Fieldnotes From History (39)—Head Tales

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Fieldnotes From History."
One year ago today on Round and Square (21 April 2011)—The Ending of Argonauts of the Western Pacific

[a] Back track RF

Part of an occasional Round and Square series that follows the blog’s main theme (east meets west, round meets square, and past meets present), these snippets from my early fieldnotes are reproduced as they were written by hand—and then revised on an ancient desktop computer—during my first fieldwork stay in Taiwan (1985-1987).  All entries are the way that I left them when I returned to the United States in 1987—some nicely-stated and some embarrassing. Although the series began with my assumption that the entries can stand alone, I have found that separate comments and notes might help readers understand a world that is now, well, history. These are always separate from the original fieldnote.

[b] Beak to the Future RF

Comment

I am ambivalent about this fieldnote. It is not particularly deep, and the potential "sensationalism" makes me a little uneasy now, twenty-six years later. There's nothing like eating the exotic (partaking of the other) to get people worked up. It is not lost on me that there is a profusion of crappy books and articles about China these days that focus on this sort of thing. The "othering" of heads is not something to which I wish to add.

On the other hand, I do not want to take another approach that a number of sinophiles favor—papering over cultural differences, and especially those that cast Chinese culture in a problematic light from the perspective of Westerners. I wrote this note because I saw "heads" everywhere back then—and more of them on a dinner table than I had ever seen in my life. Understanding that was my top priority. I was naive enough to assume that should settle it.

The duck heads haven't gone away as I have continued in Chinese studies. They are a common beer house appetizer, and have done as much to further "ethnographic" conversations I have had as anything else. Not that it matters, but full disclosure compels me to say that I have never gotten over my resistance. I don't eat them. I must admit that I am not above ordering a plate and a pitcher in the hopes of stimulating conversation among peers, though. I should not be shielded from criticism.

[c] Eyes RF

The contrast between food that "stinks" (this is a cultural and individual—olfactory—matter) and food that shocks is one worth contemplating. Fermented beancurd, on the one hand, and fish or duck heads, on the other, are not the "same thing," just because we might find them repellent. 

I had already begun to think about these matters a few years before, after reading Claude Lévi-Strauss's The Savage Mind and Marshall Sahlins's Culture and Practical Reason in college. This note only begins to tap into the analytical issues that flow from there. I urge anyone interested in these matters to read these two books and start working back through the details of the world we see (and eat).

Notes

This trip was with the Hsiung family, but the second paragraph touches upon an earlier lunch with the Chen family (these are common surnames). I included the experience in the same note because I couldn't stop thinking about heads and head-parts.

[d] Heads up RF

The second paragraph has some useful detail, but there is a bit of overkill, too. The quotation is from King Lear III.vii (one of my favorite texts, even back then). It really wasn't necessary (but it's a great play and a great scene; the "vision" theme in Lear is wonderful).

"I love fish eyes" is something I have heard from more than a few Chinese friends. Interestingly enough, every time I have told this story to Western students over dinner in China (I have overseen several groups over the years) a seemingly macho young man has headed straight for the eyes and popped them into his mouth. This has happened four times (four different people). In every case, the triumph was followed by unease and lengthy silence. Culture (and the culinary) is like that. So is individuality.

_____________________________________________________

2 February 1986
Taipei
When it comes to Peking Duck, nothing is left to waste. This has gotten me thinking about heads in the kitchen, as well as on the table. I let my host have his fill of the duck head and most of the fermented doufu. The latter is all about texture and smell. The former, though, is more problematic. Eating heads is not peculiar to Chinese culture, but it certainly is new for me. Cultural barriers still tower over my understanding, and this is one area that remains particularly fuzzy.

Some of my friends are quite passionate about heads, and this appears to be the other side of a significant cultural gulf. For example, the Chen family—very wealthy, urbane, and discerning when it comes to culinary matters— took me to a Taiwanese restaurant one afternoon a few weeks ago. Among other things, we ate a whole fish, which is the common way of preparing the beast here. Skillfully wielding her chopsticks, Mrs. Chen lunged immediately for the head and poked out the eyeballs. (“Out, vile jelly. Where is thy lustre now?”). Chomping happily, the iris presumably tucked in her gums, she turned to me and said: “I can’t help myself. I love fish eyes!”

[e] Tails up RF

Fieldnotes From History (38)—Capital Duck

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Fieldnotes From History."
One year ago today on Round and Square (19 April 2011)—Tales of Ise (Early Japanese Stories)

[a] Meal RF

Part of an occasional Round and Square series that follows the blog’s main theme (east meets west, round meets square, and past meets present), these snippets from my early fieldnotes are reproduced as they were written by hand—and then revised on an ancient desktop computer—during my first fieldwork stay in Taiwan (1985-1987).  All entries are the way that I left them when I returned to the United States in 1987—some nicely-stated and some embarrassing. Although the series began with my assumption that the entries can stand alone, I have found that separate comments and notes might help readers understand a world that is now, well, history. These are always separate from the original fieldnote.

[b] Cutup RF

Comment

The "drunken chicken" I mentioned in my last "Fieldnotes" post raised a significant interpretive issue for me early on (I was still in my first year in Taiwan). It seemed to me, then as now, that there are particular skills possessed by "natives" (I always use the term in the strict sense) that are difficult to incorporate for even highly-motivated outsiders. I tended to think of those things in terms of language then, and for good reason. Most of the things that native speakers could do with spoken Mandarin were banes of my existence. 

Seeing other things, such as chewing down to the bone while holding a morsel in your chopsticks or (as in this note) wrapping duck, onions, and sauce into a little pancake with chopsticks—and no fingers—made me understand back then some of the connections between language and culture. I actually remember thinking at the time that I would master the 把 construction at about the time that I learned to chew and jostle with chopsticks. 

From there, I started to notice other such matters, ranging from the everyday ("shoveling" a bowlful of rice in highly gendered omnivorous fashion) to the occasional (getting introductions "just right" in a social setting). All of this came out of a simple fieldnote. Better put, a whole set of issues crystallized around a somewhat clunky set of observations. The detail here matters, too (and it was all new back then).

Still, those issue-crystals became much more important to my teaching and writing than the note itself. Would they be here today without the note, though? I think far fewer would be....without the clumsy first or second tries represented by jottings and fieldnotes.

[c] Wrap RF

Notes

The "lefse-like" cakes are actually much thinner than the Norwegian version I invoked in the fieldnote. It is hard to imagine putting a little butter and sugar on them and eating them as a snack (as is common with lefse).

The "finger" issue is one that I have treated in notes throughout my career. It is one of those seemingly small issues that creates vast gulfs of intercultural understanding. My first references to Westerners touching food with their hands (this note and a few others in 1985-1987) taps into something that has become much bigger for me as I continue to interpret differences between Chinese and American culture. It is another example of a tiny and seemingly "note-filler" kind of comment turning out to be the start of something that I think is extremely important. Stay tuned for more on finger food through the ages.

_____________________________________________________

2 February 1986
Taipei 

When you order a duck, the waiter asks you to specify what side dishes and soup you want them to make from it. They use the whole duck. Nothing, except the feathers, goes to waste. Soup is the last course in Chinese restaurants—exactly opposite from American tradition—so that is where they boil whatever is left of the fowl. When the duck comes, the meat is cut and placed on one tray and the skin—which has been pre-inflated with a needle and roasted to a golden color—comes on a separate tray. 

The waiter also brings a plate of onion greens, lefse-like cakes, and bean sauce. The proper method for preparing the duck’s remains for eating is as follows: take a flat cake, put a crisp piece of duck skin and another of meat on one end, dip two onions in bean sauce, place them inside the meat, and roll it up. The ideal approach is to handle it all with chopsticks—no fingers. There is a little bit of room for interpretation here, but the looks of Chinese friends around the table says it all. Don't touch; don't use your fingers. Doing it "right" is a little messy, especially for unskilled foreigners. The sensory combinations are as formidable as the practical challenges, though.

[d] To go RF

Fieldnotes From History (37)—Stinking Drunk (beancurd/chicken)

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Fieldnotes From History."
One year ago today on Round and Square (16 April 2011)—Endings: Civil Twilight

[a] Inebriation RF

Part of an occasional Round and Square series that follows the blog’s main theme (east meets west, round meets square, and past meets present), these snippets from my early fieldnotes are reproduced as they were written by hand—and then revised on an ancient desktop computer—during my first fieldwork stay in Taiwan (1985-1987).  All entries are the way that I left them when I returned to the United States in 1987—some nicely-stated and some embarrassing. Although the series began with my assumption that the entries can stand alone, I have found that separate comments and notes might help readers understand a world that is now, well, history. These are always separate from the original fieldnote.

Comment

This is another in a series of stream-of-memory fieldnotes I wrote in a three-hour period in early February 1986. As anyone who has done fieldwork knows, we often find ourselves in situations that demand a little bit of "catch-up." It is the rare (I would say chimerical) fieldworker who spends two or three hours every night "writing up" the activity from the day before. Life—and fieldnote work—is punctuated. Some days are full of activity and others are full of writing. Finding a balance is impossible, really. The best we can do is try to keep things going enough to have material that will recall things we might use in future drafts. 

That was more or less how things went with this little flurry of disparate materials. There are a few things I would probably not even notice today (such as the challenges of eating around bones with chopsticks. This does not mean that I shouldn't notice them today. In fact, that little reminder of how hard such things were for me back then gave me a whole new perspective on staying aware of my audience as I write. While condescension or writing about banalities is something to guard against, the greater danger usually lies in assuming too much. Push them with the analysis, I always tell myself. Tell a story with the details.

[c] Paired RF

These matters (texture, method, smell, and taste) all come wafting out of this rather mediocre fieldnote. If you have been reading this series of posts, you certainly know they are no great literary monument. What strikes me as significant (and worth repeating endlessly) is that it's not the point. The only good fieldnote is a written one; the only good fieldnotes (plural) are those that call to mind material for the next bout of ethnography.

Notes
"Drunken chicken" (醉雞).
"Stinky beancurd" (臭豆腐). 
Lutefisk
Lefse
Hatton, North Dakota 
Even the silly final references here probably got me thinking about neural pathways and cultural decision-making in ways that would prove useful down the road.

2 February 1986

Taipei

Following our visit to the temple we went downtown to eat Peking Duck. The meal began with an appetizer of “drunk chicken”, which is prepared in wine, and is very hard to eat with chopsticks because there are so many bones. While I have become quite adept at handling chopsticks, there are certain things "natives" can do—like chew all the meat off a bone while holding it with chopsticks—that will take me at least this year to master. Probably longer.

While we waited for the duck (it takes thirty minutes to prepare) we tasted dishes of eel, cabbage in cream,  and “stinky beancurd.” The latter is very popular here, like lefse and lutefisk are in Hatton, North Dakota. Some people can’t get enough of it. It is sold on most street corners throughout the city, and the fermentation is palpable. Again, for the non-native (and I am one who in my "native" land eats codfish soaked in lye), it is almost impossible to get a chunk past my nose. The olfactory advance guardsmen scream to stop, and I have only begun to learn how to re-route their signals. 

I have eaten goat’s stomach, eggs with lead in them, and, now, fermented beancurd. What have I learned? That smell and taste are often in mortal culinary battle...and often for no particularly good reason.

[d] Fermentation RF

Fieldnotes From History (36)—Temple Divination

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Fieldnotes From History."
One year ago today on Round and Square (14 April 2011)—Beginnings: Mansfield Park

[a] Temple Life RF

Part of an occasional Round and Square series that follows the blog’s main theme (east meets west, round meets square, and past meets present), these snippets from my early fieldnotes are reproduced as they were written by hand—and then revised on an ancient desktop computer—during my first fieldwork stay in Taiwan (1985-1987).  All entries are the way that I left them when I returned to the United States in 1987—some nicely-stated and some embarrassing. Although the series began with my assumption that the entries can stand alone, I have found that separate comments and notes might help readers understand a world that is now, well, history. These are always separate from the original fieldnote.

[b] Temple text RF

Comment

The fieldnote below is an example of a basic, pablum-like "insight" growing into a particular instance of cultural life. It is the reason I think it is one of the better notes from my first year of ethnographic work. Don't get me wrong. It has all sorts of problems, but I am not sure that any particular fieldnote's problems really matters much. The whole point of writing fieldnotes (this is something I teach in every "methods" class) is to...keep writing fieldnotes. No individual fieldnote matters, but fieldnotes matter. It is the bulk that of material that contains little nuggets of insight or observation that matter. This is the key. Keep on writing.

Once in a while there is a detail (or set of them) that really gets a person thinking. It is not so much the way it is written as the things it calls to mind that is important. As the introduction to this series shows, there is plenty of time left for getting the wording right. The more important thing is to get the image onto "paper" so that further thinking (and analysis) can swim forward from there. That is what happened in this post, and it is not exactly what I thought it might "mean" at the time. Without specifically mentioning it here, I tapped into an interpretation that is "out there" in a way that I didn't really intend. That would be the preference for male children (it's hinted here) that predominates in the way that Westerners think about modern China. As I have written elsewhere, this has become a far more nuanced issue today than it was even twenty-five years ago. Still, one of the things I find interesting about this fieldnote is the (what I would regard as unintended) subtext plays upon preference for male children. 

[c] Temple round/square RF

Today, that is not the issue. What matters is the detail, and the frustration of a certain male at the 送子殿 speaks details, if not volumes. That is the purpose of fieldnotes, from my perspective, and the reason I have posted a good deal of "drivel" in this series. The point is that we never know what is going to trigger work that could "take off." The other day, I posted a note that was particularly inept (in my view). It also triggered one of the most productive themes in my writing. This note seems to have the kind of detail that makes this "better" than the other note. My point is that we never know. This worked for me, but the "inept" one had much more scholarly power over the last two decades. You never know, so keep writing—anywhere (e-mail, Facebook, handwritten fieldnotes...anywhere).

Notes

Although this came out as one fieldnote in 1986, it might have broken into two. That is another challenge of fieldnote writing. How long is a fieldnote? I often say that it is "one idea." Boy, do I wish I had a better way of knowing "how long." Some are 100 words and some are 1,000. Here's the deal: I don't think you can go much beyond a thousand words and have what I regard as a "fieldtnote." While it is important to realize that a fieldnote might "want" to "keep going," it is equally important to keep them in manageable units. Although a few anthropologists disagree, I don't think that there is such a thing as a twenty-page fieldnote. That's a narrative. 462 words (this fieldnote)? It might be one or it might be two. That's the way I see it.

Tudi cups (土地杯) are common at Chinese temples, and have a wide variety of applications. The various interpretations of "convex" and "concave" are legion, and Chinese almanacs usually only show one or two possibilities. This makes interpretation about a father and daughter at the (送子殿) "Sending Children" shrine much more fluid than the fieldnote itself reflects. I have spent the last twenty-five years studying the subtleties; I had no idea at the time.

2 February 1986

Taipei

The temple has many different shrines, each for a different kind of "request." At one we saw students, their hair cut close to their skulls in schoolboy fashion—the way Chiang Kai-shek would have wanted it—praying for success in the examinations. At some shrines we saw old men and women invoking the spirits in a rote fashion they had clearly used all their lives. In others people prayed as if, out on a Sunday stroll, they thought it would be a good idea to check in. Many people talked and ate ice cream. Taiwanese temples are not like American churches. They don’t have “services”—they don’t open or close at all. Like holding church services at a supermarket, they are composites, combining the religious and the social. The temple, to anthropomorphize, has its eyes on the heavens, and its hands on the pulse of humanity. 

[d] Request RF

The most interesting shrine was the "sending children" one—送子殿. I watched for half an hour as parents came, dropped reddish, wooden ovals on the ground, picked them up, and left. If you want to request something from the gods, the method to follow is this (it’s different from buying a snake bladder): First, you need a pair of yin and yang-like ovals. One is concave, the other convex. Standing before the shrine, you silently make your request, then, from chest height, drop the ovals. With a loud, wooden click, they strike the ground and come to a rest. The idea is to get three consecutive fitted shapes in a row, one concave, the other convex (there are other configurations used in other divinations).

I saw two particularly interesting scenes at the shrine. The first was a young man and woman, about twenty-five or so, each with a set of red ovals. They stood on opposite sides of the shrine, dropping the ovals, picking them up, and dropping them again. Depending on whom you ask, you can drop the shapes as many times as you want until you get three in a row. Some people can’t quit. This couple continued for ten minutes, picked up their ovals, and left. Maybe they canceled each other out. Another man, holding his little girl by the hand, dropped two consecutive fitted pairs. On the third, he gripped his ovals, mumbled a few words in anticipation, and dropped them to the ground. One landed convex. The other bounced astray, also landing convex. His jugular pumping and nostrils flaring, he grasped his daughter’s hand and stomped away.       

[e] (Con)vexing RF

Fieldnotes From History (35)—Longshan Temple

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Fieldnotes From History."
One year ago today on Round and Square (12 April 2011)—Luoyang Longing.

[a] Dragon Mountain Temple RF

Part of an occasional Round and Square series that follows the blog’s main theme (east meets west, round meets square, and past meets present), these snippets from my early fieldnotes are reproduced as they were written by hand—and then revised on an ancient desktop computer—during my first fieldwork stay in Taiwan (1985-1987).  All entries are the way that I left them when I returned to the United States in 1987—some nicely-stated and some embarrassing. Although the series began with my assumption that the entries can stand alone, I have found that separate comments and notes might help readers understand a world that is now, well, history. These are always separate from the original fieldnote.

