The Spiral Road: Change in a Chinese Village through the Eyes of a Communist Party Leader

by Shu-min Huang

The Spiral Road has become essential reading for understanding the dramatic transformations reshaping the lives of China’s peasants. Through the eyes of Party Secretary Ye Wende, anthropologist Huang Shu-min combines a life history approach with participant observation to illustrate the path of change in a village in southeast China. Beginning with the Communist Party’s rule and Mao’s Great Leap Forward in the early 1950s to privatization and economic development in the 1990s, Huang’s compelling work unravels turbulent events that affected individuals and families in Lin Village, including government control in peasants’ daily lives. Based on the author’s continuing trips to China, the second edition provides in-depth details of the effects of change—Taiwanese investment, large-scale production, international marketing, new lifestyles—and the ongoing story of Mr. Ye: his ideas for expanding the villagers’ wealth, his manipulation in establishing lucrative businesses in Lin Village, and his arrangements to secure jobs for his family members and close kin. This multidimensional account reveals the challenges of balancing traditional customs and values with vibrant changes imposed by governing authorities.

Genres: Nonfiction, China, History, Anthropology, School

250 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 15, 1989

About the author

長期任教於美國愛荷華州立大學人類學系，現為清華大學人類學研究所教授、中央研究院民族學研究所通信研究員。二○一○年獲選為中央研究院院士，二○一五年獲中華民國總統科學獎。著作有《借土養命：從雲南到金三角，從毒品到永續農業，一個泰北華人社區的民族誌》（春山，2021），譯作有《鉅變：當代政治、經濟的起源》（春山，2020）。

Reviews

[irritable vowel syndrome · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a proper anthropological account written in a easily accessible narrative style. It takes a mostly neutral stance to center the main protagonist of the narration - Party Secretary Ye - a village administrator with growing amounts of political and social clout. The book is essentially formed into a conversation between the ethnographer (the author) and ethnographee (Ye) based in Lin village (Fujian province, across the way from Taiwan). I thought it was an illuminating read, which I believe it must also be taken in context of the larger history and politics of China pre- and post-Mao and pre- and post-Deng Xiaoping, a context that would have to be sought elsewhere, though the author does of course tie Ye's experiences of major political events such as the Four Cleanups, the Cultural Revolution, and the later economic reforms with broader summaries of these events. There is ample critique of party corruption as well as the complications that came with rapid capitalist development and influx of surplus production. Some parts were a bit problematic (e.g. gender politics) but perhaps such attention to such issues was not as common 20 years ago when the book was written. Overall I thought it was a rich, easy-to-read account of rural change in China between 1984-1996.

[Jessica Harn · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books on Communist China, and the disasters that came out of it. A must-read

[Maeve Kilcarr · Rating 1 out of 5]

i did not the writing style at all...not one bit

[Toby White · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've just finished reading about twenty books on the aftermath of the Great Leap Forward. In many ways, this one was the best. That's odd, because scholars have largely ignored the book.

Spiral Road is exactly what its subtitle states. It is largely a series of personal reminiscences by P.S. Ye, a provincial Communist Party cadre, about his life as a commune leader in Fujian Province. It is hard to tell how much we're seeing Ye and how much Huang, but the book manages to be, in parts funny profound, tragic, and inspiring.

Above all, it is perceptive. No other book explains the actual long-term effect of the numerous political campaigns of the era (they built lasting political networks among the young cadres), or explains the role of traditional religion, or shows how the Maoist economic caste system worked in practice, or details the devastating effect of the Great Leap on Mao's credibility.

History ought to be about empathy -- about putting ourselves in a place and time so that we have a feeling for why people acted as they did, and the objective constraints they faced. This book does that. Of course, PS Ye is not Everyman. Yet we get to know him fairly well, and with that Rosetta Stone, we can decode far more easily the actions and motivations of a much larger group of historical actors.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book I've read on China's development from the '50s to the early '90s (and I've read about a dozen). The author, an anthropologist, retells the story of the transformation of a village in SE China in an engaging, insightful, and thorough way. Read this book if you want to get into the nitty gritty of China's history of land redistribution policies, as well as how villages changed after the late '70s reform and opening period.

[Crystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting look into China during the various policies passed after the Liberation. Plenty of things I both did and didn't know about the effects of the policies passed. This book provides more of an analysis from the main informant, P.S. Ye rather than from the author which I honestly found refreshing and more of a challenge to read and make my own analysis.

[versarbre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recommend only for the sake of the P.S.Ye whose social existence has really been preserved in this ethnographic account.

[Meagan · Rating 4 out of 5]

(unfinished review) A very humanizing perspective..