Taiping Rebellion: What differs it from other peasant rebellions in China?

The Taiping Rebellion is an uprising led by Hong Xiuquan in late Qing. This uprising is attached to great importance by many historians. What makes it so special compared with other rebellions and uprisings in China? One pattern of Chinese history is in a repeated rising and declining cycle of dynasties. When the power of a dynasty becomes weak, it loses control of its territory, then uprisings come in follow until someone takes the place of the previous dynasty. The Taiping Rebellion seems like one of those peasant uprisings which takes place in the phase of declining of a dynasty, the reasons why historians take it so seriously are revealed by Kilcourse’s analysis on Taiping Rebellion;  the significance of the Taiping Rebellion can differ between Chinese scholars and Western scholars due to their distinctive focuses.

Chinese scholars’ focus has a specific emphasis on the historical context of the Taiping Rebellion. It took place in the latter half of the 19th century when the Qing government was encountering the western world, many new ideas were flowing into China. It was the time when the belief in old traditions was trembling, and many people sought to find a new way to reform and strengthen the nation. Putting Hong’s attempt of building a different society in this context, Chinese scholars tend to interpret Hong as a predecessor of promoting capitalist or communist society, the starting point of following revolutions, he challenged “feudal autocracy” in China, and sought a new version of the society by importing Western ideas. They do not interpret him only in the contemporary context but also in the latter period. The Taiping Rebellion is seen as an important node in the development of China in the late Qing period, without the attempt of the Taiping Rebellion to overthrow Qing, there would not be Xinhai Revolution.1 So, for Chinese scholars, why the Taiping Rebellion is different from other peasant rebellions is due to its significance of trying to replace the decadent social structure of Qing, Hong’s ideal model is an immature prototype of a more advanced version of society. Though other peasant rebellions may also raise similar promotions, only Hong successfully put it into practice, and he was the only one who was influenced by western ideas and lived in the era when Chinese traditions were shattered by the west.

The second significant point of the Taiping Rebellion is its embrace of Christianity, drawing the attention of western scholars. Uprisings in a religious framework are also not new for peasant rebellions, for example, the White Lotus uprising. What is different for the Taiping Rebellion is that Hong did not solely adopt Christianity in his ideal world model, Taiping heavenly kingdom was the product of both Christianity and Confucianism. According to Kilcourse, Hong’s adaptation of Christianity was not just a mere distorted transplant from the West into China.2 Many Taping texts show his familiarity with Christian texts and doctrines, for example, the borrowing of Noah’s era from Great Genesis.3 This combination and rationalization of Christianity with Confucianist traditions is neither a total denial nor a yield to Western thoughts. Taiping is an alternative to investigate how Western and Eastern ideas are conflicted, combined, reshaped, and practised at the beginning of the 20th century. Since after Qing was forced to open to the rest of the world, it was inevitable for Chinese to face a different kind of thinking from the other end of the earth. Taiping is one of the early cases, after it, there would be more.

  1. Kilcourse, Carl S. Taiping Theology: The Localization of Christianity in China, 1843–64. Springer, 2016, P8. [↩]
  2. Ibid, P2. [↩]
  3. Ibid, P65-66. [↩]

Reforming the Family: Idealism, or Utilitarianism in disguise?

