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Notes
- 1.
This would seem to be the only suitable translation for “年谱.” The only other possibility is to use a much longer phrase, such as “a year by year listing of the important events in a person’s life.”
- 2.
I was referring specifically to the laymen priests “Dangki” (童乩) of folk religion in Taiwan. They are sometimes diviners, sometimes a conduit between this world and the other, and sometimes at festivals, they display the power of the god who has descended upon the person by performing extraordinary acts of self-destruction (such as striking themselves with lethal weapons) and remaining unharmed.
- 3.
At the time of these interviews, I thought that there had existed historically a sect known as White Lotus, but later scholarship seems to indicate that this name functioned as a generic term for many folk religious groups that were anti-dynastic. The earliest research on this question is in Barend J. ter Haar’s book, The White Lotus Teachings in Chinese Religious History (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992). It is still possible, though, to refer to a White Lotus tradition in Chinese dissident Buddhist sects.
- 4.
Dr. Zhang’s specialty was acupuncture, and especially the then newly developed acupuncture anesthesia. As Dr. Zhang did not know any English, I had to interpret for him whenever any of the American doctors or researchers wanted to ask him about it. Neurologists were especially interested. Every time Dr. Zhang wanted to explain anything about how the procedure worked, his first sentence would have several terms that, although they might be literally rendered into English, meant nothing because the traditional Chinese cosmological background and assumptions were not there. Prime examples would be reference to a site (穴) into which the acupuncture needle was put. But the site name meant nothing unless the system of circulation of vital forces was explained. To explain that, one had to explain the forces of yin and yang (阴阳) and the five elements (五行). As there were no equivalents for any of these terms in Western medical and scientific terminology, this frustrated both of us greatly.
- 5.
Mr. Liang’s original argument had been that, inherently, the nature of any governmental authority was destructive to the natural social formations of society. This is why Liang’s organs of rural reconstruction were designed to be schools, rather than government administrative offices. On the other hand, the People’s Communes relied precisely upon the hard “iron hook” of raw governmental power for their existence, despite the myths at the time that the communes were created in response to the demands of the masses. Mr. Liang had had no direct contact with rural society (discounting the pro-forma tours that the PPCC organized), and so could only rely upon what the media told him. If he had been able to observe directly, I think, he would have found that the communes confirmed his worst fears about the nature of local governments in the countryside.
- 6.
Having done oral histories with hundreds of China’s rural dwellers (I think that the word “peasant” is quite inappropriate), I would say that the average villager experienced the commune as a continuation of the same faults of “blind command” and “impractical orders.”
- 7.
I had meant to say that since the rise of the regional officials like Zeng Guofan, most of China and most governmental functions were not controlled by the government in Beijing. During the Republic, the same was true, even during the era of the National Government in Nanjing.
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Alitto, G.S. (2013). August 21, 1980. In: Has Man a Future?. China Academic Library. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35816-6_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35816-6_10
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