Primary Sources 1A.05—One Person Short 少了一個人

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Primary Sources."

One year ago on Round and Square (6 May 2011)—John McPhee's Coming into the Country
Click here to access Round and Square's "Primary Sources" Resource Center 

[a] Corgi to three RF

Over the course of the next year or so, Round and Square will take readers step-by-step through a very particular kind of primary source—the elementary school readers used in the mid-1980s in the Republic of China educational system. Every schoolchild on the island of Taiwan read these texts back then, and they are the foundation for understanding matters of education, acculturation, language acquisition, and translation. They were also the source of a very large chunk of my early anthropological and historical education. 

I encourage readers of Round and Square to follow these posts whether or not they read Chinese. It is clear enough where I begin speaking to language learners (the section called "Language Notes" at the end). Everything else, with the exception of the actual Chinese text, can be understood by anyone who takes the time to think about what an entire education from the ground up might be like. The introduction to this series explains these matters thoroughly, and will be posted soon. In the meantime, take a look at how first-graders (for that is where we begin) started to read their world in Taiwan a generation ago. This is "textbooks from history," and there is much to learn.

Interdisciplinary education starts here. Sort of. We have language arts—not to mention a little basic math—in this text. If you look for it, you will even see a bit of social studies, at least in the sense that a perspectivally-challenged little lad is interacting with his peers. It might be said that he's treating them like numbers, and that he has a little bit of an objectivity problem. Little Boy Blue, come blow your Panopticon, it seems to say. His classmates are in the meadow and he's a child of the corn...maze. He's lost. He's the Count of Mounting Criticism, and the story ends with a tricky little phrase not entirely dissimilar to "wassup?"

5—One Person Short

Teacher told us a story. 
There were five young students who went out together to play and returned together, too. One student did a quick count: "One, two, three, four—we're short one person." Again, he counted. Still four people.         

What is going on?

五   少了一個人

老師說了一個故事。      
有五個小學生， 一起出去玩，一起回來了。
一個學生數了數： 一，二，三，四，少了一個人。
他再數一數。 還是四個人， 這是怎麼一回事。

五     少     個     人     生     出     玩     回     他     是     這

                               老     師     故     事     數     再     怎     麼

Text in Simplified Chinese (简体字)*

五   少了一个人
老师说了一个故事。 有五个小学生， 一起出去玩， 一起回来了。

一个学生数了数：一，二，三，四，少了一个人。

他再数一数。 还是四个人， 这是怎么回事。 

*A simplified text is unthinkable in an ROC worldview. I don't "work" for them, though, and am including it for two reasons. First, an almost disturbingly large number of my students these days can't read traditional characters. This is problematic, but I acknowledge (grudgingly) the reality. Second, it should be an eye-opener for students on either side of the "simplified/traditional" divide. Just look. Finally, if you want to read anything written before 1950, you need to learn traditional forms. Get over it. It's not political. It's literature...and politics and history. If you can only read simplified forms, you can read what (Mao) wrote, but not what he read (unless it has been edited and adapted). Think about it.

[b] 一，二，三，四，狗....RF

History and Culture Notes

This is the first of a series of texts spread out over the span of a mid-1980s elementary school education that deal with social perspective. And basic math. It might be thought that one such text would be enough. How hard is it to include oneself in "the count?" One story should do the trick, right?

Get ready for more. We will see little families of goats and kittens (separate stories) with the same kind of socio-mathematical-relational problem. Indeed, if we really want to push the interpretive envelope, we could say that this first-grade text lays down a challenge noted in their own ways by Zhuangzi, Plato, Wang Yangming, and Kant. And Berkeley—the bishop, not the school.

In our text, the teacher's didacticism (it's his/her story, after all, and it is being told to impressionable first-graders at the beginning of their formal studies) is only part of the story. If you really think about it, the very foundations of our knowledge of the world are embedded in this simple text—a kind of Critique of Pure Reason for the First-Grade Soul.

Translation Notes

[c] 長頸 Times RF

Most of the translation is unproblematic. No amount of adherence to syntactical structures will allow the English reader to "feel" the warm, alliterative regularity of 數一數 and 數了數. I like to think of them as something akin to "give a little count"—a phrase that is just beyond familiarity to an English language audience, or so it seems to me. Here, I tried "made a quick count" in order to establish the spirit of the phrase, but it doesn't work the second time around, when I just use "counted."

