The Roads of Chinese Childhood

Children in the Taiwanese fishing community of Angang have their attention drawn, consciously and unconsciously, to various forms of identification through their participation in schooling, family life and popular religion. They read texts about ‘virtuous mothers’, share ‘meaningful foods’ with other villagers, visit the altars of ‘divining children’ and participate in ‘dangerous’ god-strengthening rituals. In particular they learn about the family-based cycle of reciprocity, and the tension between this and commitment to the nation. Charles Stafford’s study of childhood in this community (with additional material from north-eastern mainland China) explores absorbing issues related to nurturance, education, family, kinship and society in its analysis of how children learn, or do not learn, to identify themselves as both familial and Chinese.