From “Cultivating and Reading” to “Mobility”: Traditional Motivation Activated in Urban and Rural Mobility: A Case Study of Gong Clan in G Village of Southeast Guangxi

Nowadays, the frequent social mobility in China's rural areas is mostly regarded as the result of the leverage of external forces, and less attention is paid to the intrinsic motivation. In the field investigation of G village in Guangxi, this paper finds that the Hakka clan of Gong clan in the village has a strong tradition of "cultivating and reading" from before liberation to now. Its manifestations include influence of new and old traditional cultural matters before the founding of New China and after the reform and opening up, the education within the family and the logic of folk behavior outside the family, etc. Through the description and analysis of the cases, this paper puts forward the viewpoint that the continuation of the "farming and reading" tradition has a certain boosting effect on urban and rural social mobility under the background of modernization, and its mechanism based on historical factors and field factors. It also discusses the shelter of this boosting effect in the existing studies and the realistic limitations of the boosting effect. Finally, this paper points out that in the current strategy of Rural Vitalization, we should innovatively use the "cultivating and reading" tradition to promote the vitalization of talents and establish a circulation of urban and rural mobility conducive to rural development.