The other small translation issue surrounds 少了. The purist in me wants the little boy to exclaim "We have one person too few!" Sure. Even the hardiest little grammar boy in the Republic of China would run from such a phrase, and it is difficult to imagine a first-grader saying it. "One person short" is a little more colloquial than I would like (just a little), but it is the closest I could come to giving a sense of shaole.

Language Notes

Western students of Chinese sometimes have problems in speech and writing with phrases such as 出去. 回來 is less problematic, if only because it is quite routine and appears regularly in common situations—such as returning home. When I was overseeing language and culture workshops for American college students in Shanghai, I was surprised by how often students used just 去 when 出去 was needed. One of the benefits of reading these texts when I was starting my Chinese studies in Taiwan back in 1985 was that I tended to "cement" these sayings in a way that my college textbooks didn't really do. Perhaps that situation has been remedied by today's texts. Perhaps.

[d] What's up? RF

Finally, let's consider a very common phrase in Chinese. It is everywhere, and it depends in almost all cases on context—這是怎麼一回事. I have used the standard translation that most Chinese speakers connect to the phrase ("what is going on?"); I "hear" it as something along the lines of "what's up with that (this)?"

So here's the deal. If you are going to live in Chinese, this is the kind of phrase—much like 誰也比不了 in Lesson Two—that you must begin to feel in your bones. You must be able to work it out literally and grammatically, to be sure, but you need to "sense" how it weaves its webs into various rhetorical contexts. 

So far these are the only two phrases that meet my "feel it in your bones" test. Everything else (such as 數了數) is a matter of a little more interpretation here and a little less there—then finding an English translation that will work. These two phrases are on a different level, it seems to me. They need to be memorized and then noticed. They need to course through the veins of your linguistic and cultural understanding—into the bones and down to the marrow.

What's with that? Everything. Nothing could compare to it.

[e] Panoptics RF

Primary Sources 1A.04—My Book Bag 我的書包

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Primary Sources."
One year ago on Round and Square (5 May 2011)—Endings: The Rhetoric of Fiction
Click here to access Round and Square's "Primary Sources" Resource Center 

[a] Bagged RF

Over the course of the next year or so, Round and Square will take readers step-by-step through a very particular kind of primary source—the elementary school readers used in the mid-1980s in the Republic of China educational system. Every schoolchild on the island of Taiwan read these texts back then, and they are the foundation for understanding matters of education, acculturation, language acquisition, and translation. They were also the source of a very large chunk of my early anthropological and historical education. 

I encourage readers of Round and Square to follow these posts whether or not they read Chinese. It is clear enough where I begin speaking to language learners (the section called "Language Notes" at the end). Everything else, with the exception of the actual Chinese text, can be understood by anyone who takes the time to think about what an entire education from the ground up might be like. The introduction to this series explains these matters thoroughly, and will be posted soon. In the meantime, take a look at how first-graders (for that is where we begin) started to read their world in Taiwan a generation ago. This is "textbooks from history," and there is much to learn.

-->

Off to school we go. After three straight texts from a first-grade girl's point of view (all of which, for better or worse, centered on life at home), a little boy packs up and heads to school (上學去). As I discuss below in the notes, book bags are packed with culture and personality. As we age, so are purses, glove compartments, and car trunks. What we pack into storage spaces tells us a great deal about both an individual and the culture in which s/he lives. Books, pencils, and a little ball? Serious and well-rounded. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a picture of Millard Fillmore? Oh, wait. That would be my life. Never mind (I'll tell you later).

4—My Book Bag

Wearing my book bag                I go to school
Inside my book bag                   There are books and pencils
I have four books                       I have three pencils 
There is also a small ball           Inside my book bag

四  我的書包

背書包                     上學去
我的書包裡             有書也有筆
我有四本書             我有三枝筆
還有一個小皮球     也在我的書包裡

四     書     包     學    去     有     本     枝     小     在

                                背     裡     筆     還     個     皮     球 

Text in Simplified Chinese (简体字)*

四 我的书报
背书报                    上学去

我的书包里            有书也有笔

我有四本书            我有三支笔

还有一个小皮球     也在我的书包里    *A simplified text is unthinkable in an ROC worldview. I don't "work" for them, though, and am including it for two reasons. First, an almost disturbingly large number of my students these days can't read traditional characters. This is a travesty, but I acknowledge (grudgingly) the reality. Second, it should be an eye-opener for students on either side of the "simplified/traditional" divide. Just look. Finally, if you want to read anything written before 1950, you need to learn traditional forms. Get over it. It's not political. It's literature...and politics and history. If you can only read simplified forms, you can read what (Mao) wrote, but not what he read (unless it has been edited and adapted). Think about it.

