The Transformation of Private Life: Love, Rural Bank, and Intimate Relationships in a Chinese Village, 1949-1999

Author: Yan Yunxiang (Author), Gong Xiaoxia (Translator)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: This book has just won the "Levin Book Award for 2005" from the Association for Asian Studies. The author's other monograph, The Flow of Gifts: Reciprocity and Social Networks in a Chinese Village, published in 2000, received positive responses from academia. This book can be seen as a continuation of the previous one, based on field research. Similarly focusing on Xiama Village in Northeast China, it examines changes in the local moral world of Xiama Village, shifts in the process of rural youth marriage, the various details of this transformation, the evolution of three interrelated customs in the division of family property, and the significant changes reflected in the practice of betrothal gifts. It discusses the emergence and development of individuals as independent entities and the crucial role the state plays in the transformation of private life and the formation of individual subjectivity. The conclusion is that over the past half-century, farmers' private lives have undergone dual transformations, with the core of this transformation being the rise of the individual as an independent subject. This book explores a topic that has been almost untouched by previous research—private emotions and family life in rural China. In the 1970s, Yan Yunxiang worked as a farmer in a rural area of Northeast China for seven years. In 1989, he returned to the same place for nearly a decade of anthropological field research, studying the private lives and moral world of increasingly affluent rural villagers. His research scope extends from public domains such as social relationships, family property, and the care of the elderly to private emotions, sexuality, contraception, and gender choices. This topic is highly significant.