The Remaking of the Chinese Character and Identity in the 21st Century: The Chinese Face Practices. By Wenshan Jia. [Westport, CT and London: Ablex Publishing, 2001. xv+196 pp. £24.95. ISBN 1-56750-555-4.]

Extract

Many of the faults of this book may be intuited from the title. The author too often writes as if there is a singular entity called “the Chinese Character” whose cornerstone are “the Chinese Face Practices.” Though claiming that his use of a “social constructionist” approach allows him to rise above ahistorical and orientalist approaches, the author rarely does so. For example, his history of the Chinese face practices consists of ten pages that cover the Shang dynasty to the present.