Chinese Concepts of Privacy

This text examines the traditional Chinese approach to the subject of privacy, showing that concepts of privacy have been part of discourse in China from the earliest recorded times to the present, with varying contents, mechanisms, functions and values at different times and among different groups of people. Individual chapters examine: inscriptions on early bronzes; medical case histories in the Ming and Qing dynasties; fictional representations of privacy experiences; discussions on public and private virtue by Liang Qichao; the role (or absence) of privacy issues in letters in early imperial China; and the function and values of privacy, secrecy and seclusion in the correspondence between Lu Xun and Xu Guangping. This book is interdisciplinary by nature and pays particular attention to the terminology and methodology of privacy studies.