Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.4, 2019

 

Exploring Life in Chinese Society—As Exemplified by the Sociological Research in the Golden Wings

(Abstract)

 

Qu Jingdong

 

The Golden Wings is a classic work from the 1930s that explores the structure of Chinese social life. Using biographies and reflective ethnography, Lin Yaohua describes the kinship ties, geographical distribution and interpersonal relationships that make up the different trajectories of two local families. The social life of ordinary rural Chinese involves a three-in-one, one-in-three relationship between the patriarchal clan, the family and the individual situated between them. The clan is not the same as the patriarchal system. The social organization that revolves around the family is dependent on the clan. Rural communities are social organizations that are formed through the level-by-level aggregation of such functional units as jia (nuclear family), hu (household, made up of smaller jia), zhi (a small clan consisting of several hu), fang (a branch clan consisting of several zhi) and zu (a clan led by a single patriarch and consisting of several zhi with the same family name). The family is the source of life in society, and land is at its heart. The history of family and clan life is a process of social continuity and fission that depends on sublimation through rituals and beliefs. Ancestors and divinities are a symbolic axis for the true aggregation and integration of rural societies, and they are also the guardians of social life. In the face of social transformation, changing destinies and national crisis, only the balance that ordinary people preserve within changing patterns of relationships affords a foundation for the continuance of this civilization.