[b] Carry on RF

History and Culture Notes

Book bags are a big deal for elementary school students all over the globe. This 1985 text shows their cultural importance on the island of Taiwan several decades ago. Even back then, I remember what a big deal it was for parents and grandparents to take budding first-graders shopping for their first book bag. Commercial outlets all over the cities and towns of the island focused on this as both an entrepreneurial opportunity and cultural milestone. Living in Japan many years later, I was struck by an additional kinship overlay. It was "traditional" for grandparents to buy the little students their first bag, and the shopping challenge was akin to buying a Christmas tree in the West.

The young man in the textbook picture would be thirty-three years old today...if he weren't fictional. Let us continue to imagine his life, though. That book bag would have given way by now to a briefcase or perhaps a satchel of some kind. The cultural centrality of storage, however, doesn't go away. Of course, this is a practical problem of structure, history, and culture on one level. There is a bunch of stuff. It needs to be transported somewhere. We pack it into a (book) bag. Simple? Nope. That's where the "history and culture" part gets interesting. What's in the bag? What does it say about our little textual hero?

We have books, pencils, and—just to show that all work and no play makes Zhang Yi (Chang I) a rather dull boy—a little (leather) ball. We also have a formidable list of characters to memorize now that the second semester of first grade is starting to heat up. There are ten to memorize (and upon which students were tested) and another seven to recognize. 

By the way, the images above come from a real first-grader's text—an expatriate at the Taiwan International School—who marked hers with flourish. It was the only volume I didn't have until, by chance, I fell into a conversation with her a few years ago. She kindly allowed me to copy it. Now she is studying for her doctorate. Draw your own conclusions.

[c] Color board RF

Translation Notes

The meaning is not difficult to translate here, but those who don't read Chinese might be surprised by a few things. The first three characters (背書包) can be translated somewhat literally as "back book bag." I have also translated 筆 as pencil here. If it were a text about college students, I would probably say "pen." These are first-graders, though, and the little guys tend to use pencils...even today.

The only other translation issue of any note is the last line. If I were to try to show the parallel phrasing in English, it would be awkward (something along the lines of "There is also a small ball / Also inside my book bag"). Translation, even at this very basic level, is always a give-and-take between attempts to convey the structures and rhythms of the text and English sense-making. If even a first-grade text presents a little challenge or two, imagine what it is like to translate lyrical works such as the Songs of the South (楚詞), which has been my "day job" lately. In a funny sort of way, though, it's all the same.

[d] Old gingko; young student/teacher RF

Language Notes

There is not really much in this text that would present difficulties for the student of Chinese. First, even though 皮球 is literally "leather ball," it has become a combination that covers pretty much everything from cowhide to polyurethane. It's a ball. 

The most significant thing to note is the introduction here of measure words for books (四本書) and writing instruments (三枝筆). Moreover, the last line (to which I alluded, above) has the first instance of the very common phrase 還有, which will be seen in numerous texts and meaning anything from "still more" to "also," depending on the context. It is also how Ed McMahon introduced Johnny on the old Johnny Carson show. 

Allegedly.

One last thing for today—pay attention to all of the different characters used for li (in/inside). The school system in the Republic of China seems to be trying a few variations in these first few texts. Go back and take a look if you doubt it. 

La Pensée Cyclique (15)—Mulan Granet-f

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series about Marcel Granet, "La Pensée Cyclique"

One year ago on Round and Square (4 May 2011)—Mr. Bookman on Seinfeld Ethnography

[a] Transition RF

This is the last in a series of posts in La Pensée Cyclique that take a detour into territory that Marcel Granet would not have envisioned. It was, quite simply, inspired by him. One of the things that has startled me in my ongoing intellectual biography of Marcel Granet is the fuel created by reading his work—and even his personal history—often leads me to think of new avenues in my own writing. For years—and especially since Disney's release of the Mulan movie in 1998—I have thought about ways to explain not only how badly Disney got it wrong, but things in the Mulan tale that I feel have been missed precisely because the Joan of Arc mythos absolutely dominates Western cultural interpretations of strong women. What follows is a retelling and re-analyzing of the Ballad of Mulan...inspired by my reading of Marcel Granet. I call it Mulan Granet (but Marcel Mulan sounds pretty good, too).

I should not have to point this out, but I shall do so anyway (such is the climate in which we live). By maintaining that the Ballad of Mulan's narrative direction leads toward a restoration of the traditional patrilineal order...I am not advocating this as a way of orienting our lives today. This should be obvious, but I have been watching cable television lately, and suspected that misunderstanding might be burbling and frothing in our otherwise civil waters.

