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Procursus,
9,
10,
11,
12,
13,
14,
Sociologist Martin Yang (Yáng Màochūn 杨懋春) (1904-1988) was the author of one of the few book-length ethnographic accounts of pre-Communist Chinese rural life (1945 A Chinese Village: Taitou, Shantung Province. New York: Columbia University Press.). He taught for many years as a professor of rural sociology at National Taiwan University. The following selections are from his self-published 1969 book, Chinese Social Structure: A Historical Study, distributed through Eurasia Book Company 欧亚书局 in Taipei.
The work was not widely distributed. Indeed, the book's unsteady English and execrable editing conspired with its unfashionably elitist views to prevent its being taken seriously.
In my view, the book never found the readership that it could have deserved if it had been more carefully prepared. It has a concise and flowing logic and the considered perspective of an educated participant that makes it an excellent introduction to its subject matter.
Written as the disastrous Cultural Revolution was spreading its horrors across the Chinese mainland, Yang's tendency to romanticize late Imperial and early Republican Chinese life from the safety of Taiwan was probably deliberately a reminder that not all of pre-communist civilization was the misery that Maoism made it out to be.
Romanticization is still romanticization, of course; but that does not make it entirely wrong. Yang had been raised in the world he describes. He was an American-trained social scientist. And he had done a well regarded field study of North Chinese village life. He is worth listening to.
For present purposes, I have extracted chapters 9-14, which form most of a larger section devoted to class structure.
In the interest of readability, I have taken very extensive liberties with the text.
In view of these changes, readers wishing to cite a passage from the original book should refer directly to it … if they can find a copy.
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