Shyness And Gender Relations Of Burao People

Shyness, as a common cultural phenomenon, refers to not only individual emotional experience, a metal state of being afraid of losing face or getting ill remarks from others, but also group consciousness and moral norms of a society. As a matter of fact, shyness is a kind of sexual repression, representing restraints and limitations of the social reality on gender relations.Shyness, an issue concerning privacy, actually is about how to differentiate group from individual and others from ego. And how to separate the private domain from the public one refers to the practice of external and internal categories. Shyness of Burao people in the Wa reflects distinctions between the public domain and the private one. Shyness in the private domain, especially at home, relates to incest taboo; but bashfulness in the public one, such as kinship or village-between, involves fame and traditional ethics moral, like Awa moral.What the paper emphasizes is shyness of Burao people in the Wa in their daily life, especially shyness resulted from talking about gender relations, so as to observe how the Wa community, with its inner cultural rules such as incest taboo, religion and family hierarchy, regulate gender behaviors.Chapter one states the semantic analysis on shyness of Burao people in the Wa, describing various kinds of shyness in different times and situations. Chapter two focuses on shyness in gender relations and discusses it in Burao families and kinships. Chapter three presents shyness because of violating the Awa moral. Such kind of shyness does not belong to common category and can be called moral shame. And those who are against restrictions on gender relations of the Awa moral will be punished.It is discovered that shyness regulates gender relations and behaviors within the Wa community and shows expectations and requirements of the Wa people on the social role of men and women. Shyness of different ages between genders shares similarities but still possesses features of its own. And expressions of shyness vary on different occasions. Shyness of the Wa has undergone changes with the influence of external cultures and its control of gender relations has gradually lessened as well. However, in the depth of the Wa people's sense, any gender relation and behavior against the Awa moral will still be considered as a kind of moral shame. No matter how, shyness plays an important role in maintaining the unity and harmony of the Wa community.