By Linda J. P. Mahdesian
A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity has Prof. Richard Davis bursting with excitement. A scholar of ancient Chinese history, Davis has been invited by a Taiwanese university to teach Chinese history in Chinese. He also will have a chance to study newly discovered tombs of a family on which he is the world's leading expert.
Davis, who studies the little-known Shih family of the Sung dynasty, is not used to all this attention. "What I do is suddenly central and defining - I'm hot!" he says laughing. "That doesn't happen in my field."
Beginning in June, he will take a two-year leave of absence to teach at the National Taiwan Chung-Cheng University in central Taiwan. Established in the 1980s, this new university enrolls about 7,000 students
Davis wasn't always so welcome. When he was in China researching records for his book on the Shih, he was not allowed in the Tien-Yi-Ko Library, a major resource for these materials. "I was an insignificant young historian to them in 1985," says Davis. Still, he completed his book, "Court and Family in Sung China, 960-1279: Bureaucratic Success and Kinship Fortunes for the Shih of Mingchou," in 1986.
A few years later, three hikers traveling through the countryside discovered the tombs of the Shih in the area of Ningbo, south of Shanghai. In 1992, the Chinese government convened a conference of art historians to verify that these were the original tombs. Suddenly Davis was in demand, as the only scholar in the world who studies the Shih family. "A colleague of mine over there called me and told me to come and see these tombs," he says. "He told me, `This is your family!' "
This time, the once ignored scholar was treated like royalty. Chinese officials welcomed him at the Tien-Yi-Ko Library. "There we were in this 18th-century tea room, sitting in rosewood chairs, chatting across a 10-foot table and lanterns 6 feet high," says Davis. "I suddenly brought face and celebrity to their community." Davis was asked to give lectures at universities and conferences, as organizers passed out copies of his book, which was recently translated into Chinese. "That book is more important now than it was 10 years ago," he says. And he visited the tombs at Ningbo, taking photographs and studying the 8-foot-high limestone statues scattered across 30 kilometers of countryside. Twenty-two sites mark two centuries of burial spots for hundreds of Shih ancestors.
Ironically, the reason a "foreigner" like Davis is an expert on the Shih family is because of action taken by the Chinese themselves. The Shih were regarded as "bad guys" by Chinese historians; thus their records were suppressed or destroyed. "The family held power for so long, they exploited the system," says Davis. "They brought in their cronies and consolidated their power." After losing power in the 1250s, the dynasty fell to the Monguls. "Everyone blamed the fall of the dynasty on the Shih - historians failed to discuss them because of their ill repute." He adds, "Historians like to identify with their subjects."
One such "bad guy" was a prime minister named Shih Mi-Yuan, whose 25-year reign was filled with political controversy. He died in 1233. The tombs of his wives were in one mountain; those of his concubines in an adjacent mountain. He personally inscribed the burial site of one concubine, praising her "great moral virtue."
While studying the well-preserved tomb relics, Davis learned that most of the people living in the surrounding villages are descendants of the Shih family and have looked after the tombs throughout the years. He met 80-year-old Shih Yung-Ho, curator of the Sung dynasty temple. During Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution, which lasted from 1966-1972, Yung-Ho used his position to hide Shih documents and artifacts from the Red Guard. Under Mao's orders, the Red Guard burned and looted many temples and museums to purge the country of "old thoughts and old relics."
Yung-Ho showed Davis a genealogical record of the Shih family. From his years of reading and research, Davis was able to point to errors in the document that didn't correspond to other historical data. "I realized that it took 10 years of research to reach the point where I could critique that document ... it really validated all that work," says Davis.
With his new findings, Davis returned to Brown in February and wrote a scholarly article about the tombs, which was published in the Journal of Sung-Yuan Studies. Soon after that came the invitation to come and teach at Chung-Cheng University. "I was amazed," says Davis. "I thought, `You can't be serious.' "
At Brown, Davis is in the minority in a history department dominated by American and European perspectives. He is relishing the chance to be in the academic majority at Chung-Cheng University. Seventy percent of the faculty in his new department teach Chinese history, with some token representation of American and European history.
Still, it is a daunting task to teach Chinese students about their own history in their own language. "They all have the background in history and literature," he says. "It's the equivalent of a Chinese scholar explaining George Washington to American students."