The final destination of the Long March and center of the Chinese Communist Party's red bases, Yan'an acquired mythical status during the Maoist era. Though the city's significance as an emblem of revolutionary heroism has faded, today's Chinese still glorify Yan'an as a sanctuary for ancient cultural traditions.

Ka-ming Wu's ethnographic account of contemporary Yan'an documents how people have reworked the revival of three rural practices—paper-cutting, folk storytelling, and spirit cults—within (and beyond) the socialist legacy. Moving beyond dominant views of Yan'an folk culture as a tool of revolution or object of market reform, Wu reveals how cultural traditions become battlegrounds where conflicts among the state, market forces, and intellectuals in search of an authentic China play out. At the same time, she shows these emerging new dynamics in the light of the ways rural residents make sense of rapid social change.

Alive with details, Reinventing Chinese Tradition is an in-depth, eye-opening study of an evolving culture and society within contemporary China.

| Cover Title Page Copyright Contents Preface Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1. Paper-Cuts in Modern China: The Search for Modernity, Cultural Tradition, and Women's Chapter 2. Narrative Battle: Fabricating Folk Paper-Cutting as an Intangible Heritage Chapter 3. Traditional Revival with Socialist Characteristics Propaganda Storytelling Turned into Chapter 4: Folk Cultural Production with Danwei Characteristics: Folk Storytelling and Public Chapter 5. Spirit Cults in Yan'an: Surrogate Rural Subjectivity in the Urbanizing Rural Notes Glossary References Index |"This book constitutes an excellent contribution to contemporary Chinese folklore studies and would make a wonderful addition to undergraduate courses on East Asian folklore and cross-cultural explorations of contemporary cultural politics."—Journal of American Folklore
"I have read nothing like it in the field of Chinese studies. Original, insightful, and thoughtful, this book will be a must-read for a wide audience."—Lisa Rofel, author of Desiring China: Experiments in Neoliberalism, Sexuality, and Public Culture
"A lively, engaging ethnography."—China Quarterly
|Ka-ming Wu is an assistant professor of culture and religious studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.