BOGE XIAO · PORTFOLIO
Cultural Rhythms of Writing
From the survival of variant characters to the ways manuscripts remain readable across Zhuang, Chinese and Vietnamese textual traditions.
ONGOING RESEARCH · SINCE 2024
One inquiry,
successive questions.
I began by asking why written forms persisted in particular communities. That question led me toward the practices that keep a manuscript useful: copying, ownership, annotation and reading across scripts.
The projects, papers and presentations below are stages of this continuing study. Their original titles and materials remain available, and their claims are tied to the evidence and version in which they appeared.
中文研究导读
“文字的文化节奏”是我自2024年持续开展的研究线。它从异体字的留存与适应出发，逐步转向跨文字释读，以及写本如何通过所有权、批注和文书实践继续对后来的人可用。下面的项目、发表与会议是同一研究线的不同阶段，而非互不相关的独立课题。
2024–2025：起点：考察异体字在壮族写本中的留存与适应。后续论文继续检验这一问题，原始论文和展示仍完整保留。
Published record：早期论述的公开记录：《文字的文化节奏：清代广西壮族文献异体字研究》。保留正式篇名和知网入口。
March 2026：问题从字形留存推进到跨文字传统的阅读：越南喃字如何帮助重新理解一份写本。
August → September 2026：8月以 Emotional Worlds 宣读并担任场次主持，9月修订论文。重点转向所有权、批注和文书模型如何维持文本与后来读者的联系。
November 2026：已接收，尚待11月宣读：进一步追问濒危文字世界怎样跨越汉文、壮文和越南文框架而变得可读。
- 2024–2025Completed foundational project
Yuanpei Young Scholars Program
Preservation & adaptation
Why do some character forms remain in Zhuang manuscripts after falling out of use elsewhere?
The first full statement of this continuing study. Later papers revisit its questions and test its interpretations; they do not replace the original paper.
The Cultural Rhythms of Variant Chinese Characters
- Published recordConference proceedings record
Sociology Symposium · CNKI
A public record of the early argument
How can variant characters illuminate the cultural rhythms of writing in Qing-era Guangxi?
The Chinese proceedings paper is a published output of the same research line. Its title remains distinct from the continuing project’s name.
文字的文化节奏：清代广西壮族文献异体字研究
CNKI publication record - March 2026Presented
Society for Applied Anthropology · Albuquerque
Reading across script traditions
What changes when a manuscript becomes readable through Vietnamese Nôm?
The presentation moves from the survival of particular forms to preservation, changing functions and the frameworks through which a text can be read.
Cultural Rhythms of Writing
- August → September 2026Presented · Session chair · Paper revised
3rd Global South Symposium · Ho Chi Minh City
Keeping relationships available
How do ownership, annotations and document models keep texts available to later readers?
Emotional Worlds in Zhuang Border Manuscripts was presented in August. Keeping relationships available is the September paper’s revised formulation. Abstract, spoken script, slide deck and paper are separately dated versions.
Emotional Worlds in Zhuang Border Manuscripts
- November 2026Accepted · Upcoming
American Anthropological Association · St. Louis
The conditions of legibility
How do endangered textual worlds become readable across Chinese, Zhuang and Vietnamese frameworks?
On the Verge of Legibility extends this line of inquiry. The accepted abstract is available; the November presentation is still upcoming.
On the Verge of Legibility
THE QUESTION I AM WORKING ON NOW
What makes a manuscript
readable for its next reader?
I am examining the connections that allow a written world to remain accessible across scripts and generations. A shared graph does not establish a direction of transmission; an annotation documents a reading encounter, not necessarily the manuscript’s origin.
Read the earlier project account · Preserved in full
The research question
How do variant Chinese characters carry cultural rhythms across languages and communities? My Yuanpei Young Scholars project at Peking University examined the transmission of heterogeneous Chinese scripts in Zhuang communities during the late Qing dynasty.
Working across a corpus
From November 2024 to February 2025, I worked with a corpus of more than 300 pages from 20+ Zhuang ritual manuscripts, four Vietnamese Nôm volumes, and supporting dictionaries and gazetteers.
Outcome
The project produced a 39-page bilingual paper, graded A, and developed the framework “Cultural Rhythms of Writing.” Its title on the original website is “Cultural Rhythms in Variant Chinese Characters – A Study on the Transmission of Heterogeneous Chinese Scripts in Zhuang Communities during the Late Qing Dynasty.”
Continuing the conversation
I presented “Cultural Rhythms of Writing” at the Society for Applied Anthropology annual meeting in Albuquerque in March 2026, in the panel “Designing Ethnographic Encounters: Experiments and Interventions.”