Three Zhangs from Panyu County

• In Event: Aspirations in Transition: Educated Women of Guangdong from the Qing to the Republic

Abstract

My focus is on the prominence of this county of Guangdong in producing educated women in both the Qing and the Republic. I explore three writers, all from Panyu and coincidentally all surnamed Zhang. Zhang Fen of the Jiaqing era (1798-1820) was quite extensively published for a Guangdong woman. Her surviving output allows us to test the generalization that Guangdong women entered fewer women’s networks and were less fully published than their Jiangnan counterparts. Zhang Xiuduan of the Xianfeng era (1851-62) was also a productive poet, but she is best known today for her devotion to the novel Dream of the Red Chamber, a rather rare interest among Guangdong women. My question here is whether Zhang Xiuduan’s interest in this novel was anomalous or whether there are other signs of fictional interest among her correspondents. Finally, Zhang Zhujun (1879-1964) stands out for her strong leadership in the areas of medicine and education, interests she seems to have acquired initially through missionary schools. Two questions animate this study: how much credit to give Panyu itself for these women’s success of their respective eras, and whether Zhang Zhujun’s visibility under the Republic can be more solidly linked to Guangdong women’s culture of an earlier time.

Author

• Ellen B. Widmer, Wellesley College