Around 1920s, the Chinese society witnessed a surge of reformative intellectual ideas among the young descendent of the elite class, most of which either oriented towards or, at least, consciously involved a reform of the traditional model of a Chinese family. Traditional theories have it that such a trend was set off by the rising nationalism and romantic individualism sensation , stimulated by external political threats as well as inspired by foreign social movement. A prominent example amongst these intellectual currents is the New Culture Movement, which sees familial reform as a crucial mean to exterminate the chronic corruption and vices in the Chinese society resulted from patriarchy and distorted Confucianism teachings.
The New Cultural Movement deemed the traditional Chinese family as a major obstacle for individuals to discover their creativity and to develop their personhood, which in turn hinders China’s development as a nation in the long term. The patriarchal oppression of one’s personal interests and the patriarchal intervention of one’s private affairs—such as career choices and marriage partners—deprives individuals of their motivations and subsequently stagnates the progress of the nation. The matter became all the more urgent when intellectuals of the early twentieth century viewed China as facing an existential threat. They also advocated the view that the extended family model is outdated and counterproductive. In order to catch up with the more developed states in the world, they believe that a new model of a smaller conjugal family (Xiao jiating) is necessary for the modernisation and industrialisation of China. By analysing the origin of the traditional family model, early twentieth century intellectuals situate the concept in a historical process of formation, which helped them to problematise its perpetuity. Viewing it as a social construction then allows the deconstruction and reformation of the Chinese family model.
Furthermore, this association between family structure and economic productivity led twentieth century intellectuals to shed a different light on the origin of this desire for familial reform. Susan Glosser highlights that, instead of nationalism and individual romanticism, the desire to reshape the family model is actually pushed by socioeconomic factors. The educated and progressive younger generation of the 1920s had increasingly drew associations between an accommodating family, the good citizens, and a strong nation. Following this logic, the familial reform had also encompassed the liberation and education for women, as “good wives and wise mothers” are considered as crucial for the production of fit citizens that can contribute to the development of the nation.
However, from my observation, although the advocation for familial reform had a idealistic starting point of strengthening the nation and help individuals to realise a complete personhood, it is still rather utilitarian and patriarchal in its core. The “individual”, in this case, implicitly refers to educated male Chinese citizens. The old family model was used almost as a scapegoat for China’s degeneration, and the deconstruction of it as a sooth for the male intellectuals’ insecurity under the force of Western political and intellectual influence. This view is also manifested in twentieth century feminist He Zhen’s critique that, educated elite Chinese men were using women’s liberation as a mean to demonstrate their own progressiveness, instead of advocating it for women’s own end.

