A food safety factory shutdown has Americans hunting for baby formula. Readying themselves for a covid-19 lockdown, Chinese in Beijing emptied store shelves. Emerging from lockdown, some in Shanghai are visiting well-provisioned markets. U.S.-China agricultural trade is booming, but many are still being left hungry. Food security, sustainability and safety remain issues.
The Problem of Commemorating: Epitaph Writing and Filial Expression in the Northern Song (960-1125)
The Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University presents Cong Ellen Zhang speaking about the growing complexities in filial expectations and performance as well as the intricate realities of elite social networking.
Where
The Northern Song saw major changes in the rhetoric and performance of filial piety. Compared to earlier times, a proper epitaph (muzhiming) for one’s parents was increasingly seen as one of the most crucial filial obligations of the son. The son also occupied a more visible place in his parent’s muzhiming, routinely being portrayed as having braved extreme physical, emotional, and financial obstacles in order to secure a biographer for his father or mother. These developments did not necessarily mean that muzhiming writing was free of contention and negotiation between the filial son and the biographer. On the contrary, epitaph-writing could be a major source of anxiety for both parties. While the son’s ability to find a desirable and willing epitaph writer largely depended on his social connections, the epitaph writer constantly dealt with “unreasonable and excessive” demands from the mourning son. Unable to articulate the tension between immortalizing the words and deeds of the deceased and maintaining his authorial voice and credentials in the epitaphs they authored, Northern Song writers expressed their anxiety over the phenomenon of “flattering epitaphs” in voluminous private correspondence and formal writing. Based on hundreds of muzhiming, letters, and essays, this study will illustrate the growing complexities in filial expectations and performance as well as the intricate realities of elite social networking.
Cong Ellen Zhang is an associate professor of history at the University of Virginia. Her research focuses on the political and social elites, travel culture, miscellaneous writing (biji) and funerary biographies (muzhiming), and women and the family in the Song Dynasty. She is the author of Transformative Journeys: Travel and Culture in Song China (University of Hawaii Press, 2011). Her current research examines changes in the discourses on and practices of filial piety (xiao) in the Northern Song.
Featured Articles
European views toward China are not uniform. Europeans recognize China's economic prowess and clearly favor continued ties, but majorities in much of Europe now have a negative view towards China.
Events
Tensions evident in the recent European Union-China virtual summit reflect the increasing skepticism in Europe toward China and the worries over Ukraine and economic ties as well as human rights and environmental issues.