Abstract
If we take a look at the map of Beijing, we will find the city has been clearly defined by the traffic rings. Originally, the size of the city was as big as the second traffic ring circle, which is right in the middle of the other ring circles. As the city expanded more and more, the third, fourth and fifth traffic rings were built up soon afterwards, and now we also have the sixth ring. These traffic rings not only serve as traffic connections; also, they are the way people use to describe the location roughly. What’s more, which traffic ring you dwell in reflects who you are socially.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Mimi Yan means ‘squinty eye’, and this is a typical characteristic of a resident living in my courtyard. Mr. Yang sometimes later on referred him as Mimi Yan, in case I didn’t know who he talked about, even if this is very rude. Of course he avoided mentioning this in public loudly.
- 2.
Amster sees gossip as both a centripetal and centrifugal force and a critical component in the social life of any community (Amster 2004). It can be reinforcing of group values and norms. Gossip came to the forefront of my understandings of community life; the existence of gossip, and the disputes it illustrates and mediates, shows that a community is alive and well. According to Prof. Nigel Rapport (2003) ‘gossip helps maintain group unity, morality and history’ (Rapport 2003: 153).
- 3.
In order to build up a good reputation for English teaching and have more students in Hutong, I applied to be an English teacher at the New Oriental School, which is the most well-known English language testing and training school in China. As most of the English learners in China are exam oriented, based on this fact, I found being an English teacher at this school was a good way to show my qualification to help their children to get a good mark in the exam.
- 4.
You might be curious as to why I didn’t prove how I was qualified to be an English teacher and sell myself to this lady since I wanted to have some students, and it was very likely that she would like to introduce her child to me for English lessons. But my other role, as a Chinese citizen, requires me to respect my own cultural rule which I have to always put first: that is, be modest and humble. It is not a good idea to demonstrate how good you are by straight speaking; instead it is wise to let people find out by themselves. The only problem is that it might take a long while. If I could find a third person to give a recommendation, that’s also a good option. In this way, my mother helped me a lot to sell myself, which is ok under this cultural norm. People will take it as a mother’s pride in her daughter instead of it being exaggerating or bragging.
- 5.
She meant my turn to use the toilet, as we were both queuing to use the toilet while we were chatting.
- 6.
Remember, unlike a normal toilet, the one we used in the compound had no individual doors for privacy—just partial low walls. This allowed me and my informants to have a face-to-face conversation while using the toilet.
- 7.
This is Mr. Yang’s nickname that other hutong fellows call him.
- 8.
This phrase means Brother Yang. Someone who is younger, like Xiaojun, will call him this.
- 9.
This is very similar to what Christine Helliwell described for the Gerai people: ‘Implicit in this outside/inside division is one between not “they, the community and “us, the household”, but rather, one between “they the world outside” (of which we may also at a times be a part) and” us, the longhouse community’ (Helliwell 1996: 135).
- 10.
This is a traditional Beijing noodle dish served with black bean sauce.
References
Amster, M. H. (2004). The “many mouths” of community: Gossip and social interaction among the Kelabit of Borneo. Asian Anthropology, 3, 97–127.
Goffman, E. (1990). The presentation of self in everyday life. London: Penguin.
Park, R. E. (1952). Human communities: The collected papers of Robert Park (Vol. 2) (E. Hughes, C. Johnson, J. Masuoka, R. Redfield, & L. Wirth, Eds.). Glencoe: Free Press.
Rapport, N. (2003). Co-eds with Overing, J. Social and cultural anthropology: The key concepts. London: Routledge.
Tianshu, Pan (2011). Deep China: The moral life of the person (Arthur Kleinman, Yunxiang Yan, Jing Jun, Sing Lee, Everett Zhang, Pan Tianshu, Wu Fei, Jinhua Guo Eds.), Berkeley: University of California Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Yang, Q. (2015). ‘Urbanised by Specialised’: The Decrease in ‘Overlapping Space’ in the City. In: Space Modernization and Social Interaction. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44349-1_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44349-1_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-662-44348-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-662-44349-1
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)