Sichuan Paoge Research

Sichuan "PaoGe", a China’s important folk organization, came into being in Qing Dynasty and the period of the republic of China, while it withered in the earlier period of liberation. During its peak period,"dock, public port" were widely spread in urban and rural areas in Sichuan Province, affecting many aspects of its internal politics, economy, culture, etc. It was alleged that it had over three million members, involving all social classes and people from all walks of life, and it was famous for its rare powerful influence in our country. It was the crystallization of times and society and played a key part in the development of our history.Such a folk private organization played a significant role at that time. Since its origin, much attention from many scholars at home and broad had been paid to it. The paper aims to systematically elaborate the development of Sichuan Paoge based on the previous scholars’ study. In the first part, I will organize and summarize the research results of Paoge, meanwhile, I will point out some inadequacies of the previous study of Paoge, putting forward the research priorities; In the second part, I will bring a brief introduction to the origin of its name, content, and overview of the development; In the third part, I will do some investigations about Paoge’s organization setting, members structure, and its rules, etc; In the fourth part, I will discuss its ritual activities and daily activities; In the fifth part, I will study Paoge’s metaphor, including discourse metaphor and non-discourse metaphor, among which especially tea array has obvious characteristics. Through aforementioned several aspects, the investigative study about Paoge will be done for the purpose of revealing a more complete world of Paoge.