Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Under Confucian: Edited and
Under Confucian: Edited and
Under Confucian: Edited and
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251
2J4 / Emma Jinhu¿ì Tcng
gcnder
Of particttlar intercst to me is the way in which Ding incorporares
not separate "women"
into his discussi<.,n of indigenous customs He does
to his account:
âs a separâtc c¿rteSory for discussion; rathcr gender is integral
lfr""gåt ln g.nd"-, ,å1., serve âs an important index of cultural transfor-
relrtcd in a nLrmber o[ Qing
matiãn. The"story of a woman named Baozbu,
inter-
accounts of Taiwan, is especially intriguing, as it reveals
the comPlex
point of
ãonì of g"n¿"t "nd ethnicity i,t the colonial context One telling
of civilization to the
the story is"that a Chinese woman serves as the bearer
::r"uog.r." Yet she also beneflts from th€ notion that women had more
po*"io, i.tfìu"r,.. nmong the "saiages" than in patriarchal.Chìnese culnrre'
ih" t.t"gto"naing of gãncler in Ding's account is typical of Qing travel
*riìing out prou"d to be fortuitous for me as a teseatcher
fniir"n Íhi, 'Iaiwan
who is interestecl in gencler studies: leading thlough the accottnts of
"'t
I found I did not.,i"d to dig too far to find material that was explicidy
in a
nbou, g"nd"r. It was a pleasure fo¡ me to feel th¿t I was not engagecl
rather.thatf shared ce¡t¡ in
f"rti.irrty "-o,1"rn" intellectual enterprise, but reading for my research
"in,.".rt, *it che
Qing writers whose works I was
on travel accoul-lts of Taiwan.r
INT'RO DUCTI ON
of
The island of Taiwan is located about one hundred miles off the coast
peoplc of ALrs-
mainland China. It was originally populated by incligenous
who were divided into va¡ious "tribes" (she)' ln r6z4'
tronesian descent,
to colonize the
the Dutch establi;hed an entrepôt on Taiwan and attempted
tice
irl"nd. Chi".r" laborers were irought in to work on Dtttch sugrr and
fUnr"ri.nt. ln r66r, Ming loyalist Koxinga, who was fighring the estab-
iirh-"n, nf the Manchu Qing regime in Chira, fled to the island with his
,"b.I for."., the Duich. The Qing took the island in.r683' de[eat-
""p.lling
makìng Taiwan a part of the Qing empire Chinese settlers
ing the rcbeís ancl
,hËn b"g^n to immigratJ to the islancl in signifrcant numbers,
attracred by
th" oppänunlti", this fertile ftontie¡ offered ln r 8 87, Taiwan was offlcially
-"dË prouin." of China. Less than a decade later' however, in r895' the
å
\ùlar- The
islancl ùs ceded to the Iapanese as a result of the Sino-Japanese
indìgenous people of Taiwan have thus endurecl a succession
of colonizcrs'
Ti" of Taiwan was parr of a larger process of Qing cxpan-
"olonirotion mid-
sionism on the f¡ontiers. From the mid-seventeenth century to the
the Mongolian'
eighreenth century, the Qing pursued various conquests on
Tibetan, Xinjiang, and sourhweste¡n frontiers, doubling the size of its ter-
to imperialism with
,itory. R"..ít scfolurship has sought compare Qìng
.ií"rc"rn i-p"riolir*. As Peter Perdue wrìtes, "The Qing empire of China
*o, o .oto"i"t empire that ¡uled over a diverse collection of peoples with
sepatate iclentities and deserves comparison with other empires"'2
7-
A Bûef Recotd by Ding Shaoyi / 255
va¡ions savâge villages alreacly differed; now there is also a difference l¡e-
tween the past and the presen¡, So I chose to ¡ecord the general conditions,
Moreover, I'm af¡aid that in a few more dec¿cles once again a description
of today's cLrstoms will no longer be fitting.
