Suchergebnisse

This paper describes idioms of the northern Zhuang language. Zhuang idioms are analyzed into two major types, based on syntactic structure: trisyllabic idioms and polysyllabic idioms. Tri-syllabic idioms are short, fixed common expressions consisting of a single predicate. The polysyllabic idioms comprise tetrasyllabic idioms, pentasyllabic idioms, hexasyllabic idioms, and heptasyllabic idioms. The polysyllabic idioms display four syntactic patterns, i.e., serial pattern, causative pattern, topicalized pattern, and condensed pattern. Semantically, the meanings of Zhuang idioms are not the sum of their component part but must be metaphorically interpreted as a whole. The function of Zhuang idioms is to increase effectiveness and rhetorical force in oral and literary communication.

Managing ethnic nationalism within the People's Republic of China has become increasingly challenging. As new reforms widen economic disparities between minorities and the Han majority, even the most assimilated of minorities, the Zhuang, have begun to demand special treatment from the central government. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officially recognized the sixteen million Zhuang as China's largest minority nationality in the early 1950s, granting them regional autonomy. Prior to this, however, the Zhuang did not share a common ethnic identity. Katherine Palmer Kaup explores why the CCP in effect created the Zhuang nationality. Why did it launch a massive propaganda campaign to increase nationality consciousness? How is the party now responding to the Zhuang's assertive political demands? This pioneering study unveils the unique culture of the Zhuang people, showing at the same time the CCP's skillful balancing of ethnic and regional loyalties over the past 50 years to integrate the diversity of China's ethnic mosaic

This paper examines two cases of Zhuang religious revival involving multiple actors. It shows how consideration of "superstition" (迷信, mixin) places some religious practice outside the institutional framework when discussing the modern concept of religion in China. In this paper, I particularly focus on two main dimensions of religious revival among the Zhuang people. The first is a grassroots dimension that involves the revival of a so-called "superstitious" cult in which Zhuang people along the Sino-Vietnamese border carry out shamanic rituals to make offerings to a powerful chief-turned-deity, Nong Zhigao, and his wife. The second dimension is a top-down dynamic and involves a series of projects conducted by Zhuang officials, scholars and business persons, which aim to standardize a Zhuang religion, known as Mo religion. These two cases of religious revival demonstrate the varied strategies utilized by different actors in response to government policies regarding religion in China. (JCCA/GIGA)

'Creating the Zhuang: Ethnic Politics in China' by Katherine Palmer Kulp is reviewed.

Abstract Focusing on Duan Chengshi's c. 850 CE text, this paper starts with the hypothesis that Yexian's story reflects the time and place of the informant, Li Shiyuan, cited by Duan. I concentrate on Li Shiyuan's possible identity as a member of the Zhuang ethnic group in Nanning, Guangxi Province, now within the People's Republic of China near the Vietnamese border. Victor Mair's 2005 translation and footnotes stimulated my interest in Guangxi, and Katherine Kaup, who studies contemporary Zhuang politics, enabled me to interview Zhuang folklore scholars in Nanning. With some observations in Guangxi Province, but more importantly analysis of literary texts and previous scholarship, I place the Yexian story in the context of Zhuang beliefs, creativity, and history.

On the basis of previous studies, this paper supplements the distribution region and distribution conditions of the lipped initials ofzhizhangzhuang. On the basis of a comprehensive investigation of this phenomenon, it puts forward its own viewpoint: the change of the lipped initials of the characters in the zhizhangzhuang group in the Qin and Jin Dynasties originated from the confluence of the Tongyu in the Tang and Song Dynasties.