Passing The Joy: Phoenix Village Childhood (1985-1995)

This article focused on the childhood of nine children in the phoenix village around1990s in history method. In the history of anthropology, children are often neglected, rarely appears in anthropological writings. As the rise of Anthropology of Childhoods? children are reared as initiative agents rather than a "reference group". Through recalling stories and events to explore children’s initiative, this article tries to understand their childhood and the forces to keep the children’s childhood in phoenix village. At the same time, the article also analyzes intercommunication of the children and the village culture and the survivability wisdom in children’s daily activities, through which children keeps his childhood in interactions with villages and get happy. In spite of the confrontation and conflicts in interaction, harmony exists between adults and children. Children in Phoenix village have strong initiative, and not completely controlled by adults. They are the most critical points to keep their own childhood. At the same time, various aspects like the traditional ecological village, family and neighborhood and so on contributing to maintain the childhood itself. Finally, the children’s free and happy, which makes the childhood becomes rich and colorful.The article is divided into eight chapters. The first chapters briefly introduces the train of thought and theoretical framework, and make a simple literature review of the childhood; The following chapters discuss respectively the phoenix village children’s living environment, education mode, group relationships, school life, recreational activities and sexual relations. Based on the narrative and analysis of the story, I am trying to understand children’s childhood life and its meanings, exploreing the life of the children in a very poor social environment. At the end of the article, I discuss the way the phoenix village children define their own childhood, and compared the children’s childhood life in Shanghai and Guizhou, believing that childhood is a kind of practice, which is meaningful as the children themselves believed. The diversity of childhood is the foundation of social existence. But I also think that childhood is fading away, while children’s initiative is on the loss. Only when children gain independence and initiative can childhood be maintained.