This book is a two-part discussion about mid-late nineteenth-century traditional Cantonese society and the material conditions that fostered large-scale Cantonese overseas emigration. Part I: discusses the Peasant-farmer, merchant, and Gentry (scholar-official-landed Gentry) social classes. An additional chapter focuses on Cantonese “special interests’ groups,” which embraced those people with shared group needs, identities, and interests, which cut across social class lines. Part II: analyzes four adverse material conditions, which motivated and contextualized large-scale Cantonese overseas emigration. This includes: 1) high-density population concentration and over-population; 2) economic immiseration of the Cantonese peasant-farmer class; 3) Cantonese communal conflict and social chaos; and 4) local Cantonese/fan-kwai (“foreign devils”) conflicts in the Cantonese heartland. This book is the product of over forty-five years of research and writing, it is the third volume of a new series entitled The Gum-Shaan Chronicles: The Early History of Cantonese-Chinese America, 1850-1900. About the Author Douglas W. Lee, PhD is a second-generation Cantonese-Chinese American, trained as a historian of Modern China, with a special research interest in early Chinese American History. He earned a BA at Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon (1967); an MA at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (1969); a PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara (1979); and JD from Lewis and Clark Law School, Portland, Oregon (1988). In 1979-1980, Lee was the cofounder and first national President of the National Association for Asian American Studies. In 1981, he was cofounder of the Chinese Historical Society of the Pacific Northwest, and the first editor of its journal, The Annals of the Chinese Historical Society of the Pacific Northwest (Seattle, Washington).

Later nineteenth-century large-scale Chinese overseas emigration to America is generally well-known, where masses of poor desperate Chinese people (mostly young men) left home in Southern China to seek economic opportunities in America and elsewhere. Despite this fact, it has long been a mystery why both research specialists and interested readers alike have seldom, if ever, asked such critically important questions such as: If later nineteenth-century Chinese emigrants were so poor and desperate... then “How did they know where to go? How did they arrange to get there and back? and perhaps most importantly, How did they pay for their long journey?” This book is the fourth volume of the new series, entitled The Gum-Shaan Chronicles: The Early History of Cantonese-Chinese America, 1850-1900. It is the first scholarly work to examine “the nuts and bolts” of the complex technical process orchestrating Cantonese Chinese overseas emigration. It examines in detail the various financial, technological, logistical, demographic, geographical, political-economy, and historical constructs supporting and guiding later nineteenth-century Cantonese overseas emigration from British Hong Kong to America. About the Author Douglas W. Lee, PhD is a second-generation Cantonese-Chinese American, trained as a historian of Modern China, with a special research interest in early Chinese American History. He earned a BA at Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon (1967); an MA at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (1969); a PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara (1979); and JD from Lewis and Clark Law School, Portland, Oregon (1988). In 1979-1980, Lee was the cofounder and first national President of the National Association for Asian American Studies. In 1981, he was cofounder of the Chinese Historical Society of the Pacific Northwest, and the first editor of its journal, The Annals of the Chinese Historical Society of the Pacific Northwest (Seattle, Washington). This book is the result of forty-five years of research and writing.

This book is a two-part discussion about mid-late nineteenth-century traditional Cantonese society and the material conditions that fostered large-scale Cantonese overseas emigration. Part I: discusses the Peasant-farmer, merchant, and Gentry (scholar-official-landed Gentry) social classes. An additional chapter focuses on Cantonese "special interests' groups," which embraced those people with shared group needs, identities, and interests, which cut across social class lines. Part II: analyzes four adverse material conditions, which motivated and contextualized large-scale Cantonese overseas emigration. This includes: 1) high-density population concentration and over-population; 2) economic immiseration of the Cantonese peasant-farmer class; 3) Cantonese communal conflict and social chaos; and 4) local Cantonese/fan-kwai ("foreign devils") conflicts in the Cantonese heartland. This book is the product of over forty-five years of research and writing, it is the third volume of a new series entitled The Gum-Shaan Chronicles: The Early History of Cantonese-Chinese America, 1850-1900. About the Author Douglas W. Lee, PhD is a second-generation Cantonese-Chinese American, trained as a historian of Modern China, with a special research interest in early Chinese American History. He earned a BA at Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon (1967); an MA at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (1969); a PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara (1979); and JD from Lewis and Clark Law School, Portland, Oregon (1988). In 1979-1980, Lee was the cofounder and first national President of the National Association for Asian American Studies. In 1981, he was cofounder of the Chinese Historical Society of the Pacific Northwest, and the first editor of its journal, The Annals of the Chinese Historical Society of the Pacific Northwest (Seattle, Washington).

This book, full of quantitative evidence and limited-circulation archives, details manufacturing and the beginnings of industrialisation in China from 1644 to 1911. It thoroughly examines the interior organisation of public craft production and the complementary activities of the private sector. It offers detailed knowledge of shipbuilding and printing. Moreover, it contributes to the research of labour history and the rise of capitalism in China through its examination of living conditions, working conditions, and wages.

This is the first comprehensive study of popular culture in twentieth-century China, and of its political impact during the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945 (known in China as "The War of Resistance against Japan"). Chang-tai Hung shows in compelling detail how Chinese resisters used a variety of popular cultural forms—especially dramas, cartoons, and newspapers—to reach out to the rural audience and galvanize support for the war cause. While the Nationalists used popular culture as a patriotic tool, the Communists refashioned it into a socialist propaganda instrument, creating lively symbols of peasant heroes and joyful images of village life under their rule. In the end, Hung argues, the Communists' use of popular culture contributed to their victory in revolution.

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. When China’s War of Resistance against Japan began in July 1937, it sparked an immediate health crisis throughout China. In the end, China not only survived the war but emerged from the trauma with a more cohesive population. Intimate Communities argues that women who worked as military and civilian nurses, doctors, and midwives during this turbulent period built the national community, one relationship at a time. In a country with a majority illiterate, agricultural population that could not relate to urban elites’ conceptualization of nationalism, these women used their work of healing to create emotional bonds with soldiers and civilians from across the country. These bonds transcended the divides of social class, region, gender, and language.

Largely unstudied by scholars of religion, folk Daoist ritual in north China has been a constant theme of Chinese music scholars. Stephen Jones places lay Daoists within the wider context of folk religious practices - including those of lay Buddhists, sectarians, and spirit mediums. Jones describes ritual sequences within funerals and temple fairs, offering details on occupational hereditary lay Daoists, temple-dwelling priests, and even amateur ritual groups. Stressing performance, Jones observes the changing ritual scene in this poor countryside, both since the 1980s and through all the tribulations of 20th-century warfare and political campaigns.

A splendid essay collection focusing on ordinary people in the chaotic post-emperor, pre-Communist period of China's history.