Faculty Spotlight: An Interview with Becky Yang Hsu
Feature Series: Faculty Spotlight
Becky Yang Hsu is an associate professor of sociology at Georgetown University. She recently published The Extraordinary in the Mundane: Family and Forms of Community in China (Columbia University Press, February 2025), an edited volume drawing from research produced under the U.S.-China Research Group on Culture and Society. The initiative sat down with Hsu to discuss her new book and its contributions to understanding community organization and family structures in contemporary Chinese society.
Give us a brief introduction to your background and research interests.
I was born in Taiwan and came to the United States when I was four. I grew up speaking Mandarin and the minnan dialect and hearing a lot about the history of Taiwan and tensions with China. I think those experiences shaped an awareness of the fact that there are many ways to see things. I've also always been interested in meaning of life-type of questions, so I studied the sociology of religion (though I don’t only study religion). These days I'm studying grave sweeping in China.
What was the genesis of your recent book project?
I've always loved Richard Madsen's work, and he sent me an essay on U.S.-China relations and the common good. The essay refutes Samuel Huntington's idea about the “clash of civilizations” and the idea that the relationship between China and the United States must be antagonistic. Instead, Madsen raises this idea that there are common goods that people in both societies need, and that it might be useful to learn from each other. I was inspired by the idea that there could be something useful about people gaining more knowledge and understanding about each other.
On both sides you hear all this bad stuff, which tends to produce a lot of nationalistic tensions and bring us away from peace. But you never hear about the good stuff, and I think there's good stuff in both societies. So one of my interests with the project was conveying some of the good stuff happening in China that would be useful for people in the United States to hear about.
The book presents a diverse set of case studies examining different forms of community organization in China. How can understanding these dynamics better inform our understanding of China today?
I think all of the cases are examples of ways people coordinated action to bring about some kind of goal that was related to family. Theoretically, the literature on civic action tends to think of people in terms of organizing against the state or big business, but it never involves anything related to the family, which it considers to be private. However, China has a history of what you might call “civic” or “civil” organizations that are lineage-based and organize things that are good for both your family and the rest of society. So the cases are interesting because they show that civic action in China involves doing good things for society but also for your family.
The cases are also interesting because all NGOs or any other registered organizations are closely monitored by the government in China. But coordinated action related to the family has historically been acceptable because it usually isn’t antagonistic to the government. Family activities organized around the temple, a charity, or festivals are often helpful and organize the local community, so they make up a space where the government's not that controlling. So I think coordinated action in China is interesting, even if it doesn't counter the government, because there's all this interesting stuff that people are doing that's still very important.
You contributed to the volume as well. What was your chapter about?
My chapter in the book is specifically on people preparing their burial clothes, which in China is actually a happy event. When there's a funeral in China, people wail and there is a lot of mourning, and filial piety requires lots of grief, but Chinese people approach burial clothes cheerfully, which is something that surprised me.
When I was in China, I asked somebody to show me her burial clothes, and I found out that it’s actually normal for people to have parties and invite others to come over to look at burial clothes, or at least just talk about it. I realized that there’s a certain community aspect to this because it provides a form of coordinated action to prepare for and talk about death in a way that helps people.
What project are you currently working on?
Right now, I'm working on how to understand grave sweeping sociologically. I'm interested in the topic because in China, there's a sense that people expect to continue their ties to their parents and grandparents even after they die. When a family member dies in China, you’re expected to keep caring for them at the grave, just as children are expected to keep caring for their parents when they get old and when they're sick. You go visit their grave every year and bring food and gifts with a certain intention that expresses this relationship of respect and love.
I find this interesting sociologically because I think this practice of grave sweeping demonstrates a relationship despite death that is a social tie. It's like you’re reciprocating for their care, and you keep doing it after they're dead. Some people even go to the grave and ask for help on things, like school work or finances, and there's a little bit of a hope that they'll get some help from their dead parents in the other world. It's a tie that continues for people in a really real way.