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乡土中国
《乡土中国》推出的是学界共认的中国乡土社会传统文化和社会结构理论研究的代表作《乡土中国》。《乡土中国》主要探讨了差序格局、男女有别、家族、血缘和地缘、名实的分离等篇章，可供社会学工作或教学、研究者参考。
120 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
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January 12, 2021
From the Soil (乡土中国) was first a series of lecture notes, before being serially published and then in a book in 1947, as the last years of Kuomintang rule of mainland China. He wrote this to illustrate several characteristics he saw in Chinese society - local legal rule, political organizations, rituals, age differentiation, family life, and so on. In his account, the most central feature of Chinese society is the differential mode of association (差序格局) based on ranked categories of social connections (社会关系).
Describing him as a non-Eurocentric writer is laying it on a bit thick; he cites Western authors more extensively, including his own mentor, the anthropologist Malinowski. He holds up Western societies as an ideal example and non-Western societies as incomplete or otherwise flawed. But for all of that, I suspect he is still taught today, despite his books' age, because of his elegant writing style and his insights into rural life. Even eighty years later, there is still much that is largely accurate. It is largely because of that - his treatment of a part of Chinese society that is so vast and yet so often stereotyped or completely misunderstood - that makes his work so treasured.
Describing him as a non-Eurocentric writer is laying it on a bit thick; he cites Western authors more extensively, including his own mentor, the anthropologist Malinowski. He holds up Western societies as an ideal example and non-Western societies as incomplete or otherwise flawed. But for all of that, I suspect he is still taught today, despite his books' age, because of his elegant writing style and his insights into rural life. Even eighty years later, there is still much that is largely accurate. It is largely because of that - his treatment of a part of Chinese society that is so vast and yet so often stereotyped or completely misunderstood - that makes his work so treasured.
February 8, 2019
At the strong encouragement of my remarkably intuitive, loving and peerless wife Jessie, I undertook to read this past week From the Soil: the Foundations of Chinese Society (鄉土中國) by Fei Xiaotong, who is rightly credited as the father of Chinese sociology. Though he was born in Suzhou and his entire educational career was spent within China, at Yenching and Tsinghua Universities, he was inspired by the teaching of University of Chicago urban sociologist Robert Park, from having studied with him in 1932. He was later tutored in methods by White Russian ethnographer Sergei Mikhailovich Shirokogorov (whom Dr. Fei credits as his deepest influence), and by functionalist Austro-Polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski. His studies of sociology were driven by an earnest and heartfelt desire to reform China; and even though he writes in a concise and meticulously neutral prose, attempting to lay before his readers a careful bird’s-eye view of the differences between the rural Chinese and the modern Western modi vivendi, he can never wholly disguise his sympathies or compassion for the rural Chinese. Even the goal of this anthology of short essays I read is to meet rural Chinese communities where they are.
As such, I would highly recommend it to anyone seeking to visit or understand China, let alone live here. I would argue that it is as important a book for understanding Chinese people as Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America is for understanding Americans – and that is no idle comparison. I have said elsewhere (with my tongue only half-in-cheek) that Dr. Fei ought to have subtitled it instead Everything You Wanted to Know About China, but Were Afraid to Ask. Starting from the standpoint of understanding what is materially important in Chinese rural life, where everyday interactions are marked by intimate familiarity with neighbours; sedentary living; a slow pace; a style of knowledge that is best transmitted orally and through practice from elders to the young; and a need to band together in extended family groups to get anything done on a large scale, he carefully reconstructs Chinese social relations. If you ever wanted to know why Chinese people in practice may have a high tolerance for what we might see as ‘corrupt’ practices; why Chinese married couples so rarely show their emotions for each other; why Chinese ‘drinking buddies’ and ‘girl-friends’ do show so much emotion for each other; why ‘rule of law’ is still something of a dirty word in some quarters; why Chinese people give so many gifts to each other (even when Westerners might see it as bribery); why they fight to foot the bill when they eat out; why they seemingly value the extended family over the nuclear family; why ‘civil society’ in China is so different; why many people don’t seem to care about their own national politics; and why the people who run small shops and street stalls always seem to be from ‘out of town’ in any Chinese town or village – this is certainly the book for you.
This book is most famous, actually, for one analogy Fei Xiaotong makes regarding social relations in West and East. He sees Western society, with its ‘organisational mode of association’, as analogous to a bundle of straws or sticks. Each straw or stick is distinct and separate and – to an extent – equal and interchangeable with any other, and they are stacked together in discrete, exclusive bunches. He recommends seeing Chinese society through the lens of a ‘differential mode of association’, and borrows the explicitly Confucian analogy of ripples in a pond, emanating outwards from where a stone was cast in. Each person is his own ‘centre’ of a network of fluid and overlapping relationships, and his duties within each are either more important or less important depending on how near another person is to him. Western societies tend toward universalisable theories of social ethics; the Chinese toward situated ethics of care.
But although all of the above are carefully and sometimes critically explained, one has to remember that Dr. Fei is writing for a Chinese audience and introducing Western categories for comparison. And he is writing from a standpoint of sincere sympathy for the rural Chinese view. He speaks even the neutral and often one-sided language of his field with a heart full of love. Even though he is clearly an advocate for social reforms, rural literacy and democratic rule, the entire point of his work is that he wants it done in a way which respects the values and lifeways of rural Chinese culture. In his view, reform badly imposed – for the wrong reasons, or from a Western rather than a Chinese frame of reference – would be worse than no reform at all.
Unfortunately, Dr. Fei’s work would not only go unregarded, but he would be punished for it by the government that took control in 1949 – a government which he himself supported! – and abolished the entire scholarly field of sociology a mere three years later. Branded as a bourgeois ‘rightist’ in the Cultural Revolution for his proposals, the Chinese government banned his work, forced him to publicly recant it, stripped the father of Chinese sociology of his scholarly position and sent him to work cleaning privies. Ironically, in Taiwan, Dr. Fei’s work was banned for the exact opposite reason. He had been anti-Nationalist and, in the last instance, a supporter of Mao. But his work managed to circulate samizdat-style on the black market in the Republic of China, where some of his proposals were tentatively implemented by the government – though naturally he never got any credit for them.
I was lucky to pick up the translation I did, because in the postscript the translator also includes an overview and excerpts from Fei Xiaotong’s companion anthology Reconstructing Rural China (鄉土重建), which actually provides some of the policy prescriptions he advocated in light of his sociological inquiries.
Dr. Fei was convinced that if modern industry and knowledge were to flourish in China in a healthy way, the large landholding class would have to give up their traditional privileges and, under the aegis of a compensated land reform policy, break up and distribute holdings to individual ‘families’ (defined not as Western nuclear families, but rather individual ‘small lineage’ units under a single patriarch). The landlords would then be compensated with government bonds to be used for small-scale capital investment.
But in spite of this decentralist, market-oriented approach, to the end Dr. Fei was emphatically not the bourgeois ‘rightist’ the Cultural Revolution had made him out to be. Indeed, he wanted to see industry in the hands of local villages and townships, focussing on handicrafts, household workshops and light industries, owned and run cooperatively. To quote the good Dr. Fei himself: ‘What I call rural industry includes the following elements: (1) Peasant families participate in industry without giving up farming. (2) The location of industries is scattered in and around villages. (3) Such industries belong to the peasants who participate in them; therefore, ownership is cooperative. (4) The raw material for such industries is mainly produced by the peasants themselves. (5) Most important, the profits from the industry are directly distributed to the peasants.’
Though being written in 1948, From the Soil and Reconstructing Rural China predate Small Is Beautiful by a good twenty years or more, and though they are writing for very different audiences, the ideas of Fei Xiaotong and E. F. Schumacher on rural development bear a remarkable resemblance. The land reform and household industry policies which met with such success when adopted by the Nationalists in Taiwan, the editors of the volume surmise, actually owe much of their content to Dr. Fei’s prescriptions.
