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of those who use it. Places, their layout and furnishings, and their associated activities, are crammed with meanings that can be identified and analysed for what they tell us about people's beliefs. Thus, the sociologist Anthony Giddens suggests that one way to look at place is as a 'locale', a 'setting for interaction'. Activities come and go, but places remain, with the traces of what has happened there. And meanwhile, the shaping of a place will continue, both in terms of the physical qualities of that place and in its image in the minds of those for whom it has some significance.
As a result of my visit to Wo Hop Shek, and subsequently to many of the other urban cemeteries in Hong Kong, I wrote several papers about Hong Kong's urban cemeteries and columbaria. In 1999, curious to know how fifty years of Communist rule had affected the spatial manifestation of death in a metropolitan landscape in mainland China, I extended my research to Guangzhou. And, equally curious to find out how a modern East Asian society with an uninterrupted tradition of Confucian beliefs and customs was coping with the expression of death in the landscape, I also arranged to carry out associated research in Seoul, South Korea.
I refer to each paper below. In the published versions, each has a long list of references. These are a valuable dimension of the published work, as they offer a sound starting point to those wanting to carry out related research. These lists represent hours of leafing through back issues of journals, combing bookshelves, following up other researchers' reference lists, collecting newspaper cuttings (and, in one case, employing a Chinese-speaking research assistant to access a Guangdong evening paper online), and using electronic search tools to search and download. The website of the Korea Herald was especially useful. As well, of course, I used — especially for theoretical approaches — articles in recent issues of those professional journals to which I subscribe. Very important were the occasional and invaluable recommendations of 'You had better get hold of this....' from RAS members! Personal introductions have helped, too.
In fact, several members of the Royal Asiatic Society (Hong Kong Branch) have been consistently generous and encouraging since I began this research, and I owe a lot to them. Dan Waters, James Hayes and Patrick Hase have kindly read several of the papers listed below and