Full Description
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.
Contents
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.
