Guest Column: Chinese History Books
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ladybusinessIn the last few years I’ve become a fan of Chinese dramas (aka c-dramas), especially The Untamed. I'm a white American and I didn't grow up watching dramas, but I've come to love them. I enjoy how they mix small, tender moments with action and heartbreak. These are shows that can evoke the whole range of human emotions. I've done a lot of new things as part of c-drama fandom, including writing fanfic for the first time. I've made a lot of new friends via fandom and it's changed my whole experience of social media. But the aspect of my fandom I want to talk about here is that it’s gotten me reading and loving academic history again.
I've always been prone to taking my fannish interests in historical directions. I once tried to read all the works which had won both a Hugo and a Nebula. I've tracked down so many older books. I've read multiple feminist histories of SFF and delighted in reading critical essays from the 70s and 80s.
But reading Chinese history feels different. I’m not doing research for writing fic, though things I’ve learned have ended up in fic I’ve written. Fic research tends to be targeted, where I want to know a specific detail, like what do people eat in a certain region? It's just that getting into Chinese dramas made me more interested in learning about Chinese history. This reading is more about trying to build myself a bigger picture, and to get a sense of how people lived. Most of the dramas I’m into are wuxia in some shape or form. They tend to be set in specific places but not specific times. A friend described it as like Arthuriana, with a mishmash of details that feel historical but don’t accurately recreate any time period.
I have been reading books by academics for academics that focus on material culture. I started out looking for a good overview of Chinese history in English, since I am sadly monolingual. But this turned out to be surprisingly hard to find. There’s a lot of racism and orientalism in books about China, and it can be tricky to tell from reading descriptions. None of my friends had recommendations, either. I couldn’t find something that met my basic requirements, so I ended up diving off the deep end and reading a lot of specialized stuff without having much sense of the overall history.
This has worked out well for me. There are barriers to just picking up and reading these kinds of books: they have their own jargon and reading protocols. If you aren’t actively in academia it can be hard to find recs, and some of the books are very expensive. Plus, public libraries are less likely to carry them. For me it helps that I have a background in environmental history, and read a lot of these kinds of books in grad school, and even after grad school. So I’m familiar with some of the language, and also the way historians structure books, and can follow the types of arguments being made. I already had the reading protocols that I needed. I have learned to approach these books as arguments not collections of facts. I’ve been slowly getting better at finding recs, mostly by following academics on Twitter. I’m financially secure enough that I can buy some of the less expensive books, and I have access to a very good interlibrary loan program.
Reading about food and material culture feels like the right way into Chinese history for me. What I’m interested in is not so much the political history. I love environmental history because it focuses on human interactions with the environment, and often gets into modes of thought or how overlooked actors impact history. The objects people used tell us a lot about how they lived. Food and material culture can tell us about how people were connected to the wider world. For example, a pot takes skill and resources to make, and the form it takes will be impacted by its function, but also cultural factors. I want to understand daily life and how people thought, and what mattered to them. I’m interested in the texture of daily life. Plus, I love food and arts and crafts, so I just find all these details super interesting.
Here’s some brief thoughts on the books I’ve read so far:
Tea in China: A Religious and Cultural History by James A. Benn — This was the book that started my journey. I thought I’d like to write some fic featuring a lot of tea drinking. I started doing a little bit of research, and then I fell down a rabbit hole, and ended up buying this book. It’s full of all kinds of interesting details about daily life and religion that I really enjoy learning about. The author is a religious studies professor, so this book showcases the deep connection between Buddhism and tea in China. I didn’t know before reading this book that Buddhism prohibits drinking alcohol, and that many Chinese Buddhists replaced the social functions of alcohol with tea drinking. I also enjoyed learning about the changes in tea making over time.
The Rise of Tea Culture in China by Bret Hinsch — This book is very clearly written and informative. While the previous book focused more on tea and religion, this one focused more on tea and the individual. Hinsch argues that people used tea connoisseurship as a way to develop personal identities. The book helps put tea drinking into a wider cultural context. I especially enjoyed the chapter on tea and masculinity.
The Chile Pepper in China: A Cultural Biography by Brian R. Dott — Another academic history of food in China! Chiles seem to show up all the time in historical Chinese dramas despite the fact that they were not introduced until the 1500s. The subject matter was fascinating but I found the text a bit dry and repetitive in places. I really enjoyed the maps and learning about different kinds of chiles and how they were prepared.
