Subjectivity of the people in practice and means to actualize a new socialist culture in rural China: an ethnographic study of drama in Shaanxi’s rural regions in the 1960s

From the mid-twentieth century, the evolving tension between modernity and tradition has become a troublesome issue for the newly-established independent nation-states in Asia. With the ethnographic methodology of field study, this article retraces the drama practice in 1960s’ rural China and tries to reveal the practical formation and specifically, the operative mechanism with which the socialist new culture remolds and summons the subjectivity of People. In such practical process, the subjectivity of People is a key concept of socialist values and a leading principle of people’s everyday life in rural China, which contributes to the formation of a “new tradition” in practice. The “new tradition” has a profound influence on the pathway of the Chinese socialist development, and may also provide necessary reference to other Asian states.