Qiu Jin, He-Yin Zhen, and the Birth of the Chinese Women’s Liberation Movement

     At the turn of the 20th century, China was in a state of turmoil. Between having its territories seized upon as “the colonization urge directed the eager attention” of Europe, America, and Japan towards carving up “the Chinese colossus” and the internal political strife that resulted from this, there was a desperate need for a reorientation of Chinese thought to confront this threat to its territorial sovereignty in order to prevent China from suffering a total collapse. In what many viewed as the inability of the ailing Qing state to effectively rise to this challenge, China’s intellectuals responded accordingly with a flowering of new ideas combining both traditional Chinese thought and the more recent influence of “Western” ideologies that would kick off almost a century of revolutionary ideals in the Middle Kingdom.(( Clubb, Edmund. “Collapse of the Confucian Order.” Chapter. In 20th Century China, 33–33. Columbia Univ. Press, 1978. https://archive.org/details/20thcenturychina00oedm/page/30/mode/2up.; Spence, Jonathan D. The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution, 1895-1980. London: Penguin Books, 2012. )) As part of this movement, the feminists He-Yin Zhen and Qiu Jin emerged, advocating for an end the oppressive power structures that dominated the lives of Chinese women at the turn of the 20th century, including the autocratic Manchu government, and for their fellow women to cast off the “shackles” that men had placed on them.(( Ono, Kazuko and Fogel, Joshua A. “Four: Women in the 1911 Revolution.” Chapter. In Chinese Women in a Century of Revolution, 1850-1950, edited by Joshua A Fogel, 54–92. Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989. https://content.talisaspire.com/sta/bundles/5d53fbd40cb4c33e3577ecc4.; Liu, Lydia He, Rebecca E. Karl, and Dorothy Ko. “‘On the Question of Women’s Liberation’- He-Yin Zhen (1907).” Chapter. In The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theory, 54–71. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2013. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/st-andrews/detail.action?docID=1103412.)) Both women’s writings would help to shape the course of Chinese intellectual history as their conceptions of women’s past and present states, as well as how what liberation would look like, have had a lasting impact on the Chinese sociopolitical landscape.
     To both women, disseminating a firm understanding of the oppressive structures that governed Chinese women’s lives both past and present was crucial. While little studied, it is worth noting that, in contrast to earlier histories written about the period, the lives of women were not as bleak as previously thought, according to Rankin, and there were some opportunities for women to receive an education; however, I, as well as both Qiu Jin and He Zhen, would take issue with this characterization since, while it is true that women were given more educational opportunities, the pre-existing societal norms regarding women’s roles in the domestic sphere, as well as the practice of arranged marriages and concubinage, made it exceedingly difficult for many women to receive the benefits that came from increased access to education. Even when they were in a position to be able to do so, this was largely restricted to the upper classes.((Wolf, Margery. Women In Chinese Society. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1975. https://hdl-handle-net.ezproxy.st-andrews.ac.uk/2027/heb.04207. EPUB.; Ono and Fogel, Ibid.)) In their writings, both women compare the treatment of women in their homelands to that of animals, with He-Yin Zhen placing the blame on China’s socioeconomic system and Confucian moral teachings for “sanctioning” men’s “indulgence in sexual gratification”, thereby encouraging them to view “women as nothing more than instruments to make and nurture human seed”.((Liu, Karl, and Ko, Ibid.)) While the two women may have agreed on the current state of affairs for Chinese women, however, they vastly differed in how the viewed the past. For Qiu Jin, the past, such as Hua Mulan could be looked upon as containing examples for the independent woman to follow, whereas He Zhen viewed it with disdain, decrying men as having been women’s “archenemy” for thousands of years and cataloguing Han sovereigns’ mistreatment of women.((Liu, Karl, and Ko. Ibid.)) To He Zhen, then, the solution was not to simply replace the Manchus with a Han ruler, but, rather, the complete and total abolition of any form of government in favor of a communal form of governance brought about with women’s liberation at the forefront of the movement. It was only then, she argued, that women would truly be liberated. Qiu Jin, however, was not willing to go as far, instead joining the Revolutionary Alliance, which advocated for Han republican rule in China and the establishment of equal rights.((Ono and Fogel, ibid.; Liu, Karl, and Ko, Ibid.))
     As time has gone on, both women’s ideas have had varying levels of impact on China’s political, intellectual, and social life. He Zhen’s anarcho-feminist ideals gained popularity during the May Fourth movement, especially among female communists, while Qiu Jin’s ideas became immortalized after her death, with her legacy having been abstracted into that of generalized patriotism as it was written and rewritten throughout the 20th century, indelibly intertwined with the shifts and changes in modern Chinese history.((Zarrow, Peter. “He Zhen and Anarcho-Feminism in China.” The Journal of Asian Studies 47, no. 4 (1988): 796–813. doi:10.2307/2057853.; Bibliography; Qian, Nanxiu. “Burying Autumn: Poetry, Friendship, and Loss: Chung-Kuo Wen Hsueh.” Chinese Literature, Essays, Articles, Reviews 39, (12, 2017): 195-201. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/burying-autumn-poetry-friendship-loss/docview/2222484400/se-2?accountid=8312.)) After multiple burials and reburials, Hu concludes, the commemoration of Qiu Jin’s life, and who was able to lay claim to her revolutionary ideals, became a test of political power, with the Chinese Communist Party all too happy to do so in order to shore up its own legitimacy. Almost one hundred and ten years after Qiu Jin’s death, a very similar event took place. The killing of scholars, or shashi, remains a brutal yet effective way to silence dissident intellectuals, making it all the more important to preserve and understand the writings of people like Qiu Jin in order to advance both our historical understanding of feminism in China and the goal of the Chinese feminist movement in the 21st century.

Was the Anarchist dream ever possible in China?

In its simplest terms, anarchism is the belief in the abolition of all government, and that society should be run on a voluntary basis void of any coercion. Such a utopian ideal seems highly unrealistic and impossible to implement as it would drastically alter the way in which a society works.

However, in the early twentieth century a group of Chinese anarchists named the Tokyo Anarchists believed China was more likely than any other nation to achieve an anarchist state. Their leader, Lie Shipei, argued, ‘advocacy by the major ideologies of China, Confucianism and Daoism, of laissez-fair government had helped curtail government intervention in society’.[1] Therefore, he was claiming that strong tradition and loyalty within the family structure meant the population had less ties and involvement with politics. This fit in nicely with anarchists’ anti-despotic views.

The problem lay with Confucianism. On the whole, anarchists were quite anti-Confucian as it was not just government they were against – they were against any system that jeopardised an individual’s free will. At the heart of Confucianism lay loyalty to the family, which involved people putting their family members above all else, including themselves. So, Shipei supposed, ‘that if only Chinese could be purged of their habits of obedience, anarchism could be achieved in China in the very near future’.[2]

Was this possible? It would involve a complete cultural revolution in China to re-educate the masses on centuries worth of tradition. This was the main objective of many anarchist groups across China, not just the Tokyo Anarchists.  Such a feat would not be easy, but most anarchists were not naïve. What Shipei meant by ‘near future’ was likely centuries away, as it would take this long for a cultural shift to take effect. Arif Dirlik explains in his book, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution, that anarchists believed ‘revolutionary society could only be as good as revolutionary process that produced it’. [3] Followers that really wished for an ideal anarchist society would have to be patient if they ever wished to achieve such a radicalised culture from the norm.