[b] En petit RF

Restoration 
Mulan has reentered the household, and the whirl of highly gendered activities around her has begun. As the protagonist in this ballad, she has a role as a miniature son of heaven-like figure. The universe (the domestic order) is integrating “on its own,” but it is imperative that she both mimic and regenerate the larger order. As any good student of Granet’s thought would note, she must proceed as though in a mingtang—a Hall of Light built for circumambulation of the realm…en petit—linking her activities with the directions that give shape to the calendar, as well as the rising and setting of the sun. The seeming impracticality of opening the gate leading to the eastern tower, only to sit on her bed in the western tower, matters not at all. The rising and setting of the gendered son/sun is all.

          She opened the gate that leads to the eastern tower,
          She sat on her bed that stood in the western tower.
          She cast aside her heavy soldier’s cloak,
          And wore again her old-time dress.
          She stood at the window and bound her cloudy hair;
          She went to the mirror and fastened her yellow combs.

[c] New day RF

From that directional foundation, she casts aside her male clothes (already heavy, something we doubt that she perceived for the past dozen years) and wears “again her old-time dress.”  Her activities become ever more gendered as she reenters the world of women, the world of the inner quarters. The language of female poetry emerges from the dusty clouds of the army carts. I cannot help but refer to poets who had not yet been born: Du Fu gives way to Li Qingzhao as Mulan reenters domestic life.

The ballad ends with the shock of gender transformation. She returns to meet her messmates on the road, startling them. This is not the kind of shock that comes with realizing that the tough young man they had known was, in fact, a beautiful young woman. This is post-transformation (the second transformation, of course) realization. She reentered the domestic order, became re-gendered, as it were, and reemerged to show a highly cultivated beauty of the inner quarters to her companions. It also reopens Mulan and her family to the social structural necessity of marriage.

          She left the house and met her messmates in the road;
          Her messmates were startled out of their wits.
          They had marched with her for twelve years of war
          And never known that Mulan was a girl.
          For the male hare has a lilting, lolloping gait,
          And the female hare has a wild and roving eye;
          But set them both scampering side by side,
          And who so wise could tell you “This is he”?[1] 

[d] Side-by-side RF

The last lines are among the most derivative and least useful in the ballad for the “imaginative ethnographer.”  Still, they reflect the steppe culture from which this ballad emerged. The “lesson,” as I have tried to show in my cursory analysis of the ballad, goes far beyond the mundane “women are capable, too” message that many have gotten from it. There is a gendering power released in this ballad, and its power emerges from (and gives power to) the domestic order. Mulan’s selfless act of taking the place of her father on the battlefield pales in comparison to the act required of every young woman in a traditional Chinese family—to leave the social unit into which she was born precisely in order to bring new life to a new family. Mulan was exceptional in the Ballad for ultimately would bring renewal to two families. 

Notes

[1] Victor Mair, editor, The Columbia Traditional Chinese Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 474-476. In the interests of consistency and with an eye to the kind of audience that first read the Ballad of Mulan, I have used the Arthur Waley translation for this treatment. Further posts (down the road, as it were) will explore other ways to look at individual lines and terms. My concern for now is the flow of events from household to war camps and back again. Arthur Waley (1889-1966), being a relative contemporary of Marcel Granet (1884-1940), seems perfect for this particular exercise.

Bibliography
Mair, Victor. The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.

[e] Gendered adieu RF

La Pensée Cyclique (14)—Mulan Granet-e

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series about Marcel Granet, "La Pensée Cyclique"

One year ago on Round and Square (3 May 2011)—King Lear and Remonstrance

[a] Outer-inner RF

The next few posts in La Pensée Cyclique take a detour into territory that Marcel Granet would not have envisioned. It was, quite simply, inspired by him. One of the things that has startled me in my ongoing intellectual biography of Marcel Granet is the fuel created by reading his work—and even his personal history—often leads me to think of new avenues in my own writing. For years—and especially since Disney's release of the Mulan movie in 1998—I have thought about ways to explain not only how badly Disney got it wrong, but things in the Mulan tale that I feel have been missed precisely because the Joan of Arc mythos absolutely dominates Western cultural interpretations of strong women. What follows is a retelling and re-analyzing of the Ballad of Mulan...inspired by my reading of Marcel Granet. I call it Mulan Granet (but Marcel Mulan sounds pretty good, too). 

[b] Homeward looking RF

I should not have to point this out, but I shall do so anyway (such is the climate in which we live). By maintaining that the Ballad of Mulan's narrative direction leads toward a restoration of the traditional patrilineal order...I am not advocating this as a way of orienting our lives today. This should be obvious, but I have been watching cable television lately, and suspected that misunderstanding might be burbling and frothing in our otherwise civil waters. 

Reintegration and Domesticity

The domestic order is reintegrated as Mulan returns from war. It is not merely a picture of a tired soldier returning home, however. We are presented with a picture of a domestic configuration coming back together. We see greeting, adornment, victuals, and sacrifice. Father and mother first hear that Mulan has returned. As they would for an important guest—an outsider to the closed kin group—they go out to the outer wall of the estate, leading her back to her home…and ultimately toward the inner quarters.

          When her father and mother heard that she had come,
          They went out to the wall and led her back to the house.

[c] Reunited RF

It is almost a kind of rebirth. Having left the household, she is led back to it by both her father and her mother. The household is now complete again, with father, mother, and the eldest son—or, rather, daughter disguised as a son—who took very male responsibilities upon herself in order to assure the smooth functioning of the domestic order. 

Now the trio is reunited, and its completion assures far more than human happiness. It remakes the sacred domestic trinity of father, mother, and eldest (son). It remakes the order at the heart of social life.

Adding siblings to the mix (but not as many as had been hinted at early in the text), we have a further integration of the domestic order. Since Mulan is the oldest child, and she has reunited with the parents who gave life to the domestic order, it is now incumbent upon the siblings to perform the functions that give classificatory meaning to their genders and reorder the household. Mulan has been the quintessential eldest “son” in her travels and her responsibilities. 

[d] Domestic RF

She has also tipped the domestic order out of balance. It needs to be repaired and restored.

Reintegration is necessary, and that is done in gendered spheres of activity. The sister’s activities represent and remake the inner quarters. The brother's activities represent and remake the outer world—reasserting the responsibility of men to provide sustenance for the women in the family.

          When her little sister heard that she had come,
          She went to the door and rouged her face afresh.
          When her little brother heard that his sister had come,
          He sharpened his knife and darted like a flash
          Towards the pigs and sheep.[1]

Mulan, in spite of her superior slaying abilities (at least we presume them to be thus), does not head for the pigs and sheep (and not only because she is the newly welcomed prodigal “son”). Didi—little brother—assumes his role as heir apparent. Mulan has left the world of men and is about to recreate herself anew. Her little sister and little brother have pointed the way with their integrative, though gender-divided, domestic activities.

Notes
[1] Victor Mair, editor, The Columbia Traditional Chinese Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 474-476. In the interests of consistency and with an eye to the kind of audience that first read the Ballad of Mulan, I have used the Arthur Waley translation for this treatment. Further posts (down the road, as it were) will explore other ways to look at individual lines and terms. My concern for now is the flow of events from household to war camps and back again. Arthur Waley (1889-1966), being a relative contemporary of Marcel Granet (1884-1940), seems perfect for this particular exercise.  

Bibliography
Mair, Victor. The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.

[e] Ordere RF

NEXT
We wrap it up with the big finish from the Ballad of Mulan (and the full transition from martial...to marital).

Seinfeld Ethnography (49)—George's Swoosh

Click here for an introduction to the Round and Square series Argonauts of the Seinfeldian Specific.
One year ago on Round and Square (2 May 2011)—Indiana (by George Sand)

Click below for all "Seinfeld Ethnography" posts: 

George Eats Trash     No Soup for You     Elaine Exclaims    The Puffy Shirt    Poppie's Pizza     Mr. Bookman

Marine Biologist         The Doorman          Opposite George   Newman's Mail   The Bootleg         Marriage
Just Dessert               Sleep Desk             Late Coffee            High Stakes        Motor Oil              Downtown 
Code Cracking           Nonfat Yogurt          Bad Boy                 It's Not You         I Can't Be...          Exploding Wallet
Elaine Flies Coach    The Close Talker     The Alliance           Broccoli               Coated Culture    Dinner Party
George's Friend        Jerry's Haircut          Face Paint             Mustachioed       Smoking              East River
Pool Man                   Dunkin' Joe              Life Lessons          Reckoning          Dog Medicine      Shower Heads
Looking Busy            George Tips             Kramer's Job          Empty Tank        Bathroom Book    Pretzel Thirst
George's Swoosh
Click here for the reference to the "Argonauts" title, below.

