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FLOATING WORLD
LOST
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Floating World Lost
A Hong Kong Fishing Community
by E.N. ANDERSON (University of California, Riverside, USA)
1-931948- 51-8 2008 |
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Castle Peak Bay, in the Western Territories of Hong Kong, was once home to a teeming population of fishermen and cargo carriers who lived on their boats and rarely came on shore. They made up a separate community, calling themselves seui seung yan, 'people on the water.' They, and the shore-dwellers around them, considered themselves to belong to a separate ethnic group, defined by residence on the water more than by language or culture. They dwelt in boats, or in pile houses built over the water. They were part of a vast array of boat-dwelling people who wandered widely over the rivers and seas of China. Today, the boat community is no more. The boat families moved on shore and merged with the general Cantonese population of Hong Kong. The bay itself no longer exists. It was filled in, providing level space for high-rise apartments. Descendents of sea captains now live twenty floors above the rocky fill, and commute to jobs assembling electronics or programming computers. The bay, formerly isolated, has become part of the vast urban agglomeration that is modern Hong Kong. This book, Floating World Lost, then records a vanished way of life. Boat-dwelling fishermen still number in the millions in China, southeast Asia, and elsewhere, but the boat people of the Hong Kong area had their own special ways of being human. They have much to teach us. Their knowledge of fish and fishing was unsurpassed. Their society was well-run in spite of lack of government and police. Their social values and ethics were striking and original. Above all, the boat people of Castle Peak Bay recall to us the ancient value of humility. The boat-dwellers created lives of beauty, glory, and satisfaction in the face of overwhelming challenges. They 'raised a Heaven in Hell's despite.' They deserve to be remembered. |
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E.N. Anderson is Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Riverside (USA).
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