Comments on: When is a Farmer not a Farmer? When He’s Chinese: Then He’s A Peasant

By: The Good Earth by Pearl S Buck | Ginger Chai

The Good Earth by Pearl S Buck | Ginger Chai — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:57:29 +0000

[...] S Buck win the Nobel Prize. The Good Earth reads like a song of the war, of china, of farmers (not peasants), of women and men, of marriage, of poverty and riches and, of birth and [...]

By: The Good Earth – Pearl S Buck «

The Good Earth – Pearl S Buck « — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 08:11:48 +0000

[...] S Buck win the Nobel Prize. The Good earth reads like a song of the war, of china, of farmers (NOT peasants), of women and men, of marriage, of poverty and riches and, of birth and [...]

By: Long overdue (and completely random and disorganised) round-up of good stuff... « Cogs and Wheels: The material culture of revolutionary China

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 22:45:50 +0000

[...] Frog in a Well’s really interesting discussion of the semantics of, and the history of, the western usage of the term ‘peasant’ with reference to China. [...]

By: CW Hayford

CW Hayford — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 05:22:59 +0000

See the pointed comments by Ma Kening, a legislator from Shanxi, on Josie Liu’s blog, China in Transition, to the effect that “nong min” (peasant) shold not be used http://josieliu.blogspot.com/2007/03/2007-npc-cppcc-journal-day-11.html

By: Shanghai express :: Campesinos o agricultores. :: March :: 2007

Shanghai express :: Campesinos o agricultores. :: March :: 2007 — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 14:43:28 +0000

[...] a buscarle un significado a este hecho, no han faltado los que apuntan a que la constante utilización del término campesino/s para referirse a la población rural china [...]

By: Global Voices Online » Blog Archive » China: People’s Conferences

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 20:52:26 +0000

[...] remains. Government, says Hexun blogger CCTV-1000, give the allocated money straight to the ‘peasants‘ themselves instead to local authorities where it gets diverted. Keep finances transparent, [...]

By: elizabeth

elizabeth — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 22:00:41 +0000

I was searching through the “pre-liberation” periodicals mulu at Tianjin library yesterday and found two journals – one published by the Henan University agriculture institute called Nongmin (1936). And another called Xin nongmin (1938). I really can’t wait to check out what the “new peasant” is all about. It may very well be that the term really took off in the thirties. I’ll keep looking for examples.

I found Du Yisa’s comment about urbanites using “nongmin” as a cutdown to differentiate between one another quite interesting. I spent some time in Kunming about five years ago and people were using a transliteration of farmer to note uncouth behaviour. I do think that this kind of behaviour is slightly different than how urbanites would have used the rural during the Republican era to define their own social status. And I think it is a symptom of the topsy-turvy urban-rural world post Cultural Revolution where city folk hunt out the hidden nongmin in their midst.

By: lirelou

lirelou — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 06:56:52 +0000

Very interesting post and comments, but I take feudalism to have ended in Europe (western, at least), well before the French Revolution with the rise of the centralized state, absolute monarchy, and mercantilism. And serfdom certainly survived past the French Revolution in Russia (and I presume some other parts of eastern Europe). A salute to Du Yisa.