Everyday Guanxi Production In 1988-9o Fengjia, every time one asked for or granted a favor. xpressed sympathy, or called on a friend-that is, every time one invoked guanxi to achieve something in the world-one cally re-created that guanxi. Thus, in addition to the elaborate orga nization of guanxi production on ritual occasions, Fengjia residents (re)produced guanxi in their daily lives. Indeed, many of the techniques of ritual guanxi production-labor exchange, the use of kinship names the embodiment of ganging-came from everyday activity. After a brief introduction to a local typology of interpersonal relationships. this hapter examines the everyday techniques of guanxi production. Types of Guanxi In 1988-go Fengjia, most residents recognized four basic categories of endly relationships: family members(benjiaren), relatives(qinqi), fel low villagers (xiangqin)and friends(pengyou). These categories over lapped, and the same person(even within the same relationship) could stances. Family members certainly included all those who lived togethe as one economic unit. Following village administrative categories, I refer to such units as households (hu). Depending on context, mem bers of agnatically related households might also be considered family members, However, such agnates could also count as fellow villagers xiangqin). The flexibility of the term"family member"and the impor ance of the category "fellow villager: which included households of different surnames, refiected the near absence of formal lineage organi Afines were usually referred to as"relatives"(qinqi), a term em bracing three major categories: mother's sister's family (yiyi jia) father's sister's family (gugu jia), and mother's mother's family (laolao
26 Practices of Guanri Production Everyday Guanxi Production 27 Laolao jia their households. Though household members might differ over which guanxi were most important, gifts were usually seen as coming from households as units I Gugu jia △=O!}My阳 (Maternal Embodying Ganqing To convey ganqing, it must have a discernible form. Gift giving, toast ing, and serving food at banquets, and ritualized decorum like bows and ketu(kowtow)are all methods of materializing ganqing. Here, I would like briefly to describe the generation of ganging through its di ect embodiment in specific human emotions. This embodiment should 人 not be understood as the external representation of an underlying pr given reality. Rather, it is a claim about what one wants a relationship to be in the future that Participates in the reconstitution of future reality Female The sentimentality of the present shapes th e Male Figure s Kinship relations in Fengia The embodiment of ganging was important to both ritual and every. day practices of guanxi production. In ritual, such embodiment was orchestrated or at least expected. At funerals there were specifc times fia). Since village kinship was reckoned patrilineally. the last for women to wail and for xiaozhe(direct patrilineal descendants of the Claolao jia) additionally included all of the mother's brother's deceased)to weep. The GPCR ban on interclass weeping at funerals was families. Because of a tendency toward village exogamy, these ually lived in different villages. However, where they had clearly aimed at prohibiting the interclass guanxi production that results ithin the village, they also counted as fellow villagers to act embarrassed, the groom's father happy, and the groom ambiva- Villagers had friends living in and outside of Fengjia. However, a friend from within the village was usually categorized as a fellow vil- lent. At a"dowry party"(song hezi)*the bride's parents should be sad (because their daughter is about to leave home). That these ganqing lager. One exception(and an example of the situation specificity of ere expected in no sense made them less"authentic. "When witness- relationships)was at wedding ceremonies, where those who gave"con gratulatory gifts"were considered"friends"whether they came from ganqing Howev. I was always moved by the embodiment of powerf gs side or outside the village. authenticity different from that typically recognized in American pop Two caveats further complicate this terminology. First is the messy psychology. Few in Fengjia would acknowledge a"true"emotional life, fact that in patrilocal marriages women"change"families. The com where"spontaneous"feelings well up from an utterly individual heart leteness of this transfer, I will argue, was a constantly negotiated social regardless of the surrounding social circumstances problem. As a consequence. married women at times referred to their Though not orchestrated, embodied ganging played an important natal relatives as "family members"instead of"relatives. "Second, rela role in everyday guanxi production as well. On the few occasions when ionships were constituted between households as well as between their I was sick in the village, I received a stream of visitors. Though I only ndividual members. Because the general unit of economic accounting wanted to rest by myself, read English novels, and generally pretend was the household, and because guanxi always involved material obli wasnt in Fengjia, I had to deal with well-meaning friends. On one such gation, the guanxi of individuals always involved the other members of cession I must have let my irritation show; one man said, "You should
