Maritime Network, Religion and Gender Studies:On the Christian Women in Modern Chaoshan Region

Cai Xiangyu

Abstract: Since the mid-nineteenth century, four missions, namely the American Baptist Mission, the English Presbyterian Mission, the Basel Mission and les Missions Etrangères de Paris carried out evangelical work among the Hoklo people who earned their livings in Southeast Asia. When Swatow was opened as a treaty port in 1860, Christianity transmitted through the maritime highway into the Chaozhou prefecture with the helps of both the repatriated sojourners and the western missionaries. This paper examines how by introducing the careers of Bible-woman and Needlework, Christianity changed the daily lives of the local Christian women and the traditional gender patterns of this region. The needlework industry that originated within the Christian congregations exerted far-reaching economic and social influences on this region. The Christian women also went on to draw on the mature maritime and religious network to immigrate overseas, steping into the maritime world that used to be closed to them.

Keywords: Maritime Network; Christianity; Gender; Chaoshan Region

（執行編輯：羅燚英）