Chinese Intellectuals on the World Frontier: Blazing the Black Path (review)

412 China Review International: Vol. 5, No. 2, Fall 1998 J. A. English-Lueck. Chinese Intellectuals on the World Frontier: Blazing the Black Path. Westport, Connecticut: Bergin and Garvey, 1997. 184 pp. $59-95> isbn 0-89789-510-x. This book is a mixture of genres: part travel literature, part journal, part anthropology , and part sentimental excursion. These genres enrich the book and will appeal to the traveler, the cosmopolitan reader, the armchair scholar, and the China watcher as well. For scholars in the United States, this book is a must because it provides them with a panoply of conversational topics and insights into the cultural backgrounds of their Chinese guests. Professor J. A. English-Lueck is a Jill-of-all-trades. A young, self-assured cultural anthropologist, she has already produced studies on holistic health practices in California and on various methodological issues pertaining to the anthropologist's role and to the culture of anthropology. Her curiosity about foreign cultures led her to an investigation of China. She began with an intensive study of the Chinese language prior to teaching English in China's southwestern region (she never identifies the exact area). She taught there twice—before and immediately after the Tiananmen massacre. Then she spent some time in Hong Kong, continuing her research, which "employed a threefold strategy. First was the classic anthropological tool of participant-observation. I lived and taught in a community filled with scientists and engineers and interacted with them. . . . Second , I collected over one hundred interviews with Chinese intellectuals using the Ethnographic Futures Research technique. These interviews elicited the scholars' abbreviated life history and their best, worst and most probable scenarios of the future of Chinese science, education and society. . . . Finally, this 'ground-level' research was augmented by a literature search (primarily in English) on modern Chinese history" (pp. 22-23). The questions that interested her most were: How do Chinese intellectuals define their role in Chinese society? How do they understand what it means to be Chinese? And finally, how "does this process of intellectual self-definition affect the large nexus of Chinese identity" (p. 3). All ofthis is fairly standard cultural anthropology. What makes the author's account unique is the way in which she has presented the results of all her work. The author intersperses her interviews with side comments about China, her interviewees, and her own activities and perceptions. She admits to prodding her© 1998 by University informants, helping the scientist "to clarify the reasoning" behind his or her stateofHawai ? Pressment (p. 76), or engaging the "other" in open dialogue and discussion. This part of the book is perhaps the most instructive and entertaining. My favorite quote is her comment on page 70: "I echo and clarify." Her style of questioning by coach- Reviews 413 ing reveals how much you can enter into a meaningful conversation even with a minimum ofChinese language skills and a limited knowledge ofthe subject. Civility , a sense ofhumor, and excellent reasoning skills can take you a long way. The rest of us could model our own interviews on this interlocutor's common sense, wit, and acumen. Due to her concern not to identify her sources, she divides and synthesizes all ofher interviews into three stories—ofan older man, a younger man, and a younger female scientist. This generational division corresponds chronologically to the pre- and post-Tiananmen periods. The result is that we obtain a group biography , a prosopographical account ofmiddle-level intellectuals in the sciences from the post-Cultural Revolution into the early 1990s. She finds that the oldest group is fairly optimistic. This group feels that China can develop a new science —a combination of Chinese and Western traditions—and that the future looks positive, despite problems with population, the environment, and democracy . The younger group is also positive about China, but with some reservations about the future. The women appear to be more concerned with social issues such as the family, crime, and problems with youth, as well as issues relating to democracy and the environment. AU are in agreement that the greatest threat to China is the drive toward individualism, consumerism, and self-enrichment. The result is a downgrading of education...