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The Politics of Li Yu's Xianqing ouji

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2022

Tina Lu Open the ORCID record for Tina Lu [Opens in a new window]
Tina Lu*
Affiliation:
Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
*
Email: tina.lu@yale.edu
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Abstract

Seventeenth-century Chinese literature thematizes market segmentation, the idea that functionally similar but different objects can be produced for and marketed to different ranks of people. A 1671 collection of classical essays, Xianqing ouji 閑情偶寄 by Li Yu 李漁 (1611–80), has generally been understood to be the most influential of lifestyle guides, containing essays about the theater, everyday life, and material culture. This article argues that price and quality differentiation when it comes to a variety of consumer goods forms a central organizing principle for the volume and provides a prism through which Xianqing ouji discusses social inequity and hierarchy.

Keywords

consumer cultureessayshierarchyinequalityLi Yulifestyle guidesmarket segmentationmaterial cultureprice differentiationXianqing ouji
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 81 , Issue 3 , August 2022 , pp. 493 - 506
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Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2022

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