BOOK REVIEWS
205
The stated goals of these projects are "to determine the nature and extent of religious practices in Hong Kong" and to “understand the meaning of these practices for the people." A third, unstated, purpose is obviously to communicate this knowledge both to interested laymen and to specialists in sociology and religion. The actual research was conducted, and the book written, by three social scientists, but they endeavor to make the book meaningful to those without sociological training as well.
The population studied was a group of Hakka villagers from Plover Cove, who were removed by the government from a rural setting several years ago to make way for the construction of a reservoir, and resettled in the market town of Tai Po.2 Their way of life has changed drastically, and it is the general aim of the study to discover how the move from a rural to an urban environment has affected their religious practices. Unfortunately, the authors never explain why this particular population was chosen for study (except that Dr. Berkowitz and others were already conducting a larger research project there), nor do they attempt to relate the experience of the Plover Cove people to that of the general population of Hong Kong, which is also experiencing rapid urbanization. The Plover Cove situation is a highly unusual one in the context of Hong Kong. While most of Hong Kong's population is urban, or rapidly becoming so, the people have for the most part experienced these changes as individuals or families who have migrated to the city, not as whole villages suddenly removed. In order for this study to have been more generally useful in increasing our understanding of the impact of urbanization upon religious practices in Hong Kong, the authors might have explained the theoretical value of studying the Plover Cove situation and attempted to briefly compare the experience of those people with the experiences of other segments of Hong Kong's population.
The book is introduced by a chapter on the theoretical background of the study. This is followed by a brief history of the six villages and a very interesting description and comparison of the villagers' rural environment and the urban environment into which they were removed (one hopes that more research will be published in the future on such topics as the effects of the physical layout of the new apartment buildings in Tai Po on the villagers'