The Early Modern Travels of Manchu: A Script and Its Study in East Asia and Europe by Mårten Söderblom Saarela (review)

Abstract

Published by the Harvard-Yenching Institute HJAS 82.1 (2022): 181–187 But this reminder, like the book’s title, calls out for comparisons. The homelands of two prominent contemporaneous trade diasporas based in South China—the Hokkien and the Cantonese diasporas—were river deltas. Did new rural orders here emerge independently, from a different but parallel set of dynamics? Or did Huizhou influence these other areas? In other words, was there something unique—whether institutions, practices, or mentality—in a place like Huizhou, with many mountains, few fields?