Doing Families in Hong Kong [1 ed.] 9789047429111, 9789004175679

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Doing Families in Hong Kong

Social Transformations in Chinese Societies The Official Journal of the Hong Kong Sociological Association Editors Chan Kwok-bun, Agnes S. Ku and Chu Yin-wah Book Review Editors Ruan Danching and Wang Cangbai Editorial Assistant Vivien W. W. Chan VOLUME 4 2009 Editorial Board Alatas, Syed Farid, National University of Singapore; Cai, He, Zhongshan University; Chan, H. N., Annie, Lingnan University; Chiu, Chiu-hing, Catherine, City University of Hong Kong; Chiu, Hei-yuan, Academia Sinica; Chiu, Wing-kai, Stephen, The Chinese University of Hong Kong; Chu Yin-wah, Hong Kong Baptist University; Davis, Deborah, Yale University; Hamilton, Gary, University of Washington; Hook, Brian, Middlesex University; Hsiao, H. H., Michael, Academia Sinica; Kao, Cheng-shu, Tunghai University; King, Yao-chi, Ambrose, The Chinese University of Hong Kong; Lau, Siu-kai, The Chinese University of Hong Kong; Lee, James, University of Michigan; Lee, Ming-kwan, Hong Kong Polytechnic University; Lee, Pui-leung, Rance, The Chinese University of Hong Kong; Leung, Hon-chu, Hong Kong Baptist University; Leung Sai-wing, Hong Kong Polytechnic University; Li, Lulu, People’s University; Li, Peilin, Academy of Social Science, Beijing; Li, S., Peter, University of Saskatchewan; Li, Qiang, Tsinghua University; Li, Youmei, Shanghai University; Lin, Nan, Duke University; Madsen, Richard, University of California at San Diego; Mok, Ka-ho, University of Bristol; Pan, Ngai, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; Postiglione, Gerard A., University of Hong Kong; Qiu, Haixiong, Zhongshan University; Salaff, Janet, University of Toronto; So, Alvin Y., Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; Song, Linfei, Jiangsu Academy of Social Science; Thireau, Isabelle, National Center for Scientific Research, Paris; Vogel, Ezra F., Harvard University; Walder, Andrew G., Stanford University; Wong, M. H., Odalia, Hong Kong Baptist University; Wong, W. P., Thomas, University of Hong Kong; Wright, Tim, University of Sheffield; Zhou, Min, University of California at Los Angeles; Zhou, Xiaohong, Nanjing University.

Doing Families in Hong Kong Editors

Chan Kwok-bun, Agnes S. Ku and Chu Yin-wah Book Review Editors

Ruan Danching and Wang Cangbai Editorial Assistant

Vivien W. W. Chan Guest Editors

Ng Chun-hung Thomas W. P. Wong Chu Yin-wah Anita Chan Kit-wa

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2009

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

ISSN 1871-2673 ISBN 978 90 04 17567 9 Copyright 2009 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, Th e Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints BRILL, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

CONTENTS Notes from the Editor ....................................................................... Authors’ Biographies .........................................................................

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SPECIAL FOCUS: DOING FAMILIES IN HONG KONG Guest Editors: Ng Chun-hung, Thomas W. P. Wong, Chu Yin-wah and Anita Chan Kit-wa Introduction: Doing Families in Hong Kong: Values, Relations and Strategies ............................................................... Ng Chun-hung, Thomas W. P. Wong, Chu Yin-wah and Anita Chan Kit-wa

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Family in Flux: Benchmarking Family Changes in Hong Kong Society ............................................................................................. Anita C. Koo and Thomas W. P. Wong

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Doing Families in Hong Kong: Strategy, Morality and Emotion .......................................................................................... Ng Chun-hung, Ng Bo-sze and Anita Chan Kit-wa

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Who Should Care? Perceptions of Caregiving Responsibility within the Household ................................................................... Odalia M. H. Wong

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Single Working Women in Hong Kong: A Case of ‘Normal Deviance’? ....................................................................................... Evelyn G. H. Ng and Catherine W. Ng

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Where Is My Brokeback Mountain? .............................................. Travis S. K. Kong

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Familial Ideology and Family Policy in Hong Kong ................... Shae Wan-chaw and Wong Pik-wan

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contents ARTICLES

Sketching the Discursive Outlines of Cosmopolitan Hybridity in Postwar Hong Kong: City Magazine in the Emergence of 1980s Popular Culture and Culture Industry ...................... Allen Chun Indigenization and the Study of Chinese Religion and Society Chan Shun-hing ‘Missing Girls’ in an Era of ‘High Quality’: Governmental Control over Population and Daughter Discrimination in Contemporary China .................................................................... Leslie Kim Wang

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BOOK REVIEWS Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the Twenty-First Century, by Giovanni Arrighi. London: Verso, 2007. 420 pp. US$35 (hardcover), US$25.95 (paperback). ISBN 1–8446–7104–6 ... Alvin Y. So The Chinese Model of Modern Development, edited by Tian-yu Cao. London and New York: Routledge, 2005. 323 pp. US$179 (hardcover). ISBN 0–4153–4518–9 ............................. Eva P. W. Hung Exploring ‘Unseen’ Social Capital in Community Participation: Everyday Lives of Poor Mainland Chinese Migrants in Hong Kong, by Sam Wong. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2007. 220 pp. US$34.50 (paperback). ISBN 9–0535–6034–3 ................................................................... Janet Salaff The Shek Kip Mei Myth: Squatters, Fires and Colonial Rule in Hong Kong, 1950–1963, by Alan Smart. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2006. 252 pp. US$65 (hardcover). ISBN 9–6220–9793–6 ................................................................... Lui Tai-lok

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contents Gender and Community under British Colonialism: Emotion, Struggle and Politics in a Chinese Village, by Siu Keung Cheung. London: Routledge, 2006. 216 pp. US$110 (hardcover). ISBN 0–8248–3099–7 ............................................ Janet Salaff The Great Difference: Hong Kong’s New Territories and its People 1898–2004, by James Hayes. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2006. 289 pp. US$49.50 (hardcover). ISBN 9–6220–9794–4 ................................................................... Kenneth Lan

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The Politics of Buddhist Organizations in Taiwan: 1989–2003: Safeguard the Faith, Build a Pure Land, Help the Poor, by André Laliberté. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004. 224 pp. US$190 (hardcover). ISBN 0–4153–2235–9 ............................. 290 Graeme Lang Chinese Transnational Networks, edited by Tan Chee-Beng. London and New York: Routledge, 2007. 214 pp. US$150 (hardcover). ISBN 0–4153–9583–6 ............................................ Wang Cangbai Notice to Contributors ..................................................................... Notice to Subscribers ........................................................................

