The Roads of Chinese Childhood
Learning and Identification in Angang

A 1995 study of learning and childhood in the Taiwanese fishing community of Angang.

Charles Stafford (Author)

9780521026567, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 1 June 2006

236 pages, 15 b/w illus.
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.369 kg

"The comparative notes to childhood oin northeastern China which form the epilogue are particularly insightful. This book will prove valuable to scholars and students of all cultures because of its concise study of the way children are given an introduction and education into their religious and traditional background." Linda L. Lam-Easton, Religious Studies Review

Children in the Taiwanese fishing community of Angang have their attention drawn, consciously and unconsciously, to various forms of identification through their participation in schooling, family life and popular religion. They read texts about 'virtuous mothers', share 'meaningful foods' with other villagers, visit the altars of 'divining children' and participate in 'dangerous' god-strengthening rituals. In particular they learn about the family-based cycle of reciprocity, and the tension between this and commitment to the nation. Charles Stafford's 1995 study of childhood in this community (with additional material from north-eastern mainland China) explores absorbing issues related to nurturance, education, family, kinship and society in its analysis of how children learn, or do not learn, to identify themselves as both familial and Chinese.

List of illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgements
Part I. Background: Introduction: 1. Two roads
Part II. Angang: 2. Ghosts are not connexions
3. The proper way of being a person
4. Textbook mothers and frugal children
5. Red envelopes and the cycle of yang
6. Going forward bravely
7. Divining children
8. Dangerous rituals
9. Conclusion
Part III. Epilogue: 10. Notes on childhood in northeastern China
Notes
Glossary
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC]