A Tender Voyage: Children and Childhood in Late Imperial ChinaA Tender Voyage is the first full-length study of the history of childhood and children's lives in late imperial China. The author draws on an extraordinary range of sources to analyze both the normative concept of childhood--literary and philosophical--and the treatment and experience of children in China. The study begins with the history of pediatrics and newborn care and their evolution over time. The author moves on to the social environment of the child, including models of upbringing and expected behavior and the treatment of different kinds of children, including the rebellious and the "gentle" child. She examines the role of the mother, notably her close and complex relations with her sons, and the broader emotional world of children, their relationships with the adults around them, and the destructive power of death. The last section discusses concepts of childhood in China and the West. Throughout, the study keeps in view the issue of representation versus practice, the role of memory, and the importance of listening for what is not said. |
Contents
Children and Childhood in Traditional China I | 1 |
Physical Conditions | 17 |
Social Life | 101 |
Copyright | |
6 other sections not shown
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A Tender Voyage: Children and Childhood in Late Imperial China Ping-chen Hsiung Limited preview - 2005 |
Common terms and phrases
activities adults appeared became birth body born boys cause century Ch'ên Ch'ing Chang character child childhood children and childhood Chinese chuan Chung-kuo classical concern continued cultural daily daughters Discussion dynasty early elders emotional example existence experience fact fang father feeding female forces gender girls give hand Hsiao-êrh hsien-shêng Hsiung Hsü human ideas important included infant instance instructions intellectual kind late imperial China later learning less literature lives materials means medicine method milk Ming mother mouth nature never newborn nien-p'u parents pediatric period physical play practice present problems questions received records relatives represented scholars shows social society Sung texts tion took traditional treatment umbilical understanding views Wang wet nurse woman women young