Review

This chapter's translation faces its greatest test with terms that have no lexical equivalent. "礼" (li ) is rendered not as "rite" or "etiquette" but as "patterned propriety that gives form to feeling"—a definition that emerges through accumulated examples rather than a single glossary entry. The phrase "入乡随俗" (literally "enter village, follow customs") is unpacked as a philosophical stance: not mere adaptation but an epistemological humility that recognizes knowledge as locally grounded. Particularly brilliant is the handling of "人情" (renqing ). Rather than flattening it to "human feeling" or "social obligation," the translators embed it within a narrative of gift-exchange during zhongqiu (Mid-Autumn Festival), showing how mooncakes circulate not as commodities but as quantified relationship tokens. The English reader grasps renqing not as a word but as a social calculus—a system where generosity and indebtedness are precisely balanced to maintain long-term reciprocity. The chapter's most delicate work involves customs that might strike Western readers as "backward." Foot-binding is mentioned not for sensationalism but as a cautionary tale of how li can become dystopian when severed from its ethical roots. The authors' critique is embedded in a comparative framework, noting how Victorian corsets performed similar bodily disciplining, thus avoiding Orientalist condescension while maintaining moral clarity.