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Community Studies in China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Morton H. Fried
Morton H. Fried
Affiliation:
Columbia University
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Extract

The present article will analyze some of the major currents in the study of Chinese culture in terms of functioning communities. We will turn, first, to works of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, showing why these accounts, no matter how well done, were not community studies. We shall then turn successively to the pioneer scientific work on Chinese communities, the social surveys, and to the several published community studies which are largely anthropological in their organization and execution. The second section of this paper deals with the methodology of modern community studies in China and discusses problems of field method and of topical organization and interpretation. In a third section the emphasis rests upon subdisciplinary specializations, e.g., economic, sociological, psychological and so on. In this case, the term “subdisciplinary” is used because, with certain notable exceptions, the specialist work has been carried on within a broader anthropological approach. In this section we will attempt to outline what has been done, and to point out the most significant gaps that remain.

Type
Community Studies in Japan and China: A Symposium
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , November 1954 , pp. 11 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1954

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References

1 Land and Labour in China (London, 1932), 23.Google Scholar

2 Hsiao-tung, Fei and Chih-i, Chang, Earthbound China, (Chicago, 1945) viii.Google Scholar

3 Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Eleventh Edition (London, 1910) 6:174.Google Scholar

4 Mrs.Little, Archibald, The Land of the Blue Gown (London, 1902) 141–2.Google Scholar

5 MacGowan, J., Sidelights on Chinese Life (London, 1907) 1.Google Scholar

6 Dukes, Edwin J., Everyday Life In China (London, 1865) 3.Google Scholar

7 See, for example, Ross, Edward Alsworth, The Changing Chinese (New York, 1911)Google Scholar. Despite Ross' standing as a professional sociologist his pages are even more crowded with a priori judgments than are the works cited above.

8 See Col. Ki-Tong, Tcheng, The Chinese Painted by Themselves (London, n.d. 1885?)Google Scholar and Leong, and Tao, , Village and Town Life in China (London, 1915).Google Scholar

9 Smith, Arthur H., Chinese Characteristics (New York, 1894) 14.Google Scholar

10 Carpenter, Niles, “Social Surveys,” Ency. Soc. Sci. (New York, 1937) Vol. 7: 152.Google Scholar

11 See Ch'eng-hsin, Chao, “She-hui tiao-ch'a yü she-ch'ü yen-chiu” (Social Surveys and Community Studies) Sociological World, 9 (Peiping, 1936) 156ffGoogle Scholar; Li Ching-han (Franklin C. H. Lee), “She-hui tiao-ch'a yün-tung” (The Social Survey Movement in China) Sociological World (1927)Google Scholar; Yü-ch'üan, Wang, “The Development of Modern Social Sciences in China,” Pacific Affairs, 11 (1938) 360–2.Google Scholar

12 Both Wang Yü-ch'üan and Franklin C. H. Lee cite the work done among Peking ricksha pullers by students under the direction of T'ao Meng-ho as the earliest social survey made in China. This may be true insofar as the research was concerned. However, my earliest bibliographic reference to this study shows a publication date of 1925.

13 Dittmer, C. G., “An Estimate of the Standard of Living in China,” Quarterly Journ. Econ. 33 (1919).Google Scholar

14 Note: The following listing of social surveys by type is intended to be suggestive rather than exhaustive.

I. Generalized Social Surveys

Probably the best of these remains Li Ching-han (Franklin C. H. Lee), Tinghsien she-hui kai-k'uang tiao-ch'a (General Social Survey of Ting Hsien) (1933)Google Scholar. The basic materials of this work with some deletions and additions has been published in English by Sidney Gamble under the title, Ting Hsien, A North China Rural Community, (New York, 1954).Google Scholar

Also: Bucklin, H. S. (ed.) A Social Survey of Sung-Ka-Hong, China, (Shanghai, 1924)Google Scholar, the Chinese version of which is Ching-yu, Chang (ed.), She-hui tiao-ch'a Shen Chia Hang shih-k'uang (Shanghai, 1924)Google Scholar; Ching Ho, the Report of the Preliminary Survey of the Town of Ching Ho, Hopei, North China, (Peiping, 1931)Google Scholar; Hsu, L. S., “I-ko shih-chên tiao-ch'a ti ch'ang shih” (A Market-Town Survey Experiment), Sociological World, 5 (1931)Google Scholar, Study of a Typical Chinese Town (Peiping, 1933)Google Scholar; Huang-ti, “Ch'ing-ho ts'un-chên shê-ch'ü” (Ching-ho Village-Town Community), Sociological World 10 (1935)Google Scholar; Ta, Chen, “She-hui tiao-ch'a ti ch'ang-shih” (An Experiment in Social Survey), Tsinghua hsüeh-pao 1 (1924)Google Scholar; Dickenson, Jean, Observations on the Social Life of a North China Village, (Peiping, 1924)Google Scholar; Yuey-len, Wu, “Life and Culture of the Shanam Boat People,” Nankai Soc. and Econ. Quart. 9 (1937)Google Scholar; T'ai-ch'u, Liao, I-ko ch'eng-chiao ti ts'un-lo she-ch'ü (Peiping?, 1941)Google Scholar; etc.

