When the Manchus left their homeland in Northeast Asia to conquer China in the middle seventeenth century and establish the Qing dynasty there, they left behind them the economic, environmental and social conditions that had shaped their culture and began a radically different life in the garrisons, or "Manchu cities," of the Chinese provinces. The first and perhaps most profound loss was the traditional clan, which had mediated all aspects, physical and spiritual, of the life of the individual. But as the integrative properties of the clan were lost, the clan ideal became a powerful symbol of the Manchu people. It became a signal theme both in the official historical writings of the eighteenth century and in the private writings of nineteenth and twentieth-century Manchus. Several members of the Suwan Guwaligya clan of Hangzhou were prominent spokesmen for the Manchu ethnic consciousness that emerged late in the dynasty; of them, Jinliang (1878-1962) was not only a well-known advocate for the conservative Manchu cause, but was also active in the establishment of "Manchukuo" under the sponsorship of the Japanese army in the early 1930's. The experiences of Jinliang and the Suwan Guwalgiya of Hangzhou are the focus of the latter part of this study.
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