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The Great Han: Race, Nationalism, and Tradition in China Today
The Great Han is an ethnographic study of the Han Clothing Movement , a neotraditionalist and racial nationalist movement that has emerged in China since 2001. Participants come together both online and in person in cities across China to revitalize their utopian vision of the authentic “Great Han” and corresponding “real China” through pseudotraditional ethnic dress, reinvented Confucian ritual, and anti-foreign sentiment. Analyzing the movement’s ideas and practices, this book argues that the vision of a pure, perfectly ordered, ethnically homogeneous, and secure society is in fact a fantasy constructed in response to the challenging realities of the present. Yet this national imaginary is reproduced precisely through its own perpetual elusiveness. The Great Han is a pioneering analysis of Han identity, nationalism, and social movements in a rapidly changing China.
278 pages, Paperback
Published August 22, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 25, 2022
Wow, what this nationalist at the start of the book stated about black Africans is 101 racist stereotypes and what the author states about many modern people refusing to critique e.g. China actually being true Orientalists and enforcing the East-West binary that they allegedly oppose rings so true to me. I have seen that way too often by now.
However, I have to say that I skipped the entirety of the chapter on definitions of nationalism because I believed that I won't need it later on. And I was right, that chapter was totally pointless.
Thankfully, the same wasn't true for the rest of the book. It was good to read that rewriting history goes back as far as the Qin empire. And funny how much of the criticism of China by the Han clothing movement is similar to all the criticism that I heard of China and the CCP.
The entries on the Han Clothing movement members sound really depressing. No wonder that they joined, their lives seem pretty damn dull, sometimes even torturous. And while most of these are kind of boring and depressing but at least I found someone who actually calls himself Jian and now I think I know where the alleged 8000 years of Chinese history come from. I suppose that it has to do with claiming to have history started with the goddess Nüwa.
And what he describes as a modern chinese wedding really does sound pretty horrible. That can't be something everyone participating is comfortable with.
And these Han clothers and their reactions to the magua and gipao and not to mention their crazy Manchu conspiracies are just mental. After all these examples of crazy Manchu conspiracy theories (which are often very similar to those about Freemasons and Jews etc.) I did not expect a critique of postcolonialism and antiorientalism. The main point was that it enforces the very same East-West binary that it claims to oppose.
But back to conspiracy theories: I am not surprised that conspiracy theories are rife in modern China, as the book states. I am only surprised that something as apparently big as the Han Clothing Movement is still allowed to exist.
The Movement members can be really racist. There was all this racist talk and how there is a difference between kids sired by chinese men and those by foreign men, which sounds very familiar.I wonder whether this notion that somehow male DNA is stronger than female one and so pure Han are always produced by men, is even found among western progressives.
After the Han Clothing movement, the author also shortly covered some smaller movements with similar goals of revitalizing China. One was a certain (male led) Ladie's Academy whose five core characteristics to which every woman must adher sound a lot like stereotypical chinese woman image. Aka, that stereotype comes from china itself, since I doubt such a hypernationalistic institution like this would adopt something like that from the outside. Sadly the author had more than once a bit of a romanticized image of imperial china as well. Like when he states that the Han Clothers are "ignoring the very real complexity of the history of sexuality in China." That author apparently fell for that "tolerance" nonsense. This "Prince" character here would by no means be more accepted in the imperial days then today. In fact, him being a performer (dancer) would mean he belongs to the lowest of the low. High class men weren't supposed to act feminine in any way, so his movement members looking down on him but letting him perform is totally in line with older times. And is the author actually suggesting that in "traditional chinese sexual culture" homosexuals were allowed to found a family? Because, I can guarantuee, you, a homosexual couple could not actually live openly, not if both were adult men, women were rarely even mentioned, so no way.
Among those smaller movements was also a confucian acadamy where a leader employs anti-semitic stereotypes, however, it sounds more as if he admires "the Jews" rather than hating them.
In another movement one guy actually claims that the Tibet-China issue is a result of western imperialism and orientalism. What crap.
The last chapter was on cases were new buildings were built in old style.
So, in the end, the book is worth reading. The author could just have been better as his job.
However, I have to say that I skipped the entirety of the chapter on definitions of nationalism because I believed that I won't need it later on. And I was right, that chapter was totally pointless.
Thankfully, the same wasn't true for the rest of the book. It was good to read that rewriting history goes back as far as the Qin empire. And funny how much of the criticism of China by the Han clothing movement is similar to all the criticism that I heard of China and the CCP.
The entries on the Han Clothing movement members sound really depressing. No wonder that they joined, their lives seem pretty damn dull, sometimes even torturous. And while most of these are kind of boring and depressing but at least I found someone who actually calls himself Jian and now I think I know where the alleged 8000 years of Chinese history come from. I suppose that it has to do with claiming to have history started with the goddess Nüwa.
And what he describes as a modern chinese wedding really does sound pretty horrible. That can't be something everyone participating is comfortable with.
And these Han clothers and their reactions to the magua and gipao and not to mention their crazy Manchu conspiracies are just mental. After all these examples of crazy Manchu conspiracy theories (which are often very similar to those about Freemasons and Jews etc.) I did not expect a critique of postcolonialism and antiorientalism. The main point was that it enforces the very same East-West binary that it claims to oppose.
But back to conspiracy theories: I am not surprised that conspiracy theories are rife in modern China, as the book states. I am only surprised that something as apparently big as the Han Clothing Movement is still allowed to exist.
The Movement members can be really racist. There was all this racist talk and how there is a difference between kids sired by chinese men and those by foreign men, which sounds very familiar.I wonder whether this notion that somehow male DNA is stronger than female one and so pure Han are always produced by men, is even found among western progressives.
After the Han Clothing movement, the author also shortly covered some smaller movements with similar goals of revitalizing China. One was a certain (male led) Ladie's Academy whose five core characteristics to which every woman must adher sound a lot like stereotypical chinese woman image. Aka, that stereotype comes from china itself, since I doubt such a hypernationalistic institution like this would adopt something like that from the outside. Sadly the author had more than once a bit of a romanticized image of imperial china as well. Like when he states that the Han Clothers are "ignoring the very real complexity of the history of sexuality in China." That author apparently fell for that "tolerance" nonsense. This "Prince" character here would by no means be more accepted in the imperial days then today. In fact, him being a performer (dancer) would mean he belongs to the lowest of the low. High class men weren't supposed to act feminine in any way, so his movement members looking down on him but letting him perform is totally in line with older times. And is the author actually suggesting that in "traditional chinese sexual culture" homosexuals were allowed to found a family? Because, I can guarantuee, you, a homosexual couple could not actually live openly, not if both were adult men, women were rarely even mentioned, so no way.
Among those smaller movements was also a confucian acadamy where a leader employs anti-semitic stereotypes, however, it sounds more as if he admires "the Jews" rather than hating them.
In another movement one guy actually claims that the Tibet-China issue is a result of western imperialism and orientalism. What crap.
The last chapter was on cases were new buildings were built in old style.
So, in the end, the book is worth reading. The author could just have been better as his job.
February 6, 2025
A nice introduction to Chinese radical nationalism through the case of the Han Clothing Movement. I liked the extensive socio-political analysis conducted by the author, but something irked me in his blatant disdain for every member of the Movement (despite calling them friends...).
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews