10 - Notes on childhood in northeastern China

Summary

The preceding chapters have been based on my fieldwork in Angang, although some reference has also been made to research conducted by others in Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and mainland China. Depending on one's perspective, attempts to compare material from these places in order to say something about ‘China’ may be fascinating, dangerously misleading, or both. Obviously, there are cultural continuities throughout mainland China, and beyond it, among people who identify themselves as Han Chinese. (There are, for that matter, some fascinating continuities with Japan and Korea.) But there are also profound differences: in economy, history, religion, language, food, ritual and so on. As one woman told me, it is ‘one place, one way of doing things’ (yige difang, yige xiguan). And because the notion of the fundamental unity of China has political implications, attempts to gloss over these differences are both misleading and naive.

In this epilogue I will briefly outline several notions related to childhood in farming communities in northeastern China (Dongbei). However, in doing this, and in showing some apparent similarities, it is not my intention to stress continuity. Given the circumstances of life in Angang and life in rural Dongbei, to do so would be absurd. My account of Angang centred on families, local religion and national education, three spheres which dominate the lives of children there. But in Dongbei the legal and moral status of families differs greatly from those of families in Angang, as does the accessibility and the content of formal education. And while in Angang religion is a highly visible part of everyday life, in Dongbei it is often a private, and sometimes secret, matter.