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NOTES FROM THE EDITOR Chan Kwok-bun I am a social psychologist in the tradition of the Chicago school of sociology. My favourite unit of analysis is the family, which connects society and self, and which mediates between social structure and the individual. To a Chinese person, the family is the cornerstone of society, so much so that the family penetrates one’s skin, into one’s psyche, consciousness, and mind, approximating a condition that resembles Peter Berger’s ‘society in man’; the family is now inside me and controls me from the inside. I cannot and would not leave home without it, the ‘it’ being ‘the family’ which, following the British psychiatrist R. D. Laing, embodies a complex knot of parent-child, husband-wife, brother-sister relations that we project onto the outside world, or the world outside the family. The cold war between two countries, for example, could be understood as the consequence of the child experiencing the two solitudes inhabited by his father and his mother who are indifferent to each other but will not resort to divorce. Or a man judges his wife in comparison with his life-long ideal woman—his Mother, with a capital M, the big M. I have taken interest in the special focus of this issue: doing families in Hong Kong. The guest editor, Ng Chun-hung, and his colleagues put together seven quality essays on the subject. I have read and edited each and every essay attentively, and with pleasure. At the end of that process, it is clear to me that Hong Kong enjoys a critical mass of sociologists whose intellectual pursuit is to make sense of the workings of the family, or to comprehend in a sustained, systematic fashion how we make the family work—for ourselves. Doing families is a complex task, perhaps a lot more so now when we are at the crossroads of tradition and modernity, East and West. Always mindful of the importance of sociology staying socially relevant by solving the many practical problems of people living together, contributors to this issue benchmark family changes, discuss family ideology and family policy, and attend to the livelihood of the single working women, the problematic of care of the aged, and the poetics and politics of same-sex romances.

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This issue also includes a remarkable analysis of cosmopolitan hybridity in postwar Hong Kong, and a fine-grained study of Chinese religion and indigenization. As in our past issues, we are proud to publish eight book reviews. Writing books continues to be an important part of a sociologist’s work. We are happy to report that there is equal enthusiasm in the local sociological community for reading these quality books and reviewing them. Writers and reviewers have apparently enjoyed each other’s company.

AUTHOR’S BIOGRAPHIES Anita C. Koo is an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s Department of Applied Social Science. She is a sociologist with research interests in education and inequality, youth and family. Her dissertation investigates the class differences in educational aspiration and choice in Great Britain. She also uses panel data to study the relationship between parenting style and students’ academic attainment. Thomas W. P. Wong is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, University of Hong Kong. His empirical research mainly focuses on Hong Kong society, with special research interests in the areas of class and social mobility, ethos and social structure, and, more recently, family. He has conducted large-scale quantitative research and pioneering oral history studies of class and mobility. His publications have appeared in biennial reports of the Hong Kong Social Indicators project. He has also published on topics ranging from distributive justice, and parental values to colonial governance. Ng Chun Hung is an Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Hong Kong. His research interests are in cultural studies, gender studies, creative industries, Hong Kong Society and oral history. His recent publications include Hong Kong Cultural Studies (co-editors: Ma Kit-wai and Lui Tai-lok), Hong Kong University Press (2006); “Women’s Status” in Estes, R. (ed.) Social Development Indicators: Hong Kong, Oxford University Press (2005); “One City After All: Hong Kong Ethos in Flux” in Lau Siu Kai et al. (eds.) Indicators of Social Development: Hong Kong 2004, Hong Kong Institute of AsiaPacific Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong (2005). Ng Bo-sze is a Research Assistant at the Department of Sociology, the University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include cultural studies and body and women’s studies. She completed her master’s thesis, entitled Slimming Culture in Hong Kong: A Sociological Study, in 2005.

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Anita Chan Kit-wa is an Associate Professor at the Department of Mathematics, Science, Social Sciences and Technology, the Hong Kong Institute of Education. Her research interests include gender issues and masculinities in education, sexualities, family changes and parenting issues as conveyed in newspaper and popular magazines. She has conducted various studies exploring the gendered identities of students, teachers and principals, as well as the recent educational restructuring in Hong Kong. She is the co-editor of Gendering Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 2004) and the editor of Teaching Critically and Creatively: Hong Kong Community Studies (Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies, 2004, in Chinese). Odalia M. H. Wong is an Associate Professor in Sociology at the Hong Kong Baptist University. Her research interests include marriage and family, aging and eldercare, and gender studies. Her recent publications include “The Evolving Role of Filial Piety in Eldercare in Hong Kong”, Asian Journal of Social Sciences (Volume 34, Issue 4, 2006), “Gender and Intimate Caregiving for the Elderly in Hong Kong”, Journal of Aging Studies (Volume 19, Issue 3, August 2005) and “Socioeconomic Determinants of the Age at First Marriage Among Women in Hong Kong”, Journal of Family and Economic Issues (Volume 26, Number 4, December 2005). Catherine W. Ng is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Management and Marketing, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Her research interests include women in management, single working women, women in politics, women entrepreneurship and women workers cooperatives. She has published in journals such as Women in Management Review, Asia Pacific Business Review, Anthropology of Work Review, Asian Journal of Social Science and Economic and Industrial Democracy. Evelyn G. H. Ng is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre of Asian Studies and the co-convenor of the Women’s Studies Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. She is also the chairperson of a community grassroots organization that has been active in promoting the interests of women in Hong Kong. Her research interests and publications are related to women and the family, women’s economic and political activities and the women’s movement. Her articles have been published in Asian Journal of Women’s Studies, and a recent one (with

