RAS-1979 — Page 52

RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 All AI Reviewed

THE CHINESE MARITIME CUSTOMS REMEMBERED

extraordinary, mixed administration. If this understanding is someday to be improved upon, a systematic effort now to collect and preserve the oral testimonies of these and other surviving former Chinese officials is essential.

The interviews were also intended as a small experiment in oral history. Oral history as a data-gathering device for studying the past is, of course, nothing new. But it was only in the last several decades that a more sophisticated methodology, with the help of the tape-recorder, began to emerge and attract more serious practitioners. At many universities abroad, especially those in the United States, oral history is gradually evolving into an important branch of research. At important centers, such as Columbia University, oral history collections have become rather substantial. In Hong Kong, however, oral history has not been given the attention that it deserves. How our records of local history would be enriched if only the oral testimonies of those residents who have witnessed the great changes that occurred in the past 30 or 40 years could be used to supplement the written sources! Some, like the former Customs officials, may also have been informed by personal experiences about specific aspects of twentieth-century Chinese society. But one can never be sure of what is available in Hong Kong, a cultural and political crossroad in its own right, until one starts searching. Conceivably, every aspect of life in Hong Kong has a history capable of reconstruction, and every one living here has something to contribute to the remembrance of a collective past. In this, with its special techniques for collecting and preserving information, oral history renders good service. As for the reminiscing individual, he may find in oral history an efficacious means of relating self to society, past to present, and may learn in the process a broader significance of his own existence than that previously known.

NOTES

1 See John K. Fairbank, "Foreword," The I. G. in Peking, ed. John K. Fairbank, Katherine F. Bruner and Elizabeth M. Matheson, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, I, xi.

2 For a discussion of the "authorized” inauguration of the Inspectorate system, see Jack J. Gerson, Horatio Nelson Lay and Sino-British Relations, 1854-1864, Cambridge, Mass.: East Asian Research Center, Harvard University Press, 1972, pp. 98-101.

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THE CHINESE MARITIME CUSTOMS REMEMBERED 25 extraordinary, mixed administration. If this understanding is someday to be improved upon, a systematic effort now to collect and preserve the oral testimonies of these and other surviving former Chinese officials is essential. The interviews were also intended as a small experiment in oral history. Oral history as a data-gathering device for studying the past is, of course, nothing new. But it was only in the last several decades that a more sophisticated methodology, with the help of the tape-recorder, began to emerge and attract more serious practitioners. At many universities abroad, especially those in the United States, oral history is gradually evolving into an important branch of research. At important centers, such as Columbia University, oral history collections have become rather substantial. In Hong Kong, however, oral history has not been given the attention that it deserves. How our records of local history would be enriched if only the oral testimonies of those residents who have witnessed the great changes that occurred in the past 30 or 40 years could be used to supplement the written sources! Some, like the former Customs officials, may also have been informed by personal experiences about specific aspects of twentieth-century Chinese society. But one can never be sure of what is available in Hong Kong, a cultural and political crossroad in its own right, until one starts searching. Conceivably, every aspect of life in Hong Kong has a history capable of reconstruction, and every one living here has something to contribute to the remembrance of a collective past. In this, with its special techniques for collecting and preserving information, oral history renders good service. As for the reminiscing individual, he may find in oral history an efficacious means of relating self to society, past to present, and may learn in the process a broader significance of his own existence than that previously known. NOTES 1 See John K. Fairbank, "Foreword," The I. G. in Peking, ed. John K. Fairbank, Katherine F. Bruner and Elizabeth M. Matheson, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, I, xi. 2 For a discussion of the "authorized” inauguration of the Inspectorate system, see Jack J. Gerson, Horatio Nelson Lay and Sino-British Relations, 1854-1864, Cambridge, Mass.: East Asian Research Center, Harvard University Press, 1972, pp. 98-101.

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THE CHINESE MARITIME CUSTOMS REMEMBERED 25 extraordinary, mixed administration. If this understanding is some- day to be improved upon, a systematic effort now to collect and preserve the oral testimonies of these and other surviving former Chinese officials is essential. The interviews were also intended as a small experiment in oral history. Oral history as a data-gathering device for studying the past is, of course, nothing new. But it was only in the last several decades that a more sophisticated methodology, with the help of the tape-recorder, began to emerge and attract more serious practi- tioners. At many universities abroad, especially those in the United States, oral history is gradually evolving into an important branch of research. At important centers, such as Columbia University, oral history collections have become rather substantial. In Hong Kong, however, oral history has not been given the attention that it deserves. How our records of local history would be enriched if only the oral testimonies of those residents who have witnessed the great changes that occurred in the past 30 or 40 years could be used to supplement the written sources! Some, like the former Customs officials, may also have been informed by personal ex- periences about specific aspects of twentieth-century Chinese society. But one can never be sure of what is available in Hong Kong, a cultural and political crossroad in its own right, until one starts searching. Conceivably, every aspect of life in Hong Kong has a history capable of reconstruction, and every one living here has something to contribute to the remembrance of a collective past. In this, with its special techniques for collecting and preserving infor- mation, oral history renders good service. As for the reminiscing individual, he may find in oral history an efficacious means of relating self to society, past to present, and may learn in the process a broader significance of his own existence than that previously known. NOTES 1 See John K. Fairbank, "Foreword," The I. G. in Peking, ed. John K. Fairbank, Katherine F. Bruner and Elizabeth M. Matheson, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, I, xi. 2 For a discussion of the "authorized” inauguration of the Inspectorate system, see Jack J. Gerson, Horatio Nelson Lay and Sino-British Relations, 1854-1864, Cambridge, Mass.: East Asian Research Center, Harvard Univer- sity Press, 1972, pp. 98-101.

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THE CHINESE MARITIME CUSTOMS REMEMBERED

extraordinary, mixed administration. If this understanding is some- day to be improved upon, a systematic effort now to collect and preserve the oral testimonies of these and other surviving former Chinese officials is essential.

The interviews were also intended as a small experiment in oral history. Oral history as a data-gathering device for studying the past is, of course, nothing new. But it was only in the last several decades that a more sophisticated methodology, with the help of the tape-recorder, began to emerge and attract more serious practi- tioners. At many universities abroad, especially those in the United States, oral history is gradually evolving into an important branch of research. At important centers, such as Columbia University, oral history collections have become rather substantial. In Hong Kong, however, oral history has not been given the attention that it deserves. How our records of local history would be enriched if only the oral testimonies of those residents who have witnessed the great changes that occurred in the past 30 or 40 years could be used to supplement the written sources! Some, like the former Customs officials, may also have been informed by personal ex- periences about specific aspects of twentieth-century Chinese society. But one can never be sure of what is available in Hong Kong, a cultural and political crossroad in its own right, until one starts searching. Conceivably, every aspect of life in Hong Kong has a history capable of reconstruction, and every one living here has something to contribute to the remembrance of a collective past. In this, with its special techniques for collecting and preserving infor- mation, oral history renders good service. As for the reminiscing individual, he may find in oral history an efficacious means of relating self to society, past to present, and may learn in the process a broader significance of his own existence than that previously known.

RAS-1979 — Page 52

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