1 - Two roads

Summary

A list of the activities of children in Angang might begin as follows: attending school and avoiding it, being taken to and kept away from spirit medium altars, participating in and sleeping through rituals, eating symbolic food, symbolically eating food, and so on. In the course of these activities, children make and hear a number of statements about themselves and other children, and they also encounter ideas about and representations of childhood in general, for example when reading stories or walking through temples. But it is difficult to hold in mind the distinction between children and ideas about childhood. And how, in any case, would such a distinction be made? Could someone who thinks of herself as a Chinese child totally fail to see herself in a story about Chinese childhood? If she almost recognised herself, would I then say that she was bound to be influenced by the story? In which case, where would the representation end and the child begin? Might not even the vaguest act of recognition influence her process of becoming something other than a child?

But such an experience, in Angang, would not be restricted to the young, for childhood is celebrated in China, and representations abound. People in Angang, regardless of age, are often reminded of the significance accorded to children within traditional Chinese culture and modern Taiwanese society. In this chapter I will outline, in part by using ethnography from outside Angang, several of these reminders: quite general Chinese ideas and practices related to children, such as the notion that their souls are unstable before and after birth, and the events which celebrate their survival.