126
GREGORY E. GULDIN
for community organizations, both formal and informal, to develop to promote and protect the community's interests. Although this may very well occur at times, or even perhaps is the usual occurrence, we should not therefore make the assumption that a shared sense of solidarity, of community, is always dependent on formal organization; indeed, what is striking about North Point's Little Fujian is the generally minor role that formal institutions and organizations play. Associations are not the major aspect of Fujianese community in Hong Kong: kin, quasi-kin (i.e. “tong-xiang” and fictive kin relations), and friendship ties also carry the burdens of ethnicity and community in Little Fujian.
In great contrast to North Point's majority Guangdongese who regard the area as "nothing special — it's just a convenient place to live," Fujianese are quick to tell you they live in North Point "because it's Little Fujian." Fujianese regard North Point as their "capital" in Hong Kong and it is through Little Fujian that most business and friendship networks meander. While most Fujianese admit that North Point is "most likely" predominantly Guangdongese, this does not stop Fujianese from all but ignoring that majority proportion; to those Fujianese living in North Point, it's in Little Fujian that much of their lives are spent and not “North Point” in general.
Little Fujian as a sub-neighborhood could be said to physically exist in the narrow band of streets, shops and buildings in North Point that are peopled and frequented by high percentages of Fujianese. Equally significant though, it exists as a community in those specifically Fujianese social relationships or patterns of activities that appear like currents in the ebb and flow of North Point life. Sub-neighborhood and community may overlap, but they don't have to. Little Fujian can thus be found in the offices of the Fujian Province Association, in the homes of Fujianese, in the Chun Yeung Market, between two Fujianese friends on King's Road, or in the many other public and semi-public Fujianese and non-Fujianese places of North Point,
When sub-neighborhood and community do overlap, however, it is a powerful combination. To North Point's Fujianese it is often seemingly small things like walking down a “Fujianese” street with friends from the home county and hearing a Southern Fujianese folk song broadcast from a Fujianese shop that makes life in Hong
126
GREGORY E. GULDIN
for community organizations, both formal and informal, to develop to promote and protect the community's interests. Although this may very well occur at times, or even perhaps is the usual occu- rence, we should not therefore make the assumption that a shared sense of solidarity, of community, is always dependent on formal organization; indeed, what is striking about North Point's Little Fujian is the generally minor role that formal institutions and organizations play. Associations are not the major aspect of Fujianese community in Hong Kong: kin, quasi-kin (i.e. “tong. xiang” and fictive kin relations), and friendship ties also carry the burdens of ethnicity and community in Little Fujian.
In great contrast to North Point's majority Guangdongese who regard the area as "nothing special — it's just a convenient place to live," Fujianese are quick to tell you they live in North Point "because it's Little Fujian." Fujianese regard North Point as their "capital" in Hong Kong and it is through Little Fujian that most business and friendship networks meander. While most Fujianese admit that North Point is "most likely" predominantly Guangdong- ese, this does not stop Fujianese from all but ignoring that majority proportion; to those Fujianese living in North Point, it's in Little Fujian that much of their lives are spent and not “North Point” in general.
Little Fujian as a sub-neighborhood could be said to physically exist in the narrow band of streets, shops and buildings in North Point that are peopled and frequented by high percentages of Fujianese. Equally significant though, it exists as a community in those specifically Fujianese social relationships or patterns of acti- vities that appear like currents in the ebb and flow of North Point life. Sub-neighborhood and community may overlap, but they don't have to. Little Fujian can thus be found in the offices of the Fujian Province Association, in the homes of Fujianese, in the Chun Yeung Market, between two Fujianese friends on King's Road, or in the many other public and semi-public Fujianese and non- Fujianese places of North Point,
When sub-neighborhood and community do overlap, however, it is a powerful combination. To North Point's Fujianese it is often seemingly small things like walking down a “Fujianese” street with friends from the home county and hearing a Southern Fujianese folk song broadcast from a Fujianese shop that makes life in Hong
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