174
BOOK REVIEWS
the facts now available and his deftness in finding the right key to unlock the often unsuspected treasure contained in the traditional material, have enabled him to give us the main plot.
For the complete story we must wait, says Freedman. A satisfactory study of the lineage must rest on a study of China as a whole and for this we await the method: the great synthesis between sinology of history and the social sciences. We await too, in this connection, the day when China will again be open to scholarship (and we await the published results also of the many studies which have been conducted in recent years in the New Territories by students of the social sciences and which are relevant to the problems of this book and to other topics on Chinese society).
But there is something we could still do while awaiting such events. The author says that in an ideal world somebody would be paid to gather in or copy all that remains now—for not only paper perishes but inscribed stones and boards are removed and lost. When information to be culled from these sources is combined with data from British documents and the memories of old men (also being rapidly lost to us) there will be an opportunity to say something illuminating about this corner of southeastern China in the last years of the Ch'ing dynasty.
In talking of scholarship and China opening up again, Maurice Freedman ends on what he calls himself, a messianic note: the day will come. One would like to be equally messianic about the preservation and collection of our New Territories records. But perhaps one may at least hope the day will come for this too, and before it is too late.
Hong Kong, 1967,
MARJORIE TOPLEY
TAIWAN FEASTS AND CUSTOMS. A hand-book of the principal feasts and customs of the lunar calendar on Taiwan. Michael R. Saso, S. J., the Chabanel Language Institute, Hsinchu, Taiwan (Formosa), 1966, pp. iv, 93.
We by no means know all there is to know of the popular religion of China. Even if things were different: if we could go there to gather the necessary material, and if indeed popular
174
BOOK REVIEWS
the facts now available and his deftness in finding the right key to unlock the often unsuspected treasure contained in the tradi- tional material, have enabled him to give us the main plot.
For the complete story we must wait, says Freedman. A satis- factory study of the lineage must rest on a study of China as a whole and for this we await the method: the great synthesis between sinology of history and the social sciences. We await too, in this connection, the day when China will again be open to scholarship (and we await the published results also of the many studies which have been conducted in recent years in the New Territories by students of the social sciences and which are relevant to the problems of this book and to other topics on Chinese society).
But there is something we could still do while awaiting such events. The author says that in an ideal world somebody would be paid to gather in or copy all that remains now-for not only paper perishes but inscribed stones and boards are removed and lost. When information to be culled from these sources is com- bined with data from British documents and the memories of old men (also being rapidly lost to us) there will be an opportunity to say something illuminating about this corner of southeastern China in the last years of the Ch'ing dynasty.
In talking of scholarship and China opening up again, Maurice Freedman ends on what he calls himself, a messianic note: the day will come. One would like to be equally messianic about the preservation and collection of our New Territories records. But perhaps one may at least hope the day will come for this too, and before it is too late.
Hong Kong, 1967,
MARJORIE TOPLEY
TAIWAN FEASTS AND CUSTOMS. A hand-book of the principal feasts and customs of the lunar calendar on Taiwan. Michael R. Saso, S. J., the Chabanel Language Institute, Hsinchu, Taiwan (Formosa), 1966, pp. iv, 93.
We by no means know all there is to know of the popular religion of China. Even if things were different: if we could go there to gather the necessary material, and if indeed popular
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.