Acknowledgements -- Introduction: an anthropology of separation -- 1. Two festival of reunion -- 2. The etiquette of parting and return -- 3. Greeting and sending-off the dead -- 4. The ambivalent threshold -- 5. Commensality as reunion -- 6. Women and the obligation to return -- 7. Developing a sense of history -- 8. Classical narratives of separation and reunion -- 9. The politics of separation and reunion in China and Taiwan -- Conclusion: the separation constraint -- Notes -- References -- Index
Summary
Charles Stafford explores the Chinese fascination with separation and reunion, based upon his field studies in Taiwan and mainland China. He gives a vivid account of everyday rituals, and examines how they help people settle into communities, and to explain the passions aroused by the possibility of national culture
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (179-199) and index
