o Practices of Guanxi Production Gift Giving 71 rrival, the child's mother accepts the gifts and the child bows kowtows(see chapter 4), and utters the kinship tern aown bride prices especially indicate the complete transferral of the bride (gan die). In all of these accounts, the construction lations involves the exchange of a respectful use of a f kinship ter from one family to another and consequently the end of all obligatio Parish's work, Chan, Madsen, and Unger(1984: 189-191) argue that in the younger) for a gift(from the older). hen Village, Guangdong Province, because brides who married in their The role of the gift in the establishment of the kinship relation here is natal village continued to provide labor and resources to their natal to create the obligation and thus the basis for respect that the younger families, the rise of intravillage marriages led to a reduction of bride generation owes to the older, As Bourdieu(1977: 171-197: 1990: 105) prices, I believe the language of guanxi and ganqing provides a more writes of gift giving everywhere, and as I was told in both Fengjia and satisfying way of examining the problem. In 1988-9o Fengjia, there were elsewhere in China, the most insulting thing one can do upon receiving high"bride prices"in both inter- and intravillage marriages. I would a gift is to return a gift of exactly equal value within a day or two. A say that these gifts should be seen as a guanxi claim on one's future gift given from one person to another creates an outstanding obligation daughter-in law, while spending a lot on the dowry should be seen as and, thus, guanxi. To immediately return a gift in kind is to immedi counter claim. As mentioned earlier, Ellen Judd (1989) argues that a ately erase the obligation and thus negate the guanxi woman's natal home and mother- in law's home( pojia)made compet In the case of kinship relations between older and younger, an ideal ing claims on their daughter's(daughter-in-laws) time and services. guanxi is that of the older caring for the younger until maturity, thereby The giving of more eggs than anyone else by people from the mother's establishing an obligation that is repaid through respect and care in old natal home at twelfth-day parties likewise contributed to these compet age. In establishing the new kinship relations of affinal ties, elders ga ing claims. Describing marriage gifts as a form of payment misses the gifts in an attempt to create an obligation that would be the basis for eventual transfer of wealth to the younger generation in addition to por. the respect granted in the use of relational terms of address. The gifts traying kinship relations as little more than commodity transactions f cash and clothes from the bride 's parents to the groom and from the escribing marriage gifts as a form of endowment accurately captures groom's parents to the bride, and the gifts of cloth from the groom's the transfer of wealth to the younger generation but misses the ganqing elder female relatives to the bride all served this purpose. Furthermore. and guanxi debts the young couple owes to both sets of parents. Under the number and size of gifts was roughly congruent with the extent of standing marriage payments as part of the never-ending cycle of cre. he deference the older hope to elicit from the younger. Gifts from the ating, manipulating, and relying upon guanxi and ganqing gives a more grooms parents to the bride were the largest because the deference the desire from their daughter-in-law would be expected on a daily basis The obligation.generating role of gifts was also related to the style in Other guanxi in which cither contact was less frequent or the difference olved in the different types of gifts, Cash and/or clothes, as given to the in age was only one of years and not of generations, were marked by younger generation in the engagement process and as given by villagers smaller gifts. The most distant affinal relationships marked by kish to each other on various occasions as gift-money, created an unfulfilled terms, such as those between older and younger brothers-in-law, lacked obligation that could only be properly repaid at a future unspecified gift giving altogether but did involve guaruxi-constructing banquet date. As such, Fengjia residents used these gifts to create and main- Sinological anthropologists have long argued over whether monetary tain guanxi, Food, given to the elderly, the ill, and women recuperating gifts to the bride's family before a marriage were best viewed as pur from childbirth acknowledged that an already existing obligation could asing the bride's labor, and hence called"brideprice, "or as endowing be counted on in time of need. A notable exception to this scheme were he new couple through the dowry, and hence called"brideswealth"or indirect dowry(M. Cohen 1976; Freedman 1966; Goody 199o: Han and the sizeable gifts in cash in the form of gift-money given by sons who dy moved out of the ades 1992: Yan 1993). Sociologists of rural China have tended to see occasion of a younger siblings marriage. This cash actually was part of these gifts as bride prices that purchase all, or part of, the bride's labo the repayment of the debt owed to one's parents power, Parish and Whyte(1978: 180-192). for example, argue that high Cloth given by older women to younger women also acted to estab-