Rural Economic Reform and the Lo Lineage 246

RURAL ECONOMIC REFORM AND THE RESURGENCE OF LINEAGE PRACTICES A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Pui Lam Patrick Law School of Sociology and Anthropology The University of New South Wales November, 2002 ABSTRACT Rural modernization in the Pearl River Delta in southern China has taken place rapidly since the 1980's, with the collective agricultural economy being replaced by a free market. The effects of decollectivization on the social as well as political life of the area have been significant. This research seeks to understand the extent and depth of the impact of Rural Economic Reform on lineage practices in a peasant village in southern China The thesis attempts to argue that some parts of the structures of the revived lineage system will be transformed and some parts will survive intact. It will also argue that the changes and continuities ofthe structures oflineage will lead to the co-existence of traditional and modern elements, resulting in increasing structural tension. By examining attitudes related to marriage and courtship and the experiences of the married life of old- and middle-aged villagers, the thesis shows that the thirty years of political reform between 1949 and 1978 were been unable to undermine the villagers' attachment to traditional values. Socialism and patriarchy were not incompatible and hence the socialist revolution failed to transform the pre-Liberation patriarchal ideologies in the countryside. Lineage practices have revived rapidly since the implementation of Rural Economic Reform in 1978. As these reforms have taken place for over a decade, there is a growing desire for personal autonomy that has posed challenges in patriarchal relationships. Furthermore, the replacement of traditional economic transactions by market-based ones has increased the growth of individual interests. This has gradually weakened the traditional concept of the collective welfare of the family. The democratization of both social and political life is demonstrated by the case of a young villager, the villagers' reaction towards lineage activities, and the voting attitudes of young villagers in the Village Committee Election. The re-embedding force from locality has survived some parts of the traditional lineage structures. The revival of folk religious practices has reinforced traditional gender relations and the thriving sex trade has commodified women. These changes have, paradoxically, reinforced men's belief in the traditional marriage system. Traditional patriarchal relationships have survived. The thesis also argues that the strategic use of family networks in the Village Committee Election has revitalized the political function oflineage networks, which again strengthens lineage organization. The thesis concludes that rural economic reform in southern China has brought about changes and continuities of the structures of lineage in Lo Village, resulting in the formation of a specific form of modernity. ii CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my lmowledge it contains no material previously published or written by another person, nor material which to a substantial extent has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at UNSW or any other educational institution, except where due aclmowledgement is made in the thesis. Any contribution made to the research by others, with whom I have worked at UNSW or elsewhere, is explicitly acknowledged in the thesis. I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project's design and conception or in style, presentation and linguistic expression is aclmowledged. ui Lam Patrick Law November, 2002 111 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank The Polytechnic University of Hong Kong for their generous financial support for my Ph.D. studies. I wish to thank the informants at my field site, as they not only provided me information but also looked after my personal safety in the village. Special thanks also go to Dr. S.P. Yuen and Dr. Y.Y. Ho for reading earlier drafts and providing many useful suggestions for the revision of Chapters 2, 4, 5, and 6 of my thesis. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Raul Pertierra, for I have profited immeasurably from both his patience and stimulating suggestions during discussions, as well as from his extensive critical commentary on the draft of this thesis. My final words of appreciation go to my wife, Wai-ching. Her continuous emotional support has made my thesis possible. