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THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY AND HERITAGE EDUCATION
DAN WATERS
(This paper was presented at the International Conference, "Heritage and Education”, held in Hong Kong on 17 and 18 December, 1997. It formed the concluding event of "Heritage Year" which was organised by the Antiquities Advisory Board, the Lord Wilson Heritage Trust and the Antiquities and Monuments Office throughout 1997. It has been very slightly altered from the original version.)
"The Royal Asiatic Society ... ?”
"What does it do?”
Although the Hong Kong Branch has received a fair amount of good publicity, mainly in the press and on the radio, such questions as the above are not unusual.
To start to answer them let me quote from the Hong Kong Branch's Constitution:
The objects of the Society are to encourage an active interest in East Asia, and in particular China, through the medium of lectures, meetings, discussions, visits, and by publishing an annual journal, and to do such other things as may be conducive to the attainment of the objects of the Society.
With a fluctuating membership of approaching 500 in Hong Kong and around 100 overseas, members' broad interests include local history, social anthropology, natural history, and the cultural and religious developments of Hong Kong, the adjacent parts of South China, and the broader south-east Asian region. Members come from a wide variety of national and cultural backgrounds.
Visits to countless places have been conducted all over urban and rural Hong Kong and have included trips to Ta Tsui (“village purification") festivals, heritage trails, and to view such spectacles as the release of large, hot-air balloons in the Sha Tau Kok district on the
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