SOCIAL & CULTURAL HERITAGE IN N.T.
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of whom (for example) one wants to make a complete linguistic survey (which would coordinate well with the kind of ethnographic mapping that Dr. Wang Sung-hsing was describing), and another of whom has already been invited to initiate comparative studies of Taoist and Buddhist ritual here and in Taiwan. Only last week I was discussing the possibility that two other established scholars, whose international reputation was gained from their work in Taiwan, may perhaps consider coming to fill in some of the gaps in our knowledge about Hakka and Hoklo communities. At least three very promising younger anthropologists are planning to come here too—two of them Chinese and one French. Last, but far from least, there is the potential of our new Department of Anthropology and our established Department of Sociology and its counterpart at Hong Kong University, and the often excellent and extremely enthusiastic fieldwork of our students which Tam Yue-him mentioned and which David Faure is already using to such advantage. And there are a number of other local resources.
Now, although it is so immensely rich in social and cultural traditions the New Territories is a small area. Given hard work, money, good coordination and planning now, it should be possible to obtain an almost complete record during, say, the next five or six years. If we can do this historians, social anthropologists, and, I hope, sociologists together — we shall then have something that does not exist for any other comparable area of China, and which now never can exist anywhere else.
But that is only the first aim. The second is just as important. There is little point in merely collecting information. It has to be interpreted, written, and published. So far, the great mass of the published work on the New Territories has been written by academic writers for academic readers. Thus, not only is it scattered in different places and in need of being brought together, but also it is simply unavailable to the people who ought to read it. What is the use of discovering our cultural heritage without also making it available to its true heirs—the present and future generations of the people of Hong Kong and (dare I say it?) China and the world? (But especially our own young people.) This means that the stuff that is already known and the material that we are still collecting must not only be written but re-written for the general reader. That is the second aim of the work I want to do.
J