Suzhou

Update of  Ho Chuan-Hsing's 2003 entry on Chinese calligrapher, scholar, essayist, and poet, Zhu Yunming. He was born into an illustrious family in what is now Suzhou with an extra finger (zhizhi) on his right hand, and thus chose the literary names of Zhishan (extra knob) and Zhizhi Shanren (Mountain Man [with an] extra finger). Hailed as the greatest calligrapher of the Ming dynasty, his works in all script styles display exceptional innovation and great versatility. He is  also revered for his essays and poetry.

China has the oldest garden tradition in the world; Chinese is one of the first nations that cultivated gardens on their homeland 3000 years ago. The great Chinese manual on gardening Yuan Ye by Ji Cheng (b. 1582) has been influential in the West as well. In present-day China, ‘the Chinese garden’ has become a symbol for the excellence of traditional Chinese culture, because it is one aspect of Chinese culture which has been widely admired in the West over several centuries, and which has had a significant influence on Western culture. Some metaphors that are related to the elements used in the Chinese gardens have considerable implications for the environmental and moral education in the contemporary world.

This paper offers a preliminary reading of the Painted Album of the Garden of Artless Administration by Wen Zhenming (Wen Hengshan Zhuo Zheng Yuan shi hua ce 文衡山拙政园诗画册, 1533) and articulates the imagination of multi-sensory experiences of this garden by focusing on text-image relationships in the album. The analysis begins with an overview of all thirty-one sections of the album and then undertakes a close reading of five sections. The reading articulates the imaginal world constructed by Wen Zhengming and rethinks issues of representation and referentiality in relation to this album. This paper argues that the album as iconotext points to multi-sensory experiences, rather than objective reconstruction.

This article explores the living Wutong cult in the Suzhou area. In continuation with its long history, this spirit-possession cult still has fortune-bringing and exorcistic dimensions. The authors combine historical and ethnographic approaches to the Wutong beliefs with a focus on the pilgrimage to cult’s centre at Shangfangshan (a sacred
site in Suzhou) and the domestic worship of the Wutong in the Changshu area. This provides us with a perspective on this cult as built by ritual specialists and common believers. In both forms of worship, the baojuan storytelling is actively employed, and the Baojuan of the Grand Dowager (transmitted as manuscripts) thus appears as a key scripture of local beliefs. With the analysis of textual and ethnographic evidence, we move beyond the established argument about these infamous deities, which consists of questioning whether the Wutong are essentially immoral, and to what extent the attempts at taming and standardizing them have succeeded. We uncover the ambiguity of the Wutong, who are presented as dangerous and kind at the same time in the local sources. The scriptures of the cult, notably the Baojuan of the Grand Dowager, acknowledge this ambiguity, which underpins the gods’ power, and develop ritual means to deal with it.

Set within the theoretical framework of cultural sustainability, this in-depth case study examines the Shilinyuan (meaning “Lion Grove Courtyard-Garden Housing”) built in the old city of Suzhou, China, in 2000. It is a modern interpretation of southern Chinese vernacular houses, with private and semi-public outdoor spaces, and a communal Central Garden. The estate is in proximity to the famous Lion Grove Garden, and in walking distance to the renowned Humble Administrator’s Garden; both of which are UNESCO World Cultural Heritage sites. The Shilinyuan project won the Lu Ban Award, a national award to high-quality construction projects by Chinese Ministry of Housing. Through an onsite survey, in-depth interviews with residents, key planner and architect, and the author’s observations, the study finds that this project is only culturally sustainable to some extent, the private courtyard-gardens are often too small for family activities. The communal Central Garden has somewhat functioned as a social and cultural activity space, and living close to city gardens is a major benefit for residents’ cultural activities. The findings may have implications for courtyard housing redevelopment in China and cohousing development elsewhere. The study finally suggests two new courtyard-garden housing systems that may have wider application.

