Food, Community and Ritual in the Pearl River Delta – Revisiting the ‘Common Pot’

Abstract

Thirty years ago, the eminent sinologist James Watson published a paper on ‘common pot’ dining in the New Territories of Hong Kong, a banquet ritual that differs fundamentally from established social norms in Chinese society. We explore the recent career of the ‘common pot’ in neighbouring Shenzhen, where it became an important symbol manifesting the strength and public role of local lineages in the rapidly growing mega-city. We show how the practice relates to their role as landholding groups, organized in ‘Cooperative Shareholding Companies’ that show many similarities with traditional lineage estates. Meanwhile, the ‘common pot’ is also diffusing as a commercial high-end New Year dish globally, signifying the alignment between traditional conceptions of kinship and modernist conceptions of national identity.

Keywords: Common Pot (Pencai), Shenzhen, Chinese Lineages, Kinship Ritual, Community Egalitarianism, Cooperative Shareholding Companies, Tourism

JEL Classification: Z13