28 Practices of Guanri Production Everyday GuanxI Production ay be happy to have so many people embody concern I a]. "Why? created in illness visits as actively contributing to curing the sick. The I asked. Because if they didn't embody concern. they wouldn't be your temporary misfortunes of the Zhang family can serve as an example. friends any more. Mr. Zhangs grandson, Ying. had broken his leg. Originally it didn't af- On another day there was a fire in the cornstarch factory. People ect Mr. Zhang too much. There were lots of people visiting his grand hroughout the village grabbed buckets and ran over to the factor son, so he could go out if he needed. However, then Mr. Zhang s wife got There were two faucets near the fire where buckets could be filled. After sick. He said. "After Ying broke his leg, she worried so much she didnt filling their buckets, these helpers ran them over to men standing on eat right, Then she got a fever. "With two close relatives sick in different ladders who passed them to others on the roof who doused the fire households, his visiting burdens were doubled and he couldn't go out bug Eis 16, people flling buckets than the faucets could accom There were mor any more. Many fellow villagers visited the boy. Mr. Zhang divided his med behind the faucets: people began pushing and time between Ying and his wife. Mr. Zhangs two daughters, who had ally, the fire was put out without much damage. After long been married and were living in different villages, took turns visit- wards, I asked Teacher Feng why people would butt in line in such a ng their mother. They came on alternate days. After two weeks Zhang's situation. He explained"when a lot of collective equipment is endan- ife got better, and he started going out again gered, everyone wants to communicate concern. "Embodying concern If an old person became seriously ill, friends, relatives, and fellow their individual guanxi and their guanxi with the village as a whole oth generates a collective ganqing and helped Fengjia residents manage both villagers visited from all around, They often brought gifts of food and were given tea to drink. As mentioned in the introduction, my visit to Of course. individuals also embodied ganqing on more mundane the family of a stroke victim led to some of my closest field relations occasions. Once a man selling watermelons bicycled into the village uring that visit the house was full of visitors. One of the victim's sons loudly hawking his produce. A woman immediately walked out from told me that his relatives had come out of filial piety and respect (xiao ourtyard and yelled at him, angrily proclaiming that he had and zunjing). He said, "Old people's lives haven't been easy. they suf cheated another resident on his last trip. No one bought anything fered a lot to bring us up. so we are very happy that everyone could the hawker went on to the next village, The anger of the woman em come today. The wife of the stroke victim seemed surprisingly relaxed. bodied a ganqing in sympathy with her previously cheated fellow vil I suggested. "This must be worrying for you. "She replied, "Why should lager that seemingly swayed all those who might otherwise have bought I worry when so many people have come to visit? "For this woman and some watermelon. I would not reduce all emotional activity in Feng her son. the ganging and guanxi created by so much visiting allowed an jia to the single dimension of guanxi production, but I believe that in ng situation to become somewhat posit many contexts the embodiment of emotion is interpreted in precisely Ellen Judd (989), who also did research in Shandong Province in the this fashion ate 198os, writes of the important"affective and moral ties"(I would say ganqing and guanxi) between a bride and her natal home(niang Visiting, Exchanging Favors, Helping Out jia)and argues that a womans ratal home and mother- in-law's home pojia)make competing claims on their daughter's time and services Visiting, whether to lend a hand or to socialize, was another importer This tension was directly relevant to visiting practices. Women often practice of guanxi production. In hot weather. those with free time set returned to their natal villages to socialize, embody concern for sick p stools outside their doors and encouraged friends and relatives to sit participate in rituals, or just help out. Some women took turns and chat In the winter, friends gathered around stoves and drank tea.At g each others'felds so that each would have regular opportu- times of special need the visiting of friends and relatives was especially return to their natal villages. However, in contrast to judd's significant. It fulfilled and re-created material obligations, materialized emphasis on the competitive aspect of these relationships. I only once hence metonymically reproduced guanxi. heard a woman complaining that her daughter-in-law was spending too As my own experience demonstrated, illness was an important occa much time at her natal home. More often I heard the calculation that sion for visiting and embodying concern. Many considered the ganging lughter-in-law's natal visits could improve affinal guanxi