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Catherine Ng) is on “Entrepreneurship and Leadership: Case Studies of Female Micro-business Owners in Hong Kong” (Volume 13, Issue 1). Her book chapters include “Exercising Economic Empowerment: Networking in a Women’s Community Center” (with Yu Chan) in K. E. Kuah-Pearce (ed.) Chinese Women and their Social and Network Capital (Marshall Cavendish, 2004), and “The Changing Face of Women Managers in Hong Kong” (with Catherine Ng) in Chris Rowley and Vimolwan Yukongdi (eds.) The Changing Face of Women Managers in Asia (Routledge, 2009). Travis S. K. Kong is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Hong Kong, where he teaches sexuality, queer theory, media and cultural studies. His research interests include Chinese homosexuality and masculinity, prostitution in Hong Kong and China, and transnational Asian sexuality. His articles have appeared in books, encyclopedias and journals such as Body & Society, Sexualities, Gender, Work and Organization and AIDS Care. He is now working on a single-authored book on homosexuality, male identity and prostitution in different Chinese locales, within the constellation of global culture. The book, entitled Transnational Chinese Homosexualities: Memba, Tongzhi, and Golden Boy, will be published in 2009 as part of Routledge’s Contemporary China Series. Shae Wan-chaw graduated from the London School of Economics, the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the University of Hong Kong. He is currently Associate Professor and Associate Head of the Department of Applied Social Sciences at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His academic interest is broad, and he has published a number of papers on cultural politics, deviance, education, family, health, professionalism and sociological theory. Wong Pik-wan is a Lecturer at the General Education Centre, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She obtained her Ph.D. in political science from the University of California at Los Angeles. Her major teaching and research interests are in the fields of China/Hong Kong Studies, political studies and gender studies, especially women and politics, women’s movements and women’s history.

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Allen Chun is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. His research interests include socio-cultural theory, national identity and (post)colonial formations. Most of his empirical work has dealt with Chinese-speaking societies, late traditional to contemporary. In addition to a recent book, Unstructuring Chinese Society: The Fictions of Colonial Practice and the Changing Realities of ‘Land’ in the New Territories of Hong Kong (Harwood Academic Publications 2000, reprinted by Routledge, 2002), he has edited a special double issue of Cultural Studies (Volume 14, Issues 3–4), entitled “(Post)colonialism and Its Discontents”, a special issue of Social Analysis (Volume 46, Issue 2) entitled “Global Dissonances”, and co-edited a book entitled Refashioning Pop Music in Asia: Cosmopolitan Flows, Political Tempos and Aesthetic Industries (Routledge-Curzon). His major papers have appeared in diverse journals, including Theory, Culture & Society, History and Anthropology, boundary 2!, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Cultural Anthropology, Journal of Historical Sociology, Anthropological Theory, Dialectical Anthropology, Postcolonial Studies, Social Analysis, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Current Anthropology, Positions, Communal/Plural, Late Imperial China and Toung Pao. Chan Shun-hing is Associate Professor at the Department of Religion and Philosophy, Hong Kong Baptist University. He is co-author of Changing Church and State Relations in Hong Kong, 1950–2000 (2003) and the editor of A Carnival of Gods: Studies of Religions in Hong Kong (2002). His research interests focus on church-state relations, religion and civil society, and faith-based community organizing. He is currently finishing a research project on church-state relations in contemporary China. Leslie K. Wang is a Ph.D. candidate at the Sociology Department of the University of California, Berkeley. Her research examines the causes of child abandonment in contemporary China, and collaborations between foreign NGOs and the Chinese state over the care of abandoned children residing in state-run institutions.

SPECIAL FOCUS: DOING FAMILIES IN HONG KONG GUEST EDITORS: NG CHUN-HUNG, THOMAS W. P. WONG, CHU YIN-WAH AND ANITA CHAN KIT-WA

INTRODUCTION DOING FAMILIES IN HONG KONG: VALUES, RELATIONS AND STRATEGIES Ng Chun-hung, Thomas Wong Wai-pong, Chu Yin-wah and Anita Chan Kit-wa This special issue builds on the papers from a workshop among ten local and international scholars entitled “Doing Families: Values, Relations and Strategies in Contemporary Hong Kong” held at the University of Hong Kong on November 11, 2006. The workshop was conceived in the context of growing concerns among academics and policy makers with some of the transformations in Hong Kong families in recent years. They point to the trends of increasingly late marriage, declining fertility, rising divorce rate, ageing population, major re-orientation in gender roles and expectations, the tension between work and family, as well questions of educating the young and caring for elders. All of this occurs in a context of large-scale economic restructuring and geographical migration that characterizes the recent history of Hong Kong. These changes have prompted bold prognosis and predictions. Some lament the passing of old ways. Some herald the dawn of a new age. Some argue we have seen the breakdown of ‘the family’. Others say we are witnessing the coming of individuation and a democratization of family life. The workshop was designed to shed light on these debates by bringing in scholars from various social-science disciplines to present their current conceptual work and up-to-date empirical evidence on related issues. Six of the papers presented at the workshop are now brought together for this special issue. All are updated and elaborated in response to the debates raised in the workshop. Together they offer a comprehensive look at the divergent patterns, multiple paths and complex policies relating to doing families in Hong Kong. Doing Families in the Context of Social Restructuring The papers broadly share a common theoretical stance. They eschew universalistic theories of family change. They stress the importance of

