Bulletin Number Three 1986

the Yao and Hong Kong Chinese. These studies have resulted in the publication o f a number o f books and articles in journals. Dr. Hsieh Jiann (PhD, Pittsburgh) has undertaken extensive fieldwork in Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and among the Samei o f Yunnan in China. He has published widely, including The Waichow Hakka Association in Hong Kong (Chinese University Press, 1981 )， The Samei o f East Kunm ing, China (in press). The Samei may be the first book by an outside ethnographer concerning a m inority group and its socio-cultural changes during the past three decades in China to appear since 1949. Dr. Hsieh has numerous articles in such journals as The Journal o f the R oyal Asiatic Society (Hong Kong), Asian Folklore Studies (Japan), Bulle tin o f the Institu te o f E thno logy, Academia Sinica (Taipei), International Review o f Modem Sociology (USA), Journal o f the Guizhou Institu te o f Nationalities Research (China), Human Organization (USA) and Anthropos (West Germany). Dr. Zee Yun-yang (PhD, UCLA) has been working on six research projects ， including the linguistic analysis o f Cantonese and Hakka dialects, and a comparison o f Pai Yao w ith Kuo San Yao. Four o f these projects have been com pleted, and the first two have been published in Language and Speech, and the Journal o f Chinese Linguistics. Dr. Zee is now initiating two further research projects, including a sociolinguistic study o f Hong Kong society. Dr. Chen Chi-nan (PhD, Yale) is undertaking a three-year research project on the study o f traditional fam ily system and corporate organization in Chinese society, mainly based on his fieldwork in modem Taiwan. He has published several articles on this subject, and is to continue his study o f the socio-economic history o f Taiwan and Formosan aborigines. A collection o f his critical essays on the socio-cultural problems o f Chinese society has been published in Taiwan in two books. Dr. Nicholas Tapp (PhD, London), who joined the department in January 1986 ， is Main Consultant on an ethnography o f the Hmong (Miao) commissioned by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees in Geneva. He has published in various journals, including Anthropology Today (Royal Anthropological Institute, London), and The Journal o f Developing Societies (B rill, Leiden), and a short book on the Hmong w ill be published in London this year. Dr. Tapp's current research projects include a semiological analysis o f T'ai Chi Ch'uan in Hong Kong, and the study o f Miao conununities in China. The Department initiated a major research pro gramme on the national minorities o f China in 1984 ， and this year w ill be carrying out its third annual field tour to the Liannan Yao Autonomous County in Northern Guangdong w ith the help and cooperation o f the Commission for M inority Nationalities in Guangdong. Liannan is a mixed ethnic region com prising Yao, Hakka, Putonghua and Cantonese speaking populations, w ith a total population o f about 128,000 in nine major rural districts and is thus an ideal field for research into the changing modes o f ethnicity and inter-ethnic relations in China. Some o f the topics dealt w ith to date by the two mixed teams o f staff and students, which visit Liannan separately each year, are kinship and fam ily organiz ation, marketing and economic organization, language and education, socialization processes, the role o f women, and changes in the traditional belief system. An impressive collection o f data has been bu ilt up in the department on the area, in both audio-visual and written form, and the results are shortly to be published. Students have shown a particular interest in this programme, and some have even returned to their fieldwork sites later in the year on their own initiative for the collection o f further data. In the future the department plans to expand its scope o f fieldwork beyond Hong Kong and China to include ethnographically related areas o f Southeast Asia, accompanied by two new courses projected for the coming triennium. Major Research Projects The research projects carried out by the Department o f Anthropology cover a wide range o f topics. The following are descriptions o f two major projects. Research Project on the Pai Yao As a subgroup o f the Yao, the Pai Yao or Ba Pai Yao are mostly settled in Liannan Yao Autonomous County o f Guangdong Province. According to the census o f 1982 ， the total population o f the Yao in China amounted to more than 1,400,000, most o f them dispersed in Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, and other provinces. In addition, some Yao people inhabit Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, and have reached as far as France, Brazil and the United States, in the form o f small communities. The Yao people's long historical background and splendid culture have attracted the research interest o f many students in Yao studies around the world. Studies on Chinese m inority groups and their cultures have been one o f the fields o f the under graduate programme since the establishment o f the Department o f Anthropology in 1980. Owing to lim ited manpower and financial resources, it seems impossible to maintain a permanent station for field studies in a m inority area, but a periodic visit to an outpost close to Hong Kong is very helpful for both 10 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS