Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-03T16:55:30.921Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Recycling Tradition: Culture, History, and Political Economy in the Chrysanthemum Festivals of South China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Helen F. Siu
Helen F. Siu
Affiliation:
Yale University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In the mid-nineteenth century, a gentleman in Xiaolan having the Mai surname wrote in his memoir:

Age eighteen, the forty-seventh year of Qianlong's reign [1782], there was a chrysanthemum festival. Each major surname group put on floral displays, and six platforms were set up throughout the town. There were scores of theatrical troupes whose performance brought together kinsmen and friends. The tradition of the festival started that year.

Type
The Politics of Cultural Continuity
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 32 , Issue 4 , October 1990 , pp. 765 - 794
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abrams, Philip. 1982. Historical Society. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Ahern, Emily. 1981. Chinese Rituals and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Alitto, Guy. 1979. “Rural Elites in Transition: China's Cultural Crisis and the Problem of Legitimacy,” in Select Papers from the Center for Far Eastern Studies, Jones, Susan, ed., 218–75. Chicago: Center for Far Eastern Studies, University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Baker, Hugh. 1966. “The Five Great Clans of the New Territories.” Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 6, 25–47.Google Scholar
Baker, Hugh. 1968. A Chinese Lineage: Sheung Shui. London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Beattie, Hilary. 1979. Land and Lineage in China: A Study of T'ung Ch'eng County, Anhwei, in the Ming and Ch'ing Dynasties. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice, Nice, R., trans. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Lu. 1981. Lingnan xinyu (New items on Lingnan). Hong Kong: Shanghai Books.Google Scholar
Xujing, Chen. 1946. Danjia yanjiu. Canton.Google Scholar
Choi, Chi-Cheung. 1987. “Descent Group Unification and Segmentation in the Coastal Area of Southern China,” Vols. 1, 2. Ph.D. Disser., Department of Oriental Studies, Tokyo University.Google Scholar
Cohen, Myron L. 1989. “Cultural Identity and National Identity in China.”Paper presented to the Workshop on the Construction of Chinese Cultural Identity, Institute of Culture and Communication, East-West Center,Honolulu, Hawaii, August 25–59.Google Scholar
Davis, N. Z. 1975. Society and Culture in Early Modern France. Stanford: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dennerline, Jerry. 1981. The Chia-ting Loyalists: Confucian Leadership and Social Change in Seventeenth-Century China. New Haven: Yale University Press. Dongguan xianzhi (Dongguan county gazetteer). 1922.Google Scholar
Dunham, Donald. 1990. History, Power, and Ideology: Central Issues in Marxist Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Duara, Prasenjit. 1988. Culture, Power, and the State: Rural North China, I900–1942. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Eberhard, Wolfram. 1962. Social Mobility in Traditional China. Leiden: E. Brill.Google Scholar
Ebrey, Patricia; and Watson, James, ed. 1986. Kinship Organization in Late Imperial China, 1000–1960. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Evans, Peter; Rueschemeyer, Dietrich; Skoopal, Theda, ed. 1985. Bringing the State Back In. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Faure, David. 1986. The Structure of Chinese Rural Society. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Faure, David. 1989. “The Lineage as a Cultural Invention: The Case of the Pearl River Delta.” Modern China, 15:1, 4–36. Foshan wenshi ziliao (The Cultural History of Foshan). n.d. vols. 2, 3, and 4.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1977. Discipline and Punishment; The Birth of the Prison. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Freedman, Maurice. 1958. Lineage Organization in Southeastern China. London: Athlone Press.Google Scholar
Freedman, Maurice. 1966. Chinese Lineage and Society: Fukien and Kwangtung. London: Athlone Press.Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford. 1983. “Centers, Kings, and Charisma: Reflections on the Symbolics of Power,” in Geertz, Local Knowledge, 121–46. New York: Basic.Google Scholar
Gilsenan, Michael. 1986. “Domination as Social Practice: Patrimonialism in North Lebenon: Arbitrary Power, Dececration, and the Aesthetics of Violence.” Critiques of Anthropology, 6:1, 17–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gramci, Antonio. 1971. Selections from Prison Notebooks (1929–35), Hoare, Quentin and Smith, Geoffrey Nowell, ed. and trans. New York: International.Google Scholar
He, Lizai. 1870s. “Lanxie” (Slivers of Xiaolan). Manuscript.Google Scholar
He Shi Jiulang zupu (The He “Jiulang” Lineage Genealogy). 1925. Reprinted in Hong Kong.Google Scholar
He Xiwan Tang chongxiu zupu (A Renewed Lineage Genealogy of the He Xiwan Trust). 1907.Google Scholar
He Yanggao. 1946. “Lanxi zaji” (Recollections of Lanxi). Manuscript.Google Scholar
