194
MAURICE FREEDMAN
summer); Miss Jean Pratt from Cambridge, who studied a Hakka village in the neighbourhood of Tai Po; and, most recently, Mr. Jack Potter, from Berkeley, California, who has just completed a study of one of the major Tang settlements in Yuen Long District. All these may be called community studies, for they attempted to give rounded accounts of the lives of the people they investigated. The results of the three studies, when they are fully published, will provide a useful sample of traditional communities in the New Territories, for they cover both fishing and agriculture and range from relatively unsophisticated Tanka, through a small, and in some respects isolated, Hakka settlement, to one of the old centres of Punti power. In addition to these field studies the work of another anthropologist, Dr. Marjorie Topley, has dealt with the New Territories in a general way in regard to aspects of their economic life.
7. The gaps in knowledge and understanding of New Territories society are in part filled by the results of investigations carried out by other kinds of scholars. I have in mind particularly the work done by geographers and historians. The field studies by Dr. T.R. Tregear and Dr. C.J. Grant are too well known to call for my comment. At the moment further geographical field studies are in train; for example, Mr. Ronald Ng, a graduate student at the University of Hong Kong, is engaged in an investigation of the Tung Chung valley which promises to bring in much new material on the social aspects of agriculture. As for history, I may mention the work of Mr. J.W. Hayes, formerly a District Officer in the New Territories; he has produced two studies, one dealing with the New Territories as they were just before British rule, the other on Cheung Chau, which illustrate very happily how the work of the social historian and that of the anthropologist can complement each other.
8. But when the fruits of all this work are put together they will still leave out of account much that is important. The New Territories can no longer be regarded as simply a rural appendage to urban Hong Kong, an area where traditional Chinese village life has, because of the accident arising out of diplomacy in the nineteenth century, been fostered by British administration, a museum conveniently arranged for the benefit of antiquarians. The population has changed to what extent is demonstrated by the admirably conducted and analysed census of 1961. Modern industry has not
194
MAURICE FREEDMAN
summer); Miss Jean Pratt from Cambridge, who studied a Hakka village in the neighbourhood of Tai Po; and, most recently, Mr. Jack Potter, from Berkley, California, who has just completed a study of one of the major Tang settlements in Yuen Long District. All these may be called community studies, for they attempted to give rounded accounts of the lives of the people they investigated. The results of the three studies, when they are fully published, will provide a useful sample of traditional communities in the New Territories, for they cover both fishing and agriculture and range from relatively unsophisticated Tanka, through a small, and in some respects isolated, Hakka settlement, to one of the old centres of Punti power. In addition to these field studies the work of another anthropologist, Dr. Marjorie Topley, has dealt with the New Territories in a general way in regard to aspects of their eco- nomic life.
7. The gaps in knowledge and understanding of New Territories society are in part filled by the results of investigations carried out by other kinds of scholars. I have in mind particularly the work done by geographers and historians. The field studies by Dr. T.R. Tregear and Dr. C.J. Grant are too well known to call for my comment. At the moment further geographical field studies are in train; for example, Mr. Ronald Ng, a graduate student at the University of Hong Kong, is engaged in an investigation of the Tung Chung valley which promises to bring in much new material on the social aspects of agriculture. As for history, I may mention the work of Mr. J.W. Hayes, formerly a District Officer in the New Territories; he has produced two studies, one dealing with the New Territories as they were just before British rule, the other on Cheung Chau, which illustrate very happily how the work of the social historian and that of the anthropologist can complement each other.
8. But when the fruits of all this work are put together they will still leave out of account much that is important. The New Terri tories can no longer be regarded as simply a rural appendage to urban Hong Kong, an area where traditional Chinese village life has, because of the accident arising out of diplomacy in the nine- teenth century, been fostered by British administration, a museum conveniently arranged for the benefit of antiquarians. The popula- tion has changed to what extent is demonstrated by the admirably conducted and analysed census of 1961. Modern industry has not
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.