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178 ANNE E.MCLAREN
8 The ‘left-wing’ periods are said to be 1949–52, 1957–60, 1966–78). ‘Right-wing’ periods
are listed as 1952–57, 1961–65, 1978 to the present.
9 Croll gives many examples of this process (1995:69–108).
10 As Edwards notes in this volume, women were also very underrepresented in the Chinese
Communist Party.
11 This project was part of a large Sino-Japanese research project, ‘Folk Customs of Village
Settlements in Jiangnan, China’. Chen led the Chinese investigatory team. The report below
is extracted from Chen (2001).
12 The Kengsan guniang may well be a latter-day manifestation of an ancient female deity, Zigu,
first recorded in the fifth century AD. Sometimes the same deity is known as Sangu furen.
13 For further details see consult Ye and Wu (1990:776, 724).
14 This ritual act parallels other fortune-telling activities known to Chinese folk culture
involving a deity who ‘writes’ a cryptic message through a spirit medium on a planchette or
featuring a deity who ‘descends’ to a sedan chair. For an example of the latter with male
practitioners, see Jordan (1972:65–6).

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