectives on curriculum and educational reforms, but also establish him as a pioneer in the field of comparative and international studies of curriculum theory and practice in China. He has actively introduced cutting-edge educational ideas from all over the world to Chinese scholars, graduate students, and policymakers to propel the ongoing curriculum reform movement, which is well reflected throughout the book The Logic of China’s New School Reforms. I will discuss the intricacies of this shortly. Contemporary Chinese education is in a state of crisis, and quality education (suzhi jiaoyu) is proposed as a solution in this critical time (Zhong ). Education for economic development has become the dominant discourse that guides educational reforms in contemporary China (Liu ). In the era of globalization, the knowledge economy increasingly depends on new information and technologies. To meet the demands of the burgeoning knowledge economy on a global scale, the Chinese government aims to utilize the new curriculum reform to produce innovative talents who can further the international competitiveness of the state. Zhong’s interpretation of quality education is in alignment with the Chinese state’s education ideology. Developing well-rounded students is highlighted as central to quality education in The Logic of China’s New School Reforms. The book clearly points out that to meet social needs, the new reform must transform examination-oriented education into quality-oriented education, shift knowledge-based curriculum to student-centered curriculum, and transform lecture-centered teaching models into dialogue-based teaching. Zhong underscores that teachers play a key role in the new reform movement, elucidating that teachers’ professional development and teacher education reform must be put on the agenda. He calls for the reconstruction of teacher education in China and the cultivation of reflective educational practitioners who value children-centered and lifelong...
Zhenhai Yang, transmitor. The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Transmission of Acupuncture. Edited by Liu Lihong. Translated by Sabine Wilms. Introduction by Heiner Fruehauf. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, . pp. Hardcover $., ISBN ----. The core text of Chinese medicine is the Huangdi Neijing, here translated as the Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic. That work, originating in ideas and practices from before the common era in the West and before the first unification of China, is thought to have been first compiled into something resembling the texts we have today during the Han dynasty ( B.C.E.– C.E.), but all versions we have now have been edited and revised many times, eventually being divided into two distinct texts, the Suwen or Plain Questions and the Lingshu or Spiritual Pivot. The Suwen focused on theoretical constructions related to acupuncture and moxibustion and other treatments while the Lingshu covered the practice of acupuncture and moxibustion. Over many centuries, the importance of acupuncture waxed and waned in China, reaching a low point in the Qing dynasty (–) when the emperor’s fear of assassination by needles led to the removal of acupuncture as a practice in the Imperial Bureau of Medicine. The imperial fear of acupuncture led elite physicians to avoid discussion of it in their texts. Acupuncture survived mainly among non-elite medical practitioners but was reinvented and revived in Japan in the nineteenth century and in China in the twentieth with a growing interest in responding to knowledge of Western anatomy with East Asian medical knowledge that focused on manipulation of specific points on the body. Today, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) appears to have a unified concept of acupuncture points and treatment, but that only occurred as medical practitioners standardized knowledge and practice in response to Japanese and Chinese government attempts to regulate or abolish traditional medicine. The first three decades of the People’s Republic of China saw the apogee of unification of Chinese medical knowledge described in great detail by anthropologists like Volker Scheid and Judith Farquhar, and the subsequent erasure of heterodox traditions. But after the death of Mao in the period of reform and opening up, many practitioners and patients became frustrated with the standardized version of Chinese medicine and sought out suppressed traditions, including religiomedical traditions related to Daoism. Reviews© by University of Hawai‘i Press The book at hand is an edited summary of one of these suppressed traditions of Daoist acupuncture theory and practice that was passed down from teacher to student over at least ten generations and finally translated into English. The introduction, by scholar-practitioner Heiner Fruehauf, argues that the book is ultimately about understanding basic human life force and how to aid this life force in self-healing the body through acupuncture. The intended audience appears to be practitioners of Chinese medicine looking for a more authentic and simple approach to acupuncture than that transmitted through the standardized system of TCM in China and the increasingly professionalized acupuncture field abroad. The book provides a fascinating primary source case study of how non-elite and nonmainstream medical knowledge survives and is transmitted. An extended quote explains: The needling technique that we are passing on in this book is called “Yellow Emperor’s Inner Needling” (Huandi neizhen). When you first heard this name, perhaps you were slightly taken aback and thought it too grand. But it really is fitting and worthy of this name, and the transmission of the Yellow Emperor’s Inner Needling is utterly profound and far-reaching. It is not an acupuncture technique made from thin air or one that we have created ourselves, but one that has been transmitted from every generation to the next. Of course : : : we also find advances in response to the changing times, and abundant developments. I personally received this transmission from my own father Yang Yunqing who was taught this lineage by his teacher Hu Jiayu. Master Hu Jiayu is a teacher who I have known since childhood, and beyond him there are over ten other teachers whose names are noted in the lineage transmission records. (p. ) The next paragraph continues to explain how Yang’s family had farmed for generations in...