Prefect Deng Chuan'an lstyle name Shuyuanl, native of Fuliang iu Ji-
angxi, wrote in lris M easuring the Sea with 4 Calab.tsh:'2 "Dsring theJiaqing
reigtt lq 96-tBzrl, the female native chicftain lìaozhu bedecked he¡self like
a Chinese noble lady. In governance she used the law. Someone sent the
officials an ofÊcial commr.rnicarion stating that her tribe followed the law
obedìently and rcspectfully, not killing people, and not rebelling. Even
though this is beyond the pale, how is this any different from the inlerior
lof China]?" Popular legend has it that during the Zhu Yigui rebcllion' a
nacive chieftain of the Beiuanmi, lüenji, guicled troops lo capture the ban-
dits.13 The general rewarded him with lhe hat, robe, and shoes of the sixch
rank anct also macle his son a native chieflain.r'r He l¡ecame clominant over
the va¡ior.¡s nativc villag€s, He was presented with coral and pcarls Then
he callecl himself the king of the Beinanmi. He hoped to obtain a beâuty for
his conso¡t. In Taiwan city there was a courtesan who heard of ¡his and
happily volunteered to go. The savages value women [zhongnü] to begin
with, and sincc he had gotten a couttcsan) he dotecl on her to the €xlreme'
cloing whatever she commandccl. Then they got lid of their old customs and
were civilized with the ¡ites an<l laws of China. Therefore, the seventy<rc1d
villages of the lJeinanmi âre the most orderly, and their customs have long
been different from those of other savages. "Baozhu" is not like the nar¡e
of a savage woman; perhaps this so-callecl female chieftain is after all a
courtesan¡
In He QiaoyLran's Llistory of Fuiian it is written:ri "During the Yongle
per\od li,.t4o3-t4z4l, Zheng FIe took to the seas and issuecl a proclamation
to the vârious b¿¡barian rulers. Only lhe Easte¡n Savages northeast of the
Pcscaclores refusecl to submit to the treaty Zheng He Save thesc people a
bell to hang a¡ou¡d the neck, thus making dogs of them."16 Since I have
traveled to the various savage villages both south ând north, I have yet to
see anyone wearing a bell, llha¡ is writtcn cannot always be trusted,
'Th.e Zhuluo County Gazetteer says:17 "Antong all the various savages,
the husband and wife a¡c mutually devoled. Even whcn they are wealthy,
[the savages.l do not have maids and concubines, or boy servants. !'or
thei¡ enti¡e lives they never go out the víllage gate. They hold hands when
walking, and they ride together in the same carriage. They clo not know
the bitt€rness of bcing separated in life. They do not steal. They know not
!F
guided them with their senseless, confuscd religion and have finally changed
their customs. So to say that the raw savages þf Taiwan] have absolutely
no human morals clespite their human appeaÍance and that they cannot be
civilized with our kingly governance [øangzheng], is that not ân injus-
rice?l':r Kþ
N OTF,S
r. See Teng, "Travel Vriting and Colonial Collecting: Chinese lravel Accorrnts
of Taiwan from the Seventeenth through Nine¡een¡h Centuries,"
lã
,t
.:':
260 / Iimmà Jinhua Teng .T
I
.:ì
2, Perdue, "Comparirg Empires; Manchu (Ìrloli:llism," 256 ì
3, Shepherd, Statccraft and Polilrcll E¿onoftty ofi tþe Titiludn Ftotûìer, 1600-
rgao, 37r. I
4. SeeMeskill,A Chi ese Pioneer lìdítìly, The Lixs of Wu-feflg' T¿tiøan' 1729'
ìjl
a
r89t, ::::
5. See Teng, "An lslancl of Women: The Discourse o( Gender in Qing Travel ''ì
6. See châpter j. i
7, See Teng, "'f¡iwau as ¿ Living Mlrseurlr: Tropes of Anachronism in Lrte-
Impcrial Chinese Travel ìlriting." I'l
8. Source: Ding Shaoyi, Dongying zhìlüe, zd ed.,78-79 .i
9. Hrrang Shojing and Yu Yonghe were the authors oftwo fanrotls travelâccou¡lls
'a
)
quently regârded rhe indigenous people of Taiwan as bclongilg to ¿ì lower order lhan
drose termed "barbatials," such as the Ko¡eans aud rhe Japanese. The word "sav-
age" also emphasìzes parallels wirh EuropeâÌì âccounts of the New Vorld. ì
rr, That is, the dead are bu¡iecl aparl f¡om the livrug, which is a sign of "prog- 1
ress," ljarlier Chirese accollnts noted thrr the dead werc placed in the horrse uncof_ iì
l
finecl ot wcre buried under the house Chen l)i, for examPle, wrote in his Àe¿old o/ ;
tbe Eastern Sduages \DongfLrl it, t6q)t " lhey place the corpse on the g{oünd in the ì
ì
midsc of a blazing 6re in order to clry it; when it is clried they place it expose<I in the
l
house, uncoffined. Vher the house is dilapidated and rhey rebtrild it, chey dig ¿r Pit j
unclernearh ancL bnry [the corpse] in â stândirrg position, bu! with no mol]ncl to covcr
ir, and the house is then âgâin raisccl above it" (cired in Thompson, "The Earliesc l
!
