Translating and Transcending Everyday Life: Private Writing and Grassroots Christianity in Early Twentieth-Century Manchuria

Abstract

<p>Alfred Marie Caubrière (1876-1948) was a French Catholic missionary who worked in Manchuria for about half a century from 1899 to 1948. During his stay in Manchuria, Caubrière has left us two sets of manuscripts: 1) Over 600 family letters to his parents, including over 100 illustrations depicting the daily life of Chinese villagers, kids, local houses and objects, churches and rituals, and village scenes during the social chaos. 2) A 13-volume Chinese language study notes that record over 2000 entries of Chinese Catholics’ everyday conversions, word-by-word in the French Romanization of a local dialect. A striking feature of the conversations lies in their extremely private and intimate contents, which contain the topics of pregnancy, childbirth, midwife and delivery, postpartum confinement, quarrels between husband and wife, complaints of in-laws and breaking up the family and living apart. A dutiful missionary and a meticulous ethnographer, Caubrière opened up a window for us to hear the private voices of Chinese Catholic villagers. Focusing on this fascinating and intimate world constructed by Caubrière’s record of the vernacular language and everyday rural life, this article examines the ways in which both the missionary and Chinese Catholic villagers appropriated the traditions, languages, discourses and symbols that make up a religion and a local culture in everyday situation. Examination of these documents also allows us to rethink the historical process of indigenization, the impact of Christianity in China on grassroots level, and the intricate relationship between private writing, community memory, and the construction of local culture in a global religious context.</p>