In this important ethnography Ziying You explores the role of the "folk literati" in negotiating, defining, and maintaining local cultural heritage. Expanding on the idea of the elite literati-a widely studied pre-modern Chinese social group, influential in cultural production-the folk literati are defined as those who are skilled in classical Chinese, knowledgeable about local traditions, and capable of representing them in writing. The folk literati work to maintain cultural continuity, a concept that is expressed locally through the vernacular phrase: "incense is kept burning."

You's research focuses on a few small villages in Hongtong County, Shanxi Province in contemporary China. Through a careful synthesis of oral interviews, participant observation, and textual analysis, You presents the important role the folk literati play in reproducing local traditions and continuing stigmatized beliefs in a community context. She demonstrates how eight folk literati have reconstructed, shifted, and negotiated local worship traditions around the ancient sage-Kings Yao and Shun as well as Ehuang and Nuying, Yao's two daughters and Shun's two wives. You highlights how these individuals' conflictive relationships have shaped and reflected different local beliefs, myths, legends, and history in the course of tradition preservation. She concludes her study by placing these local traditions in the broader context of Chinese cultural policy and UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage program, documenting how national and international discourses impact actual traditions, and the conversations about them, on the ground.

About the Author

Ziying You is Associate Professor of Chinese Studies at the College of Wooster. She is editor (with Lijun Zhang) of Chinese Folklore Studies Today: Discourse and Practice and of a special issue for the journal Asian Ethnology, titled Intangible Cultural Heritage in Asia: Traditions in Transition.

Reviews

By focusing on folk literati and cultural traditions in Hongtong, Ziying You engages with a cultural dialogue that spans the local and global, the East and the West, academic and folk, and the past and the present. It allows readers to obtain a deep understanding of the interplay of individual agency and social institutions in processing tradition and making heritage in China and beyond.

-- Xiaohong Chen * Journal of Folklore Research *

The topic is highly sensitive to current efforts in reworking writings on historical developments in China. This review is important due to the fact that it allows many people to access details of the topic and to start a future discourse about some of the arising questions on heritage and historical values as well as about grassroot intellectuals and existing power structures.

-- Corey Moore * Asian-European Music Research Journal *

This book is a deep field study of the transmission of local culture in Hongtong, Shanxi. Focusing on the worship of ancient sage kings Yao and Shun, the book extends outward, from the logic of ritual life in three villages, to the continuity and evolution of tradition within an 'ecology' of competing forces and manifestations, and the disruptions introduced by local media and the nomination of local rituals as Intangible Cultural Heritage. . . . With its high level of detail, applied with equal care to textual sources, theory, and fieldwork, You's work stands out in its field. Her sympathetic picture of China's folk literati represents a unique contribution to understanding the transmission and adaptation of local culture both past and present.

-- Thomas David DuBois * The China Journal *



Book Information
ISBN 9780253046369
Author Ziying You
Format Paperback
Page Count 276
Imprint Indiana University Press
Publisher Indiana University Press
Weight(grams) 408g