In the end, to the answer the question, was the anarchist dream ever possible in China? The answer is probably not. The sheer scale of cultural revolution needed to change the population’s mindset seemed unlikely due to the dispersion of Chinese anarchists across the country. This anti-centralisation of the anarchists worked against their goals as they went without a larger organisational structure.[4] They soon lost out to the Chinese Communist Party in the 1920s, as they advocated for social revolution just as much as the anarchists but had the advantage of being a defined political organisation. Eventually the CCP would attempt their own cultural revolution that lasted ten years, from 1966-1976. Yet their brutal methods of coercion during this time were far from what the anarchists had ever dreamed of.

[1] Arif Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution (University of California Press: Berkeley, 1991), p.77

[2] Ibid. p.77

[3] Ibid. p.133

[4] Ibid. p.171

Men’s Perverted Use of Women’s Liberation

“Chinese men worship power and authority. They believe that Europeans, Americans, and the Japanese are civilised nations of the modern world who all grant their women some degree of freedom […] by transplanting this system into the lives of their wives and daughters, these men think they will be applauded by the whole world for having joined ranks of civilised nations” [[1]]

He-Yin Zhen in her article On the Question of Women’s Liberation (1907), provides a profound argument concerning the nature of women’s liberation which serves to illustrate the perverted use of women’s issues by men. He-Yin maintains that the promotion of the feminist cause and women’s liberation is only made in ‘men’s pursuit of self-distinction’, and thus questions whether such liberation is truly beneficial for women, or only perpetuates the existing unequal relationship between men and women.

Such ‘pursuit of self-distinction’ was visible not only among the intellectual spheres of China but also Korea, and is evidenced clearly within the Tonghak/Ch’ondogyo movement.  Carl Young in Eastern Learning and the Heavenly Way (2014) unveils this in his brief discussion of the role and status of women within the movement. The religion promoted the education of women as important ‘for the evolution of Korean society’, and one editorial even advocated the notion of equality of authority and rights between men and women. [[2]] Yet another editorial reveals that the movement’s motivation in promoting women’s education was rather a response to the idea of the need for Korea to ‘catch up’, in a comparison between its own female populations’ ignorance and those women in ‘civilised countries’ (Japan in particular) who had access to civilised education for decades, and whose social status did not differ much from men’s. [[3]]

Here we witness women’s issues being manipulated, acting as a supplement to its leaders commitment to their social and national agenda: the social enlightenment of the Korean nation. Their social and national agenda not withstanding the influence of the western intellectual discourse however, in their pursuit to ‘join ranks of civilised nations’. Japanese intellectual discourse enjoyed considerable influence upon the aims, organisation, and doctrine of the movement, both via Son Pyong-hui’s interaction with Japanese reform-minded individuals between 1901-1904, and the movement’s involvement with the Japanese state sponsored Ilchinhoe.

It is therefore not surprising to witness the promotion of women’s liberation within the movement, and the Tonghak/Ch’ondogyo movement itself serves to clearly illustrate the impacts of imperialism upon the intellectual sphere in the east, and its implications in gender relations and ideas on women’s liberation.  The feminist cause was arguably promoted for the self-interest of men, to distinguish themselves as progressive, enlightened men championing women’s liberation in a project of enlightenment and national self-strengthening; perhaps in the face of ‘civilised’ nations and influenced by popular ideas of Social Darwinism.

Women’s liberation as He-Yin suggests was presented as a double edged sword. There came the visibility of women’s issues and rights, primarily concerning education, and provided foundations for later activism. Yet such rights came from men who sought to promote women’s liberation in order to promote their own status as enlightened men in the modern world, and therefore can be questioned as truly meaningful representations of well-intentioned progress. Did men’s views of women as their private property, or their relations in reality shift? Or did women’s liberation only strengthen the existing power imbalance and subordination of women to men, for they would not have such rights to freedom without them. He-Yin’s questioning of the nature of women’s liberation was not unfounded, and her concerns highlight the importance of studying feminist history, or the feminist cause within history, as a study of such gender relations rather than simply aiming to uncover the ‘voices of women’.

