Traditions Matter: Lineage and Rituals in an Emigrant Village in South China

Traditions Matter: Lineage and Rituals in an Emigrant Village in South China describes the major traditions in an emigrant village in the northeast region of Yongchun in inland Fujian, China. The description of Meiyao Village not only features contemporary socio-economic conditions but also past and present regional networks as well as highlights rural China’s transition to great economic transformation and modernization. The focus of the study is the Chen lineage and its sub-lineages as well as religious rites and symbolism that centre on sub-lineage ancestral houses and the village temple. One religious rite, the jinxiang or incense pilgrimage, provides the most detailed ethnography of this communal celebration in a present-day rural China setting. The Yongchun diaspora connected to this part of Fujian is described too. Theoretically the analysis of tradition is inspired by the ontological perspective provided by Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. People follow traditions not because they are forced by custom to do so but because the traditions have become part and parcel of their existential consciousness. As long as the traditions remain meaningful to one’s social experience and continue to constitute his ontological existence, they continue to matter.