Separation and Reunion in Modern ChinaIn this distinctive book, Charles Stafford describes the Chinese fascination with separation and reunion. Drawing on his field studies in Taiwan and mainland China, he gives a vivid account of festivals of reunion, rituals for the sending-off of gods, silent leave-takings, poetic words of parting, and bitter political rhetoric. Stafford examines how these idioms and practices help people situate themselves in historical communities, and how they are deployed in official Chinese rhetoric concerning Taiwan. The discussion of these everyday rituals offers rich insights into Chinese and Taiwanese society and culture. |
Contents
Two festivals of reunion | 30 |
The etiquette of parting and return | 55 |
Greeting and sendingoff the dead | 70 |
The ambivalent threshold | 87 |
Commensality as reunion | 99 |
Women and the obligation to return | 110 |
Developing a sense of history | 127 |
Classical narratives of separation and reunion | 144 |
The politics of separation and reunion in China and Taiwan | 156 |
the separation constraint | 174 |
Notes | 179 |
| 192 | |
| 200 | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
ambivalent ancestors Angang Angang and Dragon-head anthropological anthropologists arguably arrival attachment attachment theory banquets Bowlby celebrations chapter Chinese culture Chinese kinship classical complex context cycle Daoist daughters dead death departure discuss doors Dragon-head and Angang duilian dumplings emotional example explicitly fact festival firecrackers friends funerals gates ghosts gods greeting guests Hakka Han Chinese Hong Hong lou meng household human important infants invited jiaozi kang kind kng put laiwang least literally living lunar mainland China mother narratives natal homes noted offerings Old Yang's parents patrilineal perhaps Pintupi poetry political problem processes of separation Qing relatedness relations relationships relatives reunification reunion commensality rites rituals Sambia Sangren seen sending-off separation and reunion separation constraint significant simply social sometimes spirit mediums spirit money stress suggest symbolism Taiwanese Tang dynasty things Tu Fu unity verse visits wedding women year's eve
Popular passages
Page 8 - Clearly the repression of the Oedipus complex was no easy task. The child's parents, and especially his father, were perceived as the obstacle to a realization of his Oedipus wishes ; so his infantile ego fortified itself for the carrying out of the repression by erecting this same obstacle within itself. It borrowed strength to do this, so to speak, from the father, and this loan was an extraordinarily momentous act.
Page 7 - At the same time, he was greatly attached to his mother, who had not only fed him herself but had also looked after him without any outside help. This good little boy, however, had an occasional disturbing habit of taking any small objects he could get hold of and throwing them away from him into a corner, under the bed, and so on, so that hunting for his toys and picking them up was often quite a business. As he did this he gave vent to a loud, longdrawn-out "o— o— o— o," accompanied by an...
Page 7 - He did not disturb his parents at night, he conscientiously obeyed orders not to touch certain things or go into certain rooms, and above all he never cried when his mother left him for a few hours. At the same time, he was greatly attached to him mother, who had not only fed him herself but had also looked after him without any outside help.
Page 7 - One day I made an observation which confirmed my view. The child had a wooden reel with a piece of string tied round it. It never occurred to him to pull it along the floor behind him, for instance, and play at its being a carriage. What he did was to hold the reel by the string and very skillfully throw it over the edge of his curtained cot, so that it disappeared into it, at the same time uttering his expressive "oooo.
Page 7 - He then pulled the reel out of the cot again by the string and hailed its reappearance with a joyful 'da
Page 12 - Freud (I960),* nor has there been a simple forgetting. On the contrary, the data show that during the phase of detachment the responses that bind the child to his mother and lead him to strive to recover her are subject to a defensive process. In some way they are removed from consciousness, but remain latent and ready to become active again, at high intensity, when circumstances...
Page 7 - It was related to the child's great cultural achievement - the instinctual renunciation . . . which he had made in allowing his mother to go away without protesting.
Page 7 - This good little boy, however, had an occasional disturbing habit of taking any small objects he could get hold of and throwing them away from him into a corner, under the bed, and so on, so that hunting for his toys and picking them up was often quite a business. As he did this he gave vent to a loud, longdrawn-out "oooo," accompanied by an expression of interest and satisfaction. His mother and the writer of the present account were agreed in thinking that this was not a mere interjection but represented...
Page 8 - How then does his repetition of this distressing experience as a game fit in with the pleasure principle? It may perhaps be said in reply that her departure had to be enacted as a necessary preliminary to her joyful return, and that it was in the latter that lay the true purpose of the game.
Page 7 - ... (fort) . I saw at last that this was a game, and that the child used all his toys only to play 'being gone' with them. One day I made an observation that confirmed my view. The child had a wooden reel with a piece of string wound round it. It never occurred to him...