34 Practices of Guanxi Production Everyday Guanxi Production 35 usage reproduces. In some places party activists may also have been he could not call his wife mother of anyone. He told me that the term concerned with this implication. In Shen Rong s fictional account of a nizi was abusive, and went hand in hand with the slave-like position o: Chinese village in the late 197os, a party cadre questions the extension daughters-in-law, and discrimination against women in general, of the of kinship names to those with bad class labels(Shen 1987: 302).The old society. I then asked him what he called his wife. After some thought logic is similar to Fengjia's cultural revolution ban on interclass funeral he replied, "Me and my wife are completely equal. If I need to get her weeping. Practices that created ganqing between members of different tention I say 'hey, and if she needs to get my attention she also say: classes were suspect. hey. Especially for older people, first names were not appropriate te of Fengjia generally addressed each other with re when addressing one,'s spous lational kinship terms, they also had names, and it is worthwhile to During my first summer in Fengjia I spent a fair amount of time up onsider how they were used. At"twelfth-day parties"(guo shier tian, dating our version of the village's household registration booklet. Com anquets held twelve days after birth or shortly thereafter). Parents gave piled in th early 198os, the booklet listed the head and members of each household in the village. Old women were often listed by their nata generation or of the same generation but older in years, used this name urnames and the character shi, a word that might be translated by the address that person. When children entered school, their first-grade French usage nee. When looking for such an elderly woman, I would first go to the house where I thought she lived. I would ask(for examp ling(school name). For school purposes and all official purpose if Zhang Shi or"Mrs Zhang"(Zhang Taitai)was there. Usually, even outside the village, a person would be known by his or her school name. when I posed it to the old woman for whom I was looking, the question Only fellow villagers would know one's baby name and only one's elders led to utter confusion, I found that my best strategy was to first find could use it. Some villagers also had nicknames, but only close friends some younger relatives of the woman and then ask if their eighty-year of the same generation, age, and gender would use then ld grandmother was around. After finding her, it was still difficult to Daughters-in-law and spouses were problematic in this method of nfirm her name. when asked who she was, the woman might point addressing people. Since a daughter-in-law often came from outside the and say" I'm his mother, "or"She calls me grandmother, At best village, elders did not feel comfortable using her baby name. Becaus after going over the household registration booklet with me, a younger, she was a family member, using her school name was inappropriate,and literate relative might tell me"Yes, that must be her As these people because of her youth a relational kinship term was too respectful. In the were generally being very helpful, I did not consider these instances past the term nizi (girl or lass) was used to address daughters in-law, purposeful obstinateness toward a rude foreigner. Rather, I believe these women had either forgotten their names or could not comprehend any birth to her first child, village elders and her husband would most likely one attempting to address them by one. Officially, all they had left was all her(if the child's baby name were Cuicui)"mother of Cuicui"(Cui- cui niang). The young mother might call her husband"father of Cui natal relatives had died) they had been called nothing but relational cui"(Cuicui die). Before the birth of her first child, some families calle their new daughter-in-law "young lady"(qingnian niang): others began Rubie Watson(1986)suggests that the use of kinship terms to address using a common urban form of address, also reportedly widely used in rural women reflects their deficit of "personhood, " Naming practices neighboring Jiuhu township, in which one says the woman's natal sur. in Fengjia suggest a reframing of Watsons analysis. Though Ha Tsuen name preceded by the word xiao (young or little). A few young people. the village in the New Territories of Hong Kong where Watson did her purposefully rejecting other rural conventions as"feudal, "called their esearch during the late 197os, and Fengjia are separated by both a dis. spouses by his or her baby name. tance of over a thousand miles and distinct political economic contexts, One old man had a serious conversation with me about forms several parallels in naming practices emerge, Watson is surprised that dress, Because his parents had died in their youth, he had raise Ha Tsuen villagers address both older men and older woen younger brothers himself and hadhad no children of his own kinship terms. She attributes this practice to older men's dim minis
