ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to understand the role of gifts in bridging sociocultural differences in marriage and family life. The so-called “male phoenix” in China are rural-to-urban male migrants who grow up in villages, obtain higher education in cities, and marry into urban families. They are often stigmatized in Chinese society and tend to engage in lavish gift-giving to their kinship networks. Through in-depth interviews and ethnographic fieldwork in Shandong Province and Shanghai, how gifts are used to bridge class disparity within the family and to compete for status within marriage is studied. Gifts play important roles in resolving conflicts in rural-urban marriage and family relations, but they do not sustain social relations through creating obligation for gift receivers.
