BOOK REVIEWS
ANCESTRAL IMAGES; A HONG KONG ALBUM. Dr Hugh Baker. Hong Kong, South China Morning Post Limited, 1979.
At last, a book for those interested in Chinese traditions and beliefs in Hong Kong, that is about Hong Kong, and written with the ordinary layman in mind. Dr. Baker, known to members of this Society from the several talks he has delivered, is a sinologist trained in anthropological field-work, and he brings his knowledge and first-hand experience to us here in forty very readable short pieces. Some of our longer-term residents will recognise, and may have kept, many of them as they were originally serialised in the South China Morning Post between 1977-1978, but it is unlikely that they will have preserved them all. Now they are here, all together between one hard-back cover with a dramatic photograph of “daai si,” one of the gods described in the text, on the front of the dust sheet.
Although the book is entitled Ancestral Images it covers a comprehensive range of topics: from pigs to incantations, and geomancy to New Year biscuits, all amply and expertly illustrated with the author's own black and white and coloured photographs. This book would make an excellent gift for expatriate newcomers and their parents back home; and it affords a good introduction for those wishing to pursue the study of Chinese culture further. There is a useful list of secondary source references in English at the back.
Hong Kong. June, 1979.
MARJORIE TOPLEY
HONG KONG : STABILITY AND CHANGE, A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS. Henry Lethbridge Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1978.
This book contains ten essays on the social history of Hong Kong, all concerned in one way or other with questions of social stability: a stability which, as the author points out, stands in marked contrast to the conditions obtaining in many other Asian countries. Nine of the essays were previously published elsewhere (five
BOOK REVIEWS
ANCESTRAL IMAGES; A HONG KONG ALBUM. Dr Hugh Baker. Hong Kong, South China Morning Post Limited, 1979.
At last, a book for those interested in Chinese traditions and beliefs in Hong Kong, that is about Hong Kong, and written with the ordinary layman in mind. Dr. Baker, known to members of this Society from the several talks he has delivered, is a sinologist trained in anthropological field-work, and he brings his knowledge and first-hand experience to us here in forty very readable short pieces. Some of our longer-term residents will recognise, and may have kept, many of them as they were originally serialised in the South China Morning Post between 1977-1978, but it is unlikely that they will have preserved them all. Now they are here, all together between one hard-back cover with a dramatic photograph of “daai si,” one of the gods described in the text, on the front of the dust sheet.
Although the book is entitled Ancestral Images it covers a com- prehensive range of topics: from pigs to incantations, and geo- mancy to New Year biscuits, all amply and expertly illustrated with the author's own black and white and coloured photographs. This book would make an excellent gift for expatriate newcomers and their parents back home; and it affords a good introduction for those wishing to pursue the study of Chinese culture further. There is a useful list of secondary source references in English at the back.
Ilong Kong. June, 1979.
MARJORIE TOPLEY
HONG KONG : STABILITY AND CHANGE, A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS. Henry Lethbridge Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1978.
This book contains ten essays on the social history of Hong Kong, all concerned in one way or other with questions of social stability: a stability which, as the author points out, stands in mark- ed contrast to the conditions obtaining in many other Asian coun- tries. Nine of the essays were previously published elsewhere (five
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