[b] Incense RF

Comment

This fieldnote is part of a series that I wrote about a Sunday trip through temples, alleys, and restaurants in the southern part of the northern city of Taipei. The Longshan Temple is magnet for a wide variety of divinatory practices. It is a syncretic blend of doctrines, and the setting around it is bustling with markets, Snake Alley, and various prognosticators. This is the place where I first became interested in how horoscopes and divination "work" in Chinese society. 

The note itself is (this a familiar refrain of mine) not analytical enough. Still, the purpose of fieldnotes, from my perspective back then and now, is just to do them. Almost any level of detail will "call to mind" the material that an ethnographer needs in writing at more advanced stages of the process. Most of this note, however, is contextual, and represents a path toward explanation for people who tend to think about "multiple religions" in confrontational ways. The syncretic traditions I mention are key to understanding cultural life in China and, indeed, the rest of East Asia. 

Notes 
The "Confucian in the morning, Daoist by midday, and Buddhist by evening" idea is one that I first noted here, but have used in all sorts of ways in my teaching and writing over the years. It is a fairly common way of discussing syncretism in a Chinese context. It is as if to say that one can "live" all three doctrines, and that they merge and flow within individual and social life. For me, the most significant thing about this note in my career is that even this rather mediocre set of observations led me toward a great deal of further study and clearer articulations of this fascinating phenomenon which has different doctrines living side-by-side in everyday life.

2 February 1986

Taipei

From the narrow, grimy stalls of Snake Alley we moved across the street to the Long Shan Temple. My nostrils made a quick adjustment from snake bladders to smoky incense. Huge tables of food, rice wine (the whole supply this summer is suspected of being contaminated with tainted maize; people won’t drink it themselves, but they give it to the gods), and paper money were set up at the temple’s entrance. The Long Shan Temple (龍山寺) is one of the oldest and most frequented temples in Taipei. It is, strictly speaking, a Buddhist temple, but even most Chinese people can’t (or don't) distinguish between them. Chinese religion is characterized by tolerance (this is how Westerners often put it) and syncretism (this is far more accurate).

Syncretism. It has been said of Confucian scholars during the imperial era that they were Confucians in the morning, Daoists after a nice midday meal, and Buddhists in the evening. In Taiwan it is not unusual to find two or three doctrines within a single family. One of my friends has a Buddhist father and a Christian mother—without anything approaching the conflict that would likely create in the West. Chiang Kai-shek, to give another example, was a devoted Christian and Confucian, but had much more tolerance for free religious expression than he did for political heterodoxy. The most important aspect of Chinese religion is its Chinese character—how the doctrines have been adapted to Chinese culture. 

[c] Temple morning RF

Fieldnotes From History (34)—Snake Alley

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Fieldnotes From History."
One year ago today on Round and Square (10 April 2011)—Katakana Culture: Slopes and Sunlight

[a] Market RF

Part of an occasional Round and Square series that follows the blog’s main theme (east meets west, round meets square, and past meets present), these snippets from my early fieldnotes are reproduced as they were written by hand—and then revised on an ancient desktop computer—during my first fieldwork stay in Taiwan (1985-1987).  All entries are the way that I left them when I returned to the United States in 1987—some nicely-stated and some embarrassing. Although the series began with my assumption that the entries can stand alone, I have found that separate comments and notes might help readers understand a world that is now, well, history. These are always separate from the original fieldnote. 

Comment

This note is a continuation of my thoughts about a vibrant and intellectually perplexing day that I spent with the Hsiung (Xiong; 熊) family in 1986. I am not giving away their identity here. Trust me. This note describes a snippet (so to speak) of a brief first experience in Taipei's Snake Alley—near the Longshan Temple and a very big market that draws people from all over northern Taiwan. My first impression, after a quarter century of writing and reading and writing fieldnotes is...it's all right. The positives lie in the detail, even if they are crass and seemingly uncaring. That is what strikes me the most—the coolness of it all. This raises the question that has troubled me for some time. To what extent should every fieldnote "tell" how I really feel? To what extent does the ethnographer need to express personal feelings about such things as killing living creatures? This is something with which I have struggled in the last few decades. On the one hand, I strongly feel that the ethnographer's feelings about what s/he is studying really matters. On the other hand, I can't help but assert that description matters...and in a way that trumps my own feelings.

[b] Market stuff RF

Suffice it to say that "back then" I was far more firmly in the latter camp. I sought to describe and tune out my own disgust. This is an open question, but I must say that "feelings" (while natural and inevitable) need to be controlled in the narrative. While this fieldnote errs on the side of description, and doesn't really engage my own feelings about dying snakes, the real problem (as always) is that there needs to be more analysis. 