Argonauts of the Seinfeldian Specific

[b] Swoosh pattern RF

George is trying to conform, yet his trousers betray him. His pants go swoosh with every move he makes. Every step he takes...they'll be watching him. Take a look at the situation, and we'll have a little chat about social cohesion, food poisoning, the conformity police, and the pain of rejection.

It stings. 

Pay attention to the order of events. The clip is "backwards." The key scene comes first, followed by the dénouement and then the backstory. In other words, there are three disjointed scenes, but it is the only clip available for this sequence. I am sure that you can handle it.

George's Swoosh 3:14

"I'm the only person at the table who didn't become violently ill." 

Non-conformity has a few benefits, you see. The larger question in George's world, though, is how he could even think that he could survive on a team—any team. There is no "I" in "George," perhaps, but he is one of literature's most solipsistic characters since Narcissus. George lives for himself, and mostly by himself (when he isn't living with his parents). This episode casts him in the socio-economic role of supplicant. He wants the job, and, toward that end, he buys himself a suit. Most employment advice makes it clear that this was a good choice. Look the part, and walk with the confidence of a well-tailored man. 

[c] Secure RF

Swoosh, swoosh. 

And there is the problem. George wants badly to fit in—to join this little band of bothers on the big island of conformity. "Have a bite, George." "You will if you're one of us." 

Conformity has its own towering, limiting deity, and its name is Escherichia coli.

***  ***

I have chosen several readings that deal in one way or another with the idea of conformity. The first is from one of my favorite books, Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Emile. Rousseau speaks of natural man and civil man, and the latter is found wanting. These examples are vintage Rousseau, and show his use of classical images in many of his arguments. Suffice it to say that he contrasts even these with the abysmally denatured Parisians of his own day.

The second text was written 131 years later by another Frenchman, Emile Durkheim. In The Division of Labor in Society, Durkheim discusses the nature of sanctions in the social world, and the final lines are among the most famous in all of social theory. Finally, we jump ahead to a sociological classic from the 1950s. In the last decade or so, at least two New York Times columnists—David Brooks and Joseph Nocera—have touted it as a fine study of management, as well. We'll look at "belongingness" in a snippet from William Whyte's The Organization Man.

[d] Natural ADV

Natural Man and Civil Man 
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1762)
Natural man is entirely for himself. He is numerical unity, the absolute whole which is relative only to itself or its kind. Civil man is only a fractional unity dependent on the denominator; his value is determined by his relation to the whole, which is the social body. Good social institutions are those that best know how to denature man, to take his absolute existence from him in order to give him a relative one and transport the I into the common unity, with the result that each individual believes himself no longer one but a part of the unity and no longer feels except within the whole. A citizen of Rome was neither Caius nor Lucius; he was a Roman. He loved the country exclusive of himself. Regulus claimed he was Carthaginan on the grounds that he had become the property of his masters. In his status of foreigner he refused to sit in the Roman senate; a Carthaginian had to order him to do so. He was indignant that they wanted to save his life. He conquered and returned triumphant to die by torture. This has little relation, it seems to me, to the men we know.

The Lacedaemonian Petaretus runs for the council of three hundred. He is defeated. He goes home delighted that there were three hundred men worthier than he to be found in Sparta. I take this display to be sincere, and there is reason to believe that it was. This is the citizen. A Spartan woman had five sons in the army and was awaiting news of the battle. A Helot arrives; trembling, she asks him for news. "Your five sons were killed." "Base slave, did I ask you that?" "We won the victory." The mother runs to the temple and gives thanks to the gods. This is the female citizen.

He who in the civil order wants to preserve the primacy of the sentiments of nature does not know what he wants. Always in contradiction with himself, always floating between his inclinations and his duties, he will never be either man or citizen. He will be good neither for himself nor for others. He will be one of these men of our days: a Frenchman, an Englishman, a bourgeois. He will be nothing. To be something, to be oneself and always one, a man must act as he speaks; he must always be decisive in making his choice, make it in a lofty style, and always stick to it. I am waiting to be shown this marvel so as to know whether he is a man or a citizen, or how he goes about being both at the same time.[1]

[e] Delict ADV

Social Solidarity
Emile Durkheim (1893)
The link of social solidarity to which repressive law corresponds is one whose break constitutes a crime; we give this name to every act which, in any degree whatever, evokes against its author the characteristic reaction which we term 'punishment'. To seek the nature of this link is thus to ask what is the cause of punishment, or, more precisely what crime essentially consists in....