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understanding family as a site where structural determinations interact with social action and interpretations. The stance emerges from and adds insights to the evolving agenda of Hong Kong family studies since the 1960s. As several authors in this special issue point out, family studies in Hong Kong started off from a functionalist framework based on how traditional Chinese patriarchal extended families have changed under the vigorous processes of modernization and westernization. These studies began with Mitchell’s survey research on family life in urban Hong Kong (1969). Then in the 1970s, F. M. Wong (1979) argued that Hong Kong’s industrialization and modernization had significantly changed the form and size of the family as well as its internal relationships. Though Wong’s studies were subsequently challenged on both empirical and theoretical grounds, in particular for having under-estimated the persistence of traditional familial values and relationships in modern industrial Hong Kong (Lee 1987; Lau and Wan 1987), the debate was still couched largely in the traditional-versus-modern framework. On the other hand, S. K. Lau’s seminal ‘utilitarian familism’ thesis (Lau 1981) was an attempt to capture the familial ethos of the Hong Kong Chinese in industrializing Hong Kong, when the scarcity of the colonial government’s service provisions and the refugees’ need to make a living in an alien environment prompted the population to fall back on the family as a ‘survival’ stronghold and a ‘welfare’ provider, with intraand inter-familial ties strongly coloured by material and instrumental concerns. In a similar vein, Salaff (1981) contended that the harsh conditions of the first phase of Hong Kong’s industrialization forced the majority of the population to rely on family and kin for economic assistance, giving rise to a family form which she called the ‘modified centripetal family’. Lau and Salaff ’s family studies are in a sense treatises on the Hong Kong people’s ‘survival strategies’ through drawing on the family’s resources during the harshest phase of the territory’s industrialization. A number of other studies dwell directly on the kind of strategies, the so-called ‘household strategies’, which the family adopted to cope with the hard times. Thus Lee and Ng (1991) noted that such strategies were geared to a variety of family objectives, ranging from the more modest goals of survival and piecemeal aggrandizement to the ambitious goals of entrepreneurship and corporate business advance. In this regard, S. L. Wong (1988) has viewed ‘entrepreneurial familism’—the reliance on family resources and networks to pursue the objectives of entrepreneur-

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ship and corporate business—as a major factor contributing to Hong Kong’s successful industrialization. The focus on household strategies leads to a concern with division in resources, conflicts of responsibilities and differences in power. It is not difficult to move a step further and see the bearing of social class and gender on family strategies, values and relationships (Ng 1994). Therefore, starting from the 1990s (and in parallel with an earlier trend in family studies in the West triggered off by, among other things, the feminist intervention), there is a gradual but explicit departure from the functionalist/modernization paradigm in Hong Kong family studies. Critics argue that past studies are inadequate to handle the demand for a more nuanced understanding of family and societal changes (Ng 1995; Choi and Lee 1997; Shae & Ho 2001). They have not provided a historical understanding of the main forms and, more importantly, practices of family since the post-war period. They are also unable to help us grasp how the changing contexts of Hong Kong (such as de-industrialization, economic restructuring, increase in geographical mobility) impinge on and interact with such practices, and thereby create new opportunities and constraints for members of families to live out a good and happy life. As a result, many urge a new framework for Hong Kong family studies for the 21st century. The authors of this special issue work within this broad concern. Three concepts are central to their analytical endeavour: doing, families, in context. Doing The authors believe that, contrary to functionalist notions, families are not just patterns, institutions or social structures out there. Family is also not a romantic, mythical haven one can (re)turn to in times of social and emotional upheavals. Family is a site where ordinary people with overlapping and divergent interests live out their lives. People make decisions to form a union, sustain the economic well-being of the unit, give birth to children, share household tasks and engage in certain modes of care and intimacy with partners, children and kin. Most of these decisions have to be constantly made and reviewed. Processes relating to family life are thus achievements that require persistent efforts. People need to do families, everyday, in order to sustain a family life they desire, make do with or tolerate (Morgan 1996; Morgan 2001; Fenstermaker and West 2002; Finch 2007). In this issue, Koo and Wong

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interpret the ‘doing family’ project as an individual-in-family project that is always in flux under a specific historical context. Following Morgan (1996, 2001), they urge us to look at family practices: in other words, how people do parenthood, kinship and partnership. Furthermore, they endorse Morgan’s proposal to “use family as an adjective rather than as a noun, using the term to refer to sets of practices which deal in some way with ideas of parenthood, kinship and marriage and the expectations and obligations which are associated with these practices” (cited in Koo and Wong). The upshot of this observation is ‘familial’ practices are always carried out with reference to some conceptions of the ‘good and proper family’. In other words, people do families with more or less coherent, more or less complex reasoning. There are different ways and rationales to do marriage, sex, intimacy, child birth, to divide household tasks, teach and care for children, prepare for old age, to migrate or stay put. One important task of family study is to look at the intricate processes of people doing families, dig out the grounded reasoning from members themselves and make good sense of them (Jamieson 1998; Finch 1999; Swidler 2001). The notion of ‘family script’, or ‘family accounting’, is taken up in several of the papers in this issue. By script, they mean a certain account of family life that defines its core ingredients, ideal state and the desirable ways to achieve the ideal. Such a script is a cultural artifact created and passed along by previous generations of society. Members of society typically modify the prevailing script in accordance with their actual life circumstances. There is hence an element of fluidity in the content of their family script (Scarf 1995; Popenoe 2004). In this issue Ng, Ng and Chan go on to discuss the three economies—political, moral and emotional—of doing modern Hong Kong families, each with their own scripts defining what is right and happy about family living. Families Families exist in the plural. When we look carefully at ordinary people’s everyday life, we are bound to recognize that there are different and perhaps equally valid ways of doing families. People in different life circumstances, armed with different sets of preferences and beliefs, make diverse choices and produce variable outcomes of family life. There is no divine form of ideal family as a privileged historical or moral benchmark (Cootnz 1997; Demo, Allen, and Fine 2000). The spirit of our analysis is not to hold up as a paradigm certain modes of