Even little nuggets of analysis would help. On the other hand, that is what fieldnotes are all about. One writes and writes...and then puts it all together in another form. There is enough here, I think, to build a fairly sturdy analysis. 

Notes 
These images are much more stark than even the note expresses. One watches the manly drinking of snake blood against the backdrop of dying snakes. That is all there is to it. The "libidinal magic" is at the heart of a much bigger story about divination, global commodities, natural history, and culture. As usual, I fault this note for not being a finished piece, yet that (of course) is not the purpose of the lowly fieldnote (as the introduction explains).

2 February 1986

Taipei

After the cultural center, we went down to south Taipei and walked through the famous “Snake Alley” market. You might guess how this area got its name. Merchants in Snake Alley sell snakes and their organs, especially those organs that work mysterious libidinal magic, like the gall bladder. If you want, for example, to buy a snake’s gall bladder, this is what happens. First, the proprietor asks you which snake you want. In the cage they are a mass of writhing, corrugated skin; the bigger the snake, the more you have to pay (basic microeconomics works here, too). 

Then the proprietor takes his pocketknife, slits a four or five inch vertical stripe in the snake’s abdomen, pops the organ into a plastic bag, and pours the green bladder juice into an unsterilized glass. The buyer usually downs the glass there and takes his bladder-baggie home. You can also buy snake blood. All the while, the snake hangs from a metal clip, writhing to a slow, knife-inflicted death, its protruding intestines resembling cottage cheese on a stalk of celery. 

[c] Choice RF

Fieldnotes From History (33)—Shrine Culture

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Fieldnotes From History."
One year ago today on Round and Square (8 April 2011)—Displays of Authenticity Introduction

[a] Historical memory RF

Part of an occasional Round and Square series that follows the blog’s main theme (east meets west, round meets square, and past meets present), these snippets from my early fieldnotes are reproduced as they were written by hand—and then revised on an ancient desktop computer—during my first fieldwork stay in Taiwan (1985-1987).  All entries are the way that I left them when I returned to the United States in 1987—some nicely-stated and some embarrassing. Although the series began with my assumption that the entries can stand alone, I have found that separate comments and notes might help readers understand a world that is now, well, history. These are always separate from the original fieldnote.

[b] Culture-beauty RF

Comment

I am presenting this note as an example of how flawed some notes can be. Not all of them move the analysis forward—and some are even challenged in terms of description. This is an example of both. From my perspective today, it is too glib and a little "breezy." I don't like it. For all my emphasis on the "letter writing" phase of fieldwork (covered in my classes and the introduction to the series), this is an early example of it getting in the way—of my not understanding its temptations. I can sense "anticipatory epistolary" rhetoric here...and I don't like it. It is an example, I think, of getting a little "punchy" while writing fieldnotes. This happens, and it is part of the process. Getting notes written is the first priority, and there is going to be gristle in the ethnographic beef. Still, there is really no useful analytical place for phrases such as "slopped on" and the generally derogatory attitude toward the Nationalists here.


And here is a key point. It is NOT because such attitudes are not "nice" or (politically) "incorrect" that makes them problematic. Absolutely not. The sort of fieldnote quoted below is problematic because breeziness takes the place of analysis and precise description. If I were to write this today, I would give much (much) more description of the place itself, and then (in a series of fieldnotes, not one long one) look for analytical centers that are worth plumbing. Not the least of these is the one useful little gem amidst the dross of this note—"waxing nostalgic about a dream gone sour" attempts to be glib, but it really gets at something worth pursuing. It needs analysis, but it speaks to something palpable in my experience in Taiwan in the mid-1980s. 

On the other hand, almost all of the second paragraph is an embarrassment to me today. Take your subject seriously, and don't use rhetoric to dismiss it. That is what I teach today. I am ashamed, but I think that there is a lesson here. I have certainly learned it over the years.

Notes

Among the great events of the twentieth century in Chinese history were the overthrow of the Qing dynasty in 1911 and the advent of the People's Republic of China in 1949. The celebrations on Taiwan in the Republic of China focus on the October 1911 events, and there is a good deal of historical hand-wringing over the way events played out in the years after World War II.

2 February 1986
Taipei
A few weeks ago I went on a Sunday outing with the Bear Family— the neurosurgeon I teach, his wife, and daughters. (Their surname, Hsiung 熊, means “bear” in Chinese). We toured Taipei temples, markets, and historical centers. As usual, the food was the best part of the day. With a lunch of dim sum and fresh fruit and a dinner of Peking Duck, we were nearing Nirvana. The Hsiungs began the trip with the Chinese Movie and Culture Center, which features a wax museum (not to be confused with the really excellent National Palace Museum). 

This place was a little weak on "culture," but they slopped on the revolutionary nostalgia. You see, the Guomindang did not have much fun during the “People’s Revolution” of 1945-1949, so they look back to the overthrow of the Qing dynasty in 1911 as the Great Uprising. Row after row of revolutionary martyrs, cast in wax and clad in the uniforms of the Republic of China, stand proudly, causing patriotic hearts to thump with pride and patriotic minds to forget the reason why they are standing in Taipei, not Beijing or Shanghai, waxing nostalgic about a dream gone sour. 

[c] Rebuttal RF

Fieldnotes From History (32)—Headlines

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Fieldnotes From History."
One year ago today on Round and Square (7 April 2011)—Endings: Fargo

[a] Header RF

Part of an occasional Round and Square series that follows the blog’s main theme (east meets west, round meets square, and past meets present), these snippets from my early fieldnotes are reproduced as they were written by hand—and then revised on an ancient desktop computer—during my first fieldwork stay in Taiwan (1985-1987).  All entries are the way that I left them when I returned to the United States in 1987—some nicely-stated and some embarrassing. Although the series began with my assumption that the entries can stand alone, I have found that separate comments and notes might help readers understand a world that is now, well, history. These are always separate from the original fieldnote.

[b] Tips RF

Comment
This is a good example of a chock-full-of-ideas fieldnote that really should be broken down into numerous analyses. I would argue (and I do when I teach ANTH 200: Theory and Technique in Cultural Anthropology) that there is no problem. When in the field, JUST WRITE. Don't worry about whether each note is broken down into component sections or can fit on a note card (virtual or physical). Just write. This is why I explain in my classes and the introduction to this series that I envision writing in and beyond "the field" as a five-part process that originates in "jottings," moves toward fieldnotes, has its most important iteration in "letters from the field," and eventually becomes oral presentations and a (written) ethnographic account. In other words, I think that there are three or four different things going on in this note. 

The important thing for me (back then and today) was to get the ideas from the "jotting" stage (a scribbled note about my advanced neurosurgeon pupil struggling with a phrase that I find "easy" as a native speaker) to the fieldnote. The key stage for me, however, took place when I wrote letters to a number of trusted readers. It didn't matter whether there were five (or one) coded "themes" in the fieldnotes (this is something I have read about—anal retentive anthropologists color coding index cards). It would all start to come together in a real narrative form when I started writing ethnographic letters. In fact, I truly feel that my work would have suffered if I had tried to subdivide a fieldnote such as the one below into themes that could be put into file folders. Just get the ideas out...and start those letters within a week. That's my "system."

[c] Roll Taiwan RF

Note
Pete Rose tied Ty Cobb's all-time baseball "hits" record with his 4,291st hit on September 11, 1985.

GOP=Grand Old Party (Republican). Nod=endorsement/nomination. "Reagan wins Republican nomination."   

Dow Jones Industrial indicators have little to do with "the Way" (道).

Tide=Alabama Crimson Tide. (Roll Tide). Longhorns=University of Texas Longhorns. (Hook'em Horns).

The last paragraph is really a completely new idea, and probably should have required a note (or three) of its own. I have taught many hours on the idea, and it is a good example of how even a few sentences can trigger a good deal of analysis. In other words, the whole purpose is (to write) ethnography. Fieldnotes are just a step on that path (道). 

8 January 1986
Taipei 
Newspapers are also difficult. We all think of reading newspapers as the most common form of reading; most people think that they should be the first thing a language student learns to read. It simply isn’t true. My neurosurgeon/English pupil (who has no difficulties with English medical texts) has been reading from the fifth-rate China News every week. He is no academic slouch, but he often finds it difficult. Chinese papers aren’t any easier for me.

The usage in newspapers is different from the spoken language and other forms of writing. If you don’t believe it, just pick up the New York Times and read it, paying attention to every word, phrase, or construction that you might not understand if you didn’t live in the United States. (“Rose Tops Cobb Mark”; “Reagan Gets GOP Nod”; “Dow Up”; “Tide Rolls Over Longhorns”). A Chinese reader, after perusing these headlines, couldn’t be blamed for thinking that a red flower ate a bunch of corn, a "GOP" nodded at the President, the 道 (the Way) had risen (after years of playing second fiddle to Confucianism), and that a herd of cattle died in a gulf coast storm.

