126
TA ACTON
+
an oppressed and pariah people without social status.
20
It must be emphasized that this picture of an ethnic group with a long history was not the image of a few scholars only. It was the socially constructed reality of pre-1939 China. Even though since the mid-1950s modern scholarship and the views of the officials most directly concerned, both in the People's Republic of China21 and in Hong Kong have demolished it as though it had never been, it lingers among ordinary people and even some British officials not directly concerned.
22
23
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From the early 1950s one British social-anthropologist, Barbara Ward, has carried out recurrent field-work on a community of the kind that used to be called 'Tanka', on the little island of Kau Sai.29 She found that with minor exceptions they were ethnically Cantonese, with similar models of the world, marriage and death practices, and religious beliefs to other Han Chinese.24 Other scholars endorsed her view; even their language, apart from an enormous, specialised fishing vocabulary was said to be virtually the same as ordinary Cantonese. In fact, Hong Kong fishing people in the larger ports can tell each others' origins partly by the fact that they speak with different, local coastal accents - for example, a 'Yeung Kong' accent.;
26
27
Official policy in Hong Kong also now sees the boat-people as an occupational, and not an ethnic group, whereas the British Government in Britain sees the Gypsies now as an ethnic and not an occupational group, both viewpoints having reversed themselves over the past thirty years.
28
It should be emphasized, though, that these perceptions of ethnicity, whatever relation they may have to the form and organisation of education (and the vigour with which it is pursued), do not usually affect the content of special educational provision by the state, for either group. Both the curriculum and language remains that of the ordinary school, and the amount of exotic cultural material included is meagre. Despite some pioneering work by voluntary projects, the Gypsy dialects are not used in the West Midlands Local Authority projects, and "Gypsy material" is limited to commercially published books featuring Gypsies, and the occasional pasted cardboard caravan. Equally, in the F.MO. schools in Hong Kong, one might find general readers, with a carefully laudatory couple of pages on the brave fishermen, or, once or twice, beautiful collections of strange fish and other marine creatures in jars, that have been contributed by parents; but the main task was to give them the same education other Chinese children received.
29
126
TA ACTON
+
an oppressed and pariah people without social status.
20
It must be emphasized that this picture of an ethnic group with a long history was not the image of a few scholars only. It was the socially constructed reality of pre-1939 China. Even though since the mid-1950s modern scholarship and the views of the officials most directly concerned, both in the People's Republic of China 21 and in Hong Kong have demolished it as though it had never been, it lingers among ordinary people and even some British officials not directly concerned.
22
23
26
From the early 1950s one British social-anthropologist, Barbara Ward, has carried out recurrent field-work on a community of the kind that used to be called 'Tanka', on the little island of Kau Sai. 29 She found that with minor exceptions they were ethnically Cantonese, with similar models of the world, marriate and death practices, and religious beliefs to other Han Chinese, 24 Other scholars endorsed her view; even their language, apart from an enormous, specialised fishing vo- cabulary was said to be virtually the same as ordinary Cantonese. In fact, Hong Kong fishing people in the larger ports can tell each others' origins partly by the fact that they speak with different, local coastal accents - for example, a 'Yeung Kong' accent.;
26
27
Official policy in Hong Kong also now sees the boat-people as an occupational, and not an ethnic group, whereas the British Government in Britain sees the Gypsies now as an ethnic and not an occupational group, both viewpoints having reversed themselves over the past thirty
years.
28
It should be emphasized, though, that these perceptions of ethnicity, whatever relation they may have to the form and organisation of education (and the vigour with which it is pursued), do not usually affect the content of special educational provision by the state, for either group. Both the curriculum and language remains that of the ordinary school, and the amount of exotic cultural material included is meagre. Despite some pioneering work by voluntary projects, the Gypsy dialects are not used in the West Midlands Local Authority projects, and "Gypsy material" is limited to commercially published books featuring Gypsies, and the occasional pasted cardboard caravan. Equally, in the F.MO. schools in Hong Kong, one might find general readers, with a carefully laudatory couple of pages on the brave fisher- men, or, once or twice, beautiful collections of strange fish and other marine creatures in jars, that have been contributed by parents; but the main task was to give them the same education other Chinese children
29
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