The Missionary's Curse and Other Tales from a Chinese Catholic Village

Asia: Local Studies / Global Themes

by Henrietta Harrison

The Missionary's Curse tells the story of a Chinese village that has been Catholic since the seventeenth century, drawing direct connections between its history, the globalizing church, and the nation. Harrison recounts the popular folk tales of merchants and peasants who once adopted Catholic rituals and teachings for their own purposes, only to find themselves in conflict with the orthodoxy of Franciscan missionaries arriving from Italy. The village's long religious history, combined with the similarities between Chinese folk religion and Italian Catholicism, forces us to rethink the extreme violence committed in the area during the Boxer Uprising. The author also follows nineteenth century Chinese priests who campaigned against missionary control, up through the founding of the official church by the Communist Party in the 1950s. Harrison's in-depth study provides a rare insight into villager experiences during the Socialist Education Movement and Cultural Revolution, as well as the growth of Christianity in China in recent years. She makes the compelling argument that Catholic practice in the village, rather than adopting Chinese forms in a gradual process of acculturation, has in fact become increasingly similar to those of Catholics in other parts of the world.

Genres: China, Religion, History, Nonfiction, Christianity

296 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Librarian Note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

From: http://www.orinst.ox.ac.uk/staff/ea/c...
"I am a historian and my main interest is in what ordinary people’s lives have been like in China from the Qing dynasty until today. I am also enthusiastic about writing the kind of history that tells stories as well as making arguments. Both of my most recent books have been micro-histories and I have made extensive use of fieldwork in China, especially conducting oral history interviews and collecting village-level materials, as well as using more conventional archives and libraries.

My research has included the 1911 revolution, nationalism, Confucianism in the twentieth-century, Catholicism, interactions between China and Europe, and above all the history of Shanxi province. I have worked across different periods, writing two books about the early twentieth century, and one that is the story of a single village from 1700 to 2012, as well as several articles about the 1950s and 60s. My main current research is on the eighteenth century, with a focus on diplomacy and the social history of oral interpreting."

Reviews

[Dan Gorman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fast read, The Missionary's Curse tells you quite a lot about the Catholic experience in China from the mid-1700s to the present. Author Henrietta Harrison argues that Catholicism did not merely become "more Chinese" when the missionaries went to China - a process known as "acculturation." Rather, the process of conversion to Catholicism was full of constant negotiation and resistance, as the Chinese people figured out what they liked and didn't like about foreign Catholicism, what aspects of Chinese culture they would now oppose as Catholics, and how to fit their local traditions into Catholicism. Eventually, Harrison argues, a form of acculturation *did* win out in China: The Chinese Catholics made their religion less Chinese and more in line with global traditions of Catholicism. This nifty argument puts the Chinese people at the center of the story.

At least, that is the impression taken from the introduction. The book as a whole winds up focusing more on the Italian, French, and assorted European missionaries whom the Vatican sent to China than on the Chinese, probably because most of Harrison's primary sources come from the Catholic Church's archive in Rome. Chinese characters do appear in the book. Fr. Jacobus Wang studied in Rome and traveled widely in China, and a republican-minded priest named Wang Tingrong figures prominently and shows how Chinese Catholicism mirrored global trends, such as the rise of republicanism and self-government within Catholicism. Still, the balance is definitely on Europeans as characters. Furthermore, Harrison's elliptical thesis falls apart somewhat in the text. Although she promised that negotiation, not acculturation, was key, most of her manuscript describes acculturation, as Catholicism did become more Chinese in appearance and practice. Additionally, Harrison's promise that Chinese Catholicism became more global in practice is not detailed until the final chapter, making it seem as though she has placed emphasis on the wrong aspects of her thesis.

Despite these reservations, the book is a fast, informative read that upends many cliches about missionaries and shows just how out of touch and autocratic the Catholic Church could be toward local traditions. The villagers of Cave Gully, Shanxi, China have weathered many crises over the years so they could practice Catholicism. Their town's story is one about the courage of religious freedom.

[Dasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harrison considers the history of Catholicism in Shanxi over three hundred years. Each chapter opens with a vignette (usually a folktale) that it themed around mission/Catholic-Chinese relationships. These vignettes are particularly effective at showing the synthesis and tensions between Chinese and Catholic identities.

[Sammie McGurl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found it to be a good history of Catholicism through the lens of one tiny village in China, but it was also very confusing and wordy at times.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this book because of how it is written and because it manages to connect a local history with much broader history. As Harrison points out, the relationship between Chinese Catholics and the Vatican can be compared to how Chinese communists related with the comintern, and how Chinese liberal intellectuals related with Western academia. It's a very useful thought exercise to read this book. If you have any interest in the history of the Catholic Church, and want to see how it played out in China, then read this book. Also, if you are interested in Chinese history but don't know much about the history of Catholicism in China (since Protestantism seems to get more attention), then you should also read this book. I hope I can write like Harrison some day.