The People’s Republic of China is often held up by its anti-capitalist, democratic and localist critics as an example of how not to do rural development. The point of interest here, though, is that there were people discussing such ideas even during the early People’s Republic period – and that Chinese culture itself does not necessarily doom the adoption of distributist, localist or economic-democratic policies. Indeed, if Dr. Fei is to be believed – and Taiwan’s experience seems to suggest he is – Chinese culture is actually very well-suited to these policies as a culturally-distinctive alternative, both to Washington Consensus laissez-faire and to the state capitalism of the modern Chinese Communist Party.
Original review published at Solidarity Hall, 19 Jan 2015
As such, I would highly recommend it to anyone seeking to visit or understand China, let alone live here. I would argue that it is as important a book for understanding Chinese people as Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America is for understanding Americans – and that is no idle comparison. I have said elsewhere (with my tongue only half-in-cheek) that Dr. Fei ought to have subtitled it instead Everything You Wanted to Know About China, but Were Afraid to Ask. Starting from the standpoint of understanding what is materially important in Chinese rural life, where everyday interactions are marked by intimate familiarity with neighbours; sedentary living; a slow pace; a style of knowledge that is best transmitted orally and through practice from elders to the young; and a need to band together in extended family groups to get anything done on a large scale, he carefully reconstructs Chinese social relations. If you ever wanted to know why Chinese people in practice may have a high tolerance for what we might see as ‘corrupt’ practices; why Chinese married couples so rarely show their emotions for each other; why Chinese ‘drinking buddies’ and ‘girl-friends’ do show so much emotion for each other; why ‘rule of law’ is still something of a dirty word in some quarters; why Chinese people give so many gifts to each other (even when Westerners might see it as bribery); why they fight to foot the bill when they eat out; why they seemingly value the extended family over the nuclear family; why ‘civil society’ in China is so different; why many people don’t seem to care about their own national politics; and why the people who run small shops and street stalls always seem to be from ‘out of town’ in any Chinese town or village – this is certainly the book for you.
This book is most famous, actually, for one analogy Fei Xiaotong makes regarding social relations in West and East. He sees Western society, with its ‘organisational mode of association’, as analogous to a bundle of straws or sticks. Each straw or stick is distinct and separate and – to an extent – equal and interchangeable with any other, and they are stacked together in discrete, exclusive bunches. He recommends seeing Chinese society through the lens of a ‘differential mode of association’, and borrows the explicitly Confucian analogy of ripples in a pond, emanating outwards from where a stone was cast in. Each person is his own ‘centre’ of a network of fluid and overlapping relationships, and his duties within each are either more important or less important depending on how near another person is to him. Western societies tend toward universalisable theories of social ethics; the Chinese toward situated ethics of care.
But although all of the above are carefully and sometimes critically explained, one has to remember that Dr. Fei is writing for a Chinese audience and introducing Western categories for comparison. And he is writing from a standpoint of sincere sympathy for the rural Chinese view. He speaks even the neutral and often one-sided language of his field with a heart full of love. Even though he is clearly an advocate for social reforms, rural literacy and democratic rule, the entire point of his work is that he wants it done in a way which respects the values and lifeways of rural Chinese culture. In his view, reform badly imposed – for the wrong reasons, or from a Western rather than a Chinese frame of reference – would be worse than no reform at all.
Unfortunately, Dr. Fei’s work would not only go unregarded, but he would be punished for it by the government that took control in 1949 – a government which he himself supported! – and abolished the entire scholarly field of sociology a mere three years later. Branded as a bourgeois ‘rightist’ in the Cultural Revolution for his proposals, the Chinese government banned his work, forced him to publicly recant it, stripped the father of Chinese sociology of his scholarly position and sent him to work cleaning privies. Ironically, in Taiwan, Dr. Fei’s work was banned for the exact opposite reason. He had been anti-Nationalist and, in the last instance, a supporter of Mao. But his work managed to circulate samizdat-style on the black market in the Republic of China, where some of his proposals were tentatively implemented by the government – though naturally he never got any credit for them.
I was lucky to pick up the translation I did, because in the postscript the translator also includes an overview and excerpts from Fei Xiaotong’s companion anthology Reconstructing Rural China (鄉土重建), which actually provides some of the policy prescriptions he advocated in light of his sociological inquiries.
Dr. Fei was convinced that if modern industry and knowledge were to flourish in China in a healthy way, the large landholding class would have to give up their traditional privileges and, under the aegis of a compensated land reform policy, break up and distribute holdings to individual ‘families’ (defined not as Western nuclear families, but rather individual ‘small lineage’ units under a single patriarch). The landlords would then be compensated with government bonds to be used for small-scale capital investment.
But in spite of this decentralist, market-oriented approach, to the end Dr. Fei was emphatically not the bourgeois ‘rightist’ the Cultural Revolution had made him out to be. Indeed, he wanted to see industry in the hands of local villages and townships, focussing on handicrafts, household workshops and light industries, owned and run cooperatively. To quote the good Dr. Fei himself: ‘What I call rural industry includes the following elements: (1) Peasant families participate in industry without giving up farming. (2) The location of industries is scattered in and around villages. (3) Such industries belong to the peasants who participate in them; therefore, ownership is cooperative. (4) The raw material for such industries is mainly produced by the peasants themselves. (5) Most important, the profits from the industry are directly distributed to the peasants.’
Though being written in 1948, From the Soil and Reconstructing Rural China predate Small Is Beautiful by a good twenty years or more, and though they are writing for very different audiences, the ideas of Fei Xiaotong and E. F. Schumacher on rural development bear a remarkable resemblance. The land reform and household industry policies which met with such success when adopted by the Nationalists in Taiwan, the editors of the volume surmise, actually owe much of their content to Dr. Fei’s prescriptions.
The People’s Republic of China is often held up by its anti-capitalist, democratic and localist critics as an example of how not to do rural development. The point of interest here, though, is that there were people discussing such ideas even during the early People’s Republic period – and that Chinese culture itself does not necessarily doom the adoption of distributist, localist or economic-democratic policies. Indeed, if Dr. Fei is to be believed – and Taiwan’s experience seems to suggest he is – Chinese culture is actually very well-suited to these policies as a culturally-distinctive alternative, both to Washington Consensus laissez-faire and to the state capitalism of the modern Chinese Communist Party.
Original review published at Solidarity Hall, 19 Jan 2015
August 11, 2017
看得很慢，时不时要停下来回想的一本书。
字字珠玑！
字字珠玑！
January 17, 2016
It's a very interesting book to understand the root of the modern China.My friend recommended FEI to me 10 years ago, it's such a pity that I just read it.
I am so surprised that what FEI talked about could still apply to many issues in China right now considering the book was written 70 years ago! I have to say many rituals mentioned in this book may even give a hint about where the future of the internet would forward.
Quite thought-provoking and mind-blowing! Highly recommended!
I am so surprised that what FEI talked about could still apply to many issues in China right now considering the book was written 70 years ago! I have to say many rituals mentioned in this book may even give a hint about where the future of the internet would forward.
Quite thought-provoking and mind-blowing! Highly recommended!
