Rural China on the Eve of Revolution: Sichuan Fieldnotes, 1949-1950 by G. William Skinner

Author:G. William Skinner [Skinner, G. William]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Published: 2017-05-01T04:00:00+00:00

4.3 Skinner’s map of the markets near Gaodianzi

I was dead tired after walking all this distance, but I had a chance to rest up while lunch was being prepared. Afterwards, I asked Lin Baoqing about the area on my work map to the west. When I asked about various places near what seemed to me to be the western border of the GDZ market area, he said that there they went to Liulichang (this last character is not the chang meaning market, but that meaning open field or yard).2 This place I finally located on the map, but it was very small and certainly was not a market town. The Xian Zhi maps are about 15 years old, and on inquiry I found out that this place became a market town only about 7–8 years ago, during the war, when there was a mass exodus from the city because of the bombing raids. For a while, the Huayang Xian government was in this place. After the war, this place continued to function on as a market town, he said, but it is comparatively small. Sanwayao, several li to the west of Liulichang, is also now a market town, he said, though it isn’t even on the Xian Zhi maps. Mr. Lin said that when Liulichang became a market and increased in importance during the war a road was built from GDZ to it, and that Sansheng Xiang men worked on that part of the road which lies in this xiang. This road not being on maps, I found out how to get onto it and then set out. Asking my question along the way, I roughly determined the boundary between the two market towns (Gaodianzi’s is larger than would be expected), and eventually arrived at LLC. Sure enough, it is a real live functioning market town just at the western edge of the mountainous area in which GDZ is located and on a small highway from the city towards Zhonghechang. My fame had spread this far, however; people knew that I lived in Gaodianzi and some even knew my name. Since I was this far, I decided to go on to Sanwayao so that I’d have an idea where it was and could put it on my map. Though not far from LLC as the crow flies, it’s quite a ways by road inasmuch as one must cross two rivers and the bridges are quite a distance to the south. Since it was getting dark, I didn’t go all the way, but turned back when it was in sight and I knew its location in relation to landmarks on my map. As it was, I got lost getting back to LLC and didn’t get home until it was pitch dark.

From Mr. Lin in a conversation this evening, I got the market days of all the neighboring market towns. Laijiadian to the N and Xindianzi to the S have the same market days as Gaodianzi: 3–6–9. Damianpu to the E and Liulichang to the W have the same days: 2–5–8.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.