 

[[1]] He-Yin Zhen ‘On the Question of Women’s Liberation’ (1907), in Lydia He Liu, Rebecca E. Karl, Dorothy Ko (ed.) The birth of Chinese feminism: essential texts in transnational theory (New York, 2013), p. 60.

[[2]] Carl Young, Eastern Learning and the Heavenly Way: the Tonghak and Ch’ondogyo movements and the twilight of Korean independence (Honolulu, 2014), p. 169.

[[3]] ibid.

Understanding the rules of the ‘Gender Game’.

‘The study of gender has contributed greatly to our knowledge of history while challenging preconceived notions of sociocultural phenomena and processes in Japan and elsewhere’[1]

Sabine Frühstück’s ‘Recreating Japanese Men’[2]analyses the contrast between sex and gender, while shedding light on how gender has formed masculine and feminine ideals within Japanese history. However, Anne Walthall who has written the first chapter ‘Do Guns Have Gender’ manages to differentiate these gender ideals of masculinity and femininity through Japan’s history of weaponry.

Whether it be a samurai’s sword or a solders gun, there has always been a sense of masculinity attached to the objects. Through this a formation of social hierarchy was created which enabled men to establish their status and class depending on the craftmanship of the gun. Anne Walthall gives a balanced analysis of both men and women and their relationships with weapons, allowing a more in depth understanding of how masculinity affected both genders.

Although swords were considered the soul of a samurai, guns co-existed with the blade as a means of aiding in battle and for hunting. However, for women guns were used as further attempt to isolate them from warfare. Walthall explains further insisting that women within Japanese history were able to learn to wield daggers, but this was used more as a cautionary purpose rather than establishing a fairer groundwork between men and women in warfare. This becomes more evident regarding guns and the lack of involvement of women. They could hold one, but shooting one was considered too masculine for them. This was also attached to gift giving, which men were more likely to receive a weapon as a gift, whereas women would be gifted art and literature.

Wielding of guns was considered a further development to a man’s maturity and masculinity. This, therefore, connects back to the introduction within the text, which is co-authored by Sabine Frühstück and Anne Walthall in which they highlight the connection between maturity and masculinity, which added to the masculine hierarchy within society. ‘Rural social mechanisms were hierarchically structured to produce men whose superior masculinity was based on their maturity’[3].  By pursuing skills and activities which would better themselves, while boosting this sense of masculinity, this was considered further developing their masculinity. This was applied to all men no matter their status or class. Therefore, not being able to wield a gun was considered a lack of development and their roles could be put into question.

‘Not all shoguns mastered this weapon, proof that their gender identities had to be constructed and remained unstable’[4]

This attachment of masculinity to objects and mannerisms was one of the root causes of excluding women from society and forming a stronger sense of control over feminine roles. This masculine attachment to guns was also added to the functions of family’s, which meant that fathers were likely to hand down their guns to the sons. This perhaps was not the same as a Samurai handing their son the family sword in hopes that they would take on the same route, but to push them further into a masculine role. Walthall draws upon historian Amy Ann Cox analysis on the values of masculinity to better understand why Japanese men associated their masculinity with guns. This was because guns represented the same values such as freedom, independence and liberty.

Therefore, what Walthall is trying to argue is what defines masculinity and how it can be manipulated into society to ensure it’s hierarchy. By attaching masculine values onto weaponry and behaviours that allow them to display power, it creates an unbalanced platform between men and women. Although Walthall highlights her intentions to focus on guns and status within the Tokugawa period, there is more that can be uncovered regarding Japan and its depictions of femininity and masculinity, which therefore, paved the lives of men and women. By just looking at guns Walthall has managed to breakdown the foundations of masculinity because the weapon became ingrained within the masculine etiquette, allowing it to manipulate Confucian teachings and Japanese culture.

Furthermore, although guns provided a variety of new skill to Japanese men and enabled them to use this within battle, what Walthall really does is present an underlying argument which highlights to absence of women in many areas of Japans society during the Tokugawa period. Her focus on guns enabled her to uncover Japans Confucian education, politics and warfare, therefore, Walthall has perhaps unintentionally brought a new understanding of how masculinity had been crafted and branded on to mannerisms and objects to ensure the silence and absence of  Japanese women within important areas of their society.

[1] Sabine Fruhstuck, Recreating Japanese Men (University of California Press, 2011) p.3.

