Life in a Kam Village in Southwest China, 1930-1949

Download or read book Life in a Kam Village in Southwest China, 1930-1949 written by Chaoquan Ou and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2007-10-31 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although this unique insider's account of minority life in China is clearly a book in itself, it is also the sequel to the much-acclaimed The Kam People of China (Geary, Ou and others, 2003). It describes the hitherto scarcely researched culture of people from Xiangye village, in an untravelled corner of Guizhou province, Southwest China, in the 20 years leading up to Liberation in 1949. Xiangye is a Kam (Dong) nationality village, so the book highlights Kam culture of the 1930s and 1940s. It is a fascinating and unparalleled study, also offering exceptionally clear details of many aspects of material culture and social customs, for example, the work of rice-farming, cotton production, and cooking, beautifully illustrated with line drawings and photographs, that should appeal to anyone interested in the Kam people, China, or in ethnology generally. The author grew up in Xiangye and later became Professor of Anthropology at a university in Qinghai province. The manuscript was first written in Chinese, with the intention of having it translated into English for an outside readership.