Cho-yun Hsu. American Life: A Chinese Historian’s Perspective. Translated by Carissa Fletcher. Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, . pp. Hardcover $., ISBN ----. A renowned scholar of Chinese civilization, Professor Cho-yun Hsu has written this book about the United States, which has been his adopted home for over half a century. Originally published in Chinese in , this volume of personal observations and scholarly reflections on America’s national experience makes rewarding reading for anyone interested in the fate of the United States and what it augurs for the world. Born in Mainland China in , Hsu went to Taiwan along with his parents as Chinese Communists rose to power in . He came to the United States in and studied for his doctoral degree at the University of Chicago, thus launching a long and lustrous academic career in America. While at Chicago, he lodged in the dormitory of the university’s Theological Seminary and befriended students in the school, whose idealism and progressive advocacy he, a foreign student with born physical disabilities, appreciated and eagerly shared. As Hsu recounts, what he witnessed in Chicago during the late fifties and the early sixties greatly fostered his expectations for the United States as a land of freedom and justice. Yet, sixty years later, it is with a heavy heart that Hsu writes about America. Looking back, when I first arrived in the United States, I held its founding ideals in such high esteem. Over the course of my six decades as a sojourner in this land, it has undergone many changes, and I have often lamented at the sight of a country with such a beautiful national landscape and such a diverse population gradually inching toward destruction. () What happened? How? Hsu shares his observations and understanding, drawing from both scholarly knowledge and personal experience. The consideration is comprehensive, covering the economy, politics, culture, and social life of America. As Hsu notes, after World War II, the U.S. economy, which had been based on highly productive agriculture and powerful manufacturing, turned into one centered around financial operation. “[C]ommon sense tells us that this system is unsound. In the age of economic globalization, economies elsewhere are moving toward enrichment through growth, yet the United States is on the road Reviews© by University of Hawai‘i Press to being hollowed out” (p. ). Such economic changes led to the concentration of wealth in the hands of few, impoverishing average workers, severely weakening America’s middle class in particular. The gap between the rich and the poor continued to widen, and it became ever harder to overcome class differences. As this happened, American politicians, and to a certain extent the U.S. political system itself, beholden to money, failed to take action to reverse the downward slide. Economic hardship and political negligence, along with some other factors, led to the fragmentation of American society, heightening the tension among different social groups formed along the lines of class, ethnicity, gender, and religion. Some cultural attributes that used to rationalize and legitimize American life, such as moralized individualism, lost much of their ethical core to emerge as unbridled quest for profit, with devastating effects on communities and families. In his representation and assessment of American affairs, Hsu often refers to Pittsburgh, PA, as a case study, Pittsburgh being the place where he has resided for fifty years. His evocation of life in the city, presented from various thematic angles, well exemplifies the larger story he tells. For instance, Pittsburgh as a major base and transit point for the American movement to the western frontiers; the critical rise of the city’s steel mills as the U.S. industrialized; the dramatic decline of businesses; and the reinvention of the city as a high-tech and educational center over the past three decades in hopes for rejunvenation. All these events shaped and reshaped life in the region, just the way it happened, on larger scales, across America. To be sure, Hsu’s account of American life is not simply one of lamentation. In fact, much of the book consists of his musings on the elements that made America a great...
Reviewed by: Writing Gender in Early Modern Chinese Women’s Tanci Fiction by Li Guo Yu Zhang WRITING GENDER IN EARLY MODERN CHINESE WOMEN’S TANCI FICTION, by Li Guo. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2021. 290 pp. $99.99 hardback; $59.99 paperback; $59.99 ebook. Writing Gender in Early Modern Chinese Women’s Tanci Fiction by Li Guo calls attention to the historically understudied genre of tanci fiction. The conventional understanding of Chinese literary canon often excludes texts written by women and those associated with regional cultures; hence, many tanci were not preserved. Moreover, women-authored tanci, with their unique format of alternating between lyrics and prose, are lengthy volumes, requiring patient and careful reading. However, in recent decades, tanci has drawn rising attention. As a much-needed, timely study, Guo’s work explores how women writers redefined social values, gender norms, and nationhood in the imagined realm of tanci. In addition to theorizing the three-dimensional textual