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universe in general and their own place in it. (3) One is always looking for the underlying principles or structures beneath these various aspects of social life, and attempting to compare them systematically with the underlying principles and structures of other societies.
The enumeration of these three points will allow you to see at once that a good social anthropological study is likely to put on record a very great deal more than almost any other kind of study, and although, of course, no single ethnographer ever really succeeds in writing about everything, as ideally he should, nevertheless he often does try, and in so far as he limits himself to one aspect or another of a society (as he always must when dealing with a complex situation) he remains aware that the rest is there and that it is important.
The result is that good ethnographies contain an enormous amount of information recorded in a systematic way. One thinks of Francis Hsü's Under the Ancestors' Shadow, for example, or Fei's study of Kaishienkung, or C. K. Yang's Chinese Village in Communist Transition. In short, the second point I am trying to make clear to you is that it is extremely lucky that the New Territories have been studied by social anthropologists because good social anthropologists usually include a great many more kinds of information in their studies than most other social scientists do. Thus, because quite a large number of social anthropologists have in fact worked here since 1950 the result is that it is probably true to say that we already know a great deal more about the New Territories than we ourselves actually realise.
For example, (taking the published books alone) we have a detailed anthropological study of clan and village organisation in Sheung Shui; we have an even more detailed study of clan and economic structure in Ping Shan, and the effects upon it of the nearness to the big port cities of Kowloon and Hong Kong; we have an interesting account of one part of the great and constant stream of overseas emigration from and return to the New Territories; we have important descriptive studies of the fishing communities in Castle Peak; a book on Sai Kung is about to be published in Hawaii, and part of a long-term study pre-New Town Shatin has recently appeared in Sweden and so on. In addition a number of other books are in the press or soon will be: one on the Ch'iu-
!
Page 150
Page 151
118
BARBARA E. WARD
universe in general and their own place in it. (3) One is always looking for the underlying principles or structures beneath these various aspects of social life, and a tempting to compare them systematically with the underlying principles and structures of other societies.
The enumeration of these three points will allow you to see at once that a good social anthropological study is likely to put on record a very great deal more than almost any other kind of study, and although, of course, no single ethnographer ever really succeeds in writing about everything, as ideally he should, nevertheless he often does try, and in so far as he limits himself to one aspect or another of a society (as he always must when dealing with a com- plex situation) he remains aware that the rest is there and that it is important.
The result is that good ethnographies contain an enormous amount of information recorded in a systematic way. One thinks of Francis Hsü's Under the Ancestors' Shadow, for example, or Fei's study of Kaishienkung, or C, K. Yang's Chinese Village in Communist Transition. In short, the second point I am trying to make clear to you is that it is extremely lucky that the New Terri- tories have been studied by social anthropologists because good social anthropologists usually include a great many more kinds of information in their studies than most other social scientists do. Thus, because quite a large number of social anthropologists have in fact worked here since 1950 the result is that it is probably true to say that we already know a great deal more about the New Terri- tories than we ourselves actually realise.
For example, (taking the published books alone) we have a detailed anthropological study of clan and village organisation in Sheung Shui; we have an even more detailed study of clan and economic structure in Ping Shan, and the effects upon it of the nearness to the big port cities of Kowloon and Hong Kong; we have an interesting account of one part of the great and constant stream of overseas emigration from and return to the New Territories; we have important descriptive studies of the fishing communities in Castle Peak; a book on Sai Kung is about to be published in Hawaii, and part of a long-term study pre-New Town Shatin has recently appeared in Sweden and so on. In addition a number of other books are in the press or soon will be: one on the Ch'iu-
!
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