Li shang wanglai is a phrase that combines practice and principle. It is what others have discussed as Confucianism. But it is the summation of what is practised in daily life and without the leadership of an elite intelligentsia. With this phrase the author has brought together what had been separately discussed: the social philosophy of bao (asymmetrical reciprocity), the central importance of mianzi and lian (face), the moral economy of renqing (human relationships of fellow-feeling), the art of making guanxiwang (social networks), and much else. She shows how they work together in what might be called a discursive constellation. Using sociological and anthropological theorisations of reciprocal relations in China and Japan, she creates a framework of four dimensions, namely, principled rational calculation, human-feeling, moral, and religious, and four kinds of relationships, namely, instrumental, expressive, negative and generous.
