The Beginnings, 1112-1214: Four Servants of the People

Schoppa, Preface & Chapter I

Schoppa's Song Full of Tears represents a Microhistory of China. It focuses on Xiang Lake, "a six-thousand-acre reservoir ten miles from scenic West Lake in the city of Hangzhou" (xi) It isn't an important location, just a place to start. But that doesn't mean nothing happened there. Lots of key events occurred.

Some events, of course, were more interesting than others.

Schoppa, of course, seems to feel the need to lead each chapter with a "view" of the lake, and then throw a bit of poetry into the mix. Poetry was a key aspect of Chinese society; understanding poetry was a sign of culture, and a part of the civil service exams.

In Chapter I we are introduced to patriarchal lineages, key groups in the culture of the lake. Lineages were important economically and culturally; political and local leaders frequently came from lineage lines. The same names recurred throughout history.

Xiang lake became a more important area when, "In 1127, with the establishment at Hangzhou of the refugee Song court, Hangzhou became the imperial captisal. The city's changed status transformed Xiaoshan county into an area of great strategic importance for the court." (17) This importance would wax and wane through time as political groups shifted. But it is not the main point of Schoppa's work.

(Schoppa, by the way, is a much better, if cheesier, writer than Elvin. He manages to follow his topic... which is great progress by way of authors).

The struggles experienced at Xiang Lake for thousands of years are explained in a few sentences: "At the crux of the problem was the relationship between population, land, and water. Water nourished the rice paddies, which in turn supported people. As the population increased, land per capita decreased and more land was sought; but as land was reclaimed and increased, water to nourish the rice paddies decreased." (19) Essentially, the more people the were, the greater the demand for land and water. The more demand for land, the more likely people were to encroach on the lake, and the less water would be available to go around. When there wasn't enough water to go around, there was no point in having the land because crops could not be grown to nourish the people, so fewer people would survive to need the land and water. Thrown into this mix were the officials who sought to regulate usage (such names as Yang, Zhao, Gu and Guo) . They were key in the first years of this history.

Anyway, Chapter I is really just setting the stage for the rest of the book.