ABSTRACT
Many men from Shansi https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315293134/c866fb90-eb94-4746-9f2f-85d4c9f8507f/content/fig415_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> make a living as merchants in other provinces. They are often apprenticed as teenagers. When they have accumulated some money, they may return home to find a wife. Then, as a general rule, they depart again in pursuit of profits and return once every two or three years. Some, due to fateful mishaps or other tangled circumstances, cannot return for ten or twenty years. Others, bankrupt and in rags, are too ashamed to return to their hometowns. They simply drift from place to place without ever writing home.