He, Lizai. 1964. “Ju wuo suo zhi Zhongshan Xiaolan zhen He zu lidai de fajia shi ji qita youguan ziliao” (What I Know of the History of the Growth of the He Lineage of Xiaolan, and Other Materials). Manuscript.Google Scholar
He, Lizai. 1984. “Lanshan shuyuan xingge shilüe” (A brief History of the Lanshan Academy). Zhongshan wenshi, vol. 4, 96–98.Google Scholar
He, Lizai. 1987. “He Naizhong xiaozhuan” (A Brief Biography of He Naizhong). Zhongshan wenshi, vol. 11, 71–72.Google Scholar
He, Yuechao n.d. “Yuechao shiji” (Poetry Collection of Yuechao). Manuscript. Hobsbawm, Eric; and Terrence, Ranger. 1983. The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Huang, Philip. 1985. The Peasant Economy and Social Change in North China. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Hymes, Robert. 1986. Statement and Gentlemen: The Elites of Fu-chou, Chiang-hsi, in Northern and Southern Sung. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Katayama, Tsuyoshi. 1982. “Shinmatsu Kōtōshō Shukō deruta no zukōsei ni tsuite zeiro, koseki, dōzoku” (The Subcounty Administrative Divisions, Tax Accounts, and Lineages in the Pearl River Delta). Tōyō gakuhō, 63:3–4, 1–34.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Philip. 1971. Rebellion and Its Enemies in Late Imperial China. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Le, Roy Ladurie Enmanual. 1979. Carnival of Romans. New York: G. Brazilier.Google Scholar
Little, Daniel; and Esherick, Joseph. 1989. “Testing the Testers: A Reply to Barbara Sands and Ramon Myers's Critique of G. William Skinner's Regional Systems Approach to China.” Journal of Asian Studies, 48: 1 (February), 91–99.Google Scholar
Lukes, Steven. 1978. “Power and Authority,” in A History of Sociological Analysis, Bottomore, Tom and Nisbet, Robert, eds. 633–76. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Jushi, Lu Yun Shanfang. [1814] 1936. “Jujing huiji” (Recollections along the Chrysanthemum Path), in Zhongshan Lanzheng juhuahui wenyi gailan. Guangzhou.Google Scholar
Mai, Yingyang. 1948. “Lanxiang juhua dahui yuanliu kao” (The Origin of the Chrysanthemum Festivals in Lanxiang). Kaiming bao, February 2, p.5.Google Scholar
Matsuda, Yoshiro. 1981. “Minatsu Shinsho Kanton deruta no shatan kaihasu to kyōshin shihai no kesei katei” (Rural Gentry Control and the Development of the Sands in the Pearl River Delta in the late Ming and the early Qing). Shakai keizai shigaku, 46:6, 55–81.Google Scholar
Moore, Sally F.; and Myerhoff, Barbara. 1977. Secular Ritual. Amsterdam: Van Gorum.Google Scholar
Murray, Dian. 1987. Pirates of the South China Coast, 1790–1810. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Nishigawa, Kikuko. [1981] 1985. “Qingdai Zhujiang sanjiaozhou shatian kao” (A Study of the Sands of the Pearl River Delta), Lei, Cao, trans. Lingran wenshi, 2, 1122. Reprint of Tōyō gakuhō, 63:1–2, 93–136.Google Scholar
Ortner, Sherry. 1984. “Theory in Anthropology Since the Sixties,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 26:1, 126–66.Google Scholar
Perdue, Peter. 1982. “Official Goals and Local Interests: Water Control in the Dongting Lake Region during the Ming and Qing Periods.” Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 4, 747–66.Google Scholar
Potter, Jack. 1970. “Land and Lineage in Traditional China,” in Family and Kinship in Chinese Society, Freedman, Maurice, ed. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Qin, Qingjun. 1983. “Minguo shigi Guangdong caizheng shiliao 1911–1949” (A History of the Finance Adniinistration of Guangdong, 1911–1949), in Guangzhou wenshi ziliao, vol. 29, 1–115. Guangzhou: Guangdong Sheng Zhengxie.Google Scholar
Dajun, Qu. [1700] 1985. Guangdong xinyu (New Items on Guangdong). Reprint, Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju.Google Scholar
Rankin, Mary. 1986. Elite Activism and Political Transformation in China: Zhejiang Province, 1865–1911. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Rosaldo, Renato. 1980. Ilongot Headhunting 1883–1974. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Rowe, William. 1984. Hankow: Commerce and Society in a Chinese City, 1796–1889. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Sands, Barbara; and Myers, Ramon. 1986. “The Spatial Approach to History: A Test.” Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 4, 721–44.Google Scholar
Sangren, Steven. 1987. History and Magical Power in a Taiwanese Community. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Seddon, David, ed. 1978. Relations of Production: Marxist Approaches to Economic Anthropology. Lackner, Helen, trans. London: Frank Cass. Siu, Anthony. n.d. “Nineteenth-Century Collection of the Land Deeds of the Xiao lineage in Dalan.” Compilation work in progress.Google Scholar
Siu, Helen. 1989a. Agents and Victims in South China: Accomplices in Rural Revolution. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Siu, Helen. 1989b. “Socialist Peddlers and Princes in a Chinese Market Town.” American Ethnologist, 16:2, 195–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siu, Helen. 1989c. “Reforming Tradition: Politics and Popular Rituals in Contemporary Rural China,” in Unofcial China: Popular Culture and Thought in the People's Republic, Link, Perry, Madsen, Richard, Pickowicz, Paul, eds. Boulder: Westview.Google Scholar
