Fei Xiaotong, 94, a Pioneer in Chinese Anthropology, Is Dead
By Wolfgang Saxon
Fei Xiaotong, one of China's pre-eminent social scientists, died April 24 in Beijing. He was 94. His death was reported by the official New China News Agency.
Fei Xiaotong-or Fei Hsiao-t'ung in the old spelling-helped lay the foundation for sociological and anthropological research in China, through his pioneering studies of village life and ethnic minorities. He was best known to American colleagues and students for his book "Peasant Life in China: A Field Study of Country Life in the Yangtze Valley." First published in 1939, its English translation remains available in a reprint edition from AMS Press Inc.
"Peasant Life," along with "Earthbound China: A Study of Rural Economy in Yunnan" and another book of which he was a co-author, "From the Soil: The Foundations of Chinese Society," became cornerstones of modern sociology and anthropology.
Mr. Fei's life was shadowed by personal tragedy in years of political upheaval in China.
He was born in Wujiang County, Jiangsu Province, in eastern China and began his higher education at Yenching University in Beijing, planning to study medicine. But deciding that China's problems were social and political rather than medical, he turned to sociology.
After graduation in 1933, he continued his studies at Tsinghua University in Beijing and later at the University of London. There, he studied under the anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski and received a Ph.D. before returning to China in 1938.
Circumventing the Japanese occupation of China's north and eastern coastal areas, he became a professor of social anthropology at National Yunnan University in Kunming, an enclave in southwestern China for many academics during the war.
It was during Mr. Fei's early fieldwork before setting off for London that his bride and fellow anthropology researcher, Wang Tongwei, was drowned in a mountain stream. In Kunming, he met his second wife, Meng Yin.
After becoming a professor, he undertook studies of communities in the Kunming hinterland, in Yunnan Province. His reputation having reached the United States, he was invited by the State Department to visit in 1943-44, and he lectured and did research at Harvard and the University of Chicago.
Back in China, he wrote prodigiously and rose to scholarly eminence. He had also become active in the Democratic League. In 1946, after a Nationalist crackdown at his university on protesters against the civil war, he and several other league members took refuge in the American Consulate in Kunming. He went to Britain again and, based at the London School of Economics, studied village life in Britain.
With the victory of Mao's Communists, Mr. Fei entered a twilight zone in which he juggled academics and politics for survival. He received appointments to government agencies and repeatedly ran afoul of the official line but ultimately had his fame to protect him.
He was denounced as a "rightist deviationist" in 1957 during the "Hundred Flowers" campaign, forbidden to teach and stripped of important posts. In the early 60's some of these were restored, but the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in 1966 dealt another blow. His papers were destroyed and he was sent to the countryside as a farm laborer, returning to Beijing only in 1972. In the late 1970's, Mr. Fei was politically rehabilitated.
He is survived by a daughter from his second marriage, Fei Zhonghui.
生词好句
1.pre-eminent
英 [ˌpriːˈemɪnənt] 美 [ˌpriːˈemɪnənt]
adj. 杰出的，卓越的
2.New China News Agency
新华社
3.lay the foundation for something
为……奠定了基础
4.cornerstone
英 [ˈkɔːnəstəʊn] 美 [ˈkɔːrnərstoʊn]
n. 基础，根本
5.be shadowed by something
笼罩在……的阴影之中
6.circumvent
英 [ˌsɜːkəmˈvent] 美 [ˌsɜːrkəmˈvent]
v. 绕过，绕路
7.enclave
英 [ˈenkleɪv] 美 [ˈenkleɪv]
n. 飞地，被孤立的、相对稳定的地方
8.set off for some place
动身去某地
9.bride
英 [braɪd] 美 [braɪd]
n. 新婚妻子；新娘
10.undertake
英 [ˌʌndəˈteɪk] 美 [ˌʌndərˈteɪk]
vt. 从事，进行某项工作
拓展:
可替换begin
11.hinterland
英 [ˈhɪntəlænd] 美 [ˈhɪntərlænd]
n. 偏远的穷乡僻壤
12.prodigiously
英 [prəˈdɪdʒəsli] 美 [prəˈdɪdʒəsli]
adv. 大量地
13.rise to scholarly eminence
学术地位极大提升
14.Democratic League
民盟
15.crackdown
英 [ˈkrækdaʊn] 美 [ˈkrækdaʊn]
n. 镇压
16.take refuge in some place
在某个地方寻求庇护
17.twilight zone
过渡区，交接处（引申）；海洋中明暗交接处的一个生态圈层（本义）
18.juggle something
vt. 在很多个事物或者事件中寻求平衡
19.run afoul of something
与……有冲突，相纠缠
拓展:
近义表达：fall/go afoul of something
20.official line
官方立场
拓展:
official line on something
在......的立场
the official line on education
关于教育的官方立场
21."Hundred Flowers" campaign
“百花齐放，百家争鸣”