Elderly Group And The Historical Memory Of Local Society

Badou village of Boshan district in Zibo city of Shandong Province is located in the mountainous area of central Shandong,which belongs to Xiaofu River region.Legend has it that it is where Yan Wenjiang’s parents reside and also one of the core areas in the legend of Yan Wenjiang and the belief.Boshan district where Badou village belongs is famous for abundant mineral resources and industrial production,helping itself to form the unique economic and cultural features and entering the industrial phase with the invasion and development by Germany and Japan.Therefore,villagers in Badou village have a unique life experience.Upon entering the new era,with the practice and the acceleration of urbanization,Badou village has undergone all-dimensional transform in politics,district planning and economy,transforming from an industrial phase into a modern phase which is closely related to urbanization,which means the original life and cultural heritage of Badou village are under great possibility to be erased by the urban culture and the traditional cultural inheritance of the village will be forgotten.It is with this social background that elders of Badou village who have experienced the industrial period have been actively promoting the traditional culture.The article focuses on the specific behavior and functions of elders from the traditional society into the modern cities during the urbanization.It should be pointed out that the elders of this article have a unique feature that they grew up in the traditional society and they were influenced by industrial process in their regional society;therefore,they have the qualities of both the worker and farmer.When it comes to the new era of rapid changes,they enter the modern times featuring urbanization.They possess the identity as the witness to history and also the inherit,master and interpreter of farming civilization,which means that in their memories are histories involved in industrial advances and the development history of ancient society including the community society.The coexistence of personal living history and the accumulation and inheritance of farming civilization is the key feature of the elders’ historical memory on local society.The former greatly influences the elders’ daily life and behavior while the latter will become the daily common sense of the villagers and will influence their lives and instill a more meaningful sense with core values and traditional norms to the social community.In the daily life,people with different social experiences may have different short-term historical memory.However,the common sense followed by everyone is basically the same,which is more often than not connected to the long-term historical memory.Therefore,the long-term historical memory possesses great influence on the reality.In order to better explain how long-term memory of the elders exerts influence on the contemporary society,the article takes the example of the legend of Yan Wenjiang of Badou Village and faith rituals.Yan Wenjiang is a local legend greatly highlighted in Boshan area.Though its spread is relatively limited compared to that of Butterfly Lovers and Tale of the White Snake,its influences on the construction of certain society is nonparallel speaking of national tales.Legend has it that Badou village is where parents of Yan Wenjiang reside;therefore,the village has become the core in the faith of Yan Wenjiang of Boshan,making the village a focus in the cultural construction and development in Boshan.Qingshiguan village and Geziqian village are the two administrative villages of Badou village and the two villages are arguing about which is the real parents’ home of Yan Wenjiang,which adding to the contents of the tale and represents the historical meanings of fairy tales on the development of current society.Rituals like " welcome grandma Yan home for a rest" participated by elders of Badou village are created and transformed on the basis of legend of Yan Wenjiang.Elders organize and participate in such rituals year after year,enhancing their recognition and experience of local history in the community society.Therefore,rituals are a way to record history and rituals function as a pot of memory,including various memories.In a word,there are at least two ways in the historical memories of the elders,one of which is the short-term historical memory related to individual experiences while the other is the long-term historical memory accumulated during the development of regional society.To the elders of Badou village,the short-term historical memory is the life experience of them participating in industrial process while the long-term historical memory is the farming and folk cultures and knowledge inherited till today.The two historical memories co-exist in the elders and are represented in daily life.In fact,what people are pursuing are not the historical truth but a kind of " historical sense " to give the contemporary society the historical meaning and fulfill personal emotions and maintain the village community.Faced with the social truth that villages are about to be urbanized,the historical memory of villages is bound to be one of the great social practices in the contemporary generations.Elders in the village consciously play the role of inheriting and maintaining the historical memory of a local society.The resistance practice in a great social transition has shown great force and lofty emotion,featuring solemn and stirring emotions during the urbanization process and striking to the heart.Focus and research of the behavior helps to deepen the understanding of our social practice to crowds from bottom to top and the practical significance.The article consists of three parts.The first part is the introduction.The second part is the body,consisting of five chapters while the third part is the conclusion.The introduction mainly includes the reasons and meanings of the topic,related academic references and the explanation on the research methods of the article.First of all,the article talks about the subjective impression of the location of field study and the process of entering the location as well as the reasons of choosing historical memory as the research subject on the basis of academic theory.Then,the article talks about the academic reference of village politics and historical memory.In the end,the article explains the research method.The first chapter of the body is about " folk memory of Boshan’s industrial history ",talking about the development history of industrialization of Boshan district in terms of location,beginning of urbanization,transition in labor and transform in daily life.The chapter aims to view the industrialization of Boshan as a historical fact and the historical memory in villagers.Therefore,the chapter focuses on depicting vivid stories from different villagers.The second chapter is the "long-term historical memory and folk culture ",describing the long-term historical memory included in farming and folk cultural traditions from receiving guests,festivals,temple repair,worships in the temple and the social status of elders in folk cultures and pointing out that elders are the leader and interpreter of long-term historical memory.The third chapter is entitled "elders with identities as workers and farmers".The chapter will depict specific characters’ behavior and words in the village,trying to objectively represent the real living conditions from the bottom of individual life.Through the analysis of organization and activity of the elders and different types of elders,the chapter points out that they are with qualities as both workers and farmers and they possess dual historical memory as the civilization agent.Chapter four is entitled "elders and deduction of the legend of Yan Wenjiang in modern times ".The chapter first describes the rituals and venues of faith in Yan Wenjiang and then carries out the restructure and game of Qingshiguan village and Geziqian village on which is the parents’ home of Yan Wenjiang,which shows the evolution of the legend of Yan Wenjiang in the village and analyses different operations of different groups centered around holy materials.Finally,the chapter introduces the process of rituals and specific behavior of people participating in the rituals to show elderspractice in the rituals "welcome grandma Yan home for a rest".Chapter five is entitled "Historical view and memory of elders",putting forward the idea that short-term and long-term historical memories co-exist in the elders on the basis of academic theory and carrying out analysis of how elder folks choose,operate and re-create historical memories and endow reality with a sense of history or endow history with a sense of reality,therefore making the historical memory play a role in the construction of recognition of villages.The third part is the conclusion,defining the practice of elders on historical memory during the huge changes of society,highlighting the contemporary values of elders’ historical memory practice consisting of short-term and long-term historical memory and gods and spirits practice.At last,the part points out the subject of rural cultural construction during urbanization.Scholars and other elite groups should fully understand and respect the conscious cultural behavior of individuals with folk memories.Only by doing so can they truly understand the historical memory of folks and they can better comprehend how folks endow villages with core values through historical memory.Therefore,scholars and other elite groups can recognize rural cultural construction in a more scientific way.