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BOOK REVIEWS
and clubs, on their families, and on their ties with home. All these contain much of interest, though there are many points small and large on which one might quibble, from the trivial matter of the delusion which the author has that Chinese restaurants in general serve Chinese food which derives its virtue from Cantonese culinary supremacy (p. 28), to the important matter of omitting to mention that many Chinese employees receive in cash their total wage, their employers paying for them their tax, National Insurance, etc. over and above the wage (p. 81).
More important is the lack of organisation of the approach to this subject. One has the feeling that little attempt was made to extract meaning from the facts with which Mr. Ng presents us. If there had been, then surely they would have been presented differently? Certain basic considerations seem to have been neglected. Why London? for instance. Granted that London is an important centre for Chinese immigrants, why is it so? and how is it possible to study London as a centre without reference to the area of which it is a centre? Would not The Chinese in Britain have been a more valid topic? (Of course, the research worker's time and finances are important factors here, but there should be justification for the choice of field.) Again, was it not possible for Mr. Ng to approach this subject from an angle which would give more meaning to the whole to impose a pattern on it, as it were? To be constructive, could he not have started with the individual and worked outwards from there? the three case studies in Chapter IV are very enlightening.
Since the work for this study was done (in 1963-64) the situation of the Chinese in Britain has changed a great deal. There seems to have been achieved a greater degree of coalescence (particularly in the provincial cities), political awareness has heightened, the Hong Kong Government has attempted to help its people overseas, the Gerrard Street area of London has become more and more clearly defined as a Chinese centre (the world's only new Chinatown?), and so on. There is call now for much more detailed and wide-ranging study of the field; and whoever undertakes it will be fortunate in having Mr. Ng's general survey to start from.
School of Oriental and African Studies,
March, 1969.
HUGH D. R. BAKER