An object-oriented study on Yongwu shi: poetry on eyeglasses in the Qing dynasty

2016 ◽  
Vol 79 (2) ◽  
pp. 375-397
Author(s):  
Zinan Yan
Keyword(s):  
Qing Dynasty ◽  
Object Oriented ◽  
Object Identity ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
General Development ◽  
Late Imperial ◽  
The Qing Dynasty ◽  
Imperial Period

AbstractThis paper suggests a different approach in the study of Qing dynasty yongwu poetry, which is to analyse the cultural significance of the object in this literary subgenre instead of its lyrical essence. Taking eyeglasses as an example, this paper surveys the general development of imported and domestic eyeglasses in China from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, and presents various literary interpretations assigned to this object through time. It further discusses Western and Chinese materiality, the economy and scholars' lives, political and social justification, as well as literary complexity and object identity, which are vital to the development of poetry on eyeglasses in the late imperial period.

Managing Commercial Sex

2021 ◽  
pp. 83-117
Author(s):  
Siobhán Hearne
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Commercial Sex ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Late Imperial ◽  
Imperial Russia ◽  
Ample Opportunity ◽  
Imperial Period

This chapter focuses on individuals who facilitated the commercial sex transaction in late imperial Russia, namely brothel madams, pimps, and those who rented their properties to registered prostitutes. It examines the complex relationship between brothel madams and the police, as well as addressing the various roles given to madams in official legislation: guardians of public health, watchdogs, and money-makers for the local government. Brothel madams provided lucrative income for the authorities, both formally through taxation and informally through bribes and cash gifts. The rules of regulation enforced a paternalistic relationship between madams and registered prostitutes, as well as providing ample opportunity for exploitation. Finally, the chapter examines hidden managers, in the form of pimps and procurers, and their cultural significance in the late imperial period.

The Prefatory Self: Images of the Author in Traditional Chinese Drama

T oung Pao ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 107 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 95-132
Author(s):  
Guojun Wang
Keyword(s):  
Qing Dynasty ◽  
Social Roles ◽  
Chinese Opera ◽  
Late Imperial ◽  
The Qing Dynasty ◽  
Book Culture

Abstract This article considers representations of Chinese opera authors in the prefatory space of their theatrical works. Despite the longstanding tradition of portraiture and drama production in premodern China, existing materials suggest that pictorial depictions of the authors started to appear in play scripts primarily during the Qing dynasty. How are those images related to theatrical works and their authors? Instead of treating authorship as a type of ownership, this article studies the multifaceted nature of authorial images by examining the depiction of the authors’ hairstyles and clothing alongside other content in the front matter of those plays. Situating the phenomenon within the histories of Chinese drama, clothing, and book culture, this article argues that authors increasingly appeared in late imperial Chinese drama in their social roles, moving from the prefatory space to the drama script proper.

scholarly journals Rethinking Gender and Female Laity in Late Imperial Chinese Pure Land Buddhist Biographies

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 705
Author(s):  
Xing Wang
Keyword(s):  
Qing Dynasty ◽  
Pure Land ◽  
Female Agency ◽  
Late Imperial ◽  
The Qing Dynasty ◽  
Late Ming ◽  
Lay Women ◽  
Confucian Scholar ◽  
Confucian Teachings

This paper explores how lay female believers are depicted in the Chinese monastic Pure Land Buddhist texts and how a particular late-imperial Chinese Buddhist biography collection betrayed the previously existing narrative of female laity. Moreover, I wish to show that there had existed a long-lasting and persistent non-binary narrative of lay women in Chinese Pure Land biographies admiring female agency, in which female Pure Land practitioners are depicted as equally accomplished to male ones. Such a narrative betrays the medieval monastic elitist discourse of seeing women as naturally corrupted. This narrative is best manifested in the late Ming monk master Yunqi Zhuhong’s collection, who celebrated lay female practitioners’ religious achievement as comparable to men. This tradition is discontinued in the Confucian scholar Peng Shaosheng’s collection of lay female Buddhist biographies in the Qing dynasty, however, in which Peng depicts women as submissive and inferior to males. This transition—from using the stories of eminent lay female Buddhists to challenge Confucian teachings to positioning lay females under Confucian disciplines—exhibits Peng Shaosheng’s own invention, rather than a transmission of the inherited formulaic narration of lay female believers, as he claimed.

scholarly journals Bret Hinsch (2016). Women in Imperial China.

