[
    {
        "id": 206251,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1971",
        "page_number": 68,
        "title": "RAS-1971",
        "content_text": "CHINESE VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATIONS IN SOUTHEAST ASIAN CITIES AND THE KAIFONGS IN HONG KONG\n\nALINE K. WONG*\n\nVOLUNTARY ASSOCIATIONS IN OVERSEAS CHINESE COMMUNITIES\n\nThere are many kinds of voluntary organizations among the overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, such as chambers of commerce, clan associations, district and dialect associations, trade unions, religious societies, secret societies, political clubs and recreational clubs. However, in terms of contribution to the public life of the Chinese communities, three types of organizations, viz., the chambers of commerce, the district and dialect associations are more important than the rest. District and dialect groups are always closely connected; it is difficult to speak of one apart from the other. And in some cases, the chambers of commerce are in fact federations of local district associations.\n\nWell-known literature on the Chinese voluntary associations in this part of the world includes such works by William Skinner1 and Richard Coughlin on Thailand, Maurice Freedman3 on Singapore, Victor Purcell on Malaya, Ju-k’ang T’ien5 on Sarawak, Donald Willmott on Semarang and Lea Williams on Indonesia. Examining this wealth of literature, one finds that the chambers of commerce, the district and dialect associations serve three main kinds of functions; namely, economic, social and political. While the chambers of commerce are manifestly merchants’\n\n* Mrs. Wong is head of the Department of Sociology at United College, Chinese University of Hong Kong. This paper was contributed to a conference on \"The City as a Centre of Change in Asia\" organised by the Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong in June, 1969.\n\n1 Leadership and Power in the Chinese Community of Thailand, Ithaca, 1958.\n\n2 Double Identity. The Chinese in Modern Thailand, Hong Kong, 1960.\n\n3 Chinese Family and Marriage in Singapore, London, 1957.\n\n4 The Chinese in Malaya, London, 1948; The Chinese in Southeast Asia, London, 1965.\n\n5 The Chinese of Sarawak, London, 1953.\n\n6 Chinese of Semarang, Ithaca, 1960.\n\n7 Overseas Chinese Nationalism, Glencoe, 1960; The Future of the Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, 1966.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 206254,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1971",
        "page_number": 71,
        "title": "RAS-1971",
        "content_text": "VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATIONS AND KAIFONGS\n\n65\n\nlinguistic and economic elements of the community into one self-protective league.\" The self-protective\n\nThe self-protective league among the overseas Chinese takes its physical form in the famous \"Chinatowns', and its invisible form in the numerous associational ties which we just described. However, the closeness of Chinese communities has proved, in the long run, to be a disservice, to both the Chinese themselves and to their host societies. For centuries the Chinese emigrants have not been culturally and socially assimilated with the native populations. To the governments of the newly independent South East Asian countries, the Chinese communities form special social and political problems of their own, standing particularly in the way of national unity. No wonder many newly independent governments take up aggressive policies towards the Chinese, including both political control, such as by abolishing systems of indirect rule, and social-cultural assimilation, such as by a system of compulsory national education, and by discriminatory economic opportunities.\n\nSome writers have noted that it was only a myth that the Chinese overseas were \"unassimilable” and ascribed the closeness of Chinese communities to the fact that the host governments had not provided the Chinese with special services. Thus, it is logical to predict that in due course, the Chinese will be integrated into their host societies once the protective functions of their associations are removed. Also, the third and fourth generations of the immigrant Chinese are not exempted from the all-pervasive influence of the Western culture, particularly because they live mainly in the cities where the influence of the West is most intensively felt. Thus, the younger generations are subject to the same processes of cultural change as those experienced by the younger generations of the native population. Therefore it is not difficult to foresee that both the Chinese and the indigenous South East Asian peoples are going to be drawn together by the influence of the West.10\n\nKAIFONG ASSOCIATIONS IN HONG KONG\n\nHong Kong is considered by some as an overseas Chinese community. However, I believe that strictly speaking, Hong\n\n9 Richard Coughlin, op. cit., p. 60.\n\n10 Ibid., p. 190.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g",
        "rank": 0
    }
]