space of “the writing subjects, the addressee, and exterior texts,” Guo constructs her investigation around the mobility of fictional characters and the dynamics between the women writers and their readers (p. 12). Writing Gender in Early Modern Chinese Women’s Tanci Fiction brings to light five understudied tanci novels. Organizing the chapters chronologically based on each work’s completion date, Guo begins with “Vernacular Literacy, Cross-Dressing, and Feminine Authority in Zhu Suxian’s Yulianhuan (Linked Rings of Jade),” which explores a story (whose preface is dated 1805) that emphasizes women’s authority in the domestic sphere. Chapter two, “Among Women: Feminine Homoeroticism in Li Guiyu’s Liuhuameng (Dream of the Pomegranate Flowers),” examines how two heroines transformed polygamous family structure in the 1841 text. The book’s third chapter evaluates the changing and competing “female exemplarity” in Qizhenzhuan (A Tale of Exceptional Chastity, 1861), particularly the innovative interpretation of chastity as self-cultivation. This chapter is followed by an investigation of how the 1871 Jinyuyuan (Affinity of the Golden Fish) refashioned women’s talents and their identities, yearning for gender equality. The final chapter, “A New Romance of the Nation-State: On Wang Oushang’s Zixuji (A Tale of Vacuity)” (1883), discusses the connections between gender and nationhood and demonstrates how this tanci fiction appropriated masculine chivalry at a moment of political turbulence. Guo introduces most of these texts to the English-speaking world for the first time. A Tale of Exceptional Chastity’s [End Page 155] only manuscript is preserved at the Shanghai Library. Affinity of the Golden Fish has a kerchief-box edition collected at the Shanghai Library while A Tale of Vacuity was only discovered and reprinted in 2014. The discovery of rare tanci copies has greatly developed our knowledge about women writers, their writing culture, and intellectual pursuits in early modern China. With thorough archival research, Guo’s monograph enriches current understanding of female tanci writers, their life experiences, and their literary networks. The five texts and their authors are largely unknown to readers today. Through cross-references in prefaces, endorsements, and other intertextual evidence, Guo illustrates various social connections during writing, reading, and circulating tanci. For example, Guo notes that Dream of the Pomegranate Flowers had been circulated in many hand-copied versions among local gentry women even before Li Guiyu completed the work, and Wang Oushang’s tanci was preserved by and circulated among family and friends since the mid-nineteenth century. Works were often copied and even added onto by other people. Guo also explores instances of women writing prefaces for other women’s tanci in order to promote the genre and provide their own insights. In contrast to the typical impression that women tanci writers came from privileged households, Guo reveals that two of the writers she discusses were wartime refugees; both Jin Fangquan and Wang Oushang experienced loss and trauma during the Taiping Rebellion. Despite the extreme dangers and hardships, they employed the genre of tanci to rewrite womanhood, even in a moment of national crisis. The provocative insights in this monograph include in-depth examinations of how women-authored tanci fiction negotiated literary conventions and invented their own exemplarities. For example, cross-dressing is a shared motif among...
in his bodies, including relics [ :: : ], the dharmak ā ya-cum-vajrak ā ya [ : :: ], or the trik ā ya doctrine [ :: : ]; the docetic interpretation of the parinirv ā n ˙ a [ : :: ]; the worship of the Buddhas, with a focus on their glorious bodies as a primary element of such worship [ :: : ]; confession [ : :: ] the bodhisattva path, understood as a quest to attain Buddha-bodies for oneself [ ::: ], but also as a project to be achieved by the ritual technology of confession [ : :: ], and in other senses [ :: : ]; liturgy more generally [ : :: ] Buddha names [ : :: ]; and the ‘ cult of the text ’ [ : :: ], including the celebration of the powers of dh ā ran ˙ ī s.
centerpiece of Akin’s sources, presented Buddhist maps in the beginning of his work, with other world maps, not in the latter section of historical maps. Akin’s argument in this chapter that “historical maps could also buttress, or undermine, administrative and Sinocentric perspectives” is supported by this choice to include Buddhist maps into his category of “historical cartography” (p. ). His etic categorization may still be a useful one, but it deserves greater transparency. Neither of these critiques undermine the significant contributions of this book. Akin has produced a richly sources and highly interesting contribution to our understanding of the diversity of early modern East Asian cartographic print culture. Besides being of interest to East Asianists, historians of European cartography should also take note. Akin is bringing the East Asian experience into dialogue with that of contemporaneous Europe. He is, in his own words, trying to make China not just as an “‘exception to the pattern’ or a special case [in cartographic history], but rather an integral part of the pattern itself” (p. ).
Maggie Greene, Resisting Spirits: Drama Reform and Cultural Transformation in the People’s Republic of China. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, . xvi, pp. DOI: ./mpub.. Paperback $., ISBN ----. This short history book about a spooky subject takes first its readers to a dark corner of the history of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution: How did a kunqu 昆曲 “ghost play” (guixi 鬼戏) by a veteran communist writer named Meng Chao 孟超 became one of the earliest targets of what will be known later as the “Gang of four,” even before the attacks on the plays of the far more famous intellectuals Wu Han and Tian Han? If one of the merits of this study is to shed a new light on the attacks on culture that constituted the premises of the great turmoil of the late ’s—but the author had already publicized this historical “scoop” in an article from —it is not the main point that this book-length study wants to make. This book has the wider ambition to retrace the resilience of an apparently forbidden topic in the early PRC, the “superstitious and feudal” ghost’s theme. The public appearance of this topic on the stage of the contemporary traditional Chinese theater (xiqu 戏曲) and, more in general, its enduring presence as a subject of heated debates is also explored. Let us first recall the play at the center of the book: the story of Li Huiniang 李慧娘, first appearing in the early Ming Qu You’s 瞿佑 collections in literary Chinese Jiandeng xinhua 剪灯新话, became well known to the Chinese public through the chuanqi 传奇 play “the Prunus pavilion” Hongmei ge 红梅阁. It tells how Huiniang, a concubine of the evil southern Song minister Jia Sidao 贾似道, is slain by her jealous and violent master for having looked tenderly at a young literati near Hangzhou’s West Lake. However, as Jia Sidao prepares to also harm the would-be lover of the late concubine, her ghost appears, chases the assassin away, and scares and humiliates the evil minister. Before coming to the story of Li Huiniang itself, Greene first analyses what happened after the initial chilling ban on a group of twenty-six “superstitious plays,” most of them ghost plays, in the early ’s. Greene shows how the ban initiated a time of confusion. Troops and local authorities were quite puzzled about what was allowed, while intellectual circles began to deploy a salvaging strategy of some of the traditional supernatural themes by drawing a Review© by University of Hawai‘i Press distinction between permissible “mythological” plays and damnable “superstitious” or “fearsome” works. The second chapter begins with the attempt by a playwright with an impeccable proletarian pedigree, Ma Jianling 马健翎, to produce a “politically correct” version of the story. In his qinqiang 秦腔 play “Wandering West Lake,” You Xihu 游西湖, Ma does not present a ghost, but still uses the ghost element by staging a ghost-like character, making Huiniang pose as a ghost without being dead. To the author’s surprise, this attempt at a “ghostless ghost play” (which may be found in other genres of the same period, for example in some Hong Kong leftwing movies ) was greeted with harsh criticism in the higher intellectual circles of the PRC by several authors who, while voicing critiques on esthetic grounds against Ma’s play, expressed opinions that amounted to justifications of keeping “real” ghost on the Chinese traditional opera stage. The relaxing of the initial ban on ghost plays encouraged troops to resume performances. Ma later reintroduced the ghost in the play, without receiving much more understanding from his critics. Chapter takes the reader right to the middle of the complexity of the Hundred flowers’ time. It compares two contemporary productions, the anthology of classical tales “Stories not to be afraid about ghosts” (Bu pa gui de gushi 不怕 鬼的故事) and the rewriting in in the kunqu opera form of the Prunus pavilion story by Meng Chao under the title “Li Huiniang.” While the first book, ordered by Chairman Mao himself, gave a new voice to ancient ghost stories by playing on a rhetoric associating ghosts with old and new class enemies (a rhetoric which won’t be forgotten during the Cultural Revolution), Meng Chao created with his “Li...
Hsiao-wen Cheng. Divine, Demonic, and Disordered: Women without Men in Song Dynasty China. Seattle: University of Washington Press, . pp. Paperback $., ISBN . Divine, Demonic, and Disordered: Women without Men in Song Dynasty China focuses on manless women in medieval China. This book reveals how little we know about women in this period, and also challenges the presumed concepts of gender and sexuality in modern society. Hsiao-wen Cheng argues that the normalization of heterosexuality was rare in pre-Song and Song sources. The book’s main claim is not only inspiring for those who study gender history but also yields insights for modern discussions about gender, sexuality, and normalcy. The author explores diverse sources from Song dynasty China, including but not limited to medical treatises, bedchamber texts, hagiographies, and popular tales. With a background in literature, Cheng offers new perspectives on these primary sources. Historical documents were written as narratives, stories told with specific purposes, framed with certain values and worldviews, and situated in particular historical settings. The book contains elegant translations of fascinating stories, which will be helpful for future studies. During the Song dynasty, a number of different sources discussed or featured manless women; these works have not been fully examined in previous scholarship. This book helps to fill that gap by offering an insightful examination of this topic from various angles. “Manless women” is a concept that does not fit with modern classifications of sexual identity or sexual orientation, nor was it an established concept in premodern Chinese sources. Nevertheless, the term manless women focuses our attention on women’s desire for men and helps to distinguish the conventional coupling of sexual desire and marriage. It therefore challenges the assumed dichotomy of male fantasy and female resistance. The book offers a more complete picture of women’s lives in premodern China by discovering the private thoughts of women. The introduction emphasizes that the sex-desire-procreation linkage was a special focus in Chinese medical history, and this topic must be understood within the context of Song medical culture. The book unfolds in three parts. Part one examines medicine and