This presentation highlights my doctoral research findings on the new courtyard housing projects built in the inner city of Suzhou since the 1990s. It looks at the architectural, environmental, spatial, constructional, social, cultural, and behavioral aspects of the housing, to see whether it is culturally sustainable, and whether it facilitates residents’ traditional cultural expressions. The study is based on empirical data collected in 2007 through a number of research methods, including field surveys, interviews, time diaries, architectural drawings, photographs, planning documents, conversation and observation notes, journals, real estate magazines, brochures, and related material. The findings suggest that communal courtyards foster social interaction and private courtyards facilitate self-cultivation. Neighborly relations are partly influenced by the form and space of the courtyard housing, and partly by a changing and polarizing society, socio-economic differences, housing tenure, modern lifestyles, community involvement, common language, cultural awareness, and the cultural background of the residents. The communal courtyards help sustain some traditional Chinese cultural activities. The primary function of a communal courtyard is to maintain health and natural healing. However, many cultural activities are much less or no longer partaken in the communal courtyards, likely due to such factors as time, climate, courtyard ownership, yard size, facilities, and so on. Moreover, community/city parks/gardens have become important places for cultural activities in China.

总第25辑, CSSCI集刊

复旦大学 张庆熊、徐以骅主编

【应焕强 复旦大学国际关系与公共事务学院 博士研究生、复旦大学宗教与中国国家安全研究中心 研究员】
提交2018年“海洋文明与近世以来的'长三角'社会变迁”学术研讨会【周育民教授、郑土有教授评议】、2022年复旦大学中文系承办第十一届吴方言学术研讨会、2023年武汉大学哲学院第三届全国宗教学博士生论坛“【四川大学陈建明教授、武汉大学赵盼副教授评议】2023年华中师范大学新史料、新方法、新理论 ：近代中西文化交流研究再出发研讨会

This study examines the relationship between the Guomindang (GMD) and the courts by focusing on the 1929 conflicts between the Suzhou Baptist schools and the local GMD party apparatus. The GMD regime supported the principle of rule by the party. At the local level, the GMD’s rise was often stymied by the independent judiciary whose judgments were based on the principle of the rule of law. The local party might not have been able to control the local court in the early years of the GMD regime, but it did steadily alter state-society relationships, as it could benefit from the local court’s commitment to the rule of law. For instance, the district court in Suzhou actively defended the principle of rule by the party in conflicts between Baptist schools and the local party because the GMD had made that principle the law of the land.

This presentation highlights my doctoral research findings on the new courtyard housing projects built in the inner city of Suzhou since the 1990s. It looks at the architectural, environmental, spatial, constructional, social, cultural, and behavioral aspects of the housing, to see whether it is culturally sustainable, and whether it facilitates residents’ traditional cultural expressions. The study is based on empirical data collected in 2007 through a number of research methods, including field surveys, interviews, time diaries, architectural drawings, photographs, planning documents, conversation and observation notes, journals, real estate magazines, brochures, and related material. The findings suggest that communal courtyards foster social interaction and private courtyards facilitate self-cultivation. Neighborly relations are partly influenced by the form and space of the courtyard housing, and partly by a changing and polarizing society, socio-economic differences, housing tenure, modern lifestyles, community involvement, common language, cultural awareness, and the cultural background of the residents. The communal courtyards help sustain some traditional Chinese cultural activities. The primary function of a communal courtyard is to maintain health and natural healing. However, many cultural activities are much less or no longer partaken in the communal courtyards, likely due to such factors as time, climate, courtyard ownership, yard size, facilities, and so on. Moreover, community/city parks/gardens have become important places for cultural activities in China.

Examining imperial workshops in the Forbidden City, the Duan quarries in Guangdong, the commercial workshops in Suzhou, and collectors' homes in Fujian, this book traces inkstones between court and society and shows how collaborations between craftsmen and scholars created a new social order in which the traditional hierarchy of "head over hand" no longer predominated in eighteenth century China.

The Suzhounese polar question exhibits intervention effects, manifested by the linearity constraint barring anti-topical expressions against c-commanding the polar particle. This paper proposes to derive the intervention pattern from two assumptions. Namely, the polar operator is interpreted higher than the C-domain Q operator, and topics project a secondary illocutionary act independently of the primary act associated with the topic sentences. I further show that the Suzhounese pattern is linked to linearity constraints elsewhere (e.g. in why-adjuncts) that crucially draw upon the exceptional wide scope of topics. I point out that the connections I draw motivate a novel class of scope effect that is distinct from the better understood focus-induced intervention.

A Chinese version of « Daoism and Local Cults in Modern Suzhou. A Case Study of Qionglongshan », Chinese and European Perspectives on the Study of Chinese Popular Religion(s) 中國民間宗教民間信仰研究之中歐視角, Philip CLART, éd., Taipei, Boyang, 2012, p. 199-228.