36 Practices ot Guanxi Production Everyday Guana Production 3/ role in controlling family and corporate resources and suggests that for ached to a single body and implies a single, continuous, and unitary both men and women to be addressed with kinship terms is to lose per sonal power and be defined by their relationships to others. Certainly subject. In contrast, a kinship term may apply to any number of bodies of the same gender and approximate age; further, a single body may be kinship terms do define people in terms of relationships. However, I called many kinship terms by different people on different occasions believe they do so in a positive and power-producing manner. If a child The subject created is neither individual nor unitary. Each time one calls her parents"mother"and"father, while the parents use the child,s utters a name, one implies the existence of, and reproduces, a single or given name, should we conclude that the child is more of a person than discrete subject who is labeled by that name. A kinship term instead re the parents? If a daughter- in- law calls her mother-in-law by a kinshi Produces a(hierarchical) relationship. term, should we conclude that the mother-in-law has no power? Th Tani Barlow (1989a: 1-15) has noted the tension created by circumstances that denied many Chinese rural women official names twentieth-century Chinese feminism, in which a biologized, ut and power are not identical with the processes by which women earned female"(unu) was appropriated from Western discourse to In Fengjia, old womens lack of names admittedly reflected their lack disco pression of women as subjects created through the confuclig urses of relational kinship. In rejection of the gender hierarchies of educational opportunities and a shielding from the privilege/burden implied in Confucian relational kinship terms, early-twentieth-century of interacting with bureaucracies that would need to label one with a Chinese feminists wrote of women asfemales"rather than as wives, name. However, in the context of everyday village life being called by mothers, or daughters. In so doing, they attempted to replace a contra elational kinship terms instead of a name was considered a privilege dictory, relational subject with a unitary, individual one. We can view urthermore, lack of clarity about names was not limited to old wonen the tension between kinship terms and names in Fengjia similarly, (though it was most extreme with them). Several times I came across young couples cal each other by their names because other ten to thirteen year-old children who did not know their parent's first entions are too"feudal "they are rebelling against a system of termi names. In addition, I often ran into the problem of what character to nology in which hierarchies(of age as much as gender)are implied every write for a given name. One villager would state that the character writ time one addresses someone. At the same time, however, they are re ten in the household registration booklet for their name was incorrect placing a contradictory, relational subject with a unitary, individual one Others might join in and there would be a discussion among several The difference between names and kinship terms also separates the literate people about which of several homonyms was the correct char- sphere of the bureaucratic workplace from that of village life and work acter for a given persons name. Even the village household registration Local officials who were on familiar terms called each other by their sur booklet occasionally contradicted itself, using different characters (all ames preceded by"old"or"young"(lao or xiao), depending on the omonyms)in different places for the same generational name age difference In introductions they were referred to by their surname What then is the significance of this looseness about names and and title. In contrast, Fengjia residents often introduced me to their g emphasis on relational kinship ter First of all relatives by saying"He calls me shushu Ifather's younger brother )"or cates the importance of using relational terms of address as a practice I call her gugu [father's sister)"(Ta jiao wo shushu or Wo jiao ta gugu) of guanxi production. Every time a relational kinship term is uttered, a This usage is doubly significant. Not only is a kinship term used instead specific relationship-and the ganqing and material obligation it should of a name but the verb"to call" is used instead of the verb"to be. " In involve-is re-created. The fact that in many village contexts relational introducing someone as"she whom I call gugu"rather than"she who is terms of address are used to the exclusion of names demonstrates the my gugu, "the importance of calling someone a kinship term as a prac ce of guanxi reproduction is clearly indicated Secondly, the type of subject construction that relational kinship To sum up, using kinship terms, visiting and helping out, and em- terms enact likewise reflects the guanxi construction involved, A name bodying ganging in specific human emotions all involved Fengjia resi stays the same no matter with whom one is speaking. It remains at dents in the daily production and reproduction of guanxi. Like other