II. Farm Management and Land Utilization Studies:

Malone, C. B. and Taylor, J. B., The Study of Chinese Rural Economy (1924)Google Scholar; Buck, John Los sing, Chinese Farm Economy (Shanghai, 1930)Google Scholar, An Economic and Social Survey of 102 Farms near Wuhu, Anbuei, China, (Nanking, 1923)Google Scholar, Land Utilization in China 3 vols. (Chicago, 1937)Google Scholar; Ch'eng-hsin, Chao, “Kuang-cung Hsin-hu Tz'ü-ch'i t'u-ti fen-p'ei tiao-ch'a” (An Investigation of Land Distribution in Tz'u-ch'i, Hsin-hu hsien, Kwangtung), Sociological World, 5 (1931)Google Scholar; Gamble, Sidney, “Four Hundred Chinese Farms,” Far Eastern Quarterly 4 (1944)Google Scholar; Tsuin-ts'ui, Ruh, “Farm Management Study of Eight Representative Localities in North China,” Chin. Soc. and Pol. Sci. Rev. 24 (1940)Google Scholar; Hwa-pao, Wu, “Agricultural Economy of Yung-lo Hsien in Shensi Province,” Nankai Soc. & Econ. Quart. 9 (1936)Google Scholar; also Tawney, R. H., (ed.) Agrarian China (New York, 1939)Google Scholar; etc.

III. Specialized Economic Studies:

Li-te, Pao and Chi-ch'üan, Chu, Pei-ching ti-t'an yeb tiao-ch'a chi, (Investigation of the Peking Rug Industry) (Peking, 1924)Google Scholar; Fong, H. D., “Rural Weaving and Merchant Employers in a North China District,” Nankai Soc. & Econ. Quart. 8 (1935)Google Scholar; Fong, H. D. and Ku, Y. T., “Shoe Making in a North China Port,” Cb. Soc. & PoL Sci. Rev. 18 (1934–1935)Google Scholar; Chih, Wu, “Handloom Weaving in Kaoyang,” Monthly Bull. on Econ. China, (Tientsin, 1934)Google Scholar; etc.

IV. Family Budget Studies:

Gamble, Sidney, How Chinese Families Live in Peiping (New York, 1933)Google Scholar, The Household Accounts of Two Chinese Families (New York, 1931)Google Scholar; Tao, L. K., Livelihood in Peking (Peking, 1928)Google Scholar; Lee, F. T. C. and Chin, T., Village Families in the Vicinity of Peiping, (Peiping, 1929)Google Scholar; etc.

V. Disaster and Relief Studies:

Bates, Minor S., Crop Investigation in the Nanking Area and Sundry Economic Data. (Shanghai, 1938)Google Scholar, The Nanking Population: employment, earnings and expenditures (Shanghai, 1939)Google Scholar; Smythe, Lewis S. C., War Damage in the Nanking Area (Shanghai, 1938)Google Scholar; University of Nanking, The 1931 Flood in China, an Economic Survey (Nanking, 1932)Google Scholar; etc.

VI. Education:

The Tinghsien materials are illustrative (see above); also Li Ching-han, “Wupai-i-shih-wu nung-ts'un chia-t'ing chih yen-chiu” (A survey of 515 village families), Sociological World, 5 (1931)Google Scholar; etc.

15 Earthbound China, 4.Google Scholar

16 Though this listing may be incomplete, the writer is incapable of extending it. Some works are omitted because they do not use the whole-cultural approach so typical of the community study. This would apply to Franklin C. H. Lee's Ting-hsien shê-hui kai-k'uang tiao-ch'a and Sidney Gamble's, Ting Hsien: A North China Rural Community, despite the extraordinary concern for such things as religious and ceremonial detail, recreation, and art which certainly distinguishes these two studies from all others of their kind done in China. My reasons for excluding them as community studies are given in some detail in a review of the Gamble book that will soon appear in the American Anthropologist. Incidentally, Liao T'ai-chu's I-ko ch'eng-chiao ti ts'un lo shê-ch'u and Yang Ching-kun's, A North China Local Market Economy despite their designation as community studies are too specialized to be admitted.

