FILE PHOTO: Renowned Chinese anthropologist Lin Yaohua (1910–2000)

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In late autumn 1935, the renowned structural-functionalist A. R. Radcliffe-Brown visited Yenching University at the invitation of Wu Wenzao (or Wu Wen-tsao), dean of the university’s Department of Sociology. Lin Yaohua (or Lin Yüeh-hwa, 1910–2000), then serving as a teaching assistant, closely followed the visiting scholar and developed a deep understanding of his theoretical approach. Influenced by Émile Durkheim, Radcliffe-Brown viewed social facts as possessing an objective existence external to individuals—akin to phenomena studied in the natural sciences. He held that anthropology should undertake comparative studies of different social structures to identify general laws governing the operation of human societies.

Yenching School’s humanistic methodology overlooked

It is commonly believed that the Yenching School was influenced by British functionalism and the American Chicago School of Sociology, taking a firmly empirical and scientific orientation. Indeed, Wu advocated for “beginning and ending research in field experimentation.” His students Lin Yaohua and Fei Xiaotong (or Fei Hsiao-tung) later encapsulated this approach as “seeking truth from facts” and “gaining knowledge from the real,” respectively. Consequently, academic discussions of the Yenching School’s efforts to indigenize sociology and anthropology in China have tended to focus on its empirical methods, often overlooking its humanistic dimensions.

In fact, Wu also promoted a lesser-known idea: Chinese scholars should integrate the nation’s longstanding humanistic traditions into Western social sciences, thereby rendering them more “humanized.” In his later years, Fei emphasized that anthropology is a broadly encompassing, integrative discipline of the humanities.

Lin’s focus on humanistic nature of anthropology

Lin Yaohua stands as a representative figure in this humanistic turn in Chinese anthropology. Though a close disciple of Radcliffe-Brown, Lin did not merely imitate his Western mentor’s theoretical system. Instead, he possessed a strong awareness of the humanistic nature of anthropology in the Chinese context, emphasizing personal experience in fieldwork, literary expression in writing, and humanism in scholarly production.

This perspective is evident in three essays Lin wrote in the 1930s. In “Formalism and Experientialism in Social Research Methods,” he categorized research approaches into two types: “formalism” and “experientialism.” The former focuses on statistical, diagrammatic, measurable, demonstrable, and cumulative forms of material knowledge, typified by behaviorism in psychology and quantitative sociology. The latter attends to sympathetic, dramatic, introspective, intuitive, and imaginative forms of social understanding. Discontent with the prevailing trend since the 19th century of applying natural scientific methods to the study of social phenomena, Lin stressed the value of experientialism. He argued that the key to becoming a competent social researcher lies in the ability to achieve empathetic insight by putting oneself in the position of others. This methodology of emotional resonance and mutual understanding bears a striking resemblance to Chen Yinque’s contemporaneous advocacy of “sympathetic understanding” in historiography.

How, then, can writing capture the complex realities of human nature? In “Charles Horton Cooley on the Life-Study Method as Applied to Rural Social Research,” Lin suggested that literary technique is the key. A vivid literary style not only engages the reader, but, more importantly, aligns more closely with human nature than statistical charts and data. Lin noted, “What novelists give us are humanistic, dramatic, and truthful works. Though these may be tinted with the author’s personality and views, they are often closer to truth and to human nature than any numerical descriptions.” Nevertheless, he cautioned that literary techniques in social sciences research must be employed with restraint, lest rhetorical flourish obscure the intended message.

In “Science and Art,” Lin further elevated the relationship between formalism and experientialism by framing it as one between science and art: “We may also say that the aim of sociology lies in art, while its method lies in science.” In his view, although early social anthropological research was grounded in scientific methods, artistic techniques are indispensable for achieving holistic description.

Lin’s literary experiment

From his undergraduate thesis on Yan Fu, to his master’s thesis on the lineage system in Yixu Village, southeast China’s Fujian Province, and his doctoral dissertation “The Miao-Man Peoples of Kweichow,” Lin consistently sought to incorporate humanistic thought into his work. Yet the formal conventions of academic writing limited his ability to fully integrate literary techniques, particularly modes associated with fictional narratives. He was waiting for the right opportunity.

In 1940, having earned his PhD from Harvard University and taken up a teaching assistantship there, Lin was finally free from the constraints of academic style. Seizing the chance, he embarked on a literary experiment. Drawing on materials he had collected years earlier in his home village in rural Fujian, he composed The Golden Wing: A Family Chronicle—a fictionalized ethnography, which would later be recognized as one of the “Four Classics” of early Chinese anthropology. Raymond Firth praised it, noting that its theme is extremely simple in conception, yet its modest form conceals a high level of artistic achievement—like an ink painting of bamboo.

