2019 Sydney Chinese Studies Seminar Series

Organised by the Department of Chinese Studies in collaboration with the China Studies Centre ‘Language, Literature, Culture and Education’ Research Cluster

隰桑有阿：白裤瑶桑蚕文化中的象征 (In the Eye of a Silkworm: A Fieldwork Report on Silk Culture of the White-trousers Yao)

Speaker: A/Prof Lisong Jiang, Southwest University, Chongqing, China

Abstract

There are three essential hypotheses about the origin of silk in China: originating in either food, or clothing, or faith. My fieldwork research in White-trousers Yao areas provides a very interesting case strongly supporting the hypothesis: silk originated in faith. The White-trousers Yao is one of the subgroups of the Yao people. With a population of 20,000, this ethnic group mainly distributes in the karst mountain areas of the northwest of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and the south of Guizhou Province. My fieldwork in these areas indicates that silkworm plays a very important role in their daily life. In Yao people’s community, the silkworm symbolises the origin of life, the cycle of life, belief in the soul, and so on. It weaves up the web of meanings of their social life.

This seminar will be delivered in Mandarin Chinese.

About the speaker

Associate Professor Lisong Jiang holds a Ph.D. in ethnology from China Central Minzu University and B.A. in history from Nanjing University, China. He is now an Associate Professor in ethnic minority studies at Southwest University, Chongqing, China. With extensive fieldwork experience in ethnic minority regions in Southwest China, he is now the fieldwork coordinator in the Southwest Research Centre for Ethnic Minority Education and Psychology at Southwest University, China.

For more information, contact: Dr Josh Stenberg – josh.stenberg@sydney.edu.au