The Newsletter No. 86 Summer 2020 25 The Review

Also intriguing is the author’s devotion Tibet, and other sensitive areas. In the of an entire chapter to the multi-ethnic meantime, the book provides a very history of the city of Beijing, as exemplified readable overview of a rich spectrum of by the venerable Yonghe Temple, a Tibetan peoples and events up to 2017, and offsets Lesser dragons Buddhist temple that dates from the early the more contentious regions with the more 18th century, as well as the contemporary placid conditions in areas like Yunnan, Beijing Chinese Ethnic Culture Park. Both Guangxi, and Manchuria. Stephen Roddy Reviewed title institutions reflect the state’s efforts over As the author notes, the sheer size Lesser Dragons: Minority multiple eras to promote interethnic harmony, of his subject required him to leave out or in the ambitious phrase of the post-1978 potentially interesting groups and topics, Peoples of China era, the ‘great unity of the nationalities’. or to provide only cursory descriptions Following this examination of such symbolic such as that of the Naxi and Moso of Yunnan Michael Dillon. 2018. gestures toward the lofty goals of social and Sichuan. If he were to supplement this London: Reaktion Books cohesion, however, much of the book focuses already rich trove of information in a future ISBN: 9781780239118 on the thornier issues of widening economic revision, he might consult more Chinese- disparities and growing resentment among language sources, especially historical texts minorities toward Han rule. Post-2000 like the 18th century literary accounts of the Xinjiang, in particular receives an extended Miao by Zhao Yi (1727-1814) and other visiting treatment that sifts through conflicting literati. Zhao’s surprise at Miao sexual habits explanations and descriptions of the is similar to that of the missionary Samuel significant incidents of violence there. Pollard (1864-1915), cited by the author; Readers will find the accounts of this less burdened by Christian prudery, however, situation, and of local separatist movements Zhao is much less judgmental. Similarly, or other dissident political trends there, mid- to late-Qing Han writers in Taiwan helpful in understanding the roots of local recoil from the practice of headhunting antagonism toward Beijing’s policies. by indigenous groups, but many write esser Dragons: Minority Peoples of China Particularly useful are its opening chapters, Although evenhanded in evaluating with considerable sympathy for the groups explores the recent history of a dozen or in which the author sketches the various both the achievements and the shortfalls of whose lands were being encroached upon Lso ethnic groups scattered across China’s historical and political roots of People’s official policies toward minorities, the author by waves of settlers from the mainland. continental periphery and in various parts of Republic of China’s policies toward the 56 does not explore some of the dimensions of In short, Lesser Dragons is a very China proper. It devotes separate chapters ethnic groups that came to be designated these various crises that do not lie within the accessible introduction to a formidably to the largest and most prominent of these (not always willingly) as such by the state. framework of a dichotomous relationship large and complex subject, especially groups (Tibetan, Mongol, Uighur, Hui, Miao, The author identifies the institutional between minority groups and Han-dominated suitable for adoption in courses on minorities and Manchu), as well as to Han subgroups framework of minority policy as the product officialdom (or Han migrants in places like or even general courses on modern Chinese such as the Hakka people in Taiwan and on of a ‘top–down’ approach to classifying Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang). In the case history and society. One quibble: South the mainland. Written in a fluid style and nationality (民族), first adopted based on the of Xinjiang, for example, tensions between Koreans are described (p.181) as still regularly unburdened by disciplinary jargon, it is Soviet concept of natsionalnost, and discusses Kazakhs and Uighurs in the northern using Chinese characters alongside hangul, replete with vivid descriptions of geography, how it has evolved through accommodation to and central areas of the province are not the Korean alphabet, (unlike the North ethnography, and other relevant subjects that local conditions even while retaining elements mentioned at all, even though this has Koreans who have migrated into Yanbian general readers will find enlightening. Indeed, that continue to be resisted by multiple been a significant factor in the persistent in recent years); in fact, Chinese characters considering that very few social scientists groups. While the widely varying cultural unrest there. Given the near impossibility of only rarely appear in print in South Korea have studied the full array of China’s minority and physical settings make each region’s conducting any sort of non-state-sponsored these days. regions and cultures, it can serve as a handy story unique, he refers regularly to nationwide research in that area for the time being, we reference work for almost anyone, including trends, and leaders like Hu Yaobang and will probably have to await a more peaceful Stephen Roddy, specialists, in search of a comprehensive Deng Xiaoping, where their impacts on era to be able to dig deeper into the complex University of San Francisco, introduction to the subject. minorities were particularly noteworthy. layers of the problematic state of Xinjiang, United States