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family life. Instead, we aim to open up connections, look at diversity and possibilities. Here the concept of uncoupling is important. Following Silva and Smart (1999) and Stacey (1996), we use the concept to highlight the fact that conventional notions of marriage and family are currently being re-examined by ordinary people. The latter increasingly entertain the notion that marriage or family is not one big, smooth package in life. The pursuit of intimacy does not necessarily end up in marriage. Marriage does not automatically entail certain forms of family formation, certain preferred mode of children’s upbringing, or forms of couple intimacy and kin obligations. As a result, the accustomed norms and practices relating to marriage and family are being loosened, or ‘uncoupled’, from one another. Furthermore, the ways and extent people uncouple their familial practices vary according to the social conditions they are in. Among these plural social conditions, gender stands out as one key axis around which interests and life chances differ. The emphasis on the diverse ways to do families is strongly expressed in several papers in this issue that focus on so-called ‘unconventional families’. They take issue with the centrality accorded by mainstream society to the ‘heterosexual-monogamous-nuclear family’. Gender is socially constructed, most prominently by state policies and media representation. In our mainstream construction, women and same-sex couples oft en lose out in terms of power and life chances. They lose out doubly if they come from a lower class background. Despite this, we see ‘deviant’ individuals and couples acting persistently to maintain an alternative set of family practices. In this issue, Ng and Ng, for example, analyze the life of single women who try to maintain a degree of assertiveness and autonomy in their decisions about marriage, work and life. Kong examines how gay couples diligently do the ‘three economies’ of family life at the same time as they experiment with their self-identity. As Shae and Wong argue, seeing singlehood and gay partnership as valid forms of ‘family’ relations opens the way to a re-thinking of existing state policies relating to families. In Context Hong Kong is in a major state of transition. The authors share the view that changes such as economic restructuring and rising unemployment, an aging population, increasing cross-border family linkages after reintegration with China, emigration in connection with the 1997 issue

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and globalization have impacted greatly on family forms, relationships, values and people’s coping strategies. The aging of the population, for instance, has accentuated the family’s role in care-giving; economic restructuring and the attendant problems in employment have possibly necessitated new family coping strategies and disrupted family relationships; and cross-border marriages and linkages have contributed to the increase in haphazard family forms and single-parent families. We may note, in addition, migration (the emigration wave in the wake of the 1997 issue and successive waves of immigration from mainland China) and its implications for family ties and solidarity; Hong Kong’s increasingly globalized culture and its effect on family values and intergenerational family relationships; the elevation of women’s status and its impact on the conjugal relationship; and high-density urban living/housing and its influence on the quality of family life. Some of these have been Hong Kong’s perennial challenges; others are more recent developments. The outcome of their overall impact is most probably a set of family choices and practices that work much more complexly than those presented in the academic and policy studies of previous decades. Functionalist notions of family change are no longer adequate to explain these new circumstances. We need a framework for understanding familial practices and relations in the peculiar socio-geographical situations of Hong Kong in the era of global capitalism. The Six Papers The six papers work on specific themes relating to different levels and facets of doing families in Hong Kong in the context of restructuring. They demonstrate there are different ways and rationales to do marriage, sex, intimacy, childbirth, divide household tasks, teach and care for children, and prepare for old age. All of the papers are theoretically informed and evidence-based. Some authors present the results of in-depth ethnographic interviews, and some use data from specially designed large-scale household surveys, while others draw on comparative documentary evidence. Together they strive to provide solidly new knowledge on doing families in Hong Kong. The paper by Koo and Wong, “Family in Flux: Benchmarking Family Changes in Hong Kong Society”, provides a good entry point to the theoretical concerns of this special issue. It starts with a review of the

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major landmarks of family studies in Hong Kong. It takes issue with the functionalist notion of the modern nuclear family prevalent in the 1970s and 1980s, and argues for a theoretical turn that stresses variable familial practices, agency, ‘de-standardized’ life course and family formation, and individualization. For them, families are “less an entity than process and practices”, and “families are what families do”. The paper proceeds to put the individualization thesis to test. It aims to uncover the patterns of relationships, practices, choice and diversity existing in the families of Hong Kong today. For this, they draw on the findings from a territory-wide survey of over 2000 local respondents. The results serve to both confirm and ‘unpack’ the trend of individualization. It is shown that although increasingly people live away from their parents and relatives after marriage, most of the respondents continue to have a strong sense of commitment towards their families and keep close bonding with them. In addition, while there have been unmistakable signs of more young people remaining single, marrying later, having child later and having fewer children, the attitudes towards marriage and parenthood have not changed among the younger cohort. Individualization in Hong Kong is compartmentalized in that in some areas, more individualized lifestyles could be contemplated and practised (thus, for instance, making or not making the transition to marriage, or to parenthood) without undermining family mutuality, or the connection between marriage and parenthood, and certainly without de-standardizing the familial life-course. Reviewing the findings as a whole, they believe individualization represents a more flexible, or uncoupled, way of handling and managing the multifarious practices and obligations in family life. This verdict is echoed and elaborated in the other papers in the issue. The paper by Ng, Ng and Chan, “Doing Families in Hong Kong: Strategy, Morality and Emotion”, engages with the themes of uncoupling and individualization in family life in the context of the recent social restructuring. It discusses the findings of in-depth case interviews conducted in 2005 and 2006 with individuals from 40 so-called ‘conventional families’. Their acts and thoughts reveal the contingent and achieved nature of family lives. Members of these families try in different ways to cope with the material challenges thrown up by social restructuring. They also try to account for their coping acts by drawing on a diverse range of ideational resources. These acts of coping and accounting have major repercussions on the ‘three economies’—political economy, moral economy and emotional economy—of family life.

