03355nam 22006015 450 991084547780332120240324175809.09789819715985981971598910.1007/978-981-97-1598-5(CKB)31135791100041(MiAaPQ)EBC31229962(Au-PeEL)EBL31229962(DE-He213)978-981-97-1598-5(OCoLC)1429725504(EXLCZ)993113579110004120240323d2024 u| 0engur|||||||||||txtrdacontentcrdamediacrrdacarrierGifts to the Sad Country Essays on the Chinese Diaspora /by Souchou Yao1st ed. 2024.Singapore :Springer Nature Singapore :Imprint: Palgrave Macmillan,2024.1 online resource (162 pages)9789819715978 9819715970 1. Moving Story -- 2. Revolution Comes to Zhang Chun Village -- 3. The Postman -- 4. Grandfather’s Two Households -- 5. Things That Bind -- 6. My Sister’s Grave -- 7. Homebound -- 8. Revolutionary Romance -- 9. Soft Trauma.The book is a study of an ethnic-Chinese family in Malaysia as it struggled with the upheavals in China during the Land Reform (1945-1953) and the Great Leap Forward (1958-1962). Based on fieldwork in Malaysia and in a village in Dabu County, Southern China, it tells a story of a family whose existence straddled two nations, two political systems. Emigration is shown to be both a positive experience and a source of despair. The study redefines the conventional narrative about the Chinese diaspora as economically driven and politically expedient; mobility, personal freedom and transnational journeying were a part of their cultural history. The book highlights the fact that Chinese homeland, even under communist rule, offered the people a means of identification under difficult circumstances. During the time of radical reform, the diaspora adapted themselves to the conditions in the homeland, and for some China remained a place of longing and emotional attachment. Souchou Yao is a writer and a former staff member of the Department of Anthropology, the University of Sydney, Australia. Among his publications are Singapore: The State and the culture of excess (2007), The Malayan Emergency: Essays on a small distant war (2016), The Shop on High Street: At home with petite capitalism (2020), Doing Lifework in Malaysia (2020). He lives with his wife, the artist Simryn Gill, in Port Dickson, Malaysia, and Sydney, Australia.AsiaPolitics and governmentEmigration and immigrationEthnologyAsiaCultureAsian PoliticsDiaspora StudiesAsian CultureAsiaPolitics and government.Emigration and immigration.EthnologyCulture.Asian Politics.Diaspora Studies.Asian Culture.305.8951Yao Souchou860981MiAaPQMiAaPQMiAaPQBOOK9910845477803321Gifts to the Sad Country4150942UNINA