3o Practices of Guanxi Production Everyday Guanxi Production 31 elderly widow looked after her neighbors grandchildren and in received help with her felds, A household that ran a commercial vege table garden took advantage of their frequent market trips to shop for their neighbors. In turn, they asked for help when the labor demands of regetable gardening exceeded houschold capacity. Once, I watched an ld man spreading his wheat out in the street to dry. A sudden change in the weather threatened to soak his grain, but a half dozen men and women from neighboring households came running over and manage to sweep it up before the rain began in earnest. He told me his son had done the same for his neighbors on other occasions The exchange of ganging within households likewise depended on articular circumstances. The taking over of certain chores by a fam nember-say, clothes washing for a daughter-in-law or draught animal are by a grandfather-constituted an interdependence that cont ally re-created the guanxi of that household. Special care in the perfor Figure 6 Neighbors assisting with house construction mance of more personal duties- preparing bath water for a tired and rty farmworker, mending a cherished shirt, or cooking The larger life projects of house building and marriage provided op- embodied particular ganqing. Tensions between household member portunities for the exchange of favors and guanxi building that were could be alleviated or exacerbated by the manner in which such duties neither matters of daily activity nor formal ritual. Almost all marriages yere performed. Perhaps most basically, eating together(both in th in 1988-9o Fengjia were negotiated through matchmakers(meiren of consuming the same dishes at the same time and in the sense Households relied heavily on their networks of friends and affinal rela of utilizing foodstuffs purchased from a collective budget) constituted tions to help find spouses. The successful location of a marriage partne ousehold relationships Not only was sharing meals a matter of spend often led to a long-lasting guanxi between the new couple,'s families and ng time together and collectively enjoying the fruits of family labor, it he matchmaker. Villagers also invoked guanxi when undertaking large so was an occasion for specific contributions to the family economy construction projects(figure 6). For example, one household decided rough frugality. By eating less expensive items or by consuming only to enlarge the gate to their courtyard so that they could more easily hat would have otherwise been wasted, particular family members, move a newly acquired horsecart in and out of their yard. The proje often older ones, embodied ganqing for(and made claims on)the other involved tearing down the old gate and adjacent brick wall and build- members of their household ing new ones, including an ornate frontpiece. The family acquired the Certainly the everyday exchange of favors within and between house building materials and informed their friends and neighbors, On the holds has always been a practical matter contextualized in the ever- arranged day, scores of young and middle-aged men came over. House. changing socioeconomy of the present. The daily patterns of guan holds friendly to the family in question all tried to send someone. Some production were quite different during the precommunist era of house households also sent women who helped serve tea and informal meals hold land tenure and the Maoist era of collectivized farming. They also when the men took breaks. The project was finished in one afternoon vary from village to village. Judd (1994: 202-212)demonstrates how pa and seemed as much a social occasion as a building project terns of interhousehold help in three other Shandong villages during Patterns of regular interhousehold help varied extensively the 198os varied with each village 's economic base. During my: 2 visit families, Practical needs and abilities dictated the availabilit Fengjia, I sensed that an increase in household entrepreneurship was portunities to exchange favors and create guanxi. However, again inducing changes in the patterns of interhousehold exchange. A amples can illustrate the more typical sorts of exchange. One chi man building a chicken factory relied on friends and relatives to raise