Helen, Siu. 1990. “Subverting Lineage, Power: Local Bosses and Territorial Control in the 1940s.” Paper presented for the panel on “Lineage Power and Community Change in Republican South China,” at the April 5–8 meetings in Chicago of the Association of Asian Studies.Google Scholar
Helen, Siu. Forthcoming. “Where Were the Women? Rethinking Marmage Resistance and Regional Culture in South China.”Google Scholar
Skinner, G. William. 1964. “Marketing and Social Structure in Rural China.” Journal of Asian Studies, 24:1, 3–43; 24:2, 195–28; 24:3, 363–99.Google Scholar
Skinner, G. William. 1971. “Chinese Peasants and the Closed Community: an Open and Shut Case.” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 13:3, 270–81.Google Scholar
Skinner, G. William. 1985. “Presidential Address: The Structure of Chinese History.” Journal of Asian Studies, 104: 2, 271–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stallybrass, Peter; and White, Allon. 1986. The Politics and Poetics of Transgression. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Stockard, Janice. 1989. Daughters of the Canton Delta: Marriage Patterns and Economic Strategies in South China, 1860–1931. Stanford: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strauch, Judith. 1983. “Community and Kinship in Southeastern China: The View of the Multi-lineage Village of Hong Kong.” Journal of Asian Studies, 103:1, 21–50.Google Scholar
Issel, Tanaka. 1981. Chūgoku saishi engeki kenkyū (A Study of Chinese Ritual and Theatre). Tokyo: Institute of Oriental Culture, University of Tokyo.Google Scholar
Issel, Tanaka. 1985. “The Social and Historical Context of Ming-China Chinese Local Drama,” in Popular Culture in Late Imperial China, Johnson, David, Nathan, Andrew, and Rawski, Evelyn, eds. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Thompson, E. P. 1978. “Eighteenth-century English Society: Class Struggle without Class.” Social History, 3:2, 133–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Topley, Marjorie. 1975. “Marriage Resistance in Rural Kwangtung,” in Women in Chinese Society, Wolf, Margery and Witke, Roxanne, eds., 67–88. Stanford: Stanford University PressGoogle Scholar
Tsang, Wah-moon. 1973. The Centrality of Development of Lingnan in T'ang Dynasiy. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press.Google Scholar
Wakeman, Frederic. 1966. Strangers at the Gate: Social Disorder in South China, 1839–1861. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Wang, Shixing. [Ming Dynasty] 1981. Guang zhiyi (A Gazetteer of Guangdong). Reprint, Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju.Google Scholar
Ward, Barbara. 1985a. “Regional Opera and Their Audiences: Evidence from Hong Kong,” Popular Culture in Late Imperial China, Johnson, David, Nathan, Andrew, and Rawski, Evelyn, eds. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Ward, Barbara. 1985b. “Varieties of the Conscious Model: The Fishermen of South China,” in Through Other Eyes, Ward, Barbara, ed., 41–60. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong.Google Scholar
Reprinted from The Relevance of Models for Social Anthropology, Benton, Michael, ed. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Watson, James. 1977. “Hereditary Tenancy and Corporate Landlordism in Traditional China.” Modern Asian Studies, 11, 161–82.Google Scholar
Watson, James. 1982. “Chinese Kinship Reconsidered: Anthropological Perspectives on Historical Research.” China Quarterly, vol. 92, 589–627.Google Scholar
Watson, James. 1985. “Standardizing the Gods: The Promotion of T'ien Hou (Empress of Heaven) Along the South China Coast 960–1960,” in Popular Culture in Late Imperial China, Johnson, David, Nathan, Andrew, and Rawski, Evelyn, eds. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Watson, James; and Rawski, Evelyn, ed. 1988. Death Rituals in Late Imperial and Modern China. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Watson, Rubie. 1985. Inequality Among Brothers: Class and Kinship in South China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolf, Arthur. 1974. “Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors,” in Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society, Wolf, Arthur, ed., 131–82. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Wolf, Eric. 1982. Europe and the People without History. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Xiaolan zhenzhi (Xiaolan town gazetteer). 1984.Google Scholar
Xinxiu Xiangshan Xianzhi. (Revised Local Gazetteer of Xiangshan). 1827. Compiler: Huang Peifang et al.Google Scholar
Xu, Xu. 1984. Lingnan gujin shi (A History of Lingnan). Hong Kong: Shanghai Books.Google Scholar
Zhongshan guomin ribao (Zhongshan Daily). 1930s and 1940s.Google Scholar
Zhongshan Lanzheng juhuahui wenyi gallan (A Survey of the Literature of the Chrysanthemum Festivals of Zhongshan). 1936. Guangzhou.Google Scholar
d, Zhongshan Wenshi Bianji Weiyuanhui n.. (1960s–1980s) Zhongshan wenshi (Zhongshan Cultural History), vol. 1–11. Shigi: Guangdong Zhongshang Shi Zhengxie.Google Scholar
Zhongshan wenxian (Zhongshan Documents). 1964. Vol. 1–8. Taipei: Xuesheng Shudian.Google Scholar