[2] Sabine Fruhstuck, Recreating Japanese Men (University of California Press, 2011).

[3] Sabine Fruhstuck, Recreating Japanese Men (University of California Press, 2011) p.6.

[4] Sabine Fruhstuck, Recreating Japanese Men (University of California Press, 2011) p.21.

 

Mao’s Early Writings: Feminist Revolutionary?

The early writings and works of Mao, as translated in the first volume of Mao’s Road to Power is in many ways what I was expecting – letters to other revolutionary thinkers and individuals, musings on events in the west as the First World War took its course, meditations on China and its future, and more proactive declarations and calls to action. One idea that is somewhat prominent in his work that of the liberation of women – an aspect that surprised me, as it doesn’t seem to be an idea Mao would emphasize after his rise to power in 1949.

A few specific works in this volume paint a fairly clear picture as to his thoughts on the liberation of women – one of particular note is The Women’s Revolutionary Army1, written in July of 1919. While short, this work lays out in strong terms Mao’s thoughts on the traditional roles for women in society. He compares the makeup and clothing women are expected to wear are torture instruments and the brands of criminals, the jewelry on their hands to shackles, and describes families as their prisons2. What is especially unique about how Mao presents his thoughts on the liberation of women is in how it will be achieved – Mao states there is only one way to do so, and that way is through revolution, armed struggle and conflict2. This idea of women’s liberation only being achievable through armed struggle and revolt in many ways resembles the thoughts of the anarchist He Zhen and the implications of her concept of nannü, as analyzed by Lydia Liu, Rebecca Karl, and Dorothy Ko3. Nannü, a term that is difficult to directly translate to English without losing it’s unique codifiers, can be roughly thought of as defining women itself as a constructed class in a Marxist sense4. In presenting women as being subject to a system of class, Zhen’s form of liberation for women is singular and total – it is an anarchist revolution5.

Mao authored The Women’s Revolutionary Army as He Zhen was coming towards the end of her life, and had expressed her ideas fully at least a decade earlier – however, Mao as represented in Mao’s Road to Power does not seem to have any relationship with He Zhen, either direct or intellectually6 – something that seems curious given He Zhen’s influence during the late 1910s in China. Is Mao in  The Women’s Revolutionary Army drawing on or being influenced by contemporary Chinese thinkers that he may have not even been aware of, or is he applying Marxist ideas of class to gender in a similar manner to He Zhen?

Bibliography
– Liu, Lydia, Rebecca Karl, and Dorothy Ko. “Introduction: Toward a Transnational Feminist Theory.” In The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theory, 1–26. New York, UNITED STATES: Columbia University Press, 2013.
– Mao, Zedong, Stuart R. Schram, Timothy Cheek, and Nancy Jane Hodes. Mao’s Road to Power: Revolutionary Writings 1912-1949. Armonk, N.Y: M.E. Sharpe, 1992.

  1. Mao, Zedong, Stuart R. Schram, Timothy Cheek, and Nancy Jane Hodes. Mao’s Road to Power: Revolutionary Writings 1912-1949. Armonk, N.Y: M.E. Sharpe, 1992, PG353. [↩]
  2. Mao, Zedong, Stuart R. Schram, Timothy Cheek, and Nancy Jane Hodes. Mao’s Road to Power: Revolutionary Writings 1912-1949. PG353. [↩] [↩]
  3. Liu, Lydia, Rebecca Karl, and Dorothy Ko. “Introduction: Toward a Transnational Feminist Theory.” In The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theory, 1–26. New York, UNITED STATES: Columbia University Press, 2013, PG18-22. [↩]
  4. Liu, Lydia, Rebecca Karl, and Dorothy Ko. “Introduction: Toward a Transnational Feminist Theory.” PG20-21 [↩]
  5. Liu, Lydia, Rebecca Karl, and Dorothy Ko. “Introduction: Toward a Transnational Feminist Theory.” PG23 [↩]
  6. Mao, Zedong, Stuart R. Schram, Timothy Cheek, and Nancy Jane Hodes. Mao’s Road to Power: Revolutionary Writings 1912-1949. PGV-XII. [↩]

Translating the Untranslatable: He Zhen and the Concept of ‘Nannu’ for English Readers

