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215 Notes Chapter 1: Chiasm 1. In the story “Spirit Calling,” Lucy Chen (1961:17–18) tells how a family endeavors to call back the spirit of a mortally ill little brother, how they burn “gold paper ghost money” and beg the celestial powers to let the boy’s soul return home. As they are calling, the boy’s sister hears her inner voice explaining that this is pointless: “This is superstition so it is of no use; even if it is of any use it is only a small temporary self-comfort. But her throat was clogged up and her eyes were misted with tears. . . . The whole ceremony, the entire scene, floated in the midst of her tears. . . . The prayer ascended into the night sky, the sound of the bell floated into the distance, the gold paper ghost money became ashes, the white tiger and yellow charm intermingled and also disappeared.” 2. That the practice is experienced so matter-of-factly and self-evidently does not mean that the devotees view it as simple. On the contrary, and especially in matters of ritual “symbolism,” the devotee may find the answer to our questions otherwise inexpressible. The perception of the indigenous spokespersons of questions asked by the ethnographer is notoriously problematic, recognition of which goes back to the beginning of ethnographic field work (Rivers 1910:10). I elaborate on this point in chapter 4. 3. The eight-reales Carolus silver dollar, bearing the bust of the Spanish kings Carolus III and Carolus IV, was minted in Spanish American colonies from 1772 till the 1820s, when the colonies declared their independence. These portrait dollars became popular in the mercantile establishments of Treaty Ports in China, replacing the Chinese silver sycee. Although the Carolus dollar was replaced by the Mexican Eagle silver dollar, the Carolus dollars, variously modified by Chinese chops impressed into their obverse and reverse sides, which in Fuzhou virtually obliterated the original design on the coins, remained in common use throughout the nineteenth century (Forster 1998). 4. When he arrived in New York City, however, Hunter’s paper money trail went cold. He writes that he could find no vendors of paper monies in New York City’s Chinatown. This does not square with what I found to be the case in 216 notes to pages 17–31 my hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, during the nineteenth century. Reports of Chinese using paper monies can be gleaned from city newspapers of that period. 5. Zhao Dasao (a common address term) was a handsome, tall, broad-shouldered woman in her late forties, who claimed she had never been to school. The day we talked to her, she was barefoot, with mud from the fields still caked between her toes; she had been asked by village leaders to talk to us. “We” included myself (who refrained from joining the conversation) and two Chinese colleagues: my principal spokesperson and our local host and vernacular spokesperson . During our conversation, there was a small crowd of onlookers jammed in the low, dark room; they were mostly amused by our topic but also interested in our project. 6. Zhao did not remember who had received that dream, but said the neighbor ’s daughter had told her about it. “But why did he have no shoes to wear?” asked our interlocutor. Zhao responded: “How can anybody know about that? When he died he was [in effect] barefoot, wearing [cheap white] sneakers. Sneakers cannot be burnt to that side [rubber soles do not burn completely]; only cotton shoes can be burned to that side.” 7. The ancestral hall in the center of the village was a ruin—only the foundation was visible. The temple ruin, which was barely visible, was on the edge of the reservoir along the road to the hills outside the village where the village buries its dead. Although we only inquired of a few older people, none distinctly recalled the identity of the divinity enshrined in the temple other than it was vaguely “Buddhist.” 8. This was over a background of blue waters and flying cranes, signs of longevity. The picture was framed by an epitaph and a couplet. The epitaph across the top was “Fortune permeates the multitude” (fúzéwànmín); the sense of “permeate” is in the word for a nurturing rain (zé), the graphic portent of profusion and prosperity. Running down one side, the first part of the couplet read, “The renown of this generation is passed down...