illness relating to gendered identity. Chapter mainly analyzes discussions by two Song dynasty physicians. In particular, Reviews© by University of Hawai‘i Press Chen Ziming’s theory of guafu combined Confucian classics with medicine texts and elevated the sex-desire-procreation linkage to a higher level. Women’s sexual desire for men became natural in Chen’s work. This chapter highlights a potential contradiction between “women without men will become sick” and “young widows should remain chaste” (pp. , ). The second chapter examines intercourse with ghosts in medical and Daoist contexts, and also analyzes how bedchamber texts connected heterosexual inactivity with ghostly intercourse. The discussion of bu yu jian ren (does not want to meet people) reveals a concern during the Song dynasty about women losing interest in men. Part two deals with the disordered. These two chapters examine recurring motifs in narratives about enchanted women—seclusion, indifference to one’s husband, and superfluous self-adornment. Chapter examines the enchantment disorder in pre-Song tales, and the following chapter focuses more on the Song dynasty. Both chapters contain thought-provoking discussions about historical narratives. Cheng calls attention to a characteristic of Song dynasty anecdotes, “multivocalness.” While discussing Hong Mai’s Record of Listeners, Cheng provides a summary of the current scholarship and points out two kinds of narratological ambiguity in Hong Mai’s collections: the meta-anomaly and the fantastique. The discussion of “amateurs’ narratives” is fascinating: this is a narrative type that creates sufficient tension for a good story and also reflects a contemporary distrust of professionals and disrespect for profit-making. The last part of the book focuses on female celibacy. Chapter examines the renunciant identity and emphasizes the inseparability of who one is and what one does—shen (body) and xi (habits). Chapter emphasizes unique aspects of female celibacy, constructs of sexuality, and the thoughts of celibate women. This analysis is intertwined with developments in Daoism and Buddhism, especially concerning how religious leaders cooperated with the family system by refraining from encouraging women to become...
Paul Fahr. Remonstration als Institution. Ein Beitrag zum Herrschaftsverst ändnis im frühen chinesischen Kaiserreich (Remonstration as an Institution. A Contribution to the Concept of Rulership in Early Imperial China). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, . pp. ISBN- , ISBN- . The book under review here is the published version of a Ph.D. dissertation submitted at the University of Münster in . It is the first book-length study of the institution of remonstration in early imperial China, and it deserves attention because of the thorough research it provides. After a brief introduction, Fahr begins with a chapter on the theory and concept of institutions both in Western social sciences and in ancient Chinese terminology. As far as the latter is concerned, he discusses such terms as fadu 法度, zhidu 制度, guoti 國體, or jiuzhang 舊章 in order to show that ancient China had, indeed, several concepts at its disposal that are similar to the modern Western term “institution.” Fahr also understand the famous compound yi jia 一家 as an institutional term, following Gan Huaizhen’s idea that guojia actually means “the family that rules the state.” I have to confess that in this case I remain somewhat skeptical. To me, it still makes more sense to understand this compound as “the families (or family) of the capital,” because first there are also guoren 國人 who certainly do not belong to just one family, and second, branches of the ruling family usually had their bases in other cities. In this chapter, Fahr also shows that we should not understand documents (which he calls “Inserate” = insertions) contained in Chinese standard histories as direct quotations from original texts. In this he follows observations that have been made by two other young German scholars recently, namely, Kathrin Messing in her dissertation on the Sanguo zhi and Sebastian Eicher in his work on the Hou Han shu. The third chapter of Remonstration as an Institution is devoted to the word “to remonstrate” (jian 諫), and to the practice of remonstration as a sign of a close bond that existed between ruler and minister. Fahr shows that the office of remonstration officials was, indeed, already established in early Han times. Chapter deals with official historiography as a historiography of institutions. It starts with “precedents” (gushi 故事) in pre-Han times and proceeds then to a discussion of the major historians of Han times in a chronological sequence, beginning with Sima Tan and Sima Qian and ending with Xun Yue. Fahr Review© by University of Hawai‘i Press understands Shiji and Hanshu as compilations of precedents for the future, an idea that, of course, can be traced back to the Gongyang zhuan and that is somewhat related to the Latin concept of historia magistra vitae. Fahr agrees with what this reviewer said in the introduction to his work on Shiji and Hanshu, namely, that the title of Hanshu is an expression of Ban Gu’s hope to continue the tradition of the Shang shu. Chapter focuses on institutions and their preservation through remonstration. Here, Fahr gives examples of remonstrations from three different periods, namely, the Qin dynasty (Li Si is quoted), the reign of Han Wendi, and finally the famous episode when Liu He, the King of Changyi whose tomb has been opened recently (the Haihun hou tomb), was removed from the throne after only twenty-seven days. Fahr also shows in this chapter how important the role was that remonstration played in the education of the young heirs to the throne. The sixth and last chapter before the conclusion somehow looks like what could have been the starting point of the dissertation. Here, Fahr uses the example of chapter of the Hanshu to demonstrate how remonstration was actually practiced by Liu Xiang. Somewhat similar to Sebastian Eicher’s work on the Hou Han shu, he explains that the “traditions” (zhuan 傳) of the five different persons dealt with in Hanshu should actually better be understood as episodes, not as “biographies” as the term is conventially translated. This is certainly correct. This reader wonders, however, whether it is really wise to dispense with the term biography for ancient Chinese history. Chinese zhuan may not attempt to do the same what Roman authors such as Plutarch...
