221
bungalow, its library and its visitors' books. I wonder if by some miracle, it and they are still in existence?
ANCESTRAL IMAGES:
A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
HUGH D. R. Baker*
In Vol. 20 of the journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Dr. James Hayes published a very kind review of my Ancestral Images books (S.C.M.P., Hong Kong, 1979, 1980, 1981). Quite rightly he regretted the omission of page references from the passages of quotation in the books. It is unnecessary to detail the process by which I contrived to leave out this important information, but by way of penance I have prepared a complete list of the quotation references and I append it to this note.
Leafing through all the books again, I was struck by the age of the sources which I used - well over half of them were written before 1949, and 16 of the 17 authors quoted more than twice each were writing before 1940. This is not, I hasten to say, an apology for conservatism, for there is no doubt in my mind that in much of the older material there is greater understanding of the Chinese and their culture than is to be found in the sometimes arid sociological analysis of later scholars. Certainly it is easier to find lively and illuminating passages for quotation in works written by experienced, jaundiced "China-livers" rather than in those of dispassionate "China-watchers". In any case I was trying to shed light on the "Chineseness" of Chinese and Hong Kong society, and "Chineseness" is an accumulation of three or four
* Hugh D. R. Baker is Reader in Modern Chinese in the University of London and Head of the Contemporary China Institute, School of Oriental & African Studies. He has also written A Chinese Lineage Village: Sheung Shui and Chinese Family & Kinship as well as many other articles and contributions to books. He has conducted extensive research in Hong Kong, which he visits frequently, and was Chinese Language Training Adviser to the Hong Kong Government from 1974-75 on secondment from London.
221
bungalow, its library and its visitors' books. I wonder if by some miracle, it and they are still in existence?
ANCESTRAL IMAGES:
A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
HUGH D. R. Baker*
In Vol. 20 of the journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Dr. James Hayes published a very kind review of my Ancestral Images books (S.C.M.P., Hong Kong, 1979, 1980, 1981). Quite rightly he regretted the omission of page references from the passages of quotation in the books. It is unnecessary to detail the process by which I contrived to leave out this important information, but by way of penance I have prepared a complete list of the quotation references and I append it to this note.
Leafing through all the books again, I was struck by the age of the sources which I used well over half of them were written before 1949, and 16 of the 17 authors quoted more than twice each were writing before 1940. This is not, I hasten to say, an apology for conservatism, for there is no doubt in my mind that in much of the older material there is greater understanding of the Chinese and their culture than is to be found in the sometimes arid sociological analysis of later scholars. Certainly it is easier to find lively and illuminating passages for quotation in works written by experienced jaundiced "China-livers” rather than in those of dispassionate “China-watchers". In any case I was trying to shed light on the "Chineseness" of Chinese and Hong Kong society, and "Chineseness” is an accumulation of three or four
* Hugh D. R. Baker is Reader in Modern Chinese in the University of London and Head of the Contemporary China Institute, School of Oriental & African Studies. He has also written A Chinese Lineage Village: Sheung Shui and Chinese Family & Kinship as well as many other articles and contributions to books. He has conducted extensive research in Hong Kong which he visits frequently and was Chinese Language Training Adviser to the Hong Kong Government from 1974-75 on secondment from London.
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