There is also a group of writers whose work is known to me only through bibliographic reference in the writings of others. Among these are Cheng An-lan, Huang Shih, Li Yu-i, Pao Kuo, and T'ien Ju-k'ang (the last of these now known for his work in Sarawak). Naturally, I cannot evaluate the work of these men.

17 See Firth, Raymond, “Chung Kuo nung-ts'un shê-hui t'uan-chieh-hsing ti yen-chiu” (Social Stability in North China Village Life), Sociological World 10 (1938)Google Scholar, trans. into Chinese by Fei Hsiao-tung.

18 Steward, Julian H., Area Research, Theory and Practice (New York, 1950) 43.Google Scholar

19 Ta, Chen, Emmigrant Communities in South China, (New York, 1939) 5.Google Scholar

20 Ibid. 8.

21 None of these points are made in Fabric of Chinese Society, but they appear in Kin and Non-kin in Chinese Society, Univeisity Microfilms (Ann Arbor, 1951) 6ff.Google Scholar

22 See Steward, , op. cit. 45.Google Scholar

23 Under the Ancestors' Shadow (New York. 1945) 9.Google Scholar

24 Hsiao-tung, Fei, “Peasantry and Gentry in China,” Amer. Journ. Soc. 52, (1946)Google Scholar, and China's Gentry, Essays in Rural-Urban Relations (Chicago, 1953).Google Scholar

25 Yang, Martin, A Chinese Village (New York, 1945) 132.Google Scholar

26 See, among others, Bu-wei, Chao, Autobiography of a Chinese Woman (New York, 1947)Google Scholar; Mon-lin, Chiang, Tides From the West (New Haven, 1945)Google Scholar; Yi, Chiang, A Chinese Childhood (London, 1940)Google Scholar; Pruitt, Ida, Daughter of Han (New Haven, 1945)Google Scholar; etc.

27 See Han-yi, Feng, “The Chinese Kinship System,” HJAS 2 (1937)Google Scholar; Kroeber, A. L., “Process in the Chinese Kinship System,” Amer. Anth., 34 (1932)Google Scholar; Chen, T. S. and Shryock, J. K., “Chinese Relationship Terms,” Amer. Anth., 34, 1932Google Scholar; Hsiao-tung, Fei, “The Problem of Chinese Relationship System,” Monumenta Serica, 20 (1936–1937)Google Scholar; etc.

28 Steward, , op. cit. 45Google Scholar. See also White, Leslie A., “Sociology, Physics, and Mathematics,” Amer. Soc. Rev. 8(1943).Google Scholar

29 Ta, Chen, Population in Modern China (Chicago, 1946) 10.Google Scholar

30 Fei, and Chang, , Earthbound China, 37.Google Scholar

31 Kulp, Daniel H. IICountry Life in South China, (New York, 1925) xxi.Google Scholar

32 In my own work I have found that a careful descriptive separation of the various socio-economic classes, themselves distinguished on the basis of a common-sense approach to the phenomenon of obvious heterogeneity accomplishes, at least provisionally, some of the more elementary goals of quantification. This certainly does not obviate the quantitative techniques whose value and necessity I well appreciate. See Fabric of Chinese Society, 13ffGoogle Scholar., and my brief article, “Chinese Society: Class as Sub-Culture,” Trans. New York Acad. Sciences, Ser. II, Vol. 14 (1952).Google Scholar

33 For Fei's own explanation see Earthbound China, 13ff.Google Scholar

34 This certainly does not apply to Hsu's recent book, Americans and Chinese (New York, 1953)Google Scholar however, this book is not a community study.

35 Kulp, D. H. IIop. cit. 62, 68.Google Scholar

36 See note 14:1 and note 16.

37 See Hsien-chin, Hu, The Common Descent Group in China and its Functions, (New York, 1948) esp. p. 13 and p. 194Google Scholar (top) n. 2.

38 See Eberhard, Wolfram, Lokalkulturen im Alten China (Leiden, 1942).Google Scholar

39 Wright, Arthur F. (ed.), “Chinese Studies in America,” (1952, hectographed).Google Scholar