Chinese Eyewitness Accounrs of the F'ormosan Aborigincs," r74). ¡
r 2, Derg Chuân'ân, ¿ ice huichao, r S3o Deng took his title from the phrase yrll
ceØai (ro use a calabash to mcasure the sea), m€âùing rhal o¡ìc's knowleclge is shallow
;
and lir¡jtecl. A.s Deng explains in his preface: "lt is no¡ rhat I clare sây thal the se¿
can be measured with a calabash; ir is simply that I wish fo¡ those who come here
to know the small goblet of water that is the beginning of the great rivet" (t)
:.
r3, In r7zr, a Chilese settler nâmed Zhu Yigrri led a rebellion against the Qing
:
forces on Taiw¡n. The ¡ebellio¡r was initially successfirl bur was evenrually put down
by Qing troops with the aid of indigenous militia. See Shepherd, Stltecfttft dkd Po' ì
litical E.oftot 1y, for rnore details on the rebellion and its impact ol Qrng policy in ì
Taiwan.
Ì4. Ding does not spccify the natne of the generâl he!c. This seems fitting, ts he
is relating an item of local lore, not historical fact,
--5, The Min så2, compiled by He Qiaoyuan (r558-r632), was published ca-
t628,
16. Zheng He was the famous palace eunuch and ¿dmiral who mâde a series of
seven nautical expcditions during rhe period r4o5-r43 3. His voyages rook him from
Javâ to Meccâ and the co¿s¡ of East Africa. One aspect of his cliplomatic missions
was to issue irnperial proclamations decl¿ring the emperor's majesty and virtue, and
then to obtain tribute from the ¡ulers ofvarious d<¡mains. It is still a m¿tter ofdel¡ate
whether or not Zheng Hc cvcr rcachecl the island of Taiwan As our atrthor points
out, this particular story is mosc likely apocryphal. One of the earliest ¡efetences to
rhis srory is in Chent)i's Dongfan jt
?-
t7. The gazetteer Zhuluo xian zhì, c<tmpiled by ZhoLr Zhongxuan, was publishecl
in 17 17.
r8. Illusttations of the FIoø and Faura of -faiwan (-laihai caifeng rr, wâs com-
piled by Censor Liushiqi about r746, The work contaim text ând twelve illustr¡tions
of the llora and fauna of Taiwan. Although "florâ and fâuna" is â specifically Wesrern
concept, I hâve chosen to rrânslate rhe litle in this manner to reflecl lhc contenß ol
the work and to distinguish it clearly from ânother work by Liushicli, lllusbati¡¡ns
of tbe Customs of thc Sauage Villages (Fanshe caifeftg tu), The two works cont¡il
some overlap in terms of content. They are published rogether as An llhstnted Book
of the Sauage Villages (Faxsbe caifeng tuþdo) ií rhe T¡iwan Collect¡lea series, Tal-
uan wenxian,
19. Lord No-Carcs ¿nd Getian were legenclary rulers durìng a prìmeval age of
pcace, simplicity, and natr,rral virtue, The rrope of the Taiwan savages âs the sûbjects
of Lord No-Ca¡cs o¡ Getiân seems to hâve orìginared with Chen I)i's Dltngfan ji,
zo. Girrlio Aleni þ582-t649) was an ltalian Jesuit who lived in China durìng
the Ming. He is the author of a rumber of works in Chinese, inclucling the world
atlas Zhifang øaiii, 1621.
zr.'flris is a reference to a statemelt made by Lan Dingyuan ìn hìs Re cord of an
Èlsten Cdtxþaign (Dongzheng ti), r7zz) to thc effect thât the savages had rhe oucer
âppeârâûce of huùâr beings, bur lacked the morals of humans.