Cover -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction: an anthropology of separation -- Separation as a universal constraint -- Awareness of separation and awareness of death -- The psychology of separation -- A realist view of separation -- Anthropological approaches to separation -- 1 Studies of attachment and separation in cultural psychology -- 2 Studies of ritual separations -- 3 Studies of separation through social displacement -- 4 Studies of human relatedness -- Grasping the separation constraint -- Conclusion -- 1 Two festivals of reunion -- The turning of the year -- Old Yang's new year -- Some key aspects of the festival -- 1 'Attending the new year market' (gan nianji) and conventional preparations -- 2 The 'sending-off' and 'greeting' of the Stove God, and other deities -- 3 The 'greeting' and 'sending off' of the ancestors -- 4 The reunion of the immediate family (tuanyuan) -- 5 Stringing together doors: new year visits -- 6 The conclusion of the festival -- The mid-autumn festival in a 'civilised work-unit' -- 2 The etiquette of parting and return -- Detaining (liu), and sending-off (song) guests -- Greeting (jie) guests -- Diplomatic etiquette and 'guest ritual' -- What 'politeness' in sending-off and greeting represents -- Parting and return of relatives and close friends -- The difficult separations of friendship, and 'retaining a memory' -- 3 Greeting and sending-off the dead -- Who are the dead? -- 'Sending-off' (song) the gods -- 'Summoning' (qing), 'receiving' (jie) and 'detaining' (liu) the gods -- Qing imperial ritual -- Spirit mediums and the danger of summoning the dead -- Sending off the dead (songzang) -- The respectful and disrespectful 'reception' ( jie) of ghosts -- History and agency in the 'greeting' and 'sending-off' of the dead -- 4 The ambivalent threshold.

Ancestral gates -- The boundary between heaven and earth -- Attracting the good -- Deflecting the bad -- The ambivalent threshold and the passage through life -- 5 Commensality as reunion -- Some foods of separation and reunion -- Reunion as commensality -- The aesthetics of commensality -- The cycle of laiwang -- The cycle of yang -- 6 Women and the obligation to return -- Men as the public agents of separation and reunion -- Can women be agents of separation and reunion? -- Sending-off and greeting the bride -- Women and the separation constraint -- Returning to the door -- Women and the cycles of yang and laiwang -- 7 Developing a sense of history -- Old newspapers and ancient poetry -- Childhood on kangs -- The firecracker -- Conclusion: a conservative sense of history? -- 8 Classical narratives of separation and reunion -- A romantic novel of separation and reunion -- Sending-off a friend with emotion -- Greeting a friend with food, drink, and modesty -- Sending off loved ones in silence -- The arrival and departure of the gods -- A life determined by separation -- Conclusion -- 9 The politics of separation and reunion in China and Taiwan -- Two places -- Chinese similarities -- Separated from the ancestors -- Forceful and peaceful reunification -- Anthropology and Chinese unity -- Contemporary Chinese rhetoric of separation and reunion -- Distance and 'emotional indoctrination' -- Conclusion: the separation constraint -- Notes -- INTRODUCTION: AN ANTHOLOGY OF SEPARATION -- 1 TWO FESTIVALS OF REUNION -- 3 GREETING AND SENDING-OFF THE DEAD -- 4 THE AMBIVALENT THRESHOLD -- 5 COMMENSALITY AS REUNION -- 6 WOMEN AND THE OBLIGATION TO RETURN -- 7 DEVELOPING A SENSE OF HISTORY -- 8 CLASSICAL NARRATIVES OF SEPARATION AND REUNION -- 9 THE POLITICS OF SEPARATION AND REUNION IN CHINA AND TAIWAN -- CONCLUSION: THE SEPARATION CONSTRAINT -- References.

Index.