Nation-Empire: Ideology and Rural Youth Mobilization in Japan and Its Colonies by Sayaka Chatani (review)

Abstract

Published by the Harvard-Yenching Institute HJAS 80.2 (2020): 506–512 other beliefs, merge with popular ritual activities, and serve secular functions in terms of popular entertainment. Berezkin suggests that there should be no hard and fast division between the middleand late-period bao juan. Rather, they should be considered as “a single genre with continuity in social and ritual meaning” (p. 174). Through the vehicle of bao juan, readers gain insight into the interplay between the written and oral in Chinese vernacular narrative in relation to various audiences of differing social backgrounds and in relation to stillaccessible living traditions in southern Jiangsu and western China. In sum, Many Faces of Mulian is a timely treatment of a multifaceted and multifunctional tradition that is at once verbal art and ritual. This tradition may—if conditions of transmission allow—continue to evolve in response to the waves of the Intangible Cultural Heritage initiative and the current nativist emphasis on reviving, sustaining, and reifying positive cultural practices, as well as local factors.