The City of Blue and White: Chinese Porcelain and the Early Modern World by Anne Gerritsen — This really interesting history book combines the history of the global demand for blue and white porcelain made in Jingdezhen with the history of the production of that porcelain. I love how it connects areas that have traditionally been studied separately. Also this book has color photos which meant that I got to stare at a lot of pretty pottery.
The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture by John Kieschnick — As the title says, this book focuses on the impact of Buddhism on material culture. I overall enjoyed this, but I wanted it to get a bit more into the craft aspects. I liked the latter chapters which focused more on the society wide impacts like bridges, more than the earlier chapters which focused on objects used specifically in Buddhist practice, like monks’ robes.
And here are some books that are on my radar that I hope to get to read soon:
Passions of the Cut Sleeve: The Male Homosexual Tradition in China by Bret Hinsch — Since I’ve been watching a lot dramas that are inspired by danmei or m/m romances (though due to censorship they aren’t acknowledging these relationships on the screen) and also reading a lot of m/m fic, this seems very relevant to my fannish interests. Plus, I just generally enjoy learning about gender and sexuality. As I mentioned above, I read the author's book on tea and thought it was very well written and clearly argued, so I expect more of the same from this book.
The Monkey and the Inkpot: Natural History and Its Transformations in Early Modern China by Carla Nappi — This is a book about a medical/natural science book written in Ming times. I’m very interested in the history of science and how people in the past thought about non-human nature and this book covers both of those. Plus one of my favorite characters in The Untamed is a doctor. I’m interested in better understanding traditional Chinese medicine so I can do a better job writing about her.
Superfluous Things: Material Culture and Social Status in Early Modern China by Craig Clunas— As mentioned above I love reading about material culture so this book about things elites owned and how they thought about them sounds really fascinating.
The Rise of West Lake: A Cultural Landmark in the Song Dynasty by Xiaolin Duan — This is a study of a specific tourist attraction in China, and deals with natural and built environments and how people thought about them. This seems like extremely my jam.
Making a Yellow River Delta: An Environmental Drama in Song Dynasty China by Ling Zhang — This environmental history looks really cool, though I’m a little worried that I’ll find the natural disaster too difficult to read about.
Empire of Style: Silk and Fashion in Tang China by Buyun Chen — I found out about this because a scholar I follow on Twitter mentioned it. It sounds so great! I’m very interested in textiles and also women’s work, and this covers both of those. Unfortunately for me it's one of those academic books that’s priced too high for normal readers, but I’m going to keep my eye out for a sale or a cheaper used copy.
Have you read any books about Chinese history that you would recommend?
I've always been prone to taking my fannish interests in historical directions. I once tried to read all the works which had won both a Hugo and a Nebula. I've tracked down so many older books. I've read multiple feminist histories of SFF and delighted in reading critical essays from the 70s and 80s.
But reading Chinese history feels different. I’m not doing research for writing fic, though things I’ve learned have ended up in fic I’ve written. Fic research tends to be targeted, where I want to know a specific detail, like what do people eat in a certain region? It's just that getting into Chinese dramas made me more interested in learning about Chinese history. This reading is more about trying to build myself a bigger picture, and to get a sense of how people lived. Most of the dramas I’m into are wuxia in some shape or form. They tend to be set in specific places but not specific times. A friend described it as like Arthuriana, with a mishmash of details that feel historical but don’t accurately recreate any time period.
I have been reading books by academics for academics that focus on material culture. I started out looking for a good overview of Chinese history in English, since I am sadly monolingual. But this turned out to be surprisingly hard to find. There’s a lot of racism and orientalism in books about China, and it can be tricky to tell from reading descriptions. None of my friends had recommendations, either. I couldn’t find something that met my basic requirements, so I ended up diving off the deep end and reading a lot of specialized stuff without having much sense of the overall history.
This has worked out well for me. There are barriers to just picking up and reading these kinds of books: they have their own jargon and reading protocols. If you aren’t actively in academia it can be hard to find recs, and some of the books are very expensive. Plus, public libraries are less likely to carry them. For me it helps that I have a background in environmental history, and read a lot of these kinds of books in grad school, and even after grad school. So I’m familiar with some of the language, and also the way historians structure books, and can follow the types of arguments being made. I already had the reading protocols that I needed. I have learned to approach these books as arguments not collections of facts. I’ve been slowly getting better at finding recs, mostly by following academics on Twitter. I’m financially secure enough that I can buy some of the less expensive books, and I have access to a very good interlibrary loan program.