[A]n act is criminal when it offends strong and defined states of the conscience collective. The statement of this proposition is rarely disputed, but it is ordinarily given a sense very different from that which it ought to have. We take it as if it expressed, not the essential property of crime, but one of its repercussions. We well know that crime violates very general and intense sentiments; but we believe that this generality and intensity derive from the criminal character of the act, which consequently remains to be defined. We do not deny that every delict is universally condemned, but we take as agreed that the condemnation to which it is subjected results from its delinquent character. Then, however, we are hard put to say in what its delinquent character consists...

The only one which satisfies this condition is the very opposition between a crime, whatever it may be, and certain collective sentiments. It is, accordingly, this opposition which forms the crime, rather than being a derivation of crime. In other words, we must not say that an action shocks the conscience collective because it is criminal, but rather that it is criminal because it shocks the conscience collective. We do not condemn it because it is a crime, but it is a crime because we condemn it.[2]

[f] Belongingness ADV

Belongingness
William H. Whyte (1956)
Whether the urge to co-operate is in fact man's most dominant drive, it does not follow that the co-operation is necessarily good. What is he going to co-operate about? What ends is the group working toward? But these questions do not greatly interest Mayo, and he seems to feel that the sheer fact of "spontaneous" co-operation carries it own ethic. "For all of us," Mayo states, "the feeling of security and certainty always from assured membership of a group." Suppose there is a conflict between the individual and the group? Mayo sees conflict primarily as a breakdown in communication. If a man is unhappy or dissatisfied in his work, it is not that there is a conflict to be resolved so much as a misunderstanding to be cleared up. The worker might not see it this way, and most certainly the unions do not, but we have already been told that the individual is a nonlogical animal incapable of rationally solving his own problems or, in fact, of recognizing what the problem is.

At this point the human relations doctrine comes perilously close to demanding that the individual sacrifice his own beliefs that he may belong. The only way to escape this trap would be through the notion that by the process of equilibrium, a clarification of which never seems to detain anyone very long, what's good for the group is good for the individual. In speaking of the primitive group Mayo writes, "The situation is not simply that the society exercises a forceful compulsion on the individual; on the contrary, the social code and the desire of the individual are, for all practical purposes, identical. Every member of the group participates in all social activities because it is his chief desire to do so."

How to get back to this idyllic state? Mayo does not recommend a return to the Middle Ages. Too much water—and damn muddy water too, if you ask Mayo—has flowed under the bridge for that. The goal must be "an adaptive society"—a society in which we can once again enjoy the belongingness of primitive times but without the disadvantages of them.

Notes
[1] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile: Or On Education [Translated by Allan Bloom] (New York: Free Press, 1979), 39-40.
[2] Emile Durkheim, Selected Writings [Edited by Anthony Giddens] (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 123-124.
[3] William H. Whyte, The Organization Man (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), 35-36.

Bibliography
Durkheim, Emile. Selected Writings [Edited by Anthony Giddens]. New York: Cambridge 
     University Press, 1972.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Emile: Or On Education [Translated by Allan Bloom]. New York: 
     Free Press, 1979.   
Whyte, William H. The Organization Man (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002.

NEXT
Elaine Delivers
Elaine flounders in her pursuit of Chinese food delivery from the restaurant down the way.

La Pensée Cyclique (13)—Mulan Granet-d

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series about Marcel Granet, "La Pensée Cyclique"

One year ago on Round and Square (1 May 2011)—Hank Williams and Lonesome Birds

[a] Engendered RF

The next few posts in La Pensée Cyclique take a detour into territory that Marcel Granet would not have envisioned. It was, quite simply, inspired by him. One of the things that has startled me in my ongoing intellectual biography of Marcel Granet is the fuel created by reading his work—and even his personal history—often leads me to think of new avenues in my own writing. For years—and especially since Disney's release of the Mulan movie in 1998—I have thought about ways to explain not only how badly Disney got it wrong, but things in the Mulan tale that I feel have been missed precisely because the Joan of Arc mythos absolutely dominates Western cultural interpretations of strong women. What follows is a retelling and re-analyzing of the Ballad of Mulan...inspired by my reading of Marcel Granet. I call it Mulan Granet (but Marcel Mulan sounds pretty good, too).

[b] Back in the saddle RF

Directions Outward
The action in the Ballad of Mulan proceeds quickly from “hoping” to help her family—as she sat spinning in the inner quarters—to action in the marketplace. There she begins to put her plans into effect. Note the directional symbolism which, to my mind, creates an image of all under heaven (天下) as a backdrop for the story of bonds broken, healed, and strengthened.