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The informants, to varying degrees, work hard to re-combine different elements in the modern liberal family ideal. In some cases, they settle on a way that resembles the male breadwinner model, and offer a ‘family script’ that stresses the notion of dignity in hard work. In other cases, we see more varied patterns of adaptation that include more flexible arrangements with regard to the couples’ employment, family formation plans and caring practices. We also see family scripts that emphasize individual autonomy and principled negotiation with regard to the three economies of family life. The end results of this coping and accounting are subtle, diverse and intricately patterned by class and gender dynamics. The findings confirm the importance of studying the processes, reasoning and outcomes of uncoupling in familial practices in Hong Kong today. There obviously are different ways of ‘doing families’ in Hong Kong, not least in the context of everyday life interaction. The next two papers go on to examine the micro processes of practical work, interest mediation and identity formation in different family settings. The paper by Odalia Wong, “Who Should Care? Perceptions of Caregiving Responsibility within the Household”, examines the public’s attitude towards the division of labour among household members in providing care for the elderly. It asks one core question: who should care for the elderly in the household? The data come from two sources: a telephone survey using a standardized questionnaire with over 1000 respondents and interviews with 19 local residents aged from 20 to 54, who offer views on the division of labour in family eldercare as well as its underlying rationale. The results from the two studies show that, while there is no evidence that filial piety has weakened, there is some noticeable departure from the traditional notions in the perceptions of caregiving arrangements. People tend to be highly pragmatic about the issue of caregiving, as ‘doing families’ in everyday life necessitates. Respondents in general see caregiving as a shared responsibility where every family member, depending on circumstances, has an obligation to pitch in. Paradoxically, the survey also shows the respondents feel that the eldest son, more than the eldest daughter, should take up primary caregiving responsibility, even at the same time that they see women as better suited for caregiving. The author detects among the respondents a lack of fine distinction between different caregiving roles, such as financial support versus daily living support, and care manager versus care provider. Women are still expected to take up the daily micro caring tasks. Such socially assigned obligations on the female remain

introduction

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strong even among the younger, better educated and financially betteroff generation. This suggests the burden of caregiving will continue to grow for women, and disproportionately so. The issue of gender continues to occupy a central place in the next paper by Ng and Ng, “Single Working Women in Hong Kong: A Case of ‘Normal Deviance’?” It starts from the observation that the number of women marrying late or never getting married is increasing by the day. Does this phenomenon signify a crumbling of ‘the family’? Or does it herald the coming of individualization, where women’s autonomy from, in Shae and Wong’s (in this issue) words, the ‘heterosexualmonogamous-nuclear family’ is a core feature? The paper responds to these bold claims by meticulously looking at the everyday life practice and worldviews of single women. It draws on interviews conducted among 19 informants in full-time employment. It finds that there is a strong sense of affirmation and assertiveness about their singleness. While most want to get married if they meet a suitable person, the centrality of work renders them less willing to compromise for a partner. In time, their status was accepted as an alternative life choice, a state which has been described as ‘normal deviance’. In addition, the informants tend to pursue their goals and desires with little regard for macro social and political issues, and rarely engage with pro-family or pro-natalist policies when negotiating their identities. The paper ends by reminding us that persistent sexual division of labour within the family continues to organize women’s life choices, and singlehood needs to be examined in the broader context of gendered relations and divisions in the family. Their increasing prominence will present a challenge to re-negotiating the terms of engagement between work, marriage and family in modern-day Hong Kong. The paper by Travis Kong, “Where is my Brokeback Mountain?”, examines how notions of intimacies are conceived and practised in the ‘unconventional’ partnership settings of gay couples. Based on 45 indepth interviews of Hong Kong Chinese gay men, the author argues that his respondents actively and creatively constitute their own meanings of ‘family’. Their narratives tell sexual stories that challenge the traditional definition of family through biological links and nuptial arrangements. They broaden the definition by including not just ‘families of origin’ but also ‘families of choice’, which consist of their boyfriends and chosen friends. In terms of ‘doing’ intimacy, they identify one man as their primary partner, with whom there is an emotional commitment which signifies security, care, love and support. Juggling between the

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romantic and sexual adventure scripts, they have ‘ventured out’, either together or separately, openly or in secret, with explicit or implicit rules, to have different forms of relationships, ranging from fleeting casual sexual encounters to ‘quality’ but secondary relationships. They have experimented with different ways of ‘doing’ intimacy, and challenge what is traditionally viewed as the cornerstone of couple commitment: sexual exclusivity. They subvert the monogamous ideal by separating emotional and sexual fidelity. New ground rules for relationships are in the making—e.g., ‘reflexive trust’, ‘confluent love’ or ‘disclosing intimacy’. By performing various ‘experiments in living’, they create new ways of life which may give us insight into how to live in a culture of diverse relationships in an increasingly complex world. The final paper by Shae and Wong, “Familial Ideology and Family Policy in Hong Kong”, examines the policy implications of the abovementioned re-orientation in family studies. It points out that the current clusters of policies of the Hong Kong SAR government relating to families ignore the autonomous and diverse interests of the population, most notably women. These policies, based on functionalist assumptions, display a certain ‘family ideology’ which typically subordinates women’s interests to the welfare of an imaginary unified family. The authors go on to depict what they call the seven primary characteristics of the familial ideology that has been dominant in Hong Kong since the 1970s. These include the hegemony of the ‘heterosexual-monogamousnuclear family’, a division of labour based on sex, idealization of ‘the family’, selective incorporation of ‘traditional Chinese familial ethics’, the familization of social problems, the maintenance of a public/private dichotomy, and selective interventionism and the instrumentalization of the family. These policy conceptions, besides being conservative, are full of inconsistencies and contradictions. The authors conclude with a call for a new policy that does justice to the plural conditions of families today. It should enable individuals, both female and male, to have a greater degree of control over their lives. Taken together, the papers in this issue do not come down one way or the other on the bold proclamations of impending crisis or new dawn for Hong Kong families. By attending to the complex patterns, paths and processes of doing families today, they are able to contribute to an analysis that respects the plurality and openness of social change. They also help to enrich a policy conception that is sensitive to the diverse interests of people from different classes, genders, sexualities and generations.

