Chinese Women and Christianity, 1860-1927 (review)

i6o China Review International: Vol. i, No. i, Spring 1994 each entry as well as at the end ofthe book. Such an arrangementwould not distract Western readers and would be a great asset to readers of Chinese. To match the characters with each seal, the pages must be flipped back and forth countless times! People in the West often complain about the number of seals on early Chinese paintings. They feel that the red seals clutter the original composition and distract the viewer, inhibiting total appreciation. What the critics do not realize is that those with expertise in Chinese painting are trained to visualize the composition by looking beyond the crowded seal impressions. Every student in Chinese art should cultivate this ability. As a matter of fact, seals not only provide necessary information about an artist and the prominence of a particular work, they also have independent aesthetic value of their own. When people enjoy a painting , seals are like small pictures within the whole. To compose and execute the legend of a seal, an engraver is required to put in as much effort as a painter in composing a large work. The painting is always more imposing and seems to have more importance. This is one of the reasons why seal carving in China is on the wane. Nevertheless, the art of Chinese seals can be intriguing and exciting if one is willing to prepare oneselfby studying the relevant information. There exists a devoted core of seal carvers and aficionados, despite the art's overall declining status. Kuo's book can be considered a pioneer publication on this subject. To attract interest to such an underemphasized topic is extremely difficult, and hopefully this book breaks ground for further research on seal engraving in the West. Chinese seals always make good impressions! Marshall P. S. Wu The University of Michigan, Museum ofArt Pui-lan Kwok. Chinese Women and Christianity, 1860-192/ Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 1992. viii, 225 pp. Hardcover $29.95, paperback $19.95. copyright1994 by University of Hawai'i Press Cross-cultural empirical research on Third World women is much needed, and it is relevant to feminist studies as a whole. Kwok Pui-lan's research on Chinese feminist theology challenges readers to broaden their investigations to include the historical experience ofwomen in different settings and religious traditions. Patricia Bell Scott reminds feminists: "There must be more empirical and crosscultural investigations of the life experiences ofwomen. In other words, we cannot speak of a psychology or sociology or anthropology ofwomen, if the frameworks of these perspectives are applicable to White, middle-class, or professional women only" (Patricia Bell Scott, "Debunking Sapphire: Toward a Non-Racist Reviews 161 and Non-Sexist Social Science," Journal ofSociology and Social Welfare4, no. 6[i977]: 864-871). Rosemary Reuther, a prominent American feminist theologian , criticizesAmerican feminists for projecting their own experiences onto women ofother societies instead of understanding the other societies on their own terms: "Feminism in the West has called for justice for women, but the white middle-class context of feminists has often made them oblivious to the class and race bias oftheir discernment ofinjustices and their vision of alternatives" (Rosemary R. Ruether, "A Method of Correlation," in FeministInterpretation of the Bible, ed. Letty M. Russell [Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1985], p. 119). Kwok draws on both missionary and Chinese sources, including autobiographies , short articles, church yearbooks, college bulletins, pamphlets, religious journals, and some Chinese Christian women's voices. She focuses on the relationship between Chinese women and the missionary movement as well as the feminist movement in China. She discusses the roles that Chinese Christian women played in church social reforms, and in shaping their identities from the introduction ofProtestant Christianity in the middle ofthe nineteenth century to the anti-Christian campaigns of the 1920s, from a Chinese Christian women's perspective. The author uses textual analysis to uncover howWestern missionaries directed their teachings, including their teachings about women, toward women in order to spread Christianity. To make Christianity more acceptable to the Chinese , Kwok argues, Western missionaries had to "feminize" Christianity. This feminization was required because of the particularly Chinese way in which an omnipotent power such as God...