August 10, 2019
费老是中国最知名的社会学家，【乡土中国】是最知名的社会学著作之一。如果费老的《江村经济》侧重讨论社会制度变革，那么《乡土中国》则在探讨与之相匹配的社会道德。
费老可不是只知道纸上谈兵的学究，他深入乡野，跑遍了几乎整个中国，他的妻子更是在这途中不幸溺水身亡，自己也身负重伤。这本书，凝结着费老的心血，不得不说他是在用绳命在写书。
费老谈到欲望和人类发展的关系时总结出两者时有重合之处。比如爱情为欲望，爱情的结晶繁衍生息，则是符合人类传宗接代，发展的需要。 需要更加理性化，人们根据需要做理性化的计划从而指导行为。
费老分析了法治和礼治存在的冲突，以及乡土社会缺乏法律土壤的原因。在乡土社会，以礼治为主导，礼治是袭承传统的，是含有教化作用的。所以诉讼往往被看作是家丑不可外扬，道德败坏，有伤风俗，羞于启齿的事情。 而礼治因为承袭传统常常只适用于流动性和变动性很小的乡土社会。在现代社会中，法治更与时俱进，因为法律是依据现行社会发展所制定的规则，无关道德，旨在划定权利与义务，有规范而非教化的作用。 所以乡土社会的礼治也会和现代社会的法治有些冲突，比如丈夫把妻子偷情的对象欧打成重伤，在礼治社会看来这是天经地义，在法治社会看来，丈夫的行为也应受到法律制裁。 所以在乡土人看来，他们可能会觉得法律机构藏污纳垢，包庇罪犯。然而要使法治深入人心，不仅仅要建立法庭，培养律师，更重要是让乡土人民真正地实现礼治思维到法治思维的转变。
在男女婚姻关系中，费老认为中国乡土社会更倾向于求稳。他提出了两种迥异的社会结构：阿波罗式和浮士德式。 阿波罗式的结构：假设社会的本质是稳定的，生命的意义是维护这份稳定。浮士德式的结构： 假设社会的本质是混乱的，生命的意义在于克服阻挠，扫平障碍，寻找稳定。失去混乱，则生命意义的根基便不复存在。中国乡土社会是阿波罗式的，以社会稳定为本貌，维护社会稳定为目标。表现在男女的结合上，以生育繁衍后代为最重要目的，把自由恋爱中克服重重阻挠，热恋中的情侣结合看做是不太稳定的因素。所以农村中男女的结合是维护传宗接代的稳定，并不需要参杂男欢女爱在里面。 农村预先设定了男女有别，并且采取阿波罗式维护男女有别的稳定：通过教育人们男女授受不亲，男女分工明确等来加固稳定；精神伴侣在同性中寻求，家族在同性之中壮大而非强调男女为主角的家庭。
在总结中国社会和西方社会结构的区别时，费老提出了非常有趣的差序格局的概念。西方社会结构是团体社会，每个人所归属的团体之间界限清晰，公私分明。界限分明有利于划定每个人的权利和义务，也有利于国家宪法，法律，商业等的发展。 中国社会结构是差序格局，以个人为中心，推己及人。界限的大小具有伸缩性，强大的家族和落魄的个人所辐射的关系圈范围是不同的。所以中国是人情社会，也更能体会世态炎凉，���情冷暖。
费老在此书也阐述了乡下人文盲多的原因。用进废退，文字的使用往往是为了解决非面对面的交流，在这里文字的功能对乡下人来说打了个折扣。 其次，即使文字在面对面的交流中仍然有存在的意义，它也只是一种交流的工具，往往还会因为不同的特殊语���赋予文字不同的含义。
综上所述，乡下人对文字的需求并不是很高，用进废退，也可以解释乡下人文盲多这一现象，这并不是乡下人蠢笨的结果。 同时，时代不断发展，文字下乡的任务也越来越迫切，今非昔比。记忆即为，通过忆过去的事情，记住为当下或未来所用的东西。文化靠记忆传承，文字是记忆的载体。 从时间的继承性来讲，城市通过文字来传承知识；而乡村所传更多是经验而非知识，口口相传，不会有遗漏。时间里没有阻隔，拉得十分紧，全部文化可以在亲子之间传授无缺。 文字反而显得繁琐而低效。
不得不说，这本书凝结了费老多少心血。虽然中国的乡土社会在不断变化，但这本书仍让我常读常新。
费老可不是只知道纸上谈兵的学究，他深入乡野，跑遍了几乎整个中国，他的妻子更是在这途中不幸溺水身亡，自己也身负重伤。这本书，凝结着费老的心血，不得不说他是在用绳命在写书。
费老谈到欲望和人类发展的关系时总结出两者时有重合之处。比如爱情为欲望，爱情的结晶繁衍生息，则是符合人类传宗接代，发展的需要。 需要更加理性化，人们根据需要做理性化的计划从而指导行为。
费老分析了法治和礼治存在的冲突，以及乡土社会缺乏法律土壤的原因。在乡土社会，以礼治为主导，礼治是袭承传统的，是含有教化作用的。所以诉讼往往被看作是家丑不可外扬，道德败坏，有伤风俗，羞于启齿的事情。 而礼治因为承袭传统常常只适用于流动性和变动性很小的乡土社会。在现代社会中，法治更与时俱进，因为法律是依据现行社会发展所制定的规则，无关道德，旨在划定权利与义务，有规范而非教化的作用。 所以乡土社会的礼治也会和现代社会的法治有些冲突，比如丈夫把妻子偷情的对象欧打成重伤，在礼治社会看来这是天经地义，在法治社会看来，丈夫的行为也应受到法律制裁。 所以在乡土人看来，他们可能会觉得法律机构藏污纳垢，包庇罪犯。然而要使法治深入人心，不仅仅要建立法庭，培养律师，更重要是让乡土人民真正地实现礼治思维到法治思维的转变。
在男女婚姻关系中，费老认为中国乡土社会更倾向于求稳。他提出了两种迥异的社会结构：阿波罗式和浮士德式。 阿波罗式的结构：假设社会的本质是稳定的，生命的意义是维护这份稳定。浮士德式的结构： 假设社会的本质是混乱的，生命的意义在于克服阻挠，扫平障碍，寻找稳定。失去混乱，则生命意义的根基便不复存在。中国乡土社会是阿波罗式的，以社会稳定为本貌，维护社会稳定为目标。表现在男女的结合上，以生育繁衍后代为最重要目的，把自由恋爱中克服重重阻挠，热恋中的情侣结合看做是不太稳定的因素。所以农村中男女的结合是维护传宗接代的稳定，并不需要参杂男欢女爱在里面。 农村预先设定了男女有别，并且采取阿波罗式维护男女有别的稳定：通过教育人们男女授受不亲，男女分工明确等来加固稳定；精神伴侣在同性中寻求，家族在同性之中壮大而非强调男女为主角的家庭。
在总结中国社会和西方社会结构的区别时，费老提出了非常有趣的差序格局的概念。西方社会结构是团体社会，每个人所归属的团体之间界限清晰，公私分明。界限分明有利于划定每个人的权利和义务，也有利于国家宪法，法律，商业等的发展。 中国社会结构是差序格局，以个人为中心，推己及人。界限的大小具有伸缩性，强大的家族和落魄的个人所辐射的关系圈范围是不同的。所以中国是人情社会，也更能体会世态炎凉，���情冷暖。
费老在此书也阐述了乡下人文盲多的原因。用进废退，文字的使用往往是为了解决非面对面的交流，在这里文字的功能对乡下人来说打了个折扣。 其次，即使文字在面对面的交流中仍然有存在的意义，它也只是一种交流的工具，往往还会因为不同的特殊语���赋予文字不同的含义。
综上所述，乡下人对文字的需求并不是很高，用进废退，也可以解释乡下人文盲多这一现象，这并不是乡下人蠢笨的结果。 同时，时代不断发展，文字下乡的任务也越来越迫切，今非昔比。记忆即为，通过忆过去的事情，记住为当下或未来所用的东西。文化靠记忆传承，文字是记忆的载体。 从时间的继承性来讲，城市通过文字来传承知识；而乡村所传更多是经验而非知识，口口相传，不会有遗漏。时间里没有阻隔，拉得十分紧，全部文化可以在亲子之间传授无缺。 文字反而显得繁琐而低效。
不得不说，这本书凝结了费老多少心血。虽然中国的乡土社会在不断变化，但这本书仍让我常读常新。
June 23, 2019
Concise yet insightful sociology study of agricultural Chinese community in 1940s.
As China has undergone rapid urbanization since its joining WTO, a lot of characteristics and values Fei outlined in this book are no longer applicable to a large portion of Chinese population today. In the last part of this book, Fei actually proposed that when the speed of social changes (via technical advancement, urbanization, globalization etc) outpaces the normal intergenerational change, the power hierarchy, especially the patriarchal part, will be shattered. A hero or iconoclast will emerge with a new way of daily conduct. We have observed it occur. The young generation in China loses tradition (which is not necessarily bad), but fail to find faith in other sorts but material wealth (which can be bad).
Fei also raises interesting points about functionality of family in China and Western societies. His explanation of why emotional attachment between couples in China is relatively weaker compared to Americans and Europeans is that family carries other functions such as operating business and raising offsprings. In addition, his points about interpersonal relationship is bottom-up in China whereas top-down in western society is also inspiring.
As China has undergone rapid urbanization since its joining WTO, a lot of characteristics and values Fei outlined in this book are no longer applicable to a large portion of Chinese population today. In the last part of this book, Fei actually proposed that when the speed of social changes (via technical advancement, urbanization, globalization etc) outpaces the normal intergenerational change, the power hierarchy, especially the patriarchal part, will be shattered. A hero or iconoclast will emerge with a new way of daily conduct. We have observed it occur. The young generation in China loses tradition (which is not necessarily bad), but fail to find faith in other sorts but material wealth (which can be bad).
Fei also raises interesting points about functionality of family in China and Western societies. His explanation of why emotional attachment between couples in China is relatively weaker compared to Americans and Europeans is that family carries other functions such as operating business and raising offsprings. In addition, his points about interpersonal relationship is bottom-up in China whereas top-down in western society is also inspiring.
April 13, 2023
Heard this book described on a podcast, where it was highly recommended, so I decided to check it out (only partly because it's short and I'm looking to fill a gap as I wait for my next book to be available in the library).
I have mixed feelings about the book! It's odd, I feel like I found the translator's introduction and summary very engaging, but when I actually got to Fei's writing, it was a bit harder to follow, and wandered a bit more often. It's still relatively relevant for a book from 1948, but there was a particularly strong emphasis on rural life, and despite the claims made in the podcast I listened to, I wasn't totally convinced that it remains as relevant as ever in understanding modern Chinese culture. Still somewhat relevant, but many of his points did feel a bit dated (not his fault obviously, I am the one reading a 75 year old book).
However, I think some of the key points were interesting, and will stay with me: critically, the societal emphasis on guanxi, and the ways in which it can supercede other values and priorities.
I have mixed feelings about the book! It's odd, I feel like I found the translator's introduction and summary very engaging, but when I actually got to Fei's writing, it was a bit harder to follow, and wandered a bit more often. It's still relatively relevant for a book from 1948, but there was a particularly strong emphasis on rural life, and despite the claims made in the podcast I listened to, I wasn't totally convinced that it remains as relevant as ever in understanding modern Chinese culture. Still somewhat relevant, but many of his points did feel a bit dated (not his fault obviously, I am the one reading a 75 year old book).
However, I think some of the key points were interesting, and will stay with me: critically, the societal emphasis on guanxi, and the ways in which it can supercede other values and priorities.
September 30, 2007
This is a book for one of my classes. It's interesting, but I most likely would never have read it unless it were a school assignment. It is just a professor of sociology in China's notes he used in class, turned into a novel. It is trying to gain a sociological perspective of Chinese society without a westernized view that most Chinese school had back in the 40's.
June 9, 2020
Such an important book that's at the same time super easy to read. I'd recommend for anyone who is genuinely interested in understanding the Chinese society. Everything mentioned in this book is still relevant to China today.
March 25, 2024
This book was recommended by my coworker who was born and raised in China and came to the USA as an adult. I, on the other hand, have Chinese heritage but was born and raised in America. So my coworker was curious to know my perspective.
Honestly, this was a difficult book for me to relate to - I’m not super philosophical, especially when it comes to societal organization. It was an interesting read tho, and definitely thought provoking. I will definitely have a few things to talk to my coworker about!
Honestly, this was a difficult book for me to relate to - I’m not super philosophical, especially when it comes to societal organization. It was an interesting read tho, and definitely thought provoking. I will definitely have a few things to talk to my coworker about!
August 16, 2023
Interesting fundamental views on Chinese agrarian society
September 29, 2025
Absolutely fantastic and incredibly insightful book which packs a punch in a relatively small number of pages. Really brought some critical context to my understanding and perspectives on Chinese society which I hadn't been fully exposed to otherwise. The book is written in simple prose and rich in content, noted by the translator as intentionally done to invoke the feeling of perhaps conversation between the reader and Fei Xiaotong, the renowned Chinese sociologist and author of the text. I can personally attest to his success in such pursuit, finding the reading experience easy and pleasant. Fei succeeds in highlighting the foundational tenets which shape Chinese society and contrasts them with great success to their Western counterparts. The book does not enter intricate detail but delivers rich perspective, founded upon Fei's own experience in rural Chine and his extensive studies on the matter, and illustrates a rich picture from which to draw understanding.
I had this book recommended to me by a couple of my Chinese friends independently of the other, one who went through the trouble of also sharing with me a copy, to which I thank them immensely. I also engaged in conversation with them regarding particular excerpts from the book and found said discussion equally as valuable, affirming to me the relevance of this book. I would highly highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Chinese culture and society, and even found it to be applicable to anyone from the West in finding a deeper understanding of their own culture and society when drawn into contrast. Even just in discussion of rural life and society in general, this book is a relevant force.
It's actually quite funny, as somewhat recently I had a long conversation with a Chinese friend of mine regarding our differing perspectives on heterosexual relationships, and while I understood their perspective and what they were describing, I struggled immensely to actually wrap my head around HOW they would ever come to such conclusions. We spoke for a long while but I simply could not conceive myself ever seeing things that way, as if there was some subconscious block built within me making me think otherwise. This book brought intense light on the matter and obliterated this block through simple recognition of the foundations to such a question, which brought me to better understand the fundamental differences between our two perspectives and what they were rooted in. To be able to name something is to have power over it, per the story of Rumpelstiltskin, and this book arms its reader with precisely that. Much deeper discussion and mutual understanding was enabled as a result, both of ourselves and of each other.
There is a LOT I could talk about regarding its contents, much which I covered in conversation with others, but I will simply do the usual note-taking for my own review and reserve such further discussion for an actual article or essay of some sort. I don't think I could otherwise do it justice in this specific format, and frankly recommend you to simply read it for yourself.
Highlighted pieces and attached notes below:
Note: I can lowkey sniff out that I'm going to run out of space unfortunately. QQ
NOTES FROM TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION
"As a medical doctor I might cure the afflictions of a few, but not those of hundreds of millions engendered by an irrational society. What ails society must be cured first. ... To be a doctor we have to learn physiology first; likewise, to cure the society we have to study social theories first."
"Fei was attracted to Western social scientists who told him that the best theories are those that emerge from an intimate, systematic knowledge of the society being studied."
"The goal of social science is not to discover what is similar in all societies"
"Knowing that great changes would occur in the coming years, Fei wrote prolifically, publishing numerous essays in newspapers and periodicals and quickly becoming a well...known writer."
"Fei wrote the essays in a plain style-stark, with almost no footnotes or scholarly pretensions, and with vivid examples from daily life. In this book, as well as in most of his subsequent writings, Fei adopted a style of presentation quite distinct from the quasi-classical writing preferred by most essayists. 31 His style of writing down played his learning. In fact, the book is almost conversational in tone and was obviously written to be accessible to the largest possible audience, to be widely read, and to be quickly understood."
"Fei's prose style is disarming. Fei, in fact, called himself a /lfast hand" (kuaishou), a quick writer, saying that he knew that /lfast does not necessarily mean good." 32 He also expressed doubts that this style of writing "would be accepted into the temple of academe" because he does not quote the classics much, does not use statistics, and never writes prose filled with obscure terminology or jargon.33 This form of exposition makes Fei's ideas seem at times too simple, too straightforward, and too matter-of-fact. Fei usually does not acknowledge the nuances in his theories and does not follow their logical implications; moreover, Fei does not tell his readers the source of his ideas."
"patterns in rural society provide the foundation for all of Chinese society"
"China is not the West, and so what evolved in the West should not be seen as evidence of a universal pattern or as a recipe for China to follow blindly. Instead, China has its own destiny, its own path, and that path is surely shaped by the patterns intemal to Chinese society."
" Western society is represented by straws collected to form a haystack, and Chinese society is represented by the ripples flowing out from the splash of a rock thrown into water."
"The Western mode of association presupposes the autonomy of individuals, whereas the Chinese mode of association presupposes multiple linkages of self with others and a categorization of those linkages. Fei attempts to explain the origins of both modes of association through an undeveloped historical and cultural argument. 4O He traces the Western organizational mode of association to Christianity ("Religious piety and beliefs are not only the source of Western morality but also the force that supports Western behavioral norms"), and the differential mode of association to Confucian ethics."
"To be a human in Chinese society is to be linked to others-to one's parents, siblings, children, and friends-and to fulfill the obligations of those linkages. To do otherwise is to be less than human."
" There is, in principle, no self outside of roles and relationships"
"The self in Western society is no less socially constructed than it is in Asia, but it is, in principle, a soul-bearing self, a unique entity that is permanently and intrinsically linked to no human, only to God. It is a self that defines its identity in society through willed emotional attachments and voluntary organizational memberships. The presumed autonomy of the self and the necessity to anchor one's self in a social world make it incumbent on each individual to discover or create his or her /ltrue" self.54 At a social psychological level, then, a person is required to activate the self through the exercise of will and to shape the self through personal experiences, through /Ian effort to create the meaning of life itself." 55 Fei describes this process as a IIFaustian" struggle of individuals to realize themselves by being separate from, and rising above, all social roles. In this context, Fei shows that the Western idea of "love" plays an important part in the creation of the Western self but is less important in-and sometimes detrimental to the creation and maintenance of families."
"Modern Western ideas of individual autonomy lead people to conceive of themselves as distinct from all social roles and to regard biological roles as narrow and, except for sex and reproduction, secondary"
"In Chinese society, it is difficult to conceive of "man" and "woman" as meaningful social categories apart from specific relationships.59 In the West, however, "man" and "woman" are the meaningful categories, but the social roles that go with them are always open for reexamination and redefinition."
"Hence, <> laws define what should not be done. Breaking the law consists of some action that expressly violates individual rights."
" According to Fei, the state, as the constitutional embodiment of its people, is the highest level of organization in Western society. It is a compulsory organization, in which people are forced to claim membership. The state establishes laws and guarantees them; the state is the essence of legitimacy, and all power holders, even parents within families, obtain their rights to control others within specified jurisdictional boundaries from the state and from the legal framework that the state upholds."
"Heaven is high and the emperor is far away."
"The logic, of course, is that if everyone supervises and upholds the morality of his or her close relations, then the entire world is at rest and people can prosper. The ideal government should wuwei-do nothing"
NOTES FROM FROM THE SOIL
"[Rural society] is a society without strangers, a society based totally on the familiar."
" One type of society forms as a natural result of people growing up together, and has no other purpose than being simply an outgrowth of human interaction. The other type of so- ciety is that which has been organized explicitly to fulfill goals."
- ritual and customs vs law and reason
"The people they see every day are the ones they have known since childhood, just as they know the people in their own families. They do not have to select the kind of society they would live in; they are born into it; choice is not a factor."
"Modern society is composed of strangers."
- written contracts, writing, legal frameworks resulting from this
" In rural society, trust derives from familiarity. This kind of trust has very solid foundations, for it is rooted in customary norms. Even today, Western merchants often remark that trustworthiness is an innate quality of the Chinese. Many stories sound like fairy tales, such as the one told recently about a Westerner who received, after the war, a whole set of porcelain that his grandfather had ordered years earlier when he was in China. The goods were delivered without any charge and with the seller's profuse apologies for being unable to send them earlier. Trust in rural society is based not on the importance of contracts but, rather, on the dependability of people, people who are so enmeshed in customary norms that they cannot behave in any other way."
" People who grow up in a familiar environment do not need such principles... They do not seek universal truths."
Note: Essay 2: Bringing Literacy to the Countryside is very interesting to read but more specific to differences in rural and urban living and the role of written word vs speech.
"Animals, living instinctively, do not have a problem with time. Their lives form a chain of presents. No one can stop time, just as no knife can cut off the flow of water. But human time differs from animal time. The human present is the total accumulation of the past that is retained through memory. If we lost our memory, our recognition of time would cease."
"Culture is the collective social experience perpetuated by a symbolic system and individual memories. In this way, each person's "present" contains not only the projection of his or her own past but also that of the whole group's past. For individllals, history is not mere ornamentation but the very foundation of life; it is both practical and indispensable."
Questions:
- How does landlord/peasant exploitation fit into the context of rural society
Further reading:
- Peasant Life in China (1939)
- For some recent work on the notion of "love" (ar), which suggests that its modem meaning in Chinese society is very recent and is largely the result of the diffusion of Western culture, see, for instance, Jai Ben-ray, "Xifang sixiang zhong de 'ai' guan" (The image of 'love' in Western thought), Zhongguo wenhua yuekan
I had this book recommended to me by a couple of my Chinese friends independently of the other, one who went through the trouble of also sharing with me a copy, to which I thank them immensely. I also engaged in conversation with them regarding particular excerpts from the book and found said discussion equally as valuable, affirming to me the relevance of this book. I would highly highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Chinese culture and society, and even found it to be applicable to anyone from the West in finding a deeper understanding of their own culture and society when drawn into contrast. Even just in discussion of rural life and society in general, this book is a relevant force.
It's actually quite funny, as somewhat recently I had a long conversation with a Chinese friend of mine regarding our differing perspectives on heterosexual relationships, and while I understood their perspective and what they were describing, I struggled immensely to actually wrap my head around HOW they would ever come to such conclusions. We spoke for a long while but I simply could not conceive myself ever seeing things that way, as if there was some subconscious block built within me making me think otherwise. This book brought intense light on the matter and obliterated this block through simple recognition of the foundations to such a question, which brought me to better understand the fundamental differences between our two perspectives and what they were rooted in. To be able to name something is to have power over it, per the story of Rumpelstiltskin, and this book arms its reader with precisely that. Much deeper discussion and mutual understanding was enabled as a result, both of ourselves and of each other.
There is a LOT I could talk about regarding its contents, much which I covered in conversation with others, but I will simply do the usual note-taking for my own review and reserve such further discussion for an actual article or essay of some sort. I don't think I could otherwise do it justice in this specific format, and frankly recommend you to simply read it for yourself.
Highlighted pieces and attached notes below:
Note: I can lowkey sniff out that I'm going to run out of space unfortunately. QQ
NOTES FROM TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION
"As a medical doctor I might cure the afflictions of a few, but not those of hundreds of millions engendered by an irrational society. What ails society must be cured first. ... To be a doctor we have to learn physiology first; likewise, to cure the society we have to study social theories first."
"Fei was attracted to Western social scientists who told him that the best theories are those that emerge from an intimate, systematic knowledge of the society being studied."
"The goal of social science is not to discover what is similar in all societies"
"Knowing that great changes would occur in the coming years, Fei wrote prolifically, publishing numerous essays in newspapers and periodicals and quickly becoming a well...known writer."
"Fei wrote the essays in a plain style-stark, with almost no footnotes or scholarly pretensions, and with vivid examples from daily life. In this book, as well as in most of his subsequent writings, Fei adopted a style of presentation quite distinct from the quasi-classical writing preferred by most essayists. 31 His style of writing down played his learning. In fact, the book is almost conversational in tone and was obviously written to be accessible to the largest possible audience, to be widely read, and to be quickly understood."
"Fei's prose style is disarming. Fei, in fact, called himself a /lfast hand" (kuaishou), a quick writer, saying that he knew that /lfast does not necessarily mean good." 32 He also expressed doubts that this style of writing "would be accepted into the temple of academe" because he does not quote the classics much, does not use statistics, and never writes prose filled with obscure terminology or jargon.33 This form of exposition makes Fei's ideas seem at times too simple, too straightforward, and too matter-of-fact. Fei usually does not acknowledge the nuances in his theories and does not follow their logical implications; moreover, Fei does not tell his readers the source of his ideas."
"patterns in rural society provide the foundation for all of Chinese society"
"China is not the West, and so what evolved in the West should not be seen as evidence of a universal pattern or as a recipe for China to follow blindly. Instead, China has its own destiny, its own path, and that path is surely shaped by the patterns intemal to Chinese society."
" Western society is represented by straws collected to form a haystack, and Chinese society is represented by the ripples flowing out from the splash of a rock thrown into water."
