"LITTLE FUJIAN (FUKIEN)": SUB-NEIGHBORHOOD AND COMMUNITY IN NORTH POINT, HONG KONG
GREGORY E. GULDIN⭑
"Ethnic neighborhoods" are found not only in city guidebooks but squat smugly astride the intersection of Urban Anthropology with Ethnicity Studies. Mention of such a neighborhood conjures up visions in both folk and anthropological minds of a distinctive and discrete portion of a city marked off by spatial as well as social boundaries from the rest of the urban area. Cultural peculiarities and perhaps even physical oddities predominate on the streets, in the homes, in the shops.
So much for popular and anthropological expectations. Field research in the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong has disclosed to me how misleading such a priori notions of ethnic neighborhood can be. In Hong Kong, certain neighborhoods are known as districts inhabited by certain groups of ethnically distinct Han Chinese,1 yet in every district in urban Hong Kong the majority Guangdongese (Cantonese) is indeed the majority group and not the purportedly dominant minority group.
Since all these districts are peopled by a majority of Guangdongese, I submit it is rather imprecise to speak of a neighborhood such as North Point as "Little Fujian" when only 1/5 of the population there is Fujianese (Fukienese). To avoid the clumsiness of a terminology of "universal," "substantial," or "bare" majority predominance in a neighborhood, we should instead simply sharpen our tools and terms of urban analysis. We should realize that in the case of North Point and Hong Kong (and, I suspect, in many other cases) the concepts of "neighborhood" and "community" do not overlap, that the geographical/spatial boundaries of a neighborhood may not be coterminous with the sociocultural ones of a community. A city-wide ethnic community may encompass a number of neighborhoods or sections of neighborhoods. Conversely, a neighborhood may be composed of a number of spatially distinct sub-neighborhoods and/or a number of socio-culturally distinct communities.
* Professor Guldin is on the faculty of the Department of Anthropology, Brooklyn College, City University of New York.
“LITTLE FUJIAN (FUKIEN)": SUB-NEIGHBORHOOD AND COMMUNITY IN NORTH POINT, HONG KONG
GREGORY E. GULDIN⭑
"Ethnic neighborhoods" are found not only in city guidebooks but squat smugly astride the intersection of Urban Anthropology with Ethnicity Studies. Mention of such a neighborhood conjures up visions in both folk and anthropological minds of a distinctive and discrete portion of a city marked off by spatial as well as social boundaries from the rest of the urban area. Cultural peculiarities and perhaps even physical oddities predominate on the streets, in the homes, in the shops.
So much for popular and anthropological expectations. Field research in the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong has disclosed to me how misleading such a priori notions of ethnic neighborhood can be. In Hong Kong, certain neighborhood are known as districts inhabited by certain groups of ethnically distinct Han Chinese,1 yet in every district in urban Hong Kong the majority Guangdongese (Cantonese) is indeed the majority group and not the purportedly dominant minority group.
Since all these districts are peopled by a majority of Guang- dongese, I submit it is rather imprecise to speak of a neighborhood such as North Point as "Little Fujian" when only 1/5 of the popula- tion there is Fujianese (Fukienese). To avoid the clumsiness of a terminology of "universal,” “substantial," or "bare" majority pre- dominance in a neighborhood, we should instead simply sharpen our tools and terms of urban analysis. We should realize that in the case of North Point and Hong Kong (and, I suspect, in many other cases) the concepts of "neighborhood" and "community” do not overlap, that the geographical/spatial boundaries of a neighbor- hood may not be coterminous with the sociocultural ones of a community. A city-wide ethnic community may encompass a number of neighborhoods or sections of neighborhoods. Conversely, a neighborhood may be composed of a number of spatially distinct sub-neighborhoods and/or a number of socio-culturally distinct
* Professon Guldin is on the faculty of the Department of Anthro- pology, Brooklyn College, City University of New York.
+
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.