The ethnography chronicles the intertwined fates of the Hwang and Chang families, linked by marriage, from the late Qing period to the early years of the war against Japanese aggression. It can be read from multiple perspectives—life history, balance theory, or ethnographic narrative—but at its core lies a theme that perpetually occupies the Chinese consciousness: fate. When Lin returned to his hometown in 1937, he was astonished to find that the two families, once both prosperous, had traced radically different trajectories. The Hwang family had thrived, with flourishing businesses and numerous descendants, while the Chang household had fallen into decline, reduced to a widow and her adopted son. Could this divergence in fortune be attributed to what locals called fengshui?

After becoming wealthy through commerce in Hookow town, Chang Fenchow and Hwang Dunglin both sought to build new homes. They set their sights on the same prized plot of land, named by the local geomancer to be “A-Dragon-Vomiting-Pearls.” Chang, acting in secret, breaks ground first, forcing Hwang to choose another site. Both families soon face hardship. Hwang, by adapting wisely to changing circumstances, weathers the crises and eventually prospers. Chang, however, is unable to cope and dies prematurely, after which his family steadily declines. This tragic narrative suggests that fate cannot be explained by fengshui alone.

For Western readers, The Golden Wing offers an exploration of the Chinese philosophy of life. It is worth emphasizing that, in contrast to the monotheistic cosmology of Christianity—which underscores the unilateral sovereignty of God over humankind—traditional Chinese culture does not uphold the notion of predetermined fate. Likewise, unlike modern Western culture, which often asserts human omnipotence in the aftermath of God’s symbolic withdrawal, Chinese thought does not espouse the belief that “man can definitely conquer nature.” The Chinese humanistic tradition neither negates the role of Heaven by emphasizing human agency, nor diminishes human initiative by asserting the supremacy of Heaven. 

Qian Mu once observed in Popular Speech on Chinese Thought that “because the Chinese people hold deeply to a concept of destiny shaped by fluctuating forces, they understand the importance of not clinging to past patterns, of adapting to changing times, of remaining humble in fortune, and of not despairing in adversity.” Among the common folk, this worldview is echoed in proverbs such as “a man is like a three-jointed reed—who knows which joint is strong,” “three cycles of wealth and poverty before old age,” and “no sugarcane is sweet at both ends.”

The Golden Wing embodies precisely this kind of life philosophy. When Hwang Dunglin is confronted with a crisis arising from a dispute over forest land, Lin Yaohua remarks in the text: “But however they might attribute them to destiny or the work of the gods, Dunglin and his villagers knew by trial and error how to manage their own lives.” By the book’s end, the Japanese invasion brought not only a personal and familial crisis but a national one as well. Dunglin gazes up at enemy planes in the sky and instructs his children and grandchildren to sow seeds into earth. The implication is clear: The destinies of individuals, families, and nations are not doomed to permanent decline. By fulfilling one’s responsibilities diligently, the possibility of renewal always exists.   

Marshall Sahlins and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro have noted that Western social sciences continue to carry the imprint of a monotheistic cosmology, in which the former relationship between God and the individual has evolved into various theories of the relationship between society and the individual. In this regard, The Golden Wing offers a vital insight: Beyond the society-individual binary lies a third realm—local understandings of, negotiations with, and resistances to fate—that may offer a distinct anthropological framework for interpreting Chinese life. This cannot be captured through data and diagrams, nor can it be subsumed under existing Western philosophical or social scientific theories.

During the 1930s and 1940s, the British philosopher Robin George Collingwood—working in the empirically driven environment of Oxford University—advanced a philosophy of history grounded in interpretation. This perspective later influenced the anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard, who, in the 1950s, critiqued Radcliffe-Brown’s natural science orientation in anthropology and asserted that the field should instead be understood as a humanistic discipline concerned with cultural translation. In the early 1970s, across the Atlantic, Clifford Geertz developed the paradigm of interpretive anthropology, arguing that anthropology, like literature, poetry, and drama, is a discipline devoted to the interpretation of meaning rather than the verification of empirical laws. These interpretive and experiential approaches have gained considerable traction in contemporary Chinese academia.

Still, it is important to acknowledge the early efforts of Republican-era Chinese anthropologists like Lin Yaohua to humanize Western theory. As Lin urged at the turn of the century, “In our current endeavor to reconstruct China’s humanism and to develop disciplinary and cultural research, we must reconnect with this tradition. It is the nearest living source of Chinese culture available to us today.”

Yin Tao is an associate professor from the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Harbin Engineering University.  

Edited by REN GUANHONG