"The Western mode of association presupposes the autonomy of individuals, whereas the Chinese mode of association presupposes multiple linkages of self with others and a categorization of those linkages. Fei attempts to explain the origins of both modes of association through an undeveloped historical and cultural argument. 4O He traces the Western organizational mode of association to Christianity ("Religious piety and beliefs are not only the source of Western morality but also the force that supports Western behavioral norms"), and the differential mode of association to Confucian ethics."
"To be a human in Chinese society is to be linked to others-to one's parents, siblings, children, and friends-and to fulfill the obligations of those linkages. To do otherwise is to be less than human."
" There is, in principle, no self outside of roles and relationships"
"The self in Western society is no less socially constructed than it is in Asia, but it is, in principle, a soul-bearing self, a unique entity that is permanently and intrinsically linked to no human, only to God. It is a self that defines its identity in society through willed emotional attachments and voluntary organizational memberships. The presumed autonomy of the self and the necessity to anchor one's self in a social world make it incumbent on each individual to discover or create his or her /ltrue" self.54 At a social psychological level, then, a person is required to activate the self through the exercise of will and to shape the self through personal experiences, through /Ian effort to create the meaning of life itself." 55 Fei describes this process as a IIFaustian" struggle of individuals to realize themselves by being separate from, and rising above, all social roles. In this context, Fei shows that the Western idea of "love" plays an important part in the creation of the Western self but is less important in-and sometimes detrimental to the creation and maintenance of families."
"Modern Western ideas of individual autonomy lead people to conceive of themselves as distinct from all social roles and to regard biological roles as narrow and, except for sex and reproduction, secondary"
"In Chinese society, it is difficult to conceive of "man" and "woman" as meaningful social categories apart from specific relationships.59 In the West, however, "man" and "woman" are the meaningful categories, but the social roles that go with them are always open for reexamination and redefinition."
"Hence, <> laws define what should not be done. Breaking the law consists of some action that expressly violates individual rights."
" According to Fei, the state, as the constitutional embodiment of its people, is the highest level of organization in Western society. It is a compulsory organization, in which people are forced to claim membership. The state establishes laws and guarantees them; the state is the essence of legitimacy, and all power holders, even parents within families, obtain their rights to control others within specified jurisdictional boundaries from the state and from the legal framework that the state upholds."
"Heaven is high and the emperor is far away."
"The logic, of course, is that if everyone supervises and upholds the morality of his or her close relations, then the entire world is at rest and people can prosper. The ideal government should wuwei-do nothing"
NOTES FROM FROM THE SOIL
"[Rural society] is a society without strangers, a society based totally on the familiar."
" One type of society forms as a natural result of people growing up together, and has no other purpose than being simply an outgrowth of human interaction. The other type of so- ciety is that which has been organized explicitly to fulfill goals."
- ritual and customs vs law and reason
"The people they see every day are the ones they have known since childhood, just as they know the people in their own families. They do not have to select the kind of society they would live in; they are born into it; choice is not a factor."
"Modern society is composed of strangers."
- written contracts, writing, legal frameworks resulting from this
" In rural society, trust derives from familiarity. This kind of trust has very solid foundations, for it is rooted in customary norms. Even today, Western merchants often remark that trustworthiness is an innate quality of the Chinese. Many stories sound like fairy tales, such as the one told recently about a Westerner who received, after the war, a whole set of porcelain that his grandfather had ordered years earlier when he was in China. The goods were delivered without any charge and with the seller's profuse apologies for being unable to send them earlier. Trust in rural society is based not on the importance of contracts but, rather, on the dependability of people, people who are so enmeshed in customary norms that they cannot behave in any other way."
" People who grow up in a familiar environment do not need such principles... They do not seek universal truths."
Note: Essay 2: Bringing Literacy to the Countryside is very interesting to read but more specific to differences in rural and urban living and the role of written word vs speech.
"Animals, living instinctively, do not have a problem with time. Their lives form a chain of presents. No one can stop time, just as no knife can cut off the flow of water. But human time differs from animal time. The human present is the total accumulation of the past that is retained through memory. If we lost our memory, our recognition of time would cease."
"Culture is the collective social experience perpetuated by a symbolic system and individual memories. In this way, each person's "present" contains not only the projection of his or her own past but also that of the whole group's past. For individllals, history is not mere ornamentation but the very foundation of life; it is both practical and indispensable."
Questions:
- How does landlord/peasant exploitation fit into the context of rural society
Further reading:
- Peasant Life in China (1939)
- For some recent work on the notion of "love" (ar), which suggests that its modem meaning in Chinese society is very recent and is largely the result of the diffusion of Western culture, see, for instance, Jai Ben-ray, "Xifang sixiang zhong de 'ai' guan" (The image of 'love' in Western thought), Zhongguo wenhua yuekan
September 14, 2024
A sociology of China 101!
June 28, 2023
read a translation of this - I feel like the ideas were clearly expressed, easy enough to understand, and quite persuasive! My favorite section was the one comparing western individual autonomy to Chinese "egocentric networks" - that one felt quite resonant. I'd be very curious to read someone revisiting these concepts in the context of modern China and its urban/rural divide! super worth reading and would recommend to others, also just cool that it's the first sociology of China written by a non-foreigner. the history of the author's varying fortunes throughout history is also super fascinating!
September 12, 2021
"In these elastic networks that make up Chinese society, there is always a self at the center of each web." - Fei Xiaotong (in-book text)
Sociologist Fei Xiaotong's analysis of the differential modes of association between Chinese and Western societies is undeniably path breaking. Based largely on fieldwork in China's countryside, he offers readers the concept of Chanxugeju - whereby citizens are classified according to distinct categories of social relationship. The notion of egocentrism, contrasted with the West's individualism, serves as a controversial yet fascinating explanation for the development of contemporary China's political-social-economic institutions.
Sociologist Fei Xiaotong's analysis of the differential modes of association between Chinese and Western societies is undeniably path breaking. Based largely on fieldwork in China's countryside, he offers readers the concept of Chanxugeju - whereby citizens are classified according to distinct categories of social relationship. The notion of egocentrism, contrasted with the West's individualism, serves as a controversial yet fascinating explanation for the development of contemporary China's political-social-economic institutions.
December 7, 2016
Nominal work by the "father of Chinese anthropology". And sociology.
Fei Xiatong was the first Chinese scholar who used knowledge he obtained in the West to analyze China. A thorough and easily understandable read concering the grassroot origins of social interaction in modern China.
A must for anyone trying to understand Chinese society and social interaction on a micro scale.
I would be surprised to not find this requred reading for anyone doing Sinology studes
Fei Xiatong was the first Chinese scholar who used knowledge he obtained in the West to analyze China. A thorough and easily understandable read concering the grassroot origins of social interaction in modern China.
A must for anyone trying to understand Chinese society and social interaction on a micro scale.
I would be surprised to not find this requred reading for anyone doing Sinology studes
October 31, 2017
Understanding China’s Roots
The remarkable thing about this seminal book is that it is still so relevant today. If you are interested in what makes China different, how to understand how Chinese society works, read this book.
The remarkable thing about this seminal book is that it is still so relevant today. If you are interested in what makes China different, how to understand how Chinese society works, read this book.
