In recent years , anthropological research on practice and representation of revolution in modern China has been carried out in the Japanese National Museum of Ethnology . Revolution is one of the core concepts interpreting the formation of modern China . Revolution here includes both the Xinhai Revolution beginning in 1911 and the Social Revolution since 1949 . Chinese Revolution is not only a historical process , but also a cultural system . Revolutionary ideas have invented new discourse and new systems . They have been represented by means of costume , ritual and so on , and have been practiced by different kinds of people . There are changes and continuity between the new and the old . The revolutionary memories and systems are continuingly reconstructed under the market economy and globalization . By using methods of anthropological fieldwork , questionnaire survey , text analysis and life history , 21 case studies presented in this paper provide three new themes and frameworks for anthropological studies on China . They are :( 1 ) Representation of revolution in propaganda , discourse , costume and movies;( 2 ) Reshaping of traditional social system , culture and ritual in the process of revolution;(3) Consuming and reshaping of revolutionary memory and social switch under the market economy and globalization .