How can there be next to nothing on the world’s largest population?

My heart is about to break. I’m about to break.

For Anth 100, I need to choose a culture to research. I can choose any country within Asia and any topic. My question needs to be narrow enough to guide me in what is meant to be a very open-ended and flexible project. I was so excited.

Warning: long rant.

Originally, I wanted to study Japanese food. I have plenty of that over here, don’t I? But my TA said it’s better to focus on the original country itself, not what it’s like when it moves. He suggested something like the tea ceremony.

When I thought about the tea ceremony, I thought it seems so sad that I’m studying other cultures and I don’t even know my own heritage all that well. It doesn’t matter that I grew up in Hong Kong; I know so little about Chinese traditions. So I thought maybe I’d pick something Chinese to study instead. I saw my prof last week to okay this, and he suggested me doing something I don’t know about, like an ethnic minority.

I went onto the eHRAF database that he suggested we should use. There are a few ethnic minorities in China listed, but it’s hard to find similar documents from the last decade onwards (the timeframe my TA told us to use). If I’m really going to do China, I want to find out something about Han Chinese, my own ethnicity and also the most dominant one.

Some random site told me that we have a tea ceremony as well. Light! Maybe I could compare Japanese and Chinese tea ceremonies. My TA okayed this, but while he was doing that, I was discovering how few academic articles there are on the Japanese tea ceremony and even less on China. In fact, I haven’t found one yet. I haven’t even got three to put together for my proposal due Friday. To my discouragement, my Chinese prof said Chinese people don’t really have food ceremonies.

I have only found one book that is on the Han traditional costume, the hanfu. The dress that is typically thought to be as the Chinese national dress belongs to the Manchu dynasty. China’s made up of 56 ethnicities. It seems like the Han — the dominant ethnicity — is the only one without its own dress. There’s a grassroots movement for its regeneration. But I found none of this out from academic sources. Plus I don’t know how to phrase the question. What is the question that allows me to research more about this, while making it contemporary and relevant? This topic feels more historical than anything else.

In desperation, I called my father for suggestions and he mentioned festivals. Customs are full of meaning. Food is full of meaning. I even know a few, but not all of them. He also mentioned that the PRC is changing the official public holidays from Labour Day (they get a week off for Labour Day!) to traditional Chinese festivals like Mid-Autumn Festival, and so on. Like Hong Kong. They haven’t officially celebrated any traditional festivals barring the Lunar New Year since 1949, but they’re switching back this year. So it’s perfectly contemporary. I even managed to form a sort of question: What do festivals and customs say about people’s values and beliefs about themselves? I like this one.

It’s also really relevant given the current state that China is in — everyone is trying to go home for the New Year, despite these huge snowstorms, which have caused at least 60 people to die (the count is from last Friday).

I found one — maybe two — articles on Lunar New Year within the last 10 years. I tried the Olympics — different topic — but just one as well.

I could cry.

Right now I have no more than two sources for any one of the topics I want to research. I have no topic. I have to submit a proposal by Friday. I’ll be searching for library books tomorrow but they’re not promising. I’m planning to see my prof and my TA but my TA may not be there (he mentioned changing his office hours to some unknown time as of yet), and I don’t know what to say. Hi, I’m failing at researching and I only have one more day to give something to you. Last-minute, bit?

Maybe I’m being pig-headed. Maybe I should do some other culture. But I really wanted to do this one. What on earth am I doing wrong?