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 160-162
Author(s):  
Hang Lin
Keyword(s):  
Qing Dynasty ◽  
Chinese Women ◽  
Women's History ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
The Qing Dynasty ◽  
Imperial Period ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Imperial China ◽  
Status Position ◽  
Scholarly Attention

The vast scope of Chinese women’s history throughout its two millennia-long imperial period invites sustained scholarly attention to their status, position, image, and a wide range of gender-related issues. Whereas recent years have witnessed an increasing interest in examining historical Chinese women in different dynasties, Bret Hinsch’s new book offers a succinct, yet eloquent survey of womanhood in the shifting contexts of Chinese history, from remote antiquity to the end of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911).

scholarly journals The Comprehensive Manchu–Han Banquet: History, Myth, and Development

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isaac Yue
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Qing Dynasty ◽  
Contextual Information ◽  
Han Chinese ◽  
Chinese Society ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
The Qing Dynasty ◽  
Modern Chinese ◽  
Broadcasting System ◽  
Crucial Information

Abstract In* terms of grandeur and extravagance, modern Chinese society tends to think of the Comprehensive Manchu–Han Banquet 滿漢全席 as the pinnacle of China’s culinary heritage. Its allure is best illustrated by what happened in 1977, when the Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) commissioned a Hong Kong restaurant named Kwok Bun 國賓酒樓 to recreate the banquet according to its “original” recipes. The preparation took over three months, involved more than one hundred and sixty chefs, and resulted in a meal that featured more than one hundred dishes.1 Since then, there has been no shortage of efforts made by different individuals, restaurants, and organizations to follow suit and recreate the Comprehensive Manchu–Han Banquet in a contemporary setting. These different endeavours commonly claim that they follow the most authentic recipes. Little did they realise that there is no such thing as an authentic recipe. In fact, historians cannot even agree on which era saw the banquet begin, though the leading candidates all date to the Qing dynasty (1644–1911); these are the reign of the Emperor Kangxi (r. 1661–1722), the reign of the Emperor Qianlong (r. 1735–1796), and the dynasty’s last decades. This paper examines the accuracy of these claims by analyzing a sample menu for the Comprehensive Manchu–Han Banquet recorded during Qianlong’s reign. This menu contains crucial information about the feast’s formative stages, information that has not yet been properly addressed by academics researching this topic. By drawing attention to the traditional dietary customs of ethnic Manchus and Han Chinese, understood in the context of contemporaneous Chinese gastronomy (to supplement the menu’s lack of contextual information), this paper provides a better understanding of the Comprehensive Manchu–Han Banquet and of Chinese gastronomy in general, in terms of their history, development, and cultural significance.

Grammatical Descriptions in Manchu Grammar Books from the Qing Dynasty

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-55
Author(s):  
Takashi Takekoshi
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Qing Dynasty ◽  
The Qing Dynasty ◽  
Chinese Scholars ◽  
High Degree ◽  
The 19Th Century

In this paper, we analyse features of the grammatical descriptions in Manchu grammar books from the Qing Dynasty. Manchu grammar books exemplify how Chinese scholars gave Chinese names to grammatical concepts in Manchu such as case, conjugation, and derivation which exist in agglutinating languages but not in isolating languages. A thorough examination reveals that Chinese scholarly understanding of Manchu grammar at the time had attained a high degree of sophistication. We conclude that the reason they did not apply modern grammatical concepts until the end of the 19th century was not a lack of ability but because the object of their grammatical descriptions was Chinese, a typical isolating language.

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