introduction

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The findings and analysis from the papers also help to illuminate family practices and policies outside of Hong Kong and the region. Many of the observations from the paper echo similar ones raised in, for example, Europe and the US. The notion of ‘doing families’ informs many of the current studies on housework, home-work balance, emotional life and couple intimacy in family studies in the West (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2001; Lewis 2004). The issue of family diversity or ‘plural family forms’ has occupied a central place in deliberation on state policies in the European Community (Hantrais and Letableir 1996; Lewis 2002; Hantrais 2004). How family lives are affected in the era of global restructuring has been a key concern of sociologists, economists and educationalists in the social science literature of the past two decades (Bauman 1998; Sennett 1999; Newman 1999; Hirsch and Naquin 2001). Our studies provide findings that converge with some of those in other societies. They also show divergent conditions and choices in family life, bred by the peculiar socio-geographical changes, cultural conditions and state regime of Hong Kong. Here we can see fertile ground for developing comparative studies on doing families in different contexts. For example, how do processes of uncoupling of family practices differ in Hong Kong and other places? How are notions of family plurality and alternative partnerships accommodated in social policies in Hong Kong in contrast to those in Europe, which has a strong social democratic tradition and in some cases the presence of feminist and gay movements? The papers in this special issue should go a long way towards initiating a new round of studies and debates on the structure, action, interpretation, conditions and changes of families in Hong Kong and elsewhere in the new century. References Bauman, Zygmunt. 1998. Work, Consumerism and the New Poor. Buckingham: Open University Press. Beck, Ulrick and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim. 2001. Individualization. London: Sage. Choi, Po-king and Ching-kwan Lee. 1997. “The Hidden Abode of Domestic Labour: The Case of Hong Kong.” Pp. 157–200 in Engendering Hong Kong Society: A Gender Perspective of Women’s Status. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press. Cootnz, Stephanie. 1997. The Way We Really Are: Coming to Terms with America’s Changing Families. New York: Basic Books. Demo, David H., Katherine R. Allen and Mark A. Fine (eds.). 2000. Handbook of Family Diversity. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fenstermaker, Sarah and Candace West (eds.). 2002. Doing Gender, Doing Difference: Inequality, Power and Institutional Change. London: Routledge.

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Finch, Janet. 2007. “Displaying Families.” Sociology 41(1): 65–81. ——. and Jennifer Mason. 1999. “Obligations of Kinship in Contemporary Britain: Is There Normative Agreement?” Pp. 300–320 in The Sociology of the Family: A Reader, edited by Graham Allan. Oxford: Blackwell. Hantrais, Linda. 2004. Family Policy Matters: Responding to Family Change in Europe. Bristol: Policy. ——. and Marie-Therese Letablier (eds.). 1996. Families and Family Policies in Europe. London: Longman. Hirsch, Paul and Charles E. Naquin. 2001. “The Changing Sociology of Work and Reshaping of Careers.” Pp. 427–435 in Working in Restructured Workplaces, edited by Daniel B. Cornfield, Karen E. Campbell and Holly J. McGammon. London: Sage. Jamieson, Lynn. 1998. Intimacy: Personal Relationships in Modern Societies. Cambridge: Polity. Lau, Siu-kai. 1981. “Utilitarianistic Familism: The Basis of Political Stability.” Pp. 195–216 in Social Life and Development in Hong Kong, edited by Ambrose Y. C. King and Rance C. L. Lee. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. ——. and Wan Po-san. 1987. A Preliminary Report on Social Indicators in Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Centre for Hong Kong Studies. Lee, Ming-kwan. 1987. “The Hong Kong Family: Organization and Change.” Pp. 152–178 in Hong Kong Politics and Society in Transition, edited by Ming-kwan Lee. Hong Kong: The Commercial Press. (in Chinese) ——. and Chung-hung Ng. 1991. “Class, Family and Social Life in Hong Kong, 1950–1980.” Research Report presented to the Hong Kong Polytechnic Research Sub-committee. Lewis, Jane. 2002. “Individualisation, Assumptions about the Existence of an Adult Worker Model and the Shift towards Contractualism.” Pp. 51–56 in Analysing Families: Morality and Rationality in Policy and Practice, edited by Alan Carling, Simon Duncan and Rosalind Edwards. London: Routledge. ——. 2004. “Individualization and the Need for New Forms of Family Solidarity.” Pp. 51–67 in Solidarity Between the Sexes and the Generations: Transformations in Europe, edited by Knijn Trudie and Aafke Komter. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Mitchell, Robert. 1969. Family Life in Urban Hong Kong (2 volumes). Hong Kong: Project Report of the Urban Family Life Survey. Morgan, David H. J. 1996. Family Connections. Cambridge: Polity Press. ——. 2001. “Family Sociology in from the Fringe: The Three ‘Economies’ of Family Life.” Pp. 227–248 in Developments in Sociology, edited by Robert G. Burgess and Anne Murcott. New York: Prentice Hall. Newman, Katherine S. 1999. Falling From Grace. Berkeley: University of California Press. Ng, Chun-hung. 1994. “Power, Identity and Economic Change: 25 Years of Family Studies in Hong Kong.” Pp. 94–110 in 25 Years of Social and Economic Development in Hong Kong, edited by Benjamin K. P. Leung and Teresa Y. C. Wong. Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies, The University of Hong Kong. ——. 1995. “Bringing Women Back In: Family Change in Hong Kong.” Pp. 74–100 in Women in Hong Kong, edited by Veronica Pearson and Benjamin K. P. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. Popenoe, David. 2004. “Modern Marriage: Revising the Cultural Script.” Pp. 170–185 in The Gendered Society Reader, edited by Michael S. Kimmel and Amy Aronson. New York: Oxford University Press. Salaff, Janet. 1981. Working Daughters of Hong Kong. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Scarf, Maggie. 1995. Intimate Worlds: Life Inside the Family. New York: Random House. Sennett, R. 1999. “Growth and Failure: The New Political Economy and its Culture.” Pp. 14–26 in Spaces and Culture: City-Nation-World, edited by Mike Featherstone and Scott Lash. London: Sage.