Reading about food and material culture feels like the right way into Chinese history for me. What I’m interested in is not so much the political history. I love environmental history because it focuses on human interactions with the environment, and often gets into modes of thought or how overlooked actors impact history. The objects people used tell us a lot about how they lived. Food and material culture can tell us about how people were connected to the wider world. For example, a pot takes skill and resources to make, and the form it takes will be impacted by its function, but also cultural factors. I want to understand daily life and how people thought, and what mattered to them. I’m interested in the texture of daily life. Plus, I love food and arts and crafts, so I just find all these details super interesting.
Here’s some brief thoughts on the books I’ve read so far:
Tea in China: A Religious and Cultural History by James A. Benn — This was the book that started my journey. I thought I’d like to write some fic featuring a lot of tea drinking. I started doing a little bit of research, and then I fell down a rabbit hole, and ended up buying this book. It’s full of all kinds of interesting details about daily life and religion that I really enjoy learning about. The author is a religious studies professor, so this book showcases the deep connection between Buddhism and tea in China. I didn’t know before reading this book that Buddhism prohibits drinking alcohol, and that many Chinese Buddhists replaced the social functions of alcohol with tea drinking. I also enjoyed learning about the changes in tea making over time.
The Rise of Tea Culture in China by Bret Hinsch — This book is very clearly written and informative. While the previous book focused more on tea and religion, this one focused more on tea and the individual. Hinsch argues that people used tea connoisseurship as a way to develop personal identities. The book helps put tea drinking into a wider cultural context. I especially enjoyed the chapter on tea and masculinity.
The Chile Pepper in China: A Cultural Biography by Brian R. Dott — Another academic history of food in China! Chiles seem to show up all the time in historical Chinese dramas despite the fact that they were not introduced until the 1500s. The subject matter was fascinating but I found the text a bit dry and repetitive in places. I really enjoyed the maps and learning about different kinds of chiles and how they were prepared.
The City of Blue and White: Chinese Porcelain and the Early Modern World by Anne Gerritsen — This really interesting history book combines the history of the global demand for blue and white porcelain made in Jingdezhen with the history of the production of that porcelain. I love how it connects areas that have traditionally been studied separately. Also this book has color photos which meant that I got to stare at a lot of pretty pottery.
The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture by John Kieschnick — As the title says, this book focuses on the impact of Buddhism on material culture. I overall enjoyed this, but I wanted it to get a bit more into the craft aspects. I liked the latter chapters which focused more on the society wide impacts like bridges, more than the earlier chapters which focused on objects used specifically in Buddhist practice, like monks’ robes.
And here are some books that are on my radar that I hope to get to read soon:
Passions of the Cut Sleeve: The Male Homosexual Tradition in China by Bret Hinsch — Since I’ve been watching a lot dramas that are inspired by danmei or m/m romances (though due to censorship they aren’t acknowledging these relationships on the screen) and also reading a lot of m/m fic, this seems very relevant to my fannish interests. Plus, I just generally enjoy learning about gender and sexuality. As I mentioned above, I read the author's book on tea and thought it was very well written and clearly argued, so I expect more of the same from this book.
The Monkey and the Inkpot: Natural History and Its Transformations in Early Modern China by Carla Nappi — This is a book about a medical/natural science book written in Ming times. I’m very interested in the history of science and how people in the past thought about non-human nature and this book covers both of those. Plus one of my favorite characters in The Untamed is a doctor. I’m interested in better understanding traditional Chinese medicine so I can do a better job writing about her.
Superfluous Things: Material Culture and Social Status in Early Modern China by Craig Clunas— As mentioned above I love reading about material culture so this book about things elites owned and how they thought about them sounds really fascinating.
The Rise of West Lake: A Cultural Landmark in the Song Dynasty by Xiaolin Duan — This is a study of a specific tourist attraction in China, and deals with natural and built environments and how people thought about them. This seems like extremely my jam.
Making a Yellow River Delta: An Environmental Drama in Song Dynasty China by Ling Zhang — This environmental history looks really cool, though I’m a little worried that I’ll find the natural disaster too difficult to read about.
Empire of Style: Silk and Fashion in Tang China by Buyun Chen — I found out about this because a scholar I follow on Twitter mentioned it. It sounds so great! I’m very interested in textiles and also women’s work, and this covers both of those. Unfortunately for me it's one of those academic books that’s priced too high for normal readers, but I’m going to keep my eye out for a sale or a cheaper used copy.
Have you read any books about Chinese history that you would recommend?
★forestofglory.
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Date: 2020-11-18 08:27 am (UTC)