Awakening again: Travelling feminism in China in the 1980s

This article is concerned with why and how the ideas and knowledge of feminism and Women's Studies travel from 'here' (the West) to 'there' (China), and in what form they were received, understood and 'localised' during the 1980s. In exploring such complex matters, I will start my 'journey' from the point of departure, at which the route of information on feminism and Women's Studies travelled. By taking up one of the major feminist works-Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex-that 'travelled' to China I hope to illustrate that the intellectual history involved in this process was far more complex and ambiguous than assumed. Finally, I will look at the development of 'theorising theory' about women in China.