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Shae, Wan-chaw and Kwok-leung Ho. 2001. “W(h)ither Hong Kong Families and Family Studies: From the Traditional via the Modern to the Postmodern?” Hong Kong Journal of Sociology 2: 85–122. Silva, Elizabeth B. and Carol Smart (eds.). 1999. The New Family? London: Sage. Stacey, Judith. 1996. In the Name of the Family: Rethinking Family Values in the Postmodern Age. Boston: Beacon Press. Swidler, Ann. 2001. Talk of Love: How Culture Matters. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Wong, Fai-ming. 1979. “Family Structure and Processes in Hong Kong.” Pp. 95–121 in Hong Kong: Economic, Social and Political Studies in Development, edited by Tzongbiau Lin, Rance Pui-leung Lee and Udo Ernst Simonis. New York: M. E. Sharpe. Wong, Siu-lun. 1988. Emigrant Entrepreneurs, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press.

FAMILY IN FLUX: BENCHMARKING FAMILY CHANGES IN HONG KONG SOCIETY1 Anita C. Koo and Thomas W. P. Wong Abstract This paper explores whether Hong Kong people are under the process of modernization/individualization in their family life. Data from a 2005 territory-wide survey are used to uncover the patterns of relations, practices, choice and diversity in the families of Hong Kong, with particular interest in testing the individualization thesis. The findings can both confirm and ‘unpack’ the trend of individualization. They suggest that individualization in Hong Kong is compartmentalized in that more individualized lifestyles can be contemplated and practised in some areas without undermining family mutuality or the connection between marriage and parenthood, and certainly without establishing diversified familial life-courses. In this regard, we argue that individualization in Hong Kong represents a more flexible way of handling and managing the multifarious practices and obligations of family life. Families in Hong Kong are less an entity than a process and an assemblage of practices, and ‘families are what families do’.

The Beginning: Hong Kong Families and the Functionalist Orientation It was almost forty years ago that Wong Fai Ming (1972) conducted his survey of middle class families in Hong Kong. He surveyed 100 families, his sample drawing from the parents of his Chinese University students. Like many other local studies at that time, Wong’s study addresses the problematic of industrialization/westernization and its impact on institutional integrity (or ‘health’ or dysfunctions) in a society where, as they are wont to say, ‘East meets West’. Wong’s family studies thus focused on the acceptance of modern family ideology (as predating industrialization, and with the latter as supplementing the ideology) by middle classes parents, and the impact of this on the prevalence of conjugalism. The functionalist point about the systemic needs or functional requirements of industrialization (or more generally, differentiation) was accepted and taken as a theoretical point of departure.

1 The study was supported by a grant from the Research Grant Council of Hong Kong. The project title is Family in Flux: Values, Relations and Strategies in Hong Kong Families, reference number HKU7237/03H.

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Wong (1972) did concede that the conjugal family could be and was indeed found in pre-industrialized societies, and that industrialization did not necessarily account for the emergence of the independent nuclear family; social and geographical mobility or a subsistence type of economy could also be conducive factors. He added that the modern conjugal family is not necessarily structurally isolated, because extended family relations could be maintained through mutual assistance, social visits, regular communication, etc. This line of approach has for many years more or less framed the discussions and debates in family studies (Ng 1994; Irwin 2005). The idea that the modern nuclear family has specialized in its functions, thereby satisfying the needs of a dynamic and mobile industrial order; the conception that sees the modern family as a companionate family where males are groomed for the labour market and females trained for domesticity and for fulfilling maternal roles; or the ‘concession’ that the nuclear family is not as structurally vulnerable as it appears to be: all of these claims and theoretical predilections have been conducive to a deeply-ingrained conception of the family as a clearly bounded entity and as a readily identifiable unit. The ‘anomalous’ conditions of the 1950s in the U.S.—full employment, the emergence of suburbia, the return of people after the war to normal family life and family aspirations, etc.—have contributed to the idea of the golden age of family. While some would see it as the precursor of modern nuclear family, others would see it as an aberration, a revival of tradition, that soon was to retreat and decline in the face of the swinging 60s, and the barrage of attack from feminist circles.2 The modern (and middle class) conjugal family of the 1950s, from which the functionalists took their theoretical cues, further reinforced the conception, in the popular imagination as well as among academics/policy makers, of the family as a normative arrangement, as a set of specific gender relations and as a concrete structure or form. The ‘breadwinner-homemaker’ had become both a normative model and an aspiration. Wong Fai Ming’s studies of the Hong Kong family back in the 1970s were very much a product of this ideological climate and these theoretical orientations. It is for these reasons that family studies have for a long time focused on these issues: the relative isolation of the nuclear family, the availability and extent of extended family ties, the existence or otherwise

2

See Coltrane and Collins (2001) for a more precise account of the anomaly of the 1950s and the rise of the ‘familistic generation’.

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of companionate or egalitarian relations in the conjugal pair and the gendered division of labour within the family. In Hong Kong, family studies subsequent to Wong’s research, and subsumed under the Social Indicators project since 1988, have also followed similar paths.3 The recurrent outcry of ‘family crisis’ is still very much entrapped within the assumptions that the family is a discrete institution or, more specifically, that there is a ‘typical’ family, and the family in mind is a particular form or arrangement that is regarded as ideal, normal, optimal or functioning.4 Individualization and the Reorientation of Family Studies Beginning from the 1980s, there was a critