Academic literature on the topic 'Xue Baochai'

Marriage, Reason and Sentiment in Honoré de Balzac and Cao Xueqin. The Case of Letters of Two Brides and Dream of the Red Chamber. In both Balzac’s (1799–1850) Letters of Two Brides (1845) and Cao’s (1715– 1763) Dream of the Red Chamber (1742–1764), we have two very determined young girls, ready for marriage, who dream of a more passionate life. Lacking family support, they are alone and adopt opposite behavior patterns. The first (Louise de Chaulieu / Lin Daiyu) stays the same and wants a marriage of love, while the second (Renée de Maucombe / Xue Baochai) resigns herself to a marriage of convenience arranged by her family. Their two destinies diverge: one experiences great love but dies prematurely; the other experiences family happiness but is a prisoner in a life of conventions. However, behind these oppositions, their differences appear superficial and seems to come only from the social and political context. The two destinies are ultimately closely related, until they almost merge. Not only does the stubbornness of the two heroines in the realization of their dream lead them to a similar situation, both authors have also come up with a very similar technique when exposing the same surprising result. In Balzac, the two heroines become “Siamese twins” thanks to the system of correspondence. In Cao’s case, it is thanks to a particular narrative technique that constantly relates both heroeines to each other. Finally, via their common reflections on the influence of “bad novels” on young girls, Balzac and Cao deliver us “a novel about novels”. The novel is a language vessel, and at the same time a metalanguage that reflects on the linguistic structure of the work.

This chapter examines internal Sino-Muslim disputes from the late Qing into later Republican China over the question of whether the Sino-Muslims were a separate ethnic group, the Huizu, or rather a religious minority within the Han ethnicity, the Hanzu. Through the writings of Huang Zhenpan, Ding Baochen, Yin Boqing, Xue Wenbo and other Sino-Muslim intellectuals it illuminates the question of Hui ethnic status as a divisive controversy among Sino-Muslim elites during the crucial formative period of modern Chinese national state and identity. Several different interpretations of the Huizu ethnicity emerged from these polemics. Some considered the Huizu as an inclusive Muslim ethnicity, encompassing all Muslim populations in both Eastern China and in the Western borderlands, regardless of linguistic or cultural background. Others regarded the Sino-Muslims as part of the global and Pan-Islamic “Muslim nation,” and still others as including only the culturally Chinese Sinophone Muslim communities. Based on modern Muslim periodicals, this chapter demonstrates the debates’ influence on the Muslim policies of all the 20^th century Chinese regimes, including the Guomindang and Communist Party.