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Chapter2 Lo Village 43 Chapter3 The Lineage of Lo 71 Chapter4 The Story of Lo Hing-nam 107 ChapterS A Middle-aged Villager 156 Chapter6 A Marriage in the Nineties 202 Chapter7 Rural Economic Reform and the Lo Lineage 246 ChapterS Folk Religion 284 Chapter9 Lo Village Committee Election 331 Chapter 10 Rural Economic Reform: Continuity, Change, and Contradiction with Regard to the Structures of Lineage 388 Bibliography 408 v CHAPTER! INTRODUCTION Rural Economic Reform in the Pearl River Delta has been taking place rapidly since the 1980's, with the collective agricultural economy being replaced by a free market economy. The effects of decollectivization on the social as well as political life of the area are tremendous. With the advancement of modern economic conditions, it is widely believed that the destruction of traditional1 lifestyles in the Pearl River Delta during this decade has been more serious even than in the days of the Cultural Revolution. My research seeks to understand the extent and depth of the impact ofRural Economic Reform on the structures of lineage and will argue that the impact of Rural Economic Reform will lead to the changes and continuities of the structures oflineage, resulting in the coexistence of modem and traditional elements. In what follows, I will introduce the significant issue discussed in my thesis. 1 For the sake of convenience, the use of ''tradition" or ''traditional" throughout this thesis is used with reference to continuities with pre-1949 or pre-Liberation culture and society. 1 1 Introduction to the Main Issue in the Thesis After the communists took over China in 1949, political reforms took place in the villages. At the beginning of 1950, land reform was carried out under which lineage estates, ancestral properties, and the lands and houses of rich villagers were taken over by the government and redistributed to the people, in order that everyone should have his own farmland to farm. Between 1950 and 1954, the collective economy was established in rural areas by a series of measures so that private ownership of lands was completely replaced by collective ownership. In addition to the changes to the economic structure in rural areas, the communist government launched a series of anti-feudalism campaigns. Lineage activities such as Spring and Autumn ancestral worship festivals were all forbidden, ancestral halls were pulled down, genealogical books were burnt, and all lineage related religious activities such asfeng shui were banned. Many of the surface structures of the traditional lineage system disappeared during the three decades of socialist revolution. British social anthropologists believe that lineages in southeastern China were formed as landowning corporations2 and historians who study the formation of Chinese 2 Maurice Freedman, Lineage Organization in Southeastern China (London: Athlone Press, 1958), 130-3; Maurice Freedman, Chinese Lineage and Society: Fukien and Kwangtung (New York: The Ath1one Press, 1966), 1-42; Jack M. Potter, "Land and Lineage in Traditional China," in Family and Kinship in Chinese Society, ed. Maurice Freedman (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1970), 121-38; Jack M. Potter, Capitalism and the Chinese Peasant: Social and 2 lineage contend that participation in lineage activities such as ancestral worship was essential for the development of group consciousness of the lineage.3 In light of these perspectives, it seems that the establishment of the collective economy and the launch of anti-feudalist campaigns would destroy the old lineage system. Rural economic reforms introduced in 1979, however, have brought a number of unexpected changes. After decollectivization took place, traditional ways oflife, which had been suppressed during the Cultural Revolution, started to re-emerge. Villagers began to place a strong emphasis on traditional lineage activities, which had been common prior to 1949.4 For instance, ancestral halls, which had been destroyed, were rebuilt in villages throughout the Delta. Genealogical books, which had been burnt during the Cultural Revolution, were re-compiled. Ancestor worship held at the graves of the dead ancestors and in the newly constructed ancestral halls during the Spring and Autumn festivals have been resurrected. These re-emerged traditional practices have become popular. There has Economic Change in a Hong Kong Village (California: University of California Press, 1968), 102-17; Hugh D.R. Baker, A Chinese Lineage Village: Sheung Shui (California: Stanford University Press, 1968), 99-131. 3 Patricia Buckly Ebrey, ''The Early Stages in the Development of Descent Group Organization," in Kinship Organization in Late Imperial China, 1000-1940, ed. Patricia Buckely Ebrey and James L. Watson (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 23-4. On more about the historians' perspective on the formation oflineage, see See Evelyn S. Rawski, "The Ma Landlords of Yang-chia-kou in Late Ch'ing and Republican China," in Kinship and Organization in Late Imperial China, 1000-1940, 245-73; Susan Naquin, ''Two Descent Groups in North China: The Wangs ofYung-p'ing Prefecture, 1500-1800," in Kinship and Organization in Late Imperial China, 1000-1940, 210-44. For a similar viewpoint, see also Keith Hazelton, "Patrilines and the Development of Localized Lineages: The Wu ofHsin-ning City, Hui-chou, to 1528," in Kinship and Organization in Late Imperial China, 1000-1940, 157.

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