Peter Lorge. Imperial China: A Beginner’s Guide. London: Oneworld Publications, . xiv, pp. Paperback $., ISBN ----. Imperial China: A Beginner’s Guide provides an overview of Chinese history from the s B.C.E. through the early twentieth century. Peter Lorge keeps the reader rapt with a thoughtful collection of topics, briskly paced chapters, and provocative analysis. It is a concise and delightful book which will be appreciated by beginners and specialists alike. Imperial China consists of an introduction and eleven chapters, covering a range of topics key to understanding China’s past. In the Introduction, Lorge outlines history prior to the advent of imperial China, defines the temporal, ethnic, and geographical scopes of “imperial China,” introduces Confucius and his Ruism (Lorge’s choice of term to replace Confucianism), and surveys the varieties of spoken and written language under the umbrella term “Chinese language.” Chapter , “Foundations,” is an introduction to the basic ideological positions of the imperial Chinese state, particularly how a “continual struggle for moral and legal authority” lay at the heart of the successful centralization of state power (p. ). Chapter examines “dynasty,” the fundamental building block of imperial China, and surveys major dynasties by identifying their commonalities and distinctions. While the politically unified, geographically expansive dynasties stand out as exemplars of their category, Lorge does not forget the periods of disunion and attributes a section to them under the rubric of “other dynasties.” In chapter , “Borders,” Lorge guides the reader on an examination of the geography of what he calls the “Chinese ecumene” and demonstrates how the landmass can be divided into socioeconomic “macroregions” (p. ). Local identity, as Lorge points out, was essential to the social, cultural, and economic lives of historical individuals despite the fact that large concepts of China and imperial government always seemed to occupy the foreground. From chapter onward, Lorge delves into more specific topics. In chapter , he offers a comprehensive picture of war and the military, discussing the instrumentality of war in creating and maintaining a dynasty, the evolution of military technology, the organization of Chinese armies, the invention of gunpowder and the gun, and the history of military thought. Chapter discusses what we conventionally categorize as science and technology under the heading “discovery.” In the same chapter, Lorge also discusses naval expeditions carried out by Chinese merchants and diplomats. Chapter surveys religions, Review© by University of Hawai‘i Press including the worship of popular gods and the more organized traditions known as Ruism, Buddhism, and Daoism. In chapter , Lorge anatomizes the imperial Chinese economy by analyzing the regulatory role of the state, the evolution of money, and the development of markets. In the next two chapters Lorge takes the reader on a tour of the arts of imperial China. Chapter is a survey of elite arts. Lorge presents the histories of literature, calligraphy, painting, and architecture, analyzing these subjects as indispensable parts of the political activities and cultural agendas of social elites. Chapter shifts the focus away from elites to areas of “considerable crossover” between elite and popular arts, such as decorative arts (e.g., ceramics and silk), gardens, theater, and popular storytelling (p. ). Chapter , titled “Constructing China through History,” examines the tradition of historical writing in imperial China. It informs the reader of yet another new topic—the composition of history as a scholarly tradition and an arena for the construction of state power. More importantly, the chapter underscores how any modern rendition of imperial Chinese history (including the current book) is inevitably a product of a documentary tradition imbued with specific values and agendas. By illuminating the orientations and goals of imperial Chinese historians, Lorge cautions the reader that our understanding of China has been constantly shaped by the choices of these historians, thus always requiring critical reflection. This reminder provides a nice segue to the concluding chapter, where Lorge draws some general lessons for a balanced understanding of imperial China. He identifies the pitfalls of using imperial history to favor orthodoxy, to legitimize modern territorial claims, or to defend an ever-unified China. He again highlights the inherent diversity in land, culture, and human community while also demonstrating how the unity of...
