![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I picked up a copy of Primative Revolutionaries of China by Fei-ling Davis. Which I thought was a rather dubious title, till I read the subtitle which was, A study of secret societies of the late nineteenth century. The original title of the book was, Le Societa segrete in Cina. So part of me think the university of hawaii, added the revoulutionary bit to make it appeal more to an audience who is more interested in communist china that imperial china. But that could just be me.
The author's biography I was really struck by, she studied in England and France. And then went to get a mphil at the university of London in Social anthropology. The last bit, what I'm hoping to do. The scary part is that she died at the age of 31, which is how old I am now, and I haven't even started anything yet. It's odd reading a book by someone younger than you whose already an expert. And also sad her career and life was so short.
The book was more of an anthropological work than a historical one. She looked a lot at how the societies were structured, and their goals, rather than the specific way they operated or functioned in society. To someone like me whose seen a few too many kung fu movies in which the secret societies play a role, it was nice to get a clearer picture of their actual functions. She showed how the societies were based on a communal model rather than a cellular model, how members would recognise each other rather than having only small cells that couldn't betray each other. Rather members were encouraged to think of each other as family, and their membership in the secret society preceded all other ties they might have to family outside the society. This was very contradictoray to traditional values which placed family as the highest priority. However most people, (men) who joined the secret societies were dispossed, former soilders or very poor who had no strong familiar ties to forsake. Rather by joining the society they gained what they had been missing.
There were however a couple of contradictions in the book, she refered to the socities as voluntary organisations, however told many times of coerced membership, including physical threats and intimidation. As well as life long membership that could not be abandoned with similar threats. So it would seem to me hard to really call it voluntary. No infomation was given, proably because none is available, about the numbers of people who were actual voluntary members versus those who had to be coerced. She also stated how the societies were non revelutionary until the republican influence, which doesn't hold with the motto of, "destroy the Ching restore the Ming". And the historical beliefs of the origins of the societies she was looking at. (the shaolin monks betrayed by the ching)
She did look briefly at how socail organisations can also led to political organisations and also criminal activities. This she attributed largely to the state of the main society, and wether or not they were deprived of their political role by outside forces. She mentioned women members in the society, and also spies in the local government, but not really what either of these actually did for the society.
The book had a couple of neat little appendicies. Lists of vocabularly used in the society documents, a list of the articles of oath of the Hung Chia San-Shih-li Che. And a little bit about her visit to a chinese community in Cuba. I had no idea that thousands of Chinese were shipped out to cuba as indentured servants, sold as slaves and forced to work there in the 1860's and 1870's. The stories she told about that were the most surprising parts of the whole book to me.
The author's biography I was really struck by, she studied in England and France. And then went to get a mphil at the university of London in Social anthropology. The last bit, what I'm hoping to do. The scary part is that she died at the age of 31, which is how old I am now, and I haven't even started anything yet. It's odd reading a book by someone younger than you whose already an expert. And also sad her career and life was so short.
The book was more of an anthropological work than a historical one. She looked a lot at how the societies were structured, and their goals, rather than the specific way they operated or functioned in society. To someone like me whose seen a few too many kung fu movies in which the secret societies play a role, it was nice to get a clearer picture of their actual functions. She showed how the societies were based on a communal model rather than a cellular model, how members would recognise each other rather than having only small cells that couldn't betray each other. Rather members were encouraged to think of each other as family, and their membership in the secret society preceded all other ties they might have to family outside the society. This was very contradictoray to traditional values which placed family as the highest priority. However most people, (men) who joined the secret societies were dispossed, former soilders or very poor who had no strong familiar ties to forsake. Rather by joining the society they gained what they had been missing.
There were however a couple of contradictions in the book, she refered to the socities as voluntary organisations, however told many times of coerced membership, including physical threats and intimidation. As well as life long membership that could not be abandoned with similar threats. So it would seem to me hard to really call it voluntary. No infomation was given, proably because none is available, about the numbers of people who were actual voluntary members versus those who had to be coerced. She also stated how the societies were non revelutionary until the republican influence, which doesn't hold with the motto of, "destroy the Ching restore the Ming". And the historical beliefs of the origins of the societies she was looking at. (the shaolin monks betrayed by the ching)
She did look briefly at how socail organisations can also led to political organisations and also criminal activities. This she attributed largely to the state of the main society, and wether or not they were deprived of their political role by outside forces. She mentioned women members in the society, and also spies in the local government, but not really what either of these actually did for the society.
The book had a couple of neat little appendicies. Lists of vocabularly used in the society documents, a list of the articles of oath of the Hung Chia San-Shih-li Che. And a little bit about her visit to a chinese community in Cuba. I had no idea that thousands of Chinese were shipped out to cuba as indentured servants, sold as slaves and forced to work there in the 1860's and 1870's. The stories she told about that were the most surprising parts of the whole book to me.