The Chinese papers are the same, but they have an added problem. They don’t use names, like “Reagan” or “Carter” or “Minnesota.”  They have characters for all these. Even if I know how to pronounce the characters in these words, they have no intrinsic meaning. You just have to know that [雷根; leigen] is “Reagan”, and not “thunder root”; that [卡特; kate] is “Carter” and not “special truck”; and that [明尼蘇達; mingnisuda] is “Minnesota”, and not “bright nun revive reach.”  The literal meaning of the characters is irrelevant in these cases. They are simply transliterations. The only way to learn them is to memorize them. 

[d] Relative comprehension RF

Fieldnotes From History (31)—Gordian Knots

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Fieldnotes From History."
One year ago on Round and Square (6 April 2011)—Endings: Tristes Tropiques

[a] Cuttin' RF

Part of an occasional Round and Square series that follows the blog’s main theme (east meets west, round meets square, and past meets present), these snippets from my early fieldnotes are reproduced as they were written by hand—and then revised on an ancient desktop computer—during my first fieldwork stay in Taiwan (1985-1987).  All entries are the way that I left them when I returned to the United States in 1987—some nicely-stated and some embarrassing. Although the series began with my assumption that the entries can stand alone, I have found that separate comments and notes might help readers understand a world that is now, well, history. These are always separate from the original fieldnote.

Comment
This note gives a hint at what I love most about language-and-culture studies to this day. It is a good example of acculturation, and using an even wider range of associations and meanings than would be possible for an audience without at least some sense of world history (this was—and remains—a subject taken very seriously in junior high school and high school texts in the Republic of China). It is not so much that the average bus passenger in Taipei would recognize Gordius, King of Phrygia. Still, there is a use of English language and Western culture here that invokes it—even presents it as an interpretive and pedagogical problem—in the interest of gaining tuition-paying students. In other words, there is a whole lot more going on in that little advertisement than I was able to convey in this fieldnote. Over the years I have gotten a little better at teasing out implications, but even this note has enough detail that each sentence calls to mind several others. As many people have pointed out over the years, that (calling to mind detail that would otherwise be forgotten) is one of the best reasons for working on fieldnotes in the first place.

[b] Knot wine RF

Note
Most of the detail is in the note itself. I would simply point out a rough parallel to this theme of "invoking (other) cultural power" with a big advertisement I saw in the Newark airport ten years after this. A formidable, unsheathed sword glittered above a brief message. It said: "Does your consultant quote the Art of War, yet shy away from battle? [Work with us instead]." Once you start noticing these (often "exotic") cultural invocations, a whole world of possible interpretations opens up.

This sort of advertisement was common enough in 1986—especially in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Suffice it to say that I saw very few such ads in my short trip to the People's Republic later the same year. Within half a decade, though, they would be everywhere, and the years leading up to the Beijing Olympics in 2008 accelerated the process many times over. There is interpretive grist for the mill, in short, that is hardly even hinted at here.

8 January 1986
Taipei 

I have also been reading newspapers and translating sentences in class. Not surprisingly, translating from English to Chinese is far harder for me than going from Chinese to English, but even that can be problematic. Many phrases carry so much added cultural baggage within them that no Western reader could possibly take it all in. Their deeper meanings are, simply, untranslatable. 

To give an example, an English language school here put up large posters on many city buses advertising their programs. On each poster is a muscular, armor-clad Alexander the Great hoisting a massive sword over his head, his eyes fixed on a tangled mass of rope. Below the drawing are English and Chinese sentences which basically mean: “Break away from the difficulties of not knowing English well enough; enroll at [our school].”  The English reads: “Cut the Gordian Knot.” 

The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary says that Gordius, King of Gordium in ancient Phrygia tied an intricate knot; an oracle declared that whoever loosened the knot should rule over all Asia. No one could untie it, but Alexander the Great cut it with his sword. All of that—the story and the idea of “Cutting the Gordian Knot” as solving a complex problem forcefully or by unexpected means—are wound up in that phrase. The Chinese caption reads “Untangle the Difficult Knot.”  It means the "same" thing on one, very small, level. Everything else (including the poetry) is gone. This is why Chinese students who have read translations of Chaucer and Shakespeare in school often say, “The story is interesting, but...”. It is the reason why a culture’s highest forms of literature lack something in translation. 

[c] Itinerary RF