Table Of ContentEating Rice from Bamboo Roots
The Social History of a Community
of Handicraft Papermakers in
Rural Sichuan, 1920–2000
Harvard East Asian
Monographs 314
Eating Rice from Bamboo Roots
The Social History of a Community
of Handicraft Papermakers in
Rural Sichuan, 1920–2000
Jacob Eyferth
Published by the Harvard University Asia Center
Distributed by Harvard University Press
Cambridge (Massachusetts) and London 2009
© 2009 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
Printed in the United States of America
The Harvard University Asia Center publishes a monograph series and, in coordination with
the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, the Korea Institute, the Reischauer Institute of
Japanese Studies, and other faculties and institutes, administers research projects designed to
further scholarly understanding of China, Japan, Vietnam, Korea, and other Asian countries.
The Center also sponsors projects addressing multidisciplinary and regional issues in Asia.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Eyferth, Jan Jacob Karl, 1962–
Eating rice from bamboo roots : the social history of a community of
handicraft papermakers in rural Sichuan, 1920–2000 / Jacob Eyferth.
p. cm. -- (Harvard East Asian monographs ; 314)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-674-03288-0 (cl : alk. paper)
1. Paper industry--China--History. 2. Paper industry--China--
Jiajiang Xian--History. 3. Jiajiang Xian (China)--Economic conditions.
I. Title.
hd9836.c62e94 2009
338.7'6760951380904--dc22
2009007044
Index by Mary Mortensen
Printed on acid-free paper
Last figure below indicates year of this printing
19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09
For my parents
Acknowledgments
For papermakers in pre-1949 Jiajiang, debt was not nec-
essarily a bad thing. To be in debt was to be in business, to partici-
pate in long-term relations of exchange. I, too, am happy to ac-
knowledge my debts, even though I realize that many of them will
never be repaid. My greatest debt is to the people of Shiyan who
welcomed me into their homes, answered endless questions, and in
the process taught me much more than I realized at that time. Much
as I would like to extend individual thanks to them, I decided to
preserve the anonymity of all interviewees. Such reserve, I felt, is
not necessary in the case of former officials in the county seat, many
of whom are local historians in their own right. Ren Zhijun, Xiao
Zhicheng, Xie Baoqing, Xu Shiqing, Huang Fuwan, and Liao Tailing
of the Second Light Industry administration shared their immense
knowledge of the paper industry with me. Zhang Wenhua and Xie
Changfu, the compilers of the township gazetteers of Macun and
Huatou, gave me lively lessons in local history. Fieldwork would
have been impossible without the support of the village committee
of Shiyan, the Macun township government, and the Foreign Affairs
Bureau of Jiajiang. I also want to thank my hosts at the Institute of
Rural Economy of the Sichuan Academy of Social Sciences (SASS)
for arranging fieldwork at a time when research permits were hard to
obtain. Du Shouhu, Guo Xiaoming, and Zhang Xiangrong repeat-
edly traveled to Jiajiang to sort out administrative problems and
gave me much practical advice. Heartfelt thanks are due to the
SASS researchers who accompanied me to Jiajiang: Chen Jining,
who gave me invaluable lessons in rural etiquette, and Lei Xiaoming,
viii Acknowledgments
who spent months away from his family and fell ill during our stay
but never complained. Back in Chengdu, Professors Wang Gang,
Sheng Yi, and Yuan Dingji at the SASS and Ran Guangrong, Zhang
Xuejun, and Wang Yan at Sichuan University helped me to locate
sources and provided much-needed background information.
This book began its life as a dissertation guided by Tony Saich
and Frank Pieke, both of whom provided guidance, encouragement,
practical help, and hospitality in Oxford, Boston, and Beijing. Ward
Vermeer, Tak-Wing Ngo, Barend ter Haar, Woei-Lien Chong, and
Axel Schneider read all or parts of the dissertation and gave valu-
able comments. Equally important were the discussions with my fel-
low students at Leiden University, especially Hein Mallee, Peter Ho,
Wu Yongping, and Yuan Bingling. Only now do I realize how much
I benefited from the financial, institutional, and intellectual support
of the (now sadly defunct) Centre for Non-Western Studies in Lei-
den. Many thanks to its director Willem Vogelsang and the CNWS
staff for giving me almost unlimited freedom to write and travel for
five years.
