Abstract
Long’s parents offered her a comfortable material life and a good education, expecting her to become admired by peers and neighbors around. But Long’s promising trajectory changed after she converted to Christianity. She was content with a lower-paying job that she considered meaningful and a Christian husband. These all caused her mother to lose face in front of relatives and friends. When Long’s husband had cancer and passed away, her mother could not bring herself to face the daughter’s widowhood. Their relationship in Long’s story is also estranged mostly by obsessive parental expectations in an achievements culture.
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Notes
- 1.
The concept of “saving face” is key in Chinese etiquette. It means giving honor and respect to others. Letting someone “lose face” means failure to do that.
- 2.
Township and village enterprises (often known as TVEs) have played a significant transitioning role in the growth of the Chinese economy since 1978. TVEs were considered more efficient than comparable state-owned enterprises (SOEs). For a time, they were competitive workplaces.
- 3.
In the 1980s, Shenzhen in Guangdong Province was China’s first special economic zone. In the 1990s, Shenzhen, a manufacturing center, was home to one of the fastest-growing urban economies in the world. So going to Shenzhen for work means being on top of one’s entrepreneurism.
- 4.
Liu Xiaofeng, a contemporary Chinese academic, has been considered a pioneering figure in an emerging “cultural Christian” phenomenon in the 1990s. Being a cultural Christian means that someone identifies with the Christian culture without affiliation with a Christian church.
- 5.
The Chinese Union Version (CUV) of the Bible is the most widely used translation by Chinese Protestant believers. It was first published in 1919.
- 6.
In Chinese academia, the political thought of German–American political philosopher and classicist Leo Strauss has become popular since the late 1990s.
- 7.
This exam is considered one of the most popular and competitive tests in China. Only one out of every sixty-three candidates who passed this exam is expected to get a government job. See Xinhua, “Nearly one million people sit China’s civil servant exam,” China Daily, December 2, 2018. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201812/02/WS5c03fee3a310eff30328e850.html
- 8.
Dongchao Min, “From the Revolutionary Family to the Materialistic Family: Keywords for a Contemporary Social History of China,” Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Center for Women’s Development Studies, Vol. 20 (3), pp. 393–413, October 2013.
Song Yang and Bruce W. Stening, “Cultural and Ideological Roots of Materialism in China,” Social Indicators Research, Vol. 108, No. 3 (September 2012), pp. 441–452.
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(Narration by Long, age thirty four, editor)
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Ma, L. (2019). Cautionary Tale. In: Christianity, Femininity and Social Change in Contemporary China. Palgrave Studies in Oral History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31802-4_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31802-4_12
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