Xiaofei Kang, editor. Women, Family and the Chinese Socialist State, –. Leiden: Brill Publishers, . pp. Hardback $., ISBN ----. In China, the academic studies on women and gender in the Communist revolution and in Socialist China began in the s, when Chinese academia could access the research in the United States and Europe. In the exchange between the Chinese academia and Western scholars over the past four decades, it was the Anglophone scholarship that had a strong impact on Chinese scholars. The translation of scholarly works was thus mainly one-dimensional—from English to Chinese. On the other hand, many Western scholars are more interested in sources from China while few Chinese scholarly works are introduced or cited in English-speaking academia. The cause for this imbalanced academic exchange may be attributed to the language barrier, publication information, or the different approaches and different political and social contexts for academic frameworks on topics relating to China. This volume would greatly benefit the Anglophone academia and contribute to bridging the current gap between these two groups of scholars. The editor’s introduction first offers an overview of the English scholarship from the s to recent publications of studies on Chinese women, the reform of marriage and family, and women’s changing position in the family and society. This overview not only provides a background for the fourteen articles collected in the volume but also shows the editor’s intent to create a dialogue between English-language scholars and Chinese authors. The editor states, “The articles do offer a useful platform to compare and contrast Chinese and Western scholarship on women and family during the PRC times” (p. ). The selection also demonstrates the editor’s goal that the fourteen articles include various themes, cover a broad geographic range, and deal with a halfcentury time span from post- China to the early s. The first three articles focus on documentary narration about the establishment of the Marriage Law, and on the deliberations in renewing and revising the Marriage Laws in and . Three authors, Liu Weifang, Qin Yan, and Li Yajuan, believe that the revisions of the Marriage Laws in and were the legislature’s response to social changes and people’s demands. For example, economic reform brought more disputes regarding property division in divorce, Review© by University of Hawai‘i Press population pressure made family planning imperative, and a gradually opening society brought new views on marriage and mate selection. These social changes demanded new laws. The articles authored by Zhang Zhiyong, Li Honghe, and Fan Liansheng offer diverse stories on how the Marriage Law was carried out in different geographical locations under varied political and social conditions, such as in previous liberated regions (Northern China), newly liberated regions (Central South China), and in ethnic minority regions (southwest region in Guizhou). All three authors suggest that the implementation of the Marriage Law encountered strong resistance from local patriarchal forces, but the governments, legal institutions and local agents of All-China Women’s Federation tactically worked together to support women’s demand for self-determined marriage. In Guizhou’s ethnic minority region, which traditionally had different marriage practices from the Han people, the local government carefully adopted a flexible policy, carrying out marriage registration as the first step and then dealing with marriage disputes through mediation with respect for local customs. The following five articles discuss how political campaigns, social movements, and the shifting economic system from the early s to the s brought fundamental changes to women’s position in society and the family, and to people’s views of marriage. Wang Yuesheng suggests that from the s to the s Chinese society experienced a huge transformation in rural areas. The changing land ownership, collective economy, and contract responsibility system revolutionized the forms of family and marriage, as well as women’s position in society and the family. Through investigation of the shifting marriage practices such as matchmaking, mate choice, and betrothal gifts during the People’s Commune period, Li Bingkui argues that the People’s Commune system largely weakened patriarchal power in the family and empowered women in their mate choice. Qiu Guosheng discusses Shanghai women who...
Shanghai between Modernity and Postmodernity Lei Ping (bio) Justin O'Connor and Xin Gu. Red Creative: Culture and Modernity in China. Bristol, UK/Chicago, United States: Intellect, 2020. 316 pp. Paperback $32.50, isbn 9781789382303. Lisa Bernstein and Chu-chueh Cheng, editors. Revealing/Reveiling Shanghai: Cultural Representations from the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries. Albany: SUNY Press, 2020. 264 pp. Hardcover $95.00, isbn 9781438479255. Justin O'Connor and Xin Gu. Red Creative: Culture and Modernity in China. Bristol, UK/Chicago, United States: Intellect, 2020. 316 pp. Paperback $32.50, isbn 9781789382303. Lisa Bernstein and Chu-chueh Cheng, editors. Revealing/Reveiling Shanghai: Cultural Representations from the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries. Albany: SUNY Press, 2020. 264 pp. Hardcover $95.00, isbn 9781438479255. Shanghai, an unequivocally distinctive cosmopolitan city, has been a critical subject of scholarly studies and popular interest since the nineteenth century. "Shanghai fever" (Shanghaire), coupled with Shanghai nostalgia, became a sensational literary, cinematic, and cultural phenomenon in the 1990s and has continued throughout the turn of the twenty-first century as the post-Mao era unfolds. After a few temporarily dormant years following the culmination of the fervor, Shanghai has reemerged in recent global scholarship as a path to understand Chinese modernity and China's rise to the world's second largest economy. The question as to what kind of pivotal role Shanghai plays in conjuring the so-called China's lost modernity causes a resurfacing of intellectual debates about Shanghai—"the other China." Book publications in 2020 such as Justin O'Connor and Xin Gu's Red Creative: Culture and Modernity in China and Lisa Bernstein and Chu-chueh Cheng's edited volume Revealing/Reveiling Shanghai: Cultural Representations from the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries are two distinct examples. Shanghai is rediscovered as an overdetermined city where culture, commerce, and politics converge to herald China's search for modernity. Red Creative Looking through the lens of creative economy and cultural industries of the post-1992 market reform era, Red Creative sees Shanghai's cosmopolitan past, present, and future as uniquely interwoven despite the historical ruptures [End Page 83] experienced by a nation under colonialism, socialism, and capitalism. Situating Shanghai as China's preeminent global city and a cultural and economic hub, the book compels readers to reexamine alternative modernities outside the confines of universally claimed Western modernity. Shanghai in this case, as argued by the authors, forms a paradoxical relation with both the Chinese state and the West considering its multifold identities as "Paris of the Orient" in the pre-Communist era, the cradle of the Chinese Communist Party, the "sin city" in the Mao era, and a resurged consumer brand image since China's integration with global neoliberal capitalism. Titled "Red Creative," the book juxtaposes the seemingly two oppositional words "red" (communist/socialist) and "creative" (capitalist/neoliberal) by posing key questions as to whether limitations of the Chinese state and market are compatible with the power of creativity; whether Shanghai can be exemplary in redefining creative industries given the constrained habitus of artistic and cultural work under state neoliberalism, and how to reconcile the tension between a still contestably "despotic" polity and its cultural policies in the nation's most culturally dynamic city of Shanghai. It is in this context that the book resorts to Shanghai for answers. It comprises eight chapters, in addition to the Introduction and Epilogue. Sharing nostalgic sentiments toward Shanghai Modern—a term often associated with Leo Ou-fan Lee's writings on Shanghai in its heyday of a blooming new urban culture (1930-1945), the authors of Red Creative lament a lost Shanghai splendor that was dismantled by Mao's peasant revolution and Communist takeover of the city. They hope to see that Shanghai's return to the forefront of the nation's reform program in 1992 will open up possibilities for intellectuals, artists, and cultural professionals to follow in the footsteps of the May Fourth intelligentsia by engaging in cultural industries with a sense of regained subjectivity and freedom. However, based on the meticulous research on the state's cultural policies and creative clusters, the authors find the issue is China's neoliberal practice that problematically places creative economy between...
