Main Abstracts

Main Abstracts

The True Faith and Sincerity in Fieldwork

SUN Qingzhong

Fieldwork is an important research method for humanities and social sciences. When the fieldworker shoulders his package and leaves for the rural area, he is going to inquire about the indigenous knowledge and local wisdom. In the mean time, he also explores the world in which he is living. Therefore, the fieldwork that has transcended the technological aspect, is not only an art of academic research, but moreover, a cultivation of mindset. During this process, accumulated by experiences and feelings, the actor has time to look up into the night stars for a hearty communication with nature; simultaneously, he also gets the warmth and strength coming from the interdependence among his human counterparts.

fieldwork; faith; sincerity; rural construction

On Generative Mechanism of Festival Space

SONG Ying

Previous studies of festivals mostly focus on their being unique nodes in time, using the term of “cultural space” to explain the folk activities from the perspective of space, which lacks corresponding academic support, and thus wants future resources. Beyond the limitation of "culture space", this article promotes the concept of “festival space” to discuss how society shapes a festival and folklore creates space to represent a festival. Furthermore, six dimensions of generative mechanism of the festivals reveal cultural significance in a traditional festival. Moreover, the term of “festival space” explores the inner relations between culture and folk. Based on this concept, this article advances “each representation” and “the space” to analyze traditional festival folklore as space representation of social activities in the folk. The study of “festival space” is an important academic issue, and a thorough comprehension of festival generative mechanism will promote the study of traditional festivals.

Key Words: festival space; generative mechanism; culture space; folk; cultural representation

Multi-senses of Place: An Approachto to Ecomuseum

YIN Kai

Under the influence of modernity and localization, the related issues of “place” or “sense of place” are becoming increasingly important knowledge growth points of different disciplines. In the field of heritage and museology, as a cultural tool of creating “sense of place”, the ecomuseum has encountered the dilemma of recognizing community or the rural area in project practice and theory construction. The sensing of place is not unitary, but very subjective and situational. Rural individuals, rural collectives, local governments and ecomuseums all have their own logic of understanding the place, and this kind of multi-senses of place is the key to understanding the place and govern the place.

Key Words: place; sense of place; ecomuseum; rural collective; local government

Global Religious Changes and Civil Life in Two Chinese Societies: A Comparison between Jiangsu and Taiwan

Robert P. Weller, translated by LI Shengzhu

In the 20th century, southern Jiangsu and Taiwan were simultaneously swept into the tide of global religious changes, and developed in the direction of national secularization, religioniztion, rationalization and embodiment. Due to the sharing of very similar cultural traditions and local practices, the two places show a lot of similar religious landscape in the field of Buddhism, Daoism and local temple worship. At the same time, due to the great differences between the political system and the religious control mechanism, there have been some significant differences in the gradual evolution of the two religions, such as the different coping strategies in the face of global expansion of new Christianity and religion in Taiwan seems to be more localized than in Jiangsu, and even anywhere in mainland China. Combined with the unique local historical context, to some extent, the comparative study of religion in Jiangsu and Taiwan can show the modern changes in Chinese society.

Key Words: global religious changes; southern Jiangsu; Taiwan; comparative studies

Concept and Thought: An Interpretation of Tiger-shaped Seals of the Han Dynasty

ZHAO Yang

The graphic content of tiger-shaped seals in the Han Dynasty has strong repeatability. These graphics come from the historical memory of Han people, and are the bearers of Han people’s concept and thought. Under the influence of Han people’s general concept and thought, tiger-shaped seals of many kinds appeared, which included such themes as “man & tiger”, “highlighting tiger pattern” and “white tiger”. These kinds of seals reflect Han people’s martial spirit, concept of exorcism, and the auspicious thought, and at the same time, the meaning and function of such seals are inseparable to Han people’s general concept and thought. The interpretation and study of these seals in the perspective of the history of ideology is an effort to broaden the research approach to pictorial seals.

Key Words: the Han Dynasty; tiger-shaped seals; graphics; the moral function

The Transformation of the Mourning Apparel Principles of Daughter-in-law Wearing for Parents-in-law in Early Song Dynasty

XU Shuang

The mourning apparel principles of daughter-in-law wearing for parents-in-law changed with an edict given by Emperor Taizu of the Song Dynasty, which changed the time of mourning from one year to three years, and then these principles were adopted inKaibaotongli開(kāi)寶通禮. However, these principles originated from the Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties, and after the daughter-in-law and her parents-in-law had equal mourning apparel principles, a woman wearing for parents-in-law for three years began to appear inShuyi書(shū)儀,Shuyijing書(shū)儀鏡and other books from down to top. It is also known that the sources of the mourning apparel system ofKaibaotonglinot only originated from the ceremonies of the Tang Dynasty, and the final custom is also the result of choosing and adjusting ceremonies of the Tang Dynasty and the Five dynasties according to the situation in early Song Dynasty.