February 28, 2021
我对所谓“大师”、“名作”向来没什么迷信，所以虽然久闻费孝通和《乡土中国》的大名，却也不是抱着朝拜的心情来看的这本书。但是一口气看完本书，发现这位学术大家实在名副其实。受教于举重若轻的社会分析，感动于作者对乡下人“愚”的辩解，惊叹于社会学集人类学语言学动物学医学等学科之大成，感佩于一个如此有成就的人字里行间的谦逊。
看了附录里面费孝通对自己一生际遇和学术的回忆，唏嘘之余，没有办法不被他一辈子扎实做学术的毅力和社会责任感折服。“愿我这涓滴乡土水，汇归大海洋”。
如前言中所说，书中的很多观点或有待商榷，但作者对中国社会根基观察的角度和引发的思考已经太有魅力了。
看了附录里面费孝通对自己一生际遇和学术的回忆，唏嘘之余，没有办法不被他一辈子扎实做学术的毅力和社会责任感折服。“愿我这涓滴乡土水，汇归大海洋”。
如前言中所说，书中的很多观点或有待商榷，但作者对中国社会根基观察的角度和引发的思考已经太有魅力了。
May 29, 2021
此书虽初版于二十世纪四十年代，至今对理解中国传统社会模式及个人行为逻辑仍有重要的借鉴意义。书中对以土地为根基、世代更迭缓慢、以既有经验为行事准绳社会模式的梳理解开了很多我心中对“老法儿”的困惑，而将传统与现代社会组织逻辑的并行比较也让人更清晰地看到两者之间的差异性。而全书末尾费老对自己学术发展的自我反思与总结让这本著作的意义更上台阶，指出了自己“见社会不见人”的核心问题，阐述了因经历文革而产生的对社会与人关系的全新体悟，提出“人是社会的载体也是实体”的进阶观点，让我看到了大家一生求实的不懈追求。
September 5, 2020
文章深入浅出、旁征博引。但时代的痕迹还是过重了，现在离初版时已经过了快八十年，有些概念也可以再重炼一下。最精彩的还是差序格局里水波纹的比喻。但其实细想大师还是大师，可以把平常人一万句话都讲不明白的感受用几句话就梳理总结清楚。不过随即的弊端也是有些一言蔽之导致的障目。
December 26, 2020
理性客观的文字
却引起了许多的反思、释然、愤怒、难过与困惑
还是得多读书呀
却引起了许多的反思、释然、愤怒、难过与困惑
还是得多读书呀
April 1, 2021
人间清醒，1948年出的书，分析的头头是道。哪怕是拿来解释现在一些社会现象，也是不过时的。
但 总感觉对于中国社会的理解 少了些什么。
但 总感觉对于中国社会的理解 少了些什么。
May 7, 2023
I found this more helpful to understanding than the usual dynasties walk through
May 29, 2020
065-From the Soil-Fei Xiaotong-Society-1948
Barack
—— "The neighboring countries meet each other, the voices of chickens and dogs hear each other, and the people do not communicate with each other until they die."
"From the Soil" was first published in China in 1948. A social book. It systematically analyzes the social structure, cultural environment, power distribution, and other aspects of China's rural areas, and comprehensively shows the appearance of the grassroots of Chinese society.
Fei Xiaotong, born in Wujiang, Jiangsu (now Wujiang District, Suzhou) in 1910, died in 2005. He has studied at Soochow University, Yanjing University, Tsinghua University, and the School of Political Economy at the University of London. Representative works: " From the Soil", "Jiangcun Economy", "Fertility System", "Chinese Gentleman", etc.
Monarchs, fathers and sons, young and old couples, these classes are very clearly divided, and everyone in each class should be safe and do not exceed the rules. Although it is not as bloody as the caste system, if it crosses the border, it must be looked down upon by the neighbors. Based on the traditional Chinese social structure established in the countryside, the power of this kind of public opinion is higher than the law, and a person can be forced to death.
In a society of acquaintances, everyone ’s work experience is imparted from the previous generation or coordinated with their peers. The group ’s pace of performance is uniform. When there is an abrupt presence of a spur, it is foreseeable that the whole group is uncomfortable. This mode of thinking is a brand imprinted by a long-term agricultural society.
Reticence and conservatism are common feelings given by people in the countryside. This is probably the most rustic expression of "Li". Confucius said, "Self-denial and return to rites." Know how to converge when you want to show off, and restraint when you want to break the rules. Being able to do this is a glimpse of the threshold of "Li".
Good things should never be shared, and they can’t be boasted about extraordinary things. Performance of superiority will envy, and this envy may quickly turn into tangible actions or hidden dangers in the future.
I don’t have what you have, and I must ask for it. If you are afraid that I will gain, and thus make you lose your unique advantage, you will not want to give it. So, there is competition, there are disputes, there are gaps. In a stable society, people are unwilling to see these things.
Therefore, in an environment with relatively little change, we say that those who intentionally or unintentionally show people are often unreliable, they cannot rely on it, and they will be in trouble sooner or later. This is based on the habit of long-term cultivation of agricultural civilization, and it is very willing to maintain the stability of this civilization.
But in a rapidly changing environment, this rule will be broken a little bit, because to maintain this order and judge yourself, no one knows their roots, but the details of everyone. A stranger who lacks an understanding of his background from small to large. In this case, people must take the initiative to show off their skills, otherwise, they will miss the opportunity.
China's glorious history of more than 2000 years is based on agriculture. In the past 500 years, the prosperity of the West has been based on commerce and industry. The difference in the basic foundation of nation-building between countries also leads to differences in national characteristics.
Although I don't think geography is the fundamental factor that affects the identity of a nation, I think it has a major impact. In a specific natural environment, to survive, generations of people have to adapt to the environment and transform the environment as much as possible. Finally, he harmoniously integrates himself with the objective conditions.
This is probably like a symbiosis between two creatures in the biological world. Natural conditions have changed the people who gather here, and the people who live here have greatly shaped the face of nature.
This book was written 72 years ago. But until today, we have not yet completed the process of switching from a ceremonial society that has lasted for thousands of years to a legal society. Many of our social problems today are also caused by the discomfort of the switching process. I tend to think that we need to wait at least 100 years after the founding of the People's Republic of China or 100 years after the reform and opening up to complete this switching process.
I think that with the advancement of communication technology, our communication methods will be from text to voice to video. WeChat's voice chat function is one of the core factors of its success. Although I don't like receiving voices from others or making voices, I must admit that voice is a very convenient and direct way of communication for most people.
With the development of 5G in the future, we may be more accustomed to direct video communication in the future. In short, our various communication technologies are all about making remote communication as close as possible to face-to-face communication. Perhaps by the 22nd century, the ultimate method of remote communication is a holographic projection or virtual reality.
It is like a couple in love walking in the moonlight holding hands, they may not say a word for a long time, but they seem to feel great happiness. At this time, speaking became a pale and weak expression.
An important factor why humans are different from other animals is that we can transform the learning and experience of people in different positions from our time into our paradigm. If we abandon this ability on our initiative. Then we gave up a core advantage as a human being.
The main tone of life is monotonous and repetitive. Although people often desire different things to happen. But if life is full of uncertainty every day, it is what most people don't like. Because it takes much more energy to deal with emergencies than to deal with regular events.
According to the 2018 National Statistical Bulletin on Education Development, in 1949, the literacy rate of the Chinese population was 20%. In 2015, this proportion was 96.4%. It took us 70 years to make nearly 1.4 billion people literate, but it must be said to be a pioneering activity.
We have been trying to transform human society composed of acquaintances into a legal society composed of strangers because the former cannot adapt to modern production methods. But even today, we can't do this completely. When people encounter problems that need to be solved, the first idea is often not solved through a written open procedure. Instead, they help privately through acquaintances.
"The local society is a society of" rule of justice ". A society of the" rule of justice "does not mean a gentle society like a gentleman's country described in the mirror. The ceremony does not carry" civilization "or" charity "or" see "People nodded their heads," meaning not to be extremely fierce. Ceremonies can also kill people, and they can be "barbarous."
Therefore, people who are used to agricultural civilization tend to be conservative, while people who are used to the nomadic civilization and commercial civilization are more open-minded.
The law is the lower limit of morality. Morality is the upper limit of the law. Only in an acquaintance society can people restrain each other's actions with higher mortality. In a stranger society, because of the large population mobility and the large population base, it is difficult to do so with moral standards.
So, when people live in a group with more members. For example, living in a city with a population of more than 10 million. Then the role of law is extremely important. So, one should understand some laws more or less. To survive in such a society, we must avoid becoming a legal blind.
When there is huge uncertainty in the environment, people long for heroes, call for heroes, admire heroes, and fellow heroes. They voluntarily ceded a part of freedom to leaders to seek asylum and a sense of security.
The so-called heroes in troubled times, if there is no sharp turmoil in society, it does not require heroic characters to appear, and even tends to stifle potential heroes or leaders.
