151
Urban Historians
We may discern yet a fourth group, those studying the local history of urban Hong Kong. Their work started later in the 1960s, and among the pioneers were political scientists, legal scholars, sociologists as well as historians, many being teachers at the University of Hong Kong. Again, up to the mid 1970s, most of them were Westerners. The source materials they used were primarily government publications, archival materials and newspapers, and since most read only English, they either had no access to Chinese sources, or had to rely on research assistants.
There was an attempt to tap a new source, oral history, which Alan Birch of the History Department, HKU, carried out with great fervour in the early 1970s. Later in the decade, he organized two radio programmes interviewing those who had lived through the Japanese invasion and the Japanese occupation, and two books based on these interviews were published. However, since Birch only speaks and reads English, his interviewees were confined to expatriates and English-speaking Chinese, and the stories that he could reconstruct were inherently one-sided.
Among urban historians, Carl Smith was rather exceptional. A genealogist by training, he began his research on Hong Kong in 1960 with the history of the Protestant church, looking at the impact of the church's activities on Hong Kong society, before going on to examine many other aspects. His studies on localities include detailed works on Shamshuipo and Wanchai. He has, moreover, written many biographies of local people and on the different ethnic and national groups in Hong Kong. His research is based on a broad range of materials, both English and Chinese. Besides government records and newspapers, he uses church records, missionary archives, wills, company records, genealogies, inscriptions on headstones, land records, commercial directories, to name just a few of them.
His work opens up a whole new world to the reader, who discovers not just the lives of great men but ordinary men and women - school teachers, policemen, prostitutes, bank clerks, junior government servants, shopkeepers and their families and social circles. In his hands, Hong Kong's urban history is no longer just the story of one Governor following another, but of real people, living in real neighbourhoods, going to real churches and schools, and yes, based on cemetery records, dying and being buried in real graveyards.
151
Urban Historians
We may discern yet a fourth group, those studying the local history of urban Hong Kong. Their work stated later in the 1960s, and among the pioneers were political scientists, legal scholars, sociologists as well as historians, many being teachers at the University of Hong Kong. Again, up to the mid 1970s, most of them were Westerners The source materials they used were primarily government publications, archival materials and newspapers, and since most read only English, they either had no access to Chinese sources, or had to rely on research assistants.
There was an attempt to tap a new source, oral history, which Alan Buch of the History Department, HKU, carried out with great fervour in the early 1970s Later in the decade, he organized two radio programmes interviewing those who had lived through the Japanese invasion and the Japanese occupation, and two books based on these interviews were published," However, since Birch only speaks and reads English, his interviewees were confined to expatriates and English speaking Chinese, and the stones that he could reconstruct were inherently one-sided.
Among urban historians, Carl Smith was rather exceptional. A genealogist by training, he began his research on Hong Kong in 1960 with the history of the Protestant church, looking at the impact of the church's activities on Hong Kong society, before going on to examine many other aspects. His studies on localities include detailed works on Shamshuipo and Wanchai. He has, moreover, written many biographies of local people and on the different ethnic and national groups in Hong Kong. His research is based on a broad range of materials, both English and Chinese Besides government records and newspapers, he uses church records, missionary archives, wills, company records, genealogies, inscriptions on headstones, land records, commercial directories, to name just a few of them.
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His work opens up a whole new world to the reader, who discovers not just the lives of great men but ordinary men and women - school teachers, policemen, prostitutes, bank clerks, jumor government servants, shopkeepers and their families and social circles. In his hands, Hong Kong's urban history is no longer just the story of one Governor following another, but of real people, living in real neighbourhoods, going to real churches and schools, and yes, based on cemetery records, dying and being buried in real graveyards 10
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