Performing Filial Piety in Northern Song China: Family, State, and Native Place

240 Pages·2020·3.676 MB·English

by  Cong Ellen Zhang

PERFORMING
FILIAL PIETY
IN NORTHERN
SONG CHINA
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PERFORMING
FILIAL PIETY
IN NORTHERN
SONG CHINA
Family, State, and Native Place
Cong Ellen Zhang
University of Hawai‘i Press
Honolulu
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© 2020 University of Hawai‘i Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Zhang, Cong, author.
Title: Performing filial piety in Northern Song China : family, state, and
native place / Cong Ellen Zhang.
Description: Honolulu : University of Hawai‘i Press, 2020. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020022814 | ISBN 9780824882754 (cloth) | ISBN
9780824884406 (pdf) | ISBN 9780824884413 (epub) | ISBN 9780824884420
(kindle edition)
Subjects: LCSH: Filial piety—China—History—To 1500. |
Intellectuals—China—History—To 1500. | China—Intellectual
life—960-1644.
Classification: LCC BJ1533.F5 Z4345 2020 | DDC 299.5/114—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020022814
Cover art: Houma Tomb No. 1 (tomb of Dong Qijian, dated 1210), Houma, Shanxi Province.
Photograph by Jeehee Hong.
University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for
permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources.
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Notes on Conventions ix
Northern Song Emperors and Their Reign Titles xi
Map of Northern Song China xiii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 The Triumph of a New Filial Ideal: Supporting Parents
with Official Emoluments 15
Chapter 2 Mourning and Filial Piety: Policies and Practices 52
Chapter 3 When and Where? Burial and Filial Piety 83
Chapter 4 Remembering and Commemorating: Epitaph Writing
as a Form of Filial Expression 118
Epilogue Filial Piety and the Elite: Family, State, and Native Place
in the Northern Song 150
Notes 161
Bibliography 189
Glossary-Index 213
v
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Acknowledgments
While writing and conducting research for my first book on Song (960–1279)
travel culture, several large questions lingered in the back of my mind. If the Song
literati traveled so extensively and frequently, how did they maintain meaningful
connections with their parents, wives, and children at a time when transporta-
tion and communication were slow and not always reliable? In what ways did
these men’s lengthy absences from their homes and native regions affect their
abilities to manage crucial familial duties and routine household matters? Did
the tension between these men’s public pursuits and domestic obligations lead to
new ideals about family life and people-place relationships? There are obviously
different ways to approach these questions. This study of the changing rhetoric
and performance of filial piety in the Northern Song period (960–1127) represents
one attempt.
Over the course of this monograph’s ten-year evolution, many individuals
helped shape it into its current form. Patricia Ebrey, Beverly Bossler, Jim Hargett,
and Ari Levine read the entire manuscript at its different stages. All of them
responded with many pages of extremely insightful and constructive feedback
and guided me to think more broadly and critically, sharpen my arguments, and
write more clearly. I am profoundly grateful for their numerous queries, observa-
tions, and suggestions, which have helped improve the quality of this book.
In the past several years, I have presented the material in this book on many
occasions and would like to express my genuine appreciation of the valuable
comments and questions from the discussants, fellow panelists, and those in the
audiences, whose names are too many to be included here. I especially would like
to thank Valerie Hansen at Yale University, Zhang Ying at Ohio State University,
and Liu Chen at the National University of Singapore for giving me the oppor-
tunity to present my work on their campuses and have fruitful exchanges with
them and their colleagues and students. The contributors at the two workshops
that I (co-)organized, at Peking University (PKU, 2011) and the University of
Virginia (2013) respectively, likewise engaged in robust discussion about the
various aspects of filial piety in imperial China, providing a rich context for this
vii
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viii Acknowledgments
study. As the notes and bibliography of the book show, I am indebted to all of
them and those who were not at the workshops but have written on the topic.
Many friends have continued to offer emotional support that remains cru-
cial to the long journey of writing a book. I especially would like to thank Anne
Kinney, Lu Weijing, Helen Schneider, Kim Wishart, and Yao Ping for bearing
with me during many long hours of conversation on my struggles with the proj-
ect. Kim has been my most reliable editor and has helped make this book more
readable than I alone ever could.
This project was also made possible by generous financial support from the
University of Virginia (UVA) in the form of summer research support, travel
subsidies, publication grants, and workshop sponsorship. For these important
contributions, I thank the Provost Office, the College and Graduate School
of Arts and Sciences, and the East Asia Center. The Hong Kong University of
Science and Technology and the Buckner W. Clay Awards in the Humanities at
UVA deserve special thanks for allocating funds for the PKU and UVA work-
shops on filial piety.
I am indebted to my editor, Stephanie Chun, and her team at the University
of Hawai‘i Press, for being most helpful in guiding me every step of the way in
turning the manuscript into a book. My copy editor, Bojana Ristich, has done
a meticulous job. Her comments, suggestions, and corrections were indispens-
able in polishing the manuscript and bringing it to press. Jeehee Hong of McGill
University generously gave me permission to use a photograph of hers as the
cover image for the book. Thank you very much, Jeehee!
Over the past several years, what began as a personal research interest grew
into a family project. I thank my husband, Baowen, and son, Max, not only for
their willingness to listen to all the filial piety–related stories but also their genu-
ine interest in any progress that I made. Researching and writing this book coin-
cided with my parents and in-laws’ advancing age. Living far away from them
and only being able to visit once or twice a year, we as a family have pondered the
meanings and proper performance of filial piety countless times. Most impor-
tant, our absence from our parents’ sides has made us increasingly appreciative
of our sisters and brothers-in-law, the devoted parental caregivers. This book is
dedicated to them.
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Notes on Conventions
Romanization
I have adopted pinyin romanization of Chinese terms throughout the book. For
the sake of consistency, I have modified direct quotations from English-language
sources whose authors used the Wade-Giles system into the pinyin system.
Place Names
I use Song place names in the text, with their modern equivalents provided in
parentheses. When a place’s Northern Song and modern names remain the
same, I include in the parenthesis only the name of the province, as in Kaifeng
(in Henan).
Title of Offices
As a rule, I use the translations of office titles given in Charles Hucker, A
Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China (1985).
Measures
1 li = 1,800 chi = 0.56 kilometer = 0.35 mile
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