We are reluctant to refute tit-for-tat rebuttals and hate to hear different opinions from others. So, the bottom-to-top and top-to-bottom all produce a well-known violation of rules in the dark. So, we hate the act of bringing the dispute to the table.
16/04/08
20/05/25
December 22, 2023
At the recommendation of a few of my Chinese friends in school, I decided to add From The Soil (乡土中国) into my to-read list, hoping to pick it up when I have the time. To my pleasant surprise, my roommate gifted me this book as a farewell gift last week -- and thus embarked my journey of reading this incredible, beautifully articulated book...
I remember my Chinese friends saying, “this book gave me a new understanding of China (这书让我重新认识中国).” I would like to think only a few books can change a person’s life -- this is the one for me.
Why did I find this book particularly important? Well, some context: born in a Chinese diaspora family yet exposed to Western education and values early on, I find myself constantly battling the two ideals. I tried to understand one culture through the lens of the other, but it only led to further confusion and lamentation. And so I naively concluded, perhaps only one system can exist in my brain: it is either the Western or the Chinese. But Fei Xiaotong would convince me otherwise with this book.
Without spoiling the beauty of this book, I summarize my learnings (not an exhaustive list). Thanks to this book:
• I now understand what it means to say China is “fundamentally rural” [ch 1-3]
• I now understand how Chinese society thinks about personal relationships and how it is completely different from the Western -- and why some behavior (say, “nepotism”) seems completely absurd from the perspective of Westerners despite it being completely normal in Chinese society [ch 4-6]
• I now understand why Chinese societies care so much about rituals and traditions -- and why they exist [ch 7-9]
• I now understand why current generation of kids, myself included, feels so much disconnect from the elders and the wisdom they hope to impart in us, despite their good intentions [ch 9-13]
• I now understand why familial hierarchy is so important in the Chinese society, where before I only knew the fact but didn’t know why [ch 11]
• I now understand why it is impossible and naive to assume China society can simply “become democratic”, and why people often say “you need to understand China’s history” in response to others trying to prescribe solutions to China society [ch 13, 14]
Finally, I now understand why it is fundamentally impossible for me to understand Chinese society through a Western lens, and vice versa -- this book helped me construct from scratch a new set of vocabulary through which I can use to construct a new perspective to understand the Chinese society (I was, after all, more “Westernized”).
I remember my Chinese friends saying, “this book gave me a new understanding of China (这书让我重新认识中国).” I would like to think only a few books can change a person’s life -- this is the one for me.
Why did I find this book particularly important? Well, some context: born in a Chinese diaspora family yet exposed to Western education and values early on, I find myself constantly battling the two ideals. I tried to understand one culture through the lens of the other, but it only led to further confusion and lamentation. And so I naively concluded, perhaps only one system can exist in my brain: it is either the Western or the Chinese. But Fei Xiaotong would convince me otherwise with this book.
Without spoiling the beauty of this book, I summarize my learnings (not an exhaustive list). Thanks to this book:
• I now understand what it means to say China is “fundamentally rural” [ch 1-3]
• I now understand how Chinese society thinks about personal relationships and how it is completely different from the Western -- and why some behavior (say, “nepotism”) seems completely absurd from the perspective of Westerners despite it being completely normal in Chinese society [ch 4-6]
• I now understand why Chinese societies care so much about rituals and traditions -- and why they exist [ch 7-9]
• I now understand why current generation of kids, myself included, feels so much disconnect from the elders and the wisdom they hope to impart in us, despite their good intentions [ch 9-13]
• I now understand why familial hierarchy is so important in the Chinese society, where before I only knew the fact but didn’t know why [ch 11]
• I now understand why it is impossible and naive to assume China society can simply “become democratic”, and why people often say “you need to understand China’s history” in response to others trying to prescribe solutions to China society [ch 13, 14]
Finally, I now understand why it is fundamentally impossible for me to understand Chinese society through a Western lens, and vice versa -- this book helped me construct from scratch a new set of vocabulary through which I can use to construct a new perspective to understand the Chinese society (I was, after all, more “Westernized”).
September 5, 2023
Interesting sociologist's take on the rural character of China, written by a Chinese sociologist just after WWII. I found it a fairly difficult read - it was all high-level generalisations with few to no specifics, but gleaned some insights. The best chapter was chapter 4, about the "differential mode of association" in Chinese (rural) culture. It (purports to) explain(s) why Chinese can be "selfish" yet have no concept of individual rights. I took lots of notes from this chapter.
I would have liked some information or speculation about why in, say, the Western world, these rural ways of thinking - which appear like they would be universal - seem to have fallen away. Is it religion? Influence from Greece? The Enlightenment? Urbanisation? I would also love to know what he thought of the Cultural Revolution (when he was stripped of his post and forced to clean toilets) and China's current rapid urbanisation. He did write some more books after he was "rehabilitated", but I'm not sure if he dared to comment on the former at all. All of his books that are easily available to me are his earlier works.
Overall, a useful if difficult read.
I would have liked some information or speculation about why in, say, the Western world, these rural ways of thinking - which appear like they would be universal - seem to have fallen away. Is it religion? Influence from Greece? The Enlightenment? Urbanisation? I would also love to know what he thought of the Cultural Revolution (when he was stripped of his post and forced to clean toilets) and China's current rapid urbanisation. He did write some more books after he was "rehabilitated", but I'm not sure if he dared to comment on the former at all. All of his books that are easily available to me are his earlier works.
Overall, a useful if difficult read.
September 29, 2024
This concise booklet provides a high-level overview of several key aspects of Chinese rural society. It really helped me connect various dots from my past experiences and readings: I could see parallels between the "differential mode of association" and concepts like ego-centric networks or strong/weak ties. The discussion of an Apollonian versus Faustian society also reminded me of the arguments in Civilization and Its Discontents. Reading it helped me piece together my past fragmented exposure to sociology and gave me a glimpse into the broader framework of the field. Additionally, it’s an easy-to-read book that resonates on a personal level. It is powerful in de-stigmatizing rural life, encouraging a systematic view that fosters both acceptance and critical understanding of the aspects of my identity that are "from in the soil."
August 17, 2024
I had to do a double take for when this book was written. So much of it still feels applicable, relatable, and thought provoking, which is amazing given how much china has changed between 1947 when the book was written and now. It shows the author’s incredible insight and scholarship, in an era of war and poverty.
July 23, 2025
首先是解释中国乡土社会的性质，主要是一个因为“安土重迁”而发展成的“熟人社会”，由此可以引出很多后面的问题。如不需要文字，以每个人个人为中心的“差序格局”等。
那么再深刻一层。维系“差序格局”的则是私人的道德系统而非法律，由此社会非法治也非人治，而是礼治。差序格局中纵向的传承让男女关系淡漠，也因之男女有别。这样地缘本是血缘的地理影射，而现在成了进步的标志。本以诉讼为耻，所以产生了长老统治的局面。同时也因为长老思维的进步跟不上时代的进步，而产生了“时势权利”，那些有智慧的英雄成为了领导者。人们的生活从满足欲望到满足需要，从活着到活得更好，是一种进步，也是一种佐证。//早年看的，2024年给男作者改低分
那么再深刻一层。维系“差序格局”的则是私人的道德系统而非法律，由此社会非法治也非人治，而是礼治。差序格局中纵向的传承让男女关系淡漠，也因之男女有别。这样地缘本是血缘的地理影射，而现在成了进步的标志。本以诉讼为耻，所以产生了长老统治的局面。同时也因为长老思维的进步跟不上时代的进步，而产生了“时势权利”，那些有智慧的英雄成为了领导者。人们的生活从满足欲望到满足需要，从活着到活得更好，是一种进步，也是一种佐证。//早年看的，2024年给男作者改低分
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January 5, 2024Great Perspective
Great to contrast a 1940's perspective with Modern china which is much more urban. This was recommended to me as an example of what is the Chinese soul. I am not convinced.it is still rooted in the soil.
Great to contrast a 1940's perspective with Modern china which is much more urban. This was recommended to me as an example of what is the Chinese soul. I am not convinced.it is still rooted in the soil.
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