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recorded, most were over-stated by one year and small numbers under-stated by one year or over-stated by two years. The age recording shows a marked local difference from censuses in English-speaking countries. There, it is quite common for people to record their age, usually quite sub-consciously, to the nearest 5 or 10 year figure. On the other hand, instead of the preference for 5 and 10 which can be seen in the tables of age in those countries, the Hong Kong people, especially Chinese speakers, prefer 10, 8 and 2 (even numbers) and avoid 7 and 9. The dislike of 9 was previously known (9 is an unlucky number in China) but the unpopularity of 7 is unexplained.

There has been much discussion in Hong Kong recently about Chinese marriage customs. What is a customary marriage? Should men be allowed to take concubines? Should the ancient custom of child betrothal be suppressed or encouraged? Should wives be given the right of divorce? Should concubines be able to sue for maintenance? All these questions were neatly dodged by the census-takers, who recorded as 'married' all conjugal-type partner- ships whether legal, customary or informal. As is usual even in monogamous countries there are more married women than married men. We also have plenty of widows but far less widowers (because women tend to outlive men) and very few divorced persons of either sex (because they usually remarry).

A new departure for Hong Kong was to ask women how many children they had. Naturally this question was not put to single women, and in the only case known where a woman (a discarded concubine living with her parents) said that she had children but was unmarried, the teenage enumerator told her calmly that according to his instructions any relationship resulting in childbirth was marriage and she could have her choice of married, widowed or divorced but not single. She chose, correctly, to go down as divorced. Women could not be asked how many children they had ever had because to put this question in Chinese would involve a supplementary question 'how many of your children have died' which would provoke grief and hostility.

Much thought had to be given to the question of 'race'. This much-abused little word has a way of defying definition. In every- day affairs we speak of 'Chinese' and 'non-Chinese', 'Chinese' and 'foreign', 'Asian' and 'European', 'local' and 'expatriate' but none

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