HICCS 2025

This panel delves into narratives and environments shaping contemporary China, from the moral underpinnings of small business owners in Yiwu and the construction of matchmaking narratives to the role of age-friendly neighborhoods in protecting older adults.

Zhou Yi
Department of Sociology, Fudan University, Professor

Title:
Bitterness Narrative: The Moral Foundation of Small Business Owners in Yiwu, China

Abstract:
Many small business owners in China attribute their success to their “bitter experiences,” yet there has been limited research investigating the nature and the moral foundation of this “bitterness narrative.” Based on oral history interviews with 123 Yiwu merchants, this study finds several facts about their bitterness narratives. First, the triple traumas of hunger, responsibility, and identity experienced during the decade of the Cultural Revolution, when the village collective economy collapsed, turned the narrative of “exchanging feathers for sugar” into a bitter one. Second, the bitterness narrative went through four stages of change: the “bitterness” of disembedding from the village collective economy and venturing alone as a peddler, the “bitterness” of seeking relationships and re-embedding in kinship networks, the “bitterness” of cutting off kinship networks when the business was about to expand, and the “half bitterness” of the accelerated kinship severance laid with the joy of returning to the institutional security provided by the government. The four bitterness narratives were all centered on relationship embedding or disembedding, so the nature of the bitterness was the relational structure. Third, their bitterness narratives were impacted by the ethical-moral concepts in the surrounding environment. Small business owners proactively aligned themselves with the dominant moral values, which contributed to their economic success. What they emphasized was not only Chinese traditional values such as “the affinity between suffering and success” and “the loyalty to the authority” but also neo-liberal values that people should be free in a globalized market. Focusing on the moral-cultural factors of these small business owners’ structural and economic behavior underlying their bitterness narratives, this study echoes the Strong Cultural Program that calls for the cultural accounts of the structure and the structural accounts of the culture.

Shichao Du
Fudan University, Assistant Professor

Title:
The Process of Narrative Persuasion: The Making of Matchmaking in China

Abstract:
The matchmaking market in China is a public space where parents with unmarried adult children congregate and scout for potential sons- or daughters-in-law. Although the practice of matchmaking is drawing more and more international and intellectual attention, less is known about how this public practice of mate selection is legitimized and gets its prevalence. This study frames the matchmaking practice as a process of narrative persuasion where parents strategically replace their children’s individualized narrative of marriage with their public narrative. Drawing on interview data, this study qualitatively examines this narrative persuasion process. Results show that parents and professional matchmakers problematize the individualized narrative and then leverage the cultural tool of filial piety, with economic incentives attached, to reconnect their children’s mate selection behavior to the public narrative. As a result, young adults are successfully persuaded to participate in matchmaking activities. The findings imply that matchmaking in China is not only a marital practice but also an intergeneration process full of cultural strategies.

Chunyu Wang
Chongqing University, Associate Professor

Title:
Can living in an age-friendly neighborhood environment protect older adults from falls in China?

Abstract:
Falls pose a significant threat to the health and well-being of older adults, particularly in China, where fall-related injuries are alarmingly prevalent. Based on a Longitudinal survey in China, the study examines the relationship between the quality of age-friendliness of neighborhood environment and the occurrence of falls among older adults. The study employed a complementary log-log regression model to explore this association. The results revealed a non-linear relationship between the age-friendliness of neighborhoods and fall risks. Improving age-friendliness reduces falls when low, but risks increase slightly once a certain threshold is reached. This highlights the need for a balanced approach to creating age-friendly environments. The study also reveals that the protective effect is stronger in urban areas and for older adults living alone, emphasizing the importance of targeted interventions for these vulnerable groups. The study underscores the need for a comprehensive approach to fall prevention, incorporating both environmental modifications and targeted interventions for vulnerable populations. Fostering age-friendly neighborhoods can create safer and more supportive environments for older adults, ultimately improving their quality of life and reducing the burden of fall-related injuries.