EDITORIAL
With this Journal, No. 18 in the series, our printer and member, Mr. Lam Yung-fai, has completed eighteen years of sterling work for the Society. In my twelve years as Hon. Editor and to my knowledge before that, Mr. Lam has always treated the Journal as a special job, something dear to his heart and therefore the subject of his special attention. I have not been the best of the editors because my official duties leave little time and less energy for other pursuits, and in consequence Mr. Lam and his staff have had to accept papers as and when I was able to deal with them and often "bad copy" in my poor hand. It is largely owing to Mr. Lam's tolerance, patience, and his affection for the Society that a satisfactory Journal is produced each year. For this, we are indeed most grateful. It is therefore with great pleasure that I record here the Council's decision to appoint him an Honorary Member of the Society in recognition of his services to the Branch.
It is eleven years since I penned an editorial. During that time and since its inception, the Journal has provided a useful, indeed major, outlet for work on Hong Kong. The result is, by now, a large body of material on the subject that is of value to the Hong Kong community and of use to many persons seeking background to their own studies and literary work of all kinds. Perhaps the greatest compliment paid was the extensive and acknowledged use of material from the Journal in P.H.M. Jones' Golden Guide to Hong Kong published by the Far Eastern Economic Review in 1968; though of course, much more has appeared in these pages since then, thanks to the interest in Hong Kong and China that draws so many researchers here for academic work.
Much of the material provided is historical. This is important in a period of sweeping change when, otherwise, much of value that would provide essential background to the current, ever-changing scene, is swept aside and lost forever unless recorded. Some of it relates to the contemporary, equally threatened by the rapid pace and face of change. Most is sociologically-based. Here, I renew the thought expressed in 1967, and earlier by our first Hon. Editor, Professor Cranmer-Byng: that since ethnography is a particular
EDITORIAL
With this Journal, No. 18 in the series, our printer and member, Mr. Lam Yung-fai, has completed eighteen years of sterling work for the Society. In my twelve years as Hon. Editor and to my knowledge before that, Mr. Lam has always treated the Journal as a special job, something dear to his heart and therefore the subject of his special attention. I have not been the best of the editors because my official duties leave little time and less energy for other pursuits, and in consequence Mr. Lam and his staff have had to accept papers as and when I was able to deal with them and often "bad copy" in my poor hand. It is largely owing to Mr. Lam's tolerance, patience and his affection for the Society that a satisfac- tory Journal is produced each year. For this we are indeed most grateful. It is therefore with great pleasure that I record here the Council's decision to appoint him an Honorary Member of the Society in recognition of his services to the Branch.
It is eleven years since I penned an editorial. During that time and since its inception, the Journal has provided a useful, indeed major, outlet for work on Hong Kong. The result is, by now, a large body of material on the subject that is of value to the Hong Kong community and of use to many persons seeking background to their own studies and literary work of all kinds. Perhaps the greatest compliment paid was the extensive and acknowledged use of material from the Journal in P.H.M. Jones' Golden Guide to Hong Kong published by the Far Eastern Economic Review in 1968; though of course much more has appeared in these pages since then, thanks to the interest in Hong Kong and China that draws so many researchers here for academic work.
Much of the material provided is historical. This is important in a period of sweeping change when, otherwise, much of value that would provide essential background to the current, ever changing scene, is swept aside and lost forever unless recorded. Some of it relates to the contemporary, equally threatened by the rapid pace and face of change. Most is sociologically-based. Here I renew the thought expressed in 1967, and earlier by our first Hon. Editor, Professor Cranmer-Byng: that since ethnography is a particular
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