Echoing powerful themes of cosmic and imperial integration, Mulan’s is a circumambulation of the realm in defense of the domestic order. This theme is as old as China's sacred mountains, and the early sage kings were said to travel to each of the mountains (set according to the cardinal directions) in order to unify the realm and make time complete. It is fair to say that Marcel Granet—as well as his teacher, Edouard Chavannes, and student, Rolf Stein—was preoccupied by the practical and intellectual implications of such circuits linking round and square. Much of Granet's research deals with this theme, as do major works by both Chavannes and Stein.

          In the eastern market she’s bought a gallant horse,
          In the western market she’s bought a saddle and cloth.
          In the southern market she’s bought snaffle and reins
          In the northern market she’s bought a tall whip.

After making her circuit of markets and purchasing the practical necessities for life in the saddle, she leaves her home to join the military forces. The images that follow paint a picture of the realm rather more in the style of the Classic of Mountains and Seas than of a straight narrative reporting her actions. Indeed, the echoing of early legend continues as images of the sage king Yu—he who ignored the cries of his own family in early legends in order to serve the greater good—are invoked as her family calls out to her. Mulan notices nothing but the swirling water and the need for service.

[c] Circuit RF

In the passages that follow, classical images of early Chinese civilization dominate, and a young woman’s wanderings call to mind tales of sage kings traveling the realm in their quest to unite the Chinese cultural world.

          In the morning she stole from her father’s and mother’s house;
          At night she was camping by the Yellow River’s side.
          She could not hear her father and mother calling to her by her name,
          But only the song of the Yellow River as its hurrying waters hissed and 
               swirled through the night.
          At dawn they left the River and went on their way;
          At dusk they came to the Black Water’s side.
          She could not hear her father and mother calling to her by her name,
          She could only hear the muffled voices of Scythian horsemen riding on 
               the hills of Yan.

Devoted and single-minded, the dutiful daughter makes her way to the horsemen, breaking ties of kinship and, indeed, propriety—all for a greater good.

[d] Thousand leagues RF

A Hundred Battles
The direction of the ballad shifts at this point to the “battles” themselves and the courts of Emperor and Khan. In keeping with Chinese battle descriptions (and this one is stretched over more than a decade), the buildup and imagery is most important, while the battles themselves are of rather small, or no, account. On the other hand, her effortless travels are as though out of the Chuci (楚辭)—an early Chinese dream text. She seems to be, at least when removed from the domestic order, beyond the realm of human actions, like a bird in flight.

          A thousand leagues she tramped on the errands of war,
          Frontiers and hills she crossed like a bird in flight.

The coldness and harshness of war are told, not shown. The only death of which we hear is that of the captain, who died after “a hundred fights.”  The scene then abruptly changes to the warriors, who had won their rest. Ten years, a hundred battles—even the numbers used are richly symbolic.

          Through the northern air echoed the watchman’s tap;
          The wintry light gleamed on coats of mail.
          The captain had fought a hundred fights, and died;
          The warriors in ten years had won their rest.

[e] Arrival RF

The drama increases with the “arrival” of the emperor and the khan. Prize money and worldly rewards come to the fore, even as Mulan longs for home.

          They went home; they saw the Emperor’s face;
          The Son of Heaven was seated in the Hall of Light.
          To the strong in battle lordships and lands he gave;
          And to prize money a hundred thousand strings.
          Then spoke the Khan and asked (her) what (she) would take.
          “Oh, Mulan asks not to be made
          A counselor at the Khan’s court;
          She only begs for a camel that can march

          A thousand leagues a day,
          To take her back to her home."[1]

Mulan broke the bonds of the domestic order precisely in order to return again. Successful in the outer world, it is hinted that she longs for the inner quarters, where she sat sobbing as the ballad began. Students of Granet know better. She is compelled—driven forward by social powers mixing with her own volition in a Durkheimian momentum—to return to the agnatic fold and strengthen the weave of social solidarity in the patriarchy.

Notes
[1] Victor Mair, editor, The Columbia Traditional Chinese Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 474-476. In the interests of consistency and with an eye to the kind of audience that first read the Ballad of Mulan, I have used the Arthur Waley translation for this treatment. Further posts (down the road, as it were) will explore other ways to look at individual lines and terms. My concern for now is the flow of events from household to war camps and back again. Arthur Waley (1889-1966), being a relative contemporary of Marcel Granet (1884-1940), seems perfect for this particular exercise.  

Bibliography
Mair, Victor. The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.

[f] Triumphant RF

NEXT
Homeward Bound
Mulan and her fellow troops experience toil, loss, victory, and reward. Her gaze turns homeward to the agnates she will embrace before preparing to leave again.