He-Yi Zhen, better known as He Zhen, was revolutionary, there is no denying that. As an Anarcho-Feminist, she was undoubtedly a revolutionary too, and nearly a century later her work still remains incredibly pertinent for the modern day. However, the early analysis of her work is not without criticism. In this piece, I argue that Liu, Lydia He, Rebecca E. Karl, and Dorothy Ko’s seminal work The Birth of Classical Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theories, does both He Zhen and western readers a disservice in their analysis of her created term ‘nannu’. Rather than a “mostly untranslatable conceptual totality”, I believe that the term ‘nannu’ does not need to be translated, and that efforts to do so can actually do more harm than good.1 Instead of attempting to find an accurate or comparative English translation, time would be better spent in analysis of He Zhen’s theories and their relevance for the modern day.

 

What is ‘nannü’? As Liu, Lydia He, Rebecca E. Karl, and Dorothy Ko state, He Zhen created the term as a combination of the characters for man and woman, or male and female, to create a singular compound concept that expressed “the category through which He-Yin Zhen understood her world as an always-already gendered timespace of social activity, production, and life.”2 They then go on to state that their original translation of ‘gender’ is unsatisfactory as, while it is useful in placing He Zhen’s work alongside western feminist theory of the late 20th century, doing so could “ensnare us in conceptual traps”.3 Here, they cite Joan Scott’s famous essay ‘Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis’, which argued that the term ‘gender’ in its modern meaning  was not used until the late twentieth century. 4 It is this argument that I think holds the greatest weight, and one that feminist academics seem to spend an unnecessary amount of time on.

 

Nannü as a concept has no direct translation in English. A fair statement of fact, or a much-debated topic? Probably both. However, I argue that whether the concept itself is translatable in any way, in any language, it should not matter. ‘Gender’ may be a good starting point, especially as the meaning has grown in the twenty-first century. ‘The Patriarchy’ is a close enough concept with which to discuss social hierarchical behaviour and control, especially and particularly for women. The issue, then, is not how to translate ‘nannü’, but whether it needs to be translated at all. Is it not enough to explain the concept itself, and let the reader figure it out for themselves? The debate seems almost ethnographical at heart, and has severe repercussions for readers in all disciplines. To constantly attempt to translate and compare a foreign concept to one’s own worldview is not only ethnocentric and presentist, but runs the risk of alienating and othering ‘foreign’ history, thereby deeming it only worth studying so long as it can be neatly compared to something familiar, i.e Western.

 

That said, I do not suggest that all foreign terms should be left untranslated for the reader to puzzle out themselves. If a term has a direct translation, then it should of course be used, simply so long as it is able to keep the meaning and concept clear. If there is not, though, a simple explanation will suffice. In the end, it boils down to the fact that on occasion, less is more, and in the case of ‘nannü’, there is no need to tie oneself up in circles attempting to find a suitable English translation. After all, we in the west are nothing if not fond of a loanword or two, and in the endless debate over the specific terminology of ‘gender’, ‘patriarchy’, ‘sex’, and other terms, one might wonder if He Zhen herself might not regard us as unnecessarily complicating things. Nannü is nannü, and that’s all there is to it.

  1. Liu, Lydia He, Rebecca E. Karl, and Dorothy Ko. The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational
    Theory. Columbia University Press, 2013, p. 10 [↩]
  2. Ibid, p. 10 [↩]
  3. Ibid, p. 11 [↩]
  4. Ibid, pp. 12-13. [↩]

The Capitalism of Christianity

The opening of Japan in the mid 1800s resulted in an intellectual exchange between Japan and the “Western” world as Western countries vied to establish ties with Japan and to exert their own cultural influence on the country.  While the general model for imposing cultural conventions is through capitalist systems, Christian influences took a different approach.  The prevalence of capitalism in the nineteenth century permeated all aspects of life in the United States and many European countries, including missionary work.  H. B. Cavalcanti uses the case of American missionaries in Latin America to demonstrate that even religion could be commodified and used as a means of exerting capitalist influences on other countries.  He describes the competition between American Christian denominations which “competed openly in the American religious market, vying for ‘shares’ of the country’s faithful (Finke and Stark 2000). Once those churches established foreign-mission programs, it was only natural that they tried to reproduce in host countries similar market conditions to the ones enjoyed at home.”[1]  While the spread of capitalism in the nineteenth century seemed to be an unstoppable force which, among its other political, economic, and social consequences, effectively exported Christianity globally, this was not the case in Japan.