Since I left Leiden, I received generous support from the Institute
for Chinese Studies of the University of Oxford, the Fairbank Cen-
ter for Chinese Studies at Harvard University, and the Center for
Historical Analysis at Rutgers University. Heartfelt thanks to the
staff of these institutions and to their directors Glen Dudbridge, Liz
Perry, Susan Schrepfer, and Phil Scranton. Research would have
been impossible without access to the libraries of Leiden University,
the Bodleian Library, the Fairbank Research Library, the Harvard-
Yenching Library, and the libraries of Cornell University, Simon
Fraser University, and the University of British Columbia. In China,
I used the Sichuan Provincial Library, Sichuan Provincial Archives,
Chinese National Library, and the Library of Sichuan University.
The help of the staff of these libraries was invaluable and is grate-
fully acknowledged.
For comments, criticism, and encouragement, I thank Rana Mit-
ter, David Faure, and Henrietta Harrison at Oxford; my fellow An
Wang fellows Wang Liping, Zwia Lipkin, Sabina Knight, and Eliza-
beth Remick at the Fairbank Center; and Kavita Philip and Erin
Acknowledgments ix
Clune at the Center for Historical Analysis at Rutgers. I am in-
debted in so many ways to friends and colleagues at the history
department of Simon Fraser University that I hardly know where to
begin. As department chair, John Craig gave me research time when
I most needed it. Felicitas Becker, Elise Chenier, Luke Clossey, Alec
Dawson, Karen Ferguson, Andrea Geiger, Mary Ellen Kelm, Thomas
Kühn, Mark Leier, Jack Little, Janice Matsumura, Sheilagh Mac-
Donald, Emily O’Brien, Roxanne Panchasi, Helena Pohland-
McCormick, Heather Skibeneckyj, John Stubbs, and Ilya Vinkovet-
sky all provided insights and encouragement. At the University of
British Columbia, Ken Foster, Amy Hanser, Tim Cheek, Tim Brook,
Tim Sedo, and the other participants of the China Study Group
gave me critical feedback at a crucial time.
Over the years, I presented versions of parts of the book in many
different contexts. Stig Thøgersen at the University of Århus and
Claude Aubert at the Institut national de la recherche agronomique
in Paris gave me first opportunities to try out ideas in public. Su-
sanne Brandstaetter at the University of Manchester, Dorothy Ko
and Eugenia Lean at Columbia, Fang Lili at the Chinese Art Acad-
emy, Ching Kwan Lee at the University of Michigan, Vivienne
Shue at Cornell University, Wang Yuning at the Shaanxi Art
Academy, and Diana Lary at the University of British Columbia al-
lowed me to present my research in workshops, seminars, and panels
they organized. I particularly thank Dorothy Ko for inspiration and
encouragement, and Eugenia Lean for allowing me to quote from her
unpublished work. I also benefited in many different ways from dis-
cussions with Maria Edin, Mareile Flitsch, Lida Junghans, Mark Fra-
zier, Greg Ruf, Bin Wu, and Janet Sturgeon. Special thanks are due
to Mark Selden, who read an early incarnation of the book with
lightning speed, sent me detailed and insightful comments, and has
provided feedback and encouragement at several points over the
years.
Writing, like papermaking, is often a family enterprise. Paola Io-
vene has seen this book develop almost from the beginning and has
contributed to it in more ways than she thinks. Much of the final
writing took place on a terrace overlooking the Mediterranean Sea,
x Acknowledgments
thanks to the generous hospitality of Teresa Iacono and Giuseppe
Iovene. Tobias Eyferth read and commented on different versions of
the manuscript; Konrad Eyferth drew the maps. This book could not
have been written without the support of my parents, Ina and Klaus
Eyferth. I dedicate it to them.
J.E.
