Lijiang and the People of Lijiang: Impressions of the Naxi Culture

Author: Zhou Junhua
Publisher:
Publishing Time: Not available
Features: We do not want to comment excessively on whether a nation and its culture is good or bad. Instead, we approach it with an objective attitude to explore what it is and why it is this way. Starting from this attitude and methodology, this book provides a factual and objective description and analysis of the Naxi people and their culture, interpreting their spiritual world from psychological and philosophical perspectives. Among them, there are Naxi people who have been nurtured by this land since childhood, with a "self-observation method" (emic) or, to say, an insider's perspective, observing, experiencing, and analyzing their own culture and psychology, such as Zhao Xiaoying, Cai Xiaoling, etc. There are also others who have lived in this culture for a long time and have been deeply influenced by Naxi culture, observing and studying the Naxi people and their culture from an "external observation" (etic) or, to say, "etic research" perspective. No academic research can be separated from the exploration and accumulation of predecessors, and the writing of this book also references and absorbs the achievements of previous scholars. Our era is undergoing tremendous changes, and the wave of globalization is sweeping every corner of the world. If in the future, later generations can learn some characteristics of the Naxi people in terms of politics, culture, psychology, etc., from this book, and understand the essence of the Naxi people and their culture, that would be our purpose. This book is a crystallization of collective wisdom. The overall approach and theoretical framework design and coordination of this book were done by Zhou Junhua.