32 Practices of Guanxi Production ryday Guanxi Proauction 33 capital and find a construction team, yet he would not directly call on respects. After he left, she said, "Secretary Feng is so good to me. Did em for labor. He purposely hired an out-of-village construction team you see that he called me great grandmother [laonainai l? to build his factory and paid them cash. Another woman who had just Recent Chinese films provide several more examples in which the opened a store told me it was wrong to ask friends for help in running emotional climax comes when one character acknowledges a relation a profit-making enterprise. However, she also said that her friends and ship by calling another by a relational kinship term. In the movie Old neighbors were her best customers. These two entrepreneurs both re Tales South of the City Wall(Cheng Nan Jiu Shi), a woman who thinks lied on friends, relatives, and fellow villagers in some aspects of thei she has found her abandoned daughter prepares to run away with her. businesses but avoided them as sources of labor. In contrast, the com- but just before they are about to go she realizes the young girl has not yet mercial vegetable gardener described above continued in 1992 to call addressed her. She says, "You still haven't called me, call me just once on the labor of his fellow villagers in exchange for shopping services (Ni hai mei jiao wo, jiao wo yi sheng). "The child calls her"Ma"and they In brief, the creation of ganqing through the exchange of favors should run off in a haze of rain and confusion, only to be run over by a train not be viewed as an unchanging essence of Chinese village life. Espe The stepson's use of"father"in Zhang Yimou's Ju Dou and the young cially over the past half century, the types and organization of labor in boy's use of maternal grand ather" in Sun Zhou's Heartstrings (xin Fengjia have been changing rapidly Xiang)provide equally compelling and perhaps better known examples e extended to everyone older, regard Kinship Terms and Names less of surname. Families of different surnames worked out generational Routine terms of address also constituted an everyday method of guanxi production. When I was in Fengjia, all older relatives were called by re Yangtze Plain village during the 193os and suggested that attached to ational kinship terms. This form of address was considered respect ach kinship relation is a certain attitude and level of respect that is and was an acknowledgment of the obligat on that junior people owed extended to each person addressed by a given kinship term. In Feng to their older relatives. Language learning itself started from kinship ia village, Fei's explanation also illuminates. When paying respects to terms. Small children were constantly being told"call that man shushu' one's older relatives on the Chinese New Year(by going to their houses, (father's younger brother)or"call her yi others sister)and re- addressing them by the appropriate kinship names, bowing, and wish warded if they managed to use the correct form of address. The term ing them well for the new year), " fictional"kin relations were given the (to recognize or acknowledge relatives) was closely related to same respect as"actual"ones. kinship terms. When a child began to call a friend of his father's"shu- Like many of the practices discussed in this book, Fengjia use of kin hu, "the child could be said to have"recognized"(ren)that man as a hip names echoes the Analects of Confucius, "Confucius says elative, In Fengjia, the title teacher (laoshi)was also used like a kin hip term. One man said, "Once they teach you, you call them la When names are not properly ordered. what is said is not attuned: when what for their whole life. "At times, children addressed their parent's teachers is said is not attuned, things will not be done successfully.( Book 13.3, cited in with the terms for paternal grandmother or grandfather(nainai, yeye Hall and Ames 1987:269) In some settings the use of a kinship term could be highly charged Usually referred to as the"rectification of names"(zheng ming). the spent the first day of the Chinese New Year with a woman who was old principle elaborated in this passage is interpreted by David Hall and both in terms of actual years and in terms of generations(the woman's Roger Ames as follows: "Acceptance of a name as appropriate involves a late husband had a generational name as old as or older than anyone disposition te act. Language is dispositional and the ordering of names lse living in the village). That morning the village secretary, who in age is per se an ordering of dispositions"(1987: 299). In brief, names do not was only twenty-five years younger than this woman but who belonged serve as "labels"for unitary, individual subjects; rather their usage im to the generation three levels below her, came and paid his customary plies a"disposition to act"that is appropriate to the guanxi that their
34 Practices of Guanxi Production Everyday Guanxi Production 35 usage reproduces. In some places party activists may also have been he could not call his wife mother of anyone. He told me that the term concerned with this implication. In Shen Rong s fictional account of a nizi was abusive, and went hand in hand with the slave-like position o: Chinese village in the late 197os, a party cadre questions the extension daughters-in-law, and discrimination against women in general, of the of kinship names to those with bad class labels(Shen 1987: 302).The old society. I then asked him what he called his wife. After some thought logic is similar to Fengjia's cultural revolution ban on interclass funeral he replied, "Me and my wife are completely equal. If I need to get her weeping. Practices that created ganqing between members of different tention I say 'hey, and if she needs to get my attention she also say: classes were suspect. hey. Especially for older people, first names were not appropriate te of Fengjia generally addressed each other with re when addressing one,'s spous lational kinship terms, they also had names, and it is worthwhile to During my first summer in Fengjia I spent a fair amount of time up onsider how they were used. At"twelfth-day parties"(guo shier tian, dating our version of the village's household registration booklet. Com anquets held twelve days after birth or shortly thereafter). Parents gave piled in th early 198os, the booklet listed the head and members of each household in the village. Old women were often listed by their nata generation or of the same generation but older in years, used this name urnames and the character shi, a word that might be translated by the address that person. When children entered school, their first-grade French usage nee. When looking for such an elderly woman, I would first go to the house where I thought she lived. I would ask(for examp ling(school name). For school purposes and all official purpose if Zhang Shi or"Mrs Zhang"(Zhang Taitai)was there. Usually, even outside the village, a person would be known by his or her school name. when I posed it to the old woman for whom I was looking, the question Only fellow villagers would know one's baby name and only one's elders led to utter confusion, I found that my best strategy was to first find could use it. Some villagers also had nicknames, but only close friends some younger relatives of the woman and then ask if their eighty-year of the same generation, age, and gender would use then ld grandmother was around. After finding her, it was still difficult to Daughters-in-law and spouses were problematic in this method of nfirm her name. when asked who she was, the woman might point addressing people. Since a daughter-in-law often came from outside the and say" I'm his mother, "or"She calls me grandmother, At best village, elders did not feel comfortable using her baby name. Becaus after going over the household registration booklet with me, a younger, she was a family member, using her school name was inappropriate,and literate relative might tell me"Yes, that must be her As these people because of her youth a relational kinship term was too respectful. In the were generally being very helpful, I did not consider these instances past the term nizi (girl or lass) was used to address daughters in-law, purposeful obstinateness toward a rude foreigner. Rather, I believe these women had either forgotten their names or could not comprehend any birth to her first child, village elders and her husband would most likely one attempting to address them by one. Officially, all they had left was all her(if the child's baby name were Cuicui)"mother of Cuicui"(Cui- cui niang). The young mother might call her husband"father of Cui natal relatives had died) they had been called nothing but relational cui"(Cuicui die). Before the birth of her first child, some families calle their new daughter-in-law "young lady"(qingnian niang): others began Rubie Watson(1986)suggests that the use of kinship terms to address using a common urban form of address, also reportedly widely used in rural women reflects their deficit of "personhood, " Naming practices neighboring Jiuhu township, in which one says the woman's natal sur. in Fengjia suggest a reframing of Watsons analysis. Though Ha Tsuen name preceded by the word xiao (young or little). A few young people. the village in the New Territories of Hong Kong where Watson did her purposefully rejecting other rural conventions as"feudal, "called their esearch during the late 197os, and Fengjia are separated by both a dis. spouses by his or her baby name. tance of over a thousand miles and distinct political economic contexts, One old man had a serious conversation with me about forms several parallels in naming practices emerge, Watson is surprised that dress, Because his parents had died in their youth, he had raise Ha Tsuen villagers address both older men and older woen younger brothers himself and hadhad no children of his own kinship terms. She attributes this practice to older men's dim minis
36 Practices ot Guanxi Production Everyday Guana Production 3/ role in controlling family and corporate resources and suggests that for ached to a single body and implies a single, continuous, and unitary both men and women to be addressed with kinship terms is to lose per sonal power and be defined by their relationships to others. Certainly subject. In contrast, a kinship term may apply to any number of bodies of the same gender and approximate age; further, a single body may be kinship terms do define people in terms of relationships. However, I called many kinship terms by different people on different occasions believe they do so in a positive and power-producing manner. If a child The subject created is neither individual nor unitary. Each time one calls her parents"mother"and"father, while the parents use the child,s utters a name, one implies the existence of, and reproduces, a single or given name, should we conclude that the child is more of a person than discrete subject who is labeled by that name. A kinship term instead re the parents? If a daughter- in- law calls her mother-in-law by a kinshi Produces a(hierarchical) relationship. term, should we conclude that the mother-in-law has no power? Th Tani Barlow (1989a: 1-15) has noted the tension created by circumstances that denied many Chinese rural women official names twentieth-century Chinese feminism, in which a biologized, ut and power are not identical with the processes by which women earned female"(unu) was appropriated from Western discourse to In Fengjia, old womens lack of names admittedly reflected their lack disco pression of women as subjects created through the confuclig urses of relational kinship. In rejection of the gender hierarchies of educational opportunities and a shielding from the privilege/burden implied in Confucian relational kinship terms, early-twentieth-century of interacting with bureaucracies that would need to label one with a Chinese feminists wrote of women asfemales"rather than as wives, name. However, in the context of everyday village life being called by mothers, or daughters. In so doing, they attempted to replace a contra elational kinship terms instead of a name was considered a privilege dictory, relational subject with a unitary, individual one. We can view urthermore, lack of clarity about names was not limited to old wonen the tension between kinship terms and names in Fengjia similarly, (though it was most extreme with them). Several times I came across young couples cal each other by their names because other ten to thirteen year-old children who did not know their parent's first entions are too"feudal "they are rebelling against a system of termi names. In addition, I often ran into the problem of what character to nology in which hierarchies(of age as much as gender)are implied every write for a given name. One villager would state that the character writ time one addresses someone. At the same time, however, they are re ten in the household registration booklet for their name was incorrect placing a contradictory, relational subject with a unitary, individual one Others might join in and there would be a discussion among several The difference between names and kinship terms also separates the literate people about which of several homonyms was the correct char- sphere of the bureaucratic workplace from that of village life and work acter for a given persons name. Even the village household registration Local officials who were on familiar terms called each other by their sur booklet occasionally contradicted itself, using different characters (all ames preceded by"old"or"young"(lao or xiao), depending on the omonyms)in different places for the same generational name age difference In introductions they were referred to by their surname What then is the significance of this looseness about names and and title. In contrast, Fengjia residents often introduced me to their g emphasis on relational kinship ter First of all relatives by saying"He calls me shushu Ifather's younger brother )"or cates the importance of using relational terms of address as a practice I call her gugu [father's sister)"(Ta jiao wo shushu or Wo jiao ta gugu) of guanxi production. Every time a relational kinship term is uttered, a This usage is doubly significant. Not only is a kinship term used instead specific relationship-and the ganqing and material obligation it should of a name but the verb"to call" is used instead of the verb"to be. " In involve-is re-created. The fact that in many village contexts relational introducing someone as"she whom I call gugu"rather than"she who is terms of address are used to the exclusion of names demonstrates the my gugu, "the importance of calling someone a kinship term as a prac ce of guanxi reproduction is clearly indicated Secondly, the type of subject construction that relational kinship To sum up, using kinship terms, visiting and helping out, and em- terms enact likewise reflects the guanxi construction involved, A name bodying ganging in specific human emotions all involved Fengjia resi stays the same no matter with whom one is speaking. It remains at dents in the daily production and reproduction of guanxi. Like other
38 Practices of Guanxi Production = of guanxi production, these every construction that was shifting an the claims of others, that in turn 二 involved a type 2 Guest/Host Etiquette and Banquets a personhood own claims. The id Chao Gai, Since ancient times 'the strong guest must not exceed his host Strong I may be, but I've only recently arrived from distant parts. I cannot Lin Chong pushed him into the leader 's chair, "This is the time. Don' refuse. lAfter two pages more of discussion and deferral, the first four leaders are seated in the first four seats.] Song and Du should now be seated,"said Chao Gai. But Du Qian and Song n absolutely refused. They begged Liu Tang, Ruan the Second, Ruan the Fifth. and Ruan the Seventh to take the fft, sixth, seventh, and eighth places respec tively Du Qian then accepted the ninth chair, Song Wan the tenth and Zhu Gu From then on, the positions of the eleven heroes were fixed in Liangshan Marsh. Oxen an were slaughter gods of Heaven and Earth, and in celebration of the reorganization. The leaders ate and drank far into ight. They feasted in this manner for several days utlaws of the Marsh, Shi and Luo 1986: 135-138 When asked about the importance of seating at banquets, a retired cadre said,"etiquette emphasizes respect for position"(lijie jiangnu zunjing dengji), and suggested that I read Outlaws of the Marsh, a classic novel about Song d passage quoted above, devote considerable attention to practices of seat ing. Seating was also important in the guest/host etiquette and the ban of 88-go Fengjia. though the hierarchies and differed considerably. This chapter examines how Fengjia residents con- structed and manipulated guanxi and hierarchies through practices of banqueting and guest/host etiquette. anquetin (ya hosting g(zuoke)involved skills important to all types of production, Though most used these skills on occasion, some because of
Practices of guanxi production Guest/Host Etiquette and Banquets 41 their talent and position, banqueted, guested, and hosted more than thers. Those highly skilled in these areas were valued by their friends Norh Room North Room and families. When describing a sixty-year-old woman who was often sked to accompany guests at banquet tables(peike), another wor Courtyard said, " She really knows how to talk, guests are comfortable with her. Storage Emily Martin(Ahern 1981: 32)has similarly noted the importance of knowing how to talk"among Taiwanese religious practitioners whe Kitchen himat Sials wish to construct guanxi with their gods. Though no one in Fengjia poke to me about talking to the gods, the need to speak skillfully to Figure 7 Common Fengjia house layout guests clearly extended to village government. When asked for descrip- tions of Party Secretary Fengs responsibilities, most villagers included one was not worthy of respect and was a request to be treated informally, eir list. Indeed, Secretary Feng implying that one's guanxi was relat vely close, As guests prepared to go. spent much time banqueting and hosting other officials in the village hosts often said"Sit and chat"(zuowarwan) This saying was sometimes guest house. In brief, the skillful practice of banqueting, guesting, and hosting was both admired and seen as necessary to village business everyone knew the guest must go. In these case-sed in situations when that one would like to de est, and that one considered hosting one's guest an important priority. Guests often countered by insisting that their host was busy, implying that there we In Fengjia, hosts managed the going and coming of guests through a more important activities for that host than receiving such a humble large array of kinetic, positional, dispositional, and verbal practices, all guest. These polite sayings and actions all served to create good gan- c qing and, hence, to improve guanxi, At the same time, however, being and host and the embodiment of respect and or friendly feelings. If possible, hosts received guests upon arrival at the outside gate and saw a Verly formal was a way of keeping guests at a distance. As the c ciolinguist Bi Jifang has noted, in close family rela rations them off to the gate when they left. If the host was not outside and the use of everyday polite formulas like"Thank you"(xiexie)and gate was open, guests often walked into the courtyard(see figure 7), call- me"(duibuqi)would be taken as purposeful distancing or sarcasm(Bi ing out the name of their host. In such cases the guest was greeted in the 990:18-19) courtyard. Visitors who were neither close friends nor family members House orientation also informed etiquette. People were almost always seen off, as villagers lived by the saying"It is impo received guests in one of the"north rooms"(beifang)of houses. As they lite not to see guests to the gate"(Busong menkou, bulimao ). Between faced south, these rooms caught the sun s winter rays and avoided those 1990 and 1992 several households built screen walls(yingbi)in their of summer. Thus, they were comparatively comfortable. However, this courtyards. These small walls allowed villagers to leave the outside gates orientation was not just a method of climate control. It also embodied to their houses open without worrying about people in the street look the cardinality of the village and guest/host etiquette. 