Romeo and Juliet in Shanghai: four representative stories of love in contemporary Chinese families

Abstract Following paper presents most basic tendencies in social theory of marriage and family in Chinese contemporary society. Material and methods It provides a brief description of how a traditional Chinese family works in context of Confucian philosophy and culture. Consecutively, four individ...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Mikołaj Mateusz Przepiórkowski
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Akademia Bialska im. Jana Pawła II 2022-01-01
Series:Rozprawy Społeczne
Subjects:
Online Access:https://rozprawyspoleczne.edu.pl/Romeo-and-Juliet-in-Shanghai-four-representative-stories-of-love-in-contemporary,141554,0,2.html
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Abstract Following paper presents most basic tendencies in social theory of marriage and family in Chinese contemporary society. Material and methods It provides a brief description of how a traditional Chinese family works in context of Confucian philosophy and culture. Consecutively, four individual stories of anonymized interviewees are presented as carefully selected narrations representative for 40 individual interviews carried out in Shenzhen and Shanghai in 2019. Results The conclusion of the paper suggests that society in China changes, but the traditional family in China remains strong. The cultural aspect and model of family and marriage works like a “double edged sword”. Sometimes it saves lives, sometimes causes tragedies. Conclusions At the same time, it should not be criticized too easily through a biased, Westernized interpretation as well as it should not be perceived and taken just the way it is given by Chinese dominating culture – aka without considering negative effects it produces for young generations.
ISSN:2657-9332