Instead, the diplomatic relations between Japan and Russia led to a transnational exchange of ideas which led to the emergence of a form of religious anarchy.  Sho Konishi argues that this cultural exchange was highly influenced by the popularity of Russian literature translated into Japanese.[2]  Populist Russian literature introduced new, and complemented existing solutions to “social problems” which both countries were facing in the aftermath of their revolutions.  A running theme in translations of Russian literature was that “‘society’ began to be defined in this context as a problem of unfettered capitalism.”[3]  The socialist and anarchist themes in Russian literature built off pre-existing anarchist traditions in Japan, creating an anti-capitalist base among Japanese intellectuals.

This Russian translation culture was not only anarchist in nature, but Christian as well.  Konishi uses the popularity of Leo Tolstoy in particular to illustrate this fact.  Just as “Tolstoy became a dangerous apostate of the Russian Orthodox Church, he was gaining a widespread religious following in Japan, where many regarded him as a prophetic religious thinker and a saint.”[4]  But, the Christian ethic which was popularised by Tolstoy does not conform to either the typical Western Christian theology or the methods of its dissemination.  Instead, “The resulting conversions to what was called ‘Tolstoyan religion’ (Torusutoi no shūkyō) or ‘religious anarchism’ (shūkyōteki anākizumu) in Japan occurred in the total absence of the converter, that is, without a missionary or church institution.”[5]  Unlike the missionary organisations which operated in other countries, Christianity in Japan was not the result of capitalist systems imposing religious doctrines, but a unique religious theory which rejected the very idea of capitalism.  This “religious anarchism” was both a political stance and a utopian dream for a future universal human religion.

 

[1] H. B. Cavalcanti, “The Right Faith at the Right Time? Determinants of Protestant Mission Success in the 19th-Century Brazilian Religious Market,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 41, no. 3 (2002): 423–38, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1387454, 423.

[2] Sho Konishi, Anarchist Modernity: Cooperatism and Japanese-Russian Intellectual Relations in Modern Japan, 1st ed. Vol. 356 (Harvard University Asia Center, 2013), https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1x07vz6, 95.

[3] Ibid., 74.

[4] Ibid., 93.

[5] Ibid., 95.

Tokugawa Women’s Education in Contrast to the Meiji Era

In “Norms and Texts For Women’s Education in Tokugawa Japan”, Tocco explores how a Confucian education impacted women during the Tokugawa era.  Throughout the chapter, Tocco makes it clear that women like Tsuda Ume who could read and write in both the Japanese syllabary and Chinese characters,  were, in point of fact, quite common in Japan’s urban areas across classes and that their education shared many of the same characteristics as men’s at the time. Furthermore, this higher level of education that women would receive, albeit specialized and honed towards the domestic sphere, as evidenced in writings such as Kaibara’s Great Learning For Women. Furthermore, women were given an education to the extent that they would be able to continue it on their own even after the roles that were dictated to them prevented them from continuing their education.[1] It is particularly interesting, then, that the era considered to be more passé and stagnant among historians is, in point of fact,seemingly more progressive and fits more closely to ideas of modernity than the Meiji era, considered to be a time of innovation on several fronts, including education. According to De Bary, Gluck, and Tiedemann, while the Imperial Rescript On Education (Kyōiku chukugo) provided the infrastructure for further education of the populace, women were largely excluded from the benefits of this reform since they were barred from public secondary and higher educational institutions.[2] While both had a clear Confucian focus and maintained the idea that women were better suited to the domestic sphere, I’d argue that women were better off in the Tokugawa era than during the Meiji era for this reason.

[1]Tocco, Martha C. “Norms and Texts for Women’s Education in Tokugawa Era Japan.” Essay. In Women and Confucian Cultures in Premodern China, Japan, and Korea, 193–218. University of California Press, 2003. https://web-a-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.st-andrews.ac.uk/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=3bccf320-85d3-4d1a-bf5c-82ceef6dc1a9%40sdc-v-sessmgr01&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPXNzbyZzaXRlPWVob3N0LWxpdmU%3d#AN=108495&db=nlebk.

[2]  Theodore, De Bary Wm, Carol Gluck, and Arthur E. Tiedemann. “Education of Women in Meiji Japan.” Essay. In Sources of Japanese Tradition 2, 2:81–115. Columbia University Press, 2006.