NOTES AND QUERIES
201
A detailed account of our findings, based on the compilation, classification and analysis of field resources, will be forthcoming on completion of the pilot study. For reasons I will touch on below, I am optimistic that the paper will be of value to Government, and will reflect the co-operation and trust enjoyed by all concerned with the project.
The experiences of the last several months have convinced me that an extension and formalization of the present pilot study would be a beneficial undertaking for Government. Such a project, carried out by Government over a number of years, would facilitate the work of officers in the New Territories Administration. The project would accomplish this in at least two ways 1) by generating and strengthening 'grassroots' relationships between officers and the rural population (a natural dividend of active interest in the understanding and preservation of local culture) and 2) by supplying authoritative information regarding a series of problems which officers must deal with on a daily basis.
In particular, the study of oral tradition and history enables the officer to understand, and place in context, the rapidly changing social structure of the New Territories. This point bears closer examination.
Chinese folk-tales divide themselves into two broad, but distinct, categories: those that are recorded and embellished in clan genealogies, officially-compiled or sponsored documents (gazetteers), and acceptable literature, and those which, though passed on “orally” from generation to generation, are ignored, diluted or distorted in the written tradition. This simple classification bears directly on a central problem facing scholars studying Chinese communities and the officials administering them.
Western scholars and officials have, until very recently, stressed the absolute dominance of large corporate descent group (i.e. clans, lineages, fongs,…) in rural social-political structure. This stance coincided well with that of their Chinese counterparts, whose work was largely dictated by subservience to Neo-Confucian ideology. Social phenomena which clash with, or undermine, corporate patrilineal ideology… marriage alliances and customs, conflicting class interests between clansmen, inter-lineal relations of landlord/tenant types, business associations which ignore clan boundaries, military defeats, official incompetence… have been, for the most part, lost
NOTES AND QUERIES
201
A detailed account of our findings, based on the compilation, classification and analysis of field resources, will be forthcoming on completion of the pilot study. For reasons I will touch on below, I am optimistic that the paper will be of value to Government, and will reflect the co-operation and trust enjoyed by all concerned with the project.
The experiences of the last several months have convinced me that an extension and formalization of the present pilot study would be a beneficial undertaking for Government. Such a project, carried out by Government over a number of years, would facilitate the work of officers in the New Territories Administration. The project would accomplish this in at least two ways 1) by generating and strengthening 'grassroots' relationships between officers and the rural population (a natural dividend of active interest in the under- standing and preservation of local culture) and 2) by supplying authoritative information regarding a series of problems which officers must deal with on a daily basis.
In particular, the study of oral tradition and history enables the officer to understand, and place in context, the rapidly changing social structure of the New Territories. This point bears closer examination.
Chinese folk-tales divide themselves into two broad, but distinct, categories: those that are recorded and embellished in clan genea- logies, officially-compiled or sponsored documents (gazetteers), and acceptable literature, and those which, though passed on “orally" from generation to generation, are ignored, diluted or distorted in the written tradition. This simple classification bears directly on a central problem facing scholars studying Chinese communities and the officials administering them.
Western scholars and officials have, until very recently, stressed the absolute dominance of large corporate descent group (i.e. clans, lineages, fongs,...) in rural social-political structure. This stance coincided well with that of their Chinese counterparts, whose work was largely dictated by subservience to Neo-Confucian ideology. Social phenomena which clash with, or undermine, corporate patri- lineal ideology... marriage alliances and customs, conflicting class interests between clansmen, inter-lineal relations of landlord/tenant types, business associations which ignore clan boundaries, military defeats, official incompetence... have been, for the most part, lost
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