Fei Xiaotong, noted Chinese sociologist and
anthropologist, died of illness in Beijing at 10:38 PM on
Sunday.
Fei was born in 1910 in Wuxian County, Jiangsu
Province,
and received his sociological training at Yenching University and
Tsinghua University in the early 1930s. He traveled to the UK where
he studied with Bronislaw Malinowski and obtained his PhD from the
University of London.
In 1939, 29-year-old Fei wrote the book Peasant
Life in China, which won him the Huxley Memorial Medal of the
Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI).
Later in the same year, he returned to China and became a professor
at several universities.
In the 1950s, Fei helped establish the Central
Institute for Nationalities and became a professor researching and
teaching about ethnic minorities.
In 1957, Fei went back to investigate his hometown
Wuxian and produced suggestions on developing secondary production
in the countryside. For the next 20 years, he translated works by
foreign authors.
Since 1978, Fei has written proposals on the
development of the Yellow River Delta and Shanghai economic
revitalization. He has also won many international honors. In 1987,
he became an honorary fellow of the RAI. In 1980, he won the
Malinowski Award for applied anthropology. In 1981, he was awarded
the Thomas H. Huxley Memorial Medal for anthropology.
He helped found the Chinese Sociological
Association that promotes sociological studies in China and was
Honorary President of the Association.
Fei was also the prominent leader of the China
Democratic League, a political party, and intimate friend of the
Communist Party of China.
He was the vice chairman of the 7th and 8th National
People's Congress Standing Committee, vice chairman of the 6th
Chinese
People's Political Consultative Conference?National
Committee, and honorary chairman of the Central Committee of China
Democratic League.
(China.org.cn, Xinhua News Agency April 26,
2005)