Key Words: early Song Dynasty；daughter-in-law wearing for parents-in-law；the mourning apparel system

The Integration of Watermelon with Traditional Chinese Folk Festivals and the Reasons

LIU Qizhen, WANG Siming

Watermelon is a kind of foreign crop. Its spread, promotion and popularity not only brought China an excellent fruit, but also enriched the original folk cultural life of traditional festivals. Many Chinese traditional folk festivals, such as Chinese New Year (Spring Festival), the Lantern Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, New Crops Recommendation, Beginning of Autumn, Chinese Valentine’s Day, Hungry Ghost Festival, the Mid-Autumn Festival, and so on, have all absorbed and combined elements of watermelon to different extent. Investigating the reasons, watermelon fits the purposes and demands of traditional Chinese Folk Festivals at least in biological features, ripening time and ecological character. Watermelon traditional festival folk culture is a very important agricultural cultural heritage, so its cultural value and social significance deserve our attention, and an effective protection, inheritance and development of the culture should be ensured.

Key Words: watermelon；Chinese folk festivals; folklore；watermelon culture； watermelon lantern

Historical Memories and the Construction of Multiple Cultural Images of Liu Sanjie

QIN Deqing

Zhuang’s “Liu Sanjie” is a cultural symbol between the objective existence of “real subject” and the social memories of imaginary space. “Liu Sanjie”, who is recorded and imagined by different memory subjects, has different social identities in different temporal and spatial contexts, and plays different cultural roles. The different historical mind of different memory subjects retains or discards different cultural elements, constructing different cultural images of “Liu Sanjie”. The revival of the human aesthetic perception, aesthetic experience and aesthetic memories implied by the imaginary subject is the cultural foundation for the continuation of the poetic tradition of the Zhuang people.

Key Words: historical memories; Liu Sanjie; cultural images; poetic tradition

Concept and Boundary of Cultural Space：Taking the Performance Fields of theShe’s Epic ofGaoHuangSongin South Zhejiang as an Example

Meng Lingfa

The epic ofGaoHuangSongis widely spread in theShecountryside, south Zhejiang. The performance of the song needs certain fields as reliance, and these performance fields are also a kind of cultural space. In theShecommunity in south Zhejiang,GaoHuangSongis performed generally in two important fields, namely the singing fields of entertainment and Taoist rites. No matter what kind of performance fields, they both takeShe’s households as the center. In the wave of ICH protection, the performance fields ofGaoHuangSongare gradually reduced to stages, and from the sacred to secular. In addition, as one of the main objects of ICH protection, the “space-time boundary” of cultural space is not determined by the length of time and space span, but depends on the space-time construction of traditional cultural activities or traditional cultural manifestations in specific ethnic groups by the subjects of ICH.

Key Words: singing fields; Taoist rites;GaoHuangSong; performance fields; cultural space

Life Place across History: An Anthropological Study of the Celibate Women’s DwellingBingyutangas a Life Space

HE Wenzhen

In the past,it was not accepted that the celibate women died at home, so they builtBingyutang(Ice & Jade Hall) as their residence of rest home, and they worshiped the memorial tablet inside this architecture. As their relatives accepted them to live at home later on, the function ofBingyutangevolved to be their meeting spot. A decade ago, inspired by the tourism development, the local government turnedBingyutanginto a scenic spot and folk museum. The history ofBingyutangreflects the pursuit of self-identity and community-identity of the celibate women. It shows the strong interaction between celibate women and local community. This architecture internalizes the virtues and history of the celibate women. It serves as the nursing home of celibate women, who pass their old age there on one hand, and on the other hand, it is the fate of celibate women’s soul and becomes the life space for the future generation to recall their immortal spirit.

Key Words:Bingyutang; celibate women; life space

Reproduction of a Village’s Daily Life and Collective Memory in the Context of Urbanization——An Analysis of the Customs of the Lantern Festival in Li Zhuang of Wuhan

LIN Lei, ZHU Jinghui

In the context of urbanization, Festival customs still play an important role in village development. Through the case study of Lantern Festival in Li Zhuang, this article analyzes the function of festival customs from the dimensions of daily life and collective memory, and finds that the daily life and the collective memory of the village have been reproduced in the practical process of folk customs, and at the same time, the reproducing process reflects the villagers’ action logic that intertwines sensibility and rationality as well as their seeking of the ontological value of the village. Therefore, in the context of urbanization, the form and path of the village change is not only affected by social transformation, but also depends on villagers’ construction of the village’s function and significance.

Key Words: daily life; collective memory; village development

“What Happens Here, Stays Here” : Selling the Untellable in a Tourism Advertising Campaign

Sheila Bock，translated by CHENG Peng

This article shows how the commercials in a popular tourist advertising campaign invoke familiar folk narrative traditions to construct Las Vegas as an extraordinary destination that creates stories worthy of narration. At the same time, these advertisements ultimately construct Las Vegas stories as inherently untellable, inviting potential tourists to take part in a shared corpus of experiences that simultaneously call for and resist narration.

Key Words: Las Vegas, mass media, advertising, tourism, untellability