The Discovery And Re-discovery Of Chinese Lineage

”Chinese lineage” is a highly localized problem,but at the same time it is studied in aglobal and modern vision.Though making a comparative analysis of all the research onthe”Chinese lineage”,we can see the relatonship between Sinology and local Chinese ruralstudies.Fifty years ago,the Freedman’s”Chinese lineage” paradigm became the classic paradigmof the kinship,”Chinese lineage” became a classic topic of the Chinese research and thenlead to the first upsurge of the lineage studies.In intellectual history,for the firsttime”Chinese lineage” was “found”.Local scholars Lin Yaohua and Fei Xiaotong’s point ofview should have challenged Freedman’s”Chinese lineage” paradigm,but they were quicklyoverwhelmed and neglected.Fifty years later,China is opening up to overseas scholars,allowing them to enter themainland to carry out fieldwork.Unlogically,”Chinese lineage” study gradually fade out.Afew decades ago,overseas scholars developed a variety of theoretical paradims,but it isdifficult for them to explain today’s Chinese society.In the modernization process,China canno longer become an ideal “different culture”.Modern china is no longer an ideal thoughtexperiment fields for overseas scholars.In contrast,the Chinese mainland has set off a secondboom of the studies on”Chinese lineage”.This time Chinese scholars wouldn’t follow thetrend of overseas studies.”Chinese lineage” have been found for the second time.Chinesesociety has been re-examined and re-dicovered.Chinese scholars regain local academicresources and have a talk to the local academic predecessors.Overseas scholars,in order to present a distinctive,consistent impression of China,put anemphasis on continuity rather than fracture,identity rather than difference,traditionalityrather than modernity.Local scholars who wouldn’t build or market a distinctive image ofChina are more concerned about the complex,contradictory reality of China.It is full ofambiguity and chaos.So the studies of chinese scholars are “pluralism”,focusing on a varietyof forces in the lineages.