2 When verb ing into their courtyards. The screen walls I saw were all decorated with renting a place or object in the village relative to oneself, one coul painted tiles showing pine trees in a mountain setting with the words use either the four cardinal directions or the directionality of seating Guest-Welcoming Pine"(Yingke Song). The evergreen quality of the guests. The wooden chairs used for receiving guests, called kayi(liter pine, one screen wall owner explained, "expressed that the guest is for- ly chair with a back to lean against), were almost always placed against ever welcome, that the ganqing of welcoming the guest will never end. the northernmost wall of the north room, facing south(see figure 8) The comings and goings of guests were further marked by various The eastern chair was called"upper"(shangyi)while the western one polite formulas. While being seen off, guests often insisted "It's not nec- was called"lower"(xiayi ). Thus, one could refer to things to one's south essary to see me off"(bubisong). This humble gesture both indicate as either on the southern side"(zainanbian), or to the front"(
42 Practices of Guanxi Production Guest/Host Etiquette and Banquets 43 Figure 8 Furniture for receiving guests in north room. quantou), where front, regardless of the direction one at the moment, referred to the direction faced when sitting chair. Likewise, north could be referred to as"to the be ast as"toward the top"(zaishangmian), and west as the bot. Figure9 Guest and host furniture in party headquarters tom"(zaixiamian) Slight variations of the furniture arrangement pictured above were used to receive guests in many of the houses in 1988-go Fengjia How He too started to speak with me, but his Mandarin was worse and I ever, when collecting furniture for soon-to-be married couples, sor onstantly needed the interpretation of the younger brother. Seemingly families bought sofas and easy chairs instead of wooden guest chairs and irked by his younger brother's ease of communication, the older brother square tables(fangzhuo, which are placed between the guest chairs) indicated that the younger brother should give up his seat. After some The older style of furniture thus acquired the label"traditional"(chuan protest the younger brother gave rongde, a term whose significance is examined in chapter ) Another This disagreement refects the dynamic described in the sentence exception occurred in houses where the"traditional"furniture was quoted earlier, "etiquette emphasizes respect for position. "Other vil esent but was so covered with sacks of grain etc, that one had to find agers described this dynamic as a problem of mianzi(face), In pairing her places to sit. The residents of such houses whom I saw were older hosts and guests, mianzi worked in two directions. It both conferred couples whose children had all left town, and who did not often receive espect upon the guest and constructed intrafamily (or intraunit)hier- archies. Having enough mianzi to"face"someone implied that one had If there was functional"traditional"furniture, hosts led guests to the to represent one ' s group in a manner similar to, or at least upper chair and then sat in the lower chair. If the guest N RK congruent with, the person one was facing. By having the oldest, most ne (as oppo respected, and most authoritative member of one's family act as host resent, the senior adult (usually) male sat in the lower cha When Fengjia families could suggest that their guests were people of signif made my rounds of the village, I would always be placed in the upper ant authority and were worthy of signifcant respect(figure 1o). In so doing, they created good ganqing, and established guanxi. On the other family came and went, there was a constant shuffling of occupants of hand, by occupying the host seat, a senior male could also claim to be the lower chair. If an older male relative of the current"host"entered the most authoritative person of his family. the room, the current occupant of the lower chair would surrender his As Zito points out in her discussion of banquet seating in the seat, reclaiming it if the older relative left. Some families were more eighteenth-century novel The Scholars, mianzi hardly implies equa strict about this format than others. In one case a brief argument broke status, but rather functions as a site from which hierarchical commu. out. I was conversing with a young man who spoke excellent Mandarin nication is possible"(1994: 119). In The Scholars, to sit with someone at His older brother entered the room and squatted near the lower chair. the same table indicates that one' s mianzi is good enough to"face"and
