The "Between East and West" Conference held in 1986 was itself one of a series of conferences on Hong Kong held at the Centre of Asian Studies. The title was deliberately broad to take in as wide a range of papers as possible. Participants were invited from many disciplines to ensure a variety in style, approach, conception and methodology. The result was a whole spectrum of papers, some introducing completely unexplored topics, others breaking new ground by offering new insights and new interpretations on more familiar issues. The discussion the papers generated - friendly, frank and sometimes lacerating - added depth and colour while showing possibilities and directions for further study and thought. The papers and discussion together presented diverse and refreshingly new visions of Hong Kong society.
The papers varied in scope, ranging from broad overviews to detailed locality studies. Dr. James Hayes's paper, offering a long perspective, is of the first type. It sets out to discover the key elements of East and West, and to describe and analyse the interplay of these elements in Hong Kong.
The interplay between elements of East and West is focused more narrowly and poignantly in Dr. Anthony Sweeting's paper. In tracing the formation of policy towards the reopening of the University of Hong Kong during and after the War, the paper takes the readers painstakingly through a labyrinth of arguments against a variety of historical and political backgrounds and on varying levels of intellectual conceptualization.
The less abstract dimensions of society are dealt with in Dr. Richard Irving's and the Reverend Carl Smith's papers. Wanchai, the Reverend Smith claims, has been searching for a social identity since the 1840s. This resulted from incessant economic changes and physical growth which inevitably transformed its social character. By bringing together fragmented information from a wide range of sources, the Reverend Smith is able to reveal in great detail the changes over time of the racial composition of the population, the economic activities, the institutions, even the personal vicissitudes of residents, and property and business owners.
Irving's paper, also the study of a locality, has an entirely different approach. He looks at the land use change in the Deep Bay area over a period of several though concentrating on the twentieth to show how geographical changes influenced human settlement.
We move to another plane of Hong Kong society with Dr. Norman Miners' paper on the abolition of the mui tsai system before the War. The mui tsai system was a Chinese institution of female domestic servitude well established in Hong Kong which came under severe criticism from the late 1910s. The anti-mui tsai campaign was a long, slow process despite the Colonial Office's determination, the enactment of several ordinances and the setting up of commissions of investigation.
The pattern of state-society interaction is also analysed by Dr. Ming K. Chan. By examining the pre-war labour movements in Hong Kong, he claims that the tensions between government and labour can hardly be explained by the simplistic framework of "Western" rulers versus "Eastern" ruled.
The fate of Chinese institutions in a colonial setting is dealt with in another paper, by Dr. Joseph Ting. Law and order was one of the earliest and most challenging problems the British in Hong Kong faced, a problem exacerbated by the foreign policemen's ignorance of Chinese language, customs and persons.
Like the mui tsai system, and unlike the baojia system, regional associations, Dr. Elizabeth Sinn's paper shows, were able to take root and develop fully in Hong Kong. Regional associations, formed by persons from the same native place during migration, had had a long history in China. Those in Hong Kong shared many common characteristics with those on the Mainland as well as in Overseas Chinese communities. In general, they acted as a focus for social, religious and economic activities. While offering different services to the sojourner and acting as a buffer to strangers and strange environments, they also helped him maintain ties with the place of origin.
Mr. T.L. Lui's paper on the social organization of outwork while echoing Norman Miners' paper with regard to women as workers and Ming K. Chan's with regard to Chinese labour, also introduces another dimension — the relations between social conditions and economic development.
The close relations between economic activities, social organization and business behaviour are also underlined in Dr. David Faure's paper on the rice trade in pre-war Hong Kong. Rice was a major commodity of trade both for local consumption and for re-export and since the 1880s, import of rice from Southeast Asia had centred on Hong Kong, with Siam, Vietnam, Canton and Swatow the main points in the trade network. The paper provides interesting information on the organization of the trade, all the more interesting because it is first-hand. Faure also shows the part regional affiliation played in the organization of the trade, thus further developing the theme of Elizabeth Sinn's paper.
While this Conference has covered much ground by examining many aspects of political and social development in Hong Kong, it also revealed the need and the potential for more work in the area. It is hoped that the papers in this collection will inspire further efforts in the future.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgement
Introduction ...... Elizabeth Sinn
East and West in Hong Hong: Vignettes from history and personal experience ...... James Hayes
Controversy over the re-opening of the University of Hong Kong, 1942-1948 ...... Anthony Sweeting
Wan Chai — in search of an identity ...... Carl T. Smith
Land use and land use change in the reclaimed coastal areas of Deep Bay ...... Richard T.A. Irving
The attempts to abolish the mui tsai system in Hong Kong 1917-1941 ...... Norman Miners
Labour vs Crown: aspects of society-state interactions in the Hong Kong labour movement before World War II ...... Ming K. Chan
Native Chinese peace officers in British Hong Kong, 1841-1861 ...... Joseph S.P. Ting
A history of regional associations in pre-war Hong Kong ...... Elizabeth Sinn
The social organization of outwork — the case of Hong Kong ...... T.L. Lui
The rice trade in Hong Kong before the Second World War ...... David Faure
Contributors
