Folklife

What alternative texts can we use to understand the experience of ordinary people who are largely ignored in official documents and written records? How do the practices of everyday folklife--the forging of identity in art, narrative, and the transmission of knowledge--reveal historical change at the local level? How should we read these alternative texts, and what changes in local experience do we engender in the act of interpretation?

This chapter explores these questions through essays looking at music, local stories, and education in Xiakou Village.

Folklife Essays

• Education
• Mountain Songs
• Folktales
• Story in Stone