by a large body of literature particularly critical In this respect, the book’s central chapters of how South Korea’s multiculturalism expects (three and four, out of seven) can be seen Revisiting the fairy and and incites marriage immigrants to work and as written against two kinds of fairy tales assimilate in the domestic space through their in which women are alternatively portrayed role as caregivers. In Kim’s words, “Marriage as saved or oppressed by marriage. the woodcutter story immigrants’ maternal citizenship presupposes Chapter 3 discusses the possibility of love immigrant mothers as ‘Other subjects’ to among foreign brides and rural bachelors be Koreanized and domesticates them as without romanticizing it, offering the idea Justine Guichard mother citizens” (p.48). The contribution that that ‘heterosexual scripts’ can account for Elusive Belonging adds to the existing critical the intimacy that may develop between scholarship rests on telling the intimate stories strangers despite communication barriers of Filipina women engaged in the process of posed by language and culture. Even when building this and other forms of citizenship in love is present in their lives, the fate of the South Korean countryside, where no less Filipina women is never idealized as they join than one third of the marriages involve foreign- husbands who are importantly situated as born brides. The focus of the book is therefore “subordinate subjects of Korea’s neoliberal on marriage immigrants’ own agency and the economic system” (p.90). This position is varied emotions – such as love, gratitude, and analyzed by Kim as bringing about a range Reviewed title anxiety – underpinning the choices they can of anxieties in rural families. Chapter 4 argues Elusive Belonging: Marriage make as well as those that are imposed upon that the material insecurity these families them in the private and public realms. face can translate into adverse effects on Immigrants and ‘Multiculturalism’ By adopting such a lens Kim is enabled to foreign-born wives, particularly under the in Rural South Korea reject “the image of international marriage form of restrictions on their physical mobility immigrants as passive brides or victims of and economic agency. Yet, the author refuses sex trafficking” while venturing “beyond the Minjeong Kim. 2018. to reduce domestic tensions and conflicts problems faced by marriage immigrants to ‘the Fairy and the Woodcutter Syndrome’, Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press that have inundated popular and academic an expression coined by the South Korean ISBN 9780824869816 discourses”, such as social discrimination and media after a folktale believed to capture domestic violence (p.22). Her aim is obviously the unequal power dynamics of international not to negate the reality of these experiences marriages. but to enrich our understanding of how In the tale, a solitary woodcutter entraps a women who immigrated for marriage to rural fairy into marrying him by stealing her clothes ontemporary South Korea is seldom been in numbers, but also in diversity. While South Korea navigate their lives in the early while she is bathing. This leaves the deceived thought of as made up of towns and international marriages were overwhelmingly 21st century. Following the ‘emotional turn’ creature no choice but to escape after having Cimmigrants. In Elusive Belonging, contracted between Korean women and that has affected migration and citizenship given birth to two children that she takes Minjeong Kim studies both, providing an foreign-born men – notably American soldiers studies, Kim explores the attachments and away with her. The many trajectories that Kim ethnographic account of the lives of Filipina – until the early 1990s, they have since frustrations shaping these women’s sense of retraces include some of departure – a term women who married South Korean rural primarily involved Korean men and foreign- belonging in the country of their spouses, who she prefers to escape – toward the book’s bachelors in two close localities where the born women from countries such as China, are neither depicted as villains nor princes end. Even then, her emphasis remains on the author conducted fieldwork in the mid-2000s. the Philippines, and Vietnam. charming. Husbands themselves are not only diversity and complexity of Filipina women’s By the time Kim immersed herself in the taken into account in the book but they are lived experiences, making Elusive Belonging activities and experiences of this community, Although recent, these demographic also given a voice, alongside the state and civil a necessary read for anyone interested in the more than one in every 10 new marriages transformations have already attracted society’s multicultural agents as well as the marriage immigrants’ side of the story – a concluded in South Korea was defined as significant scholarly attention as Kim does Unification Church, the main matchmaker for story of ‘immigration for marriage’ rather international, i.e. as involving a foreign-born not fail to mention. Research to date has not the couples Kim encountered. In accordance than ‘marriage for immigration’ that Kim individual. This proportion represented a only centered on marriage immigrants and with her objective to revisit the dominant convincingly chooses to tell in the plural rather marked increase compared with the rate of their families but also on the response of the perception of marriage immigrants as passive than in the singular. one in every 100 unions at the beginning of the South Korean state through its multiculturalism victims, Kim also challenges the assumption 1990s. From one decade to the next, change project. The gendered and ethnocentric that their spouses are fundamentally abusive Justine Guichard, in international marriage trends has not only foundations of this project have been analyzed and exploitative. Université de Paris, France