Village Life in Hong Kong: Politics, Gender, and Ritual in the New Territories (Out of Stock)
James L. Watson ˇE Rubie S. Watson
About the Book
This book explores the cultural traditions of Cantonese villagers who first settled in South Chinaˇ¦s Pearl River Delta during the Tang and Song dynasties (10th to 12th centuries). The authors lived and worked in the New Territories, Hong Kongˇ¦s rural hinterland, during the 1960s and 1970s.
Two villages, in particular, are featured in this book: San Tin and Ha Tsuen,
homes (respectively) of the Man and Teng lineages. These are single-surname communities of the type that once dominated rural politics in South China. In the 60s and 70s, village life revolved around the performance of expensive and time-consuming rituals associated with birth, marriage, and ancestor worship. Geomancy (fengshui) was a universally accepted system of belief that linked the living to the dead. Men and women lived in separate social worlds that were closed to members of the opposite sex. The Watsons worked as a team and thus were able to document both sides of this gender divide.
Many of the rituals and social activities described in this book are no longer performed in the New Territories, or in adjacent regions of Guangdong province. The physical landscape has also changed dramatically in recent decades. Several of the tenant communities studied by the Watsons were demolished in the wake of ˇ§New Townˇ¨ development during the 1980s and 1990s. Nonetheless, indigenous villagers of the New Territories still constitute a vibrant, recognizable minority in Hong Kongˇ¦s rapidly expanding population. Globalization and hyper-urbanization have combined to create a new, postmodern society in an area that was, until recently, a rural hinterland. Village Life in Hong Kong constitutes a unique ethnographic record of a cultural system teetering on the threshold of this historic transition.
About the Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s)
James L. Watson is Fairbank Professor of Chinese Society and Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University. Rubie S. Watson is Howells Director, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University. The Watsons have conducted ethnographic research in South China (Hong Kong, Guangdong, and Jiangxi) since the late 1960s.
Review
ˇ§This is an extraordinary volume that deserves attention and appreciation. It summarizes the achievements of two world class scholars, a husband and wife teamˇK. Their passionate interest in local lifeways and their devotion to the communities studied stand in sharp contrast to a new generation of ethnographies that stresses global fluidityˇK. With sophistication and sensitivity, James and Rubie Watson have highlighted analytical issues and historical evidence that mark a significant phase in the field of Chinese Anthropology.ˇ¨
ˇX Helen F. Siu, Professor of Anthropology, Yale University
ˇ§... [E]ach author goes considerably beyond village confines and deals with fundamental aspects of Chinese culture and society, in classic articles such as those concerned with naming practices or the connection between belief and ritual. Thus this bookˇ¦s articles are essential reading not only for understanding village society in the New Territories, but also for appreciation of the larger cultural and historical forces that have importantly shaped it.ˇ¨
ˇX Myron L. Cohen, Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University
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