Meng Zhang. Timber and Forestry in Qing China: Sustaining the Market. Seattle: University of Washington Press, . pp. Paperback $., ISBN- , ISBN- -. Published in the series “Culture, Place and Nature” by the University of Washington Press, Meng Zhang’s book Timber and Forestry in Qing China is praised in the foreword by the series editor as offering “such a vivid account of regenerative and production forestry in the modern period” (p. xi). The author adopts a people-centered approach to timber trade in the Qing dynasty, highlighting the experiences of tree growers, loggers, transporters, and merchants through an enduring timber-trade network, with a commodity chain spanning eastern and southwestern China. Zhang offers the first detailed portrait of the shared ownership of trees, market networks of merchants and sellers, financial arrangements, and dispute resolution in timber production and trade in Qing China. The study contributes original insights relevant today in market conditions and institutional mechanisms required in order to sustain forestry, a resource that has a long economic cycle. At a time when the market has been seen as a main culprit for resource degeneration, Zhang’s study offers an important opportunity for us to reconsider the market–resource relationship. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in Chinese history, economic and environmental history, Chinese geography, resource management, sustainable forestry, market–environment relationships, and related topics. The book includes five main chapters, plus an introduction and an epilogue. The introduction chapter introduces major themes, major players, as well as the book’s main contributions to the literature. By offering analyses and evidence of sustainable timber management and trade in the Qing period, Zhang challenges some prevailing views of long-range unsustainability of resources in Chinese history. She terms her approach “people-centered,” in that she focuses on people and institutions in the timber resource and trade network, and details how they managed to sustain the regeneration of timber forestry for market needs. The trees of the book’s focus are the China fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata) and the mawei pine (Pinus massoniana), fast-growing trees planted and logged for use as timber. Chapter surveys the history of timber policy from the Tang period (–). It is important to note that by the start of the Song period Review© by University of Hawai‘i Press (–), forests in the lowlands of the Yangzi delta (a.k.a. Jiangnan) had already been cleared for agriculture, and fir silviculture followed, where timber was seen as similar to a crop, taxed by the state and managed for the market. In the Ming period (–), the inland Southwest mountains were breached for their old-growth timber, first for the imperial court, then by merchants for the market. Timber market integrating Jiangnan and the Southwest (Hunan and Guizhou) was already forming. By the Qing period (–), not only had interregional timber trade further developed along the upper and lower reaches of the Yangzi River, the state also shifted timber needs for the court to the market. Timber trade in the Southwest further expanded after the pacification of the Miao revolt at the Hunan–Guizhou border in , integrating with timber provision in the old South (Anhui, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, and Fujian) with the aid of water transportation. It is worth noting: The Southwest timber became especially attractive for its supply of higher grade and larger logs. The Qing state left the timber trade largely to the private initiatives of people and institutions operating in the market. Chapter delves into the details of the interregional timber market in the Qing era, with the timber flowing from the Southwest upper reaches to the lower Yangzi region, the Jiangnan, with the main consumption area centered on Nanjing. Timber demand in Jiangnan grew significantly during the eighteenth century, and Hunan in the Southwest became a major source of timber, while supplies from Jiangxi in the old South were declining. Timber merchants from Jiangnan sought timber resources in the Southwest, integrating Hunan and Guizhou into the timber trade. Hankou in the middle Yangzi area emerged eventually as the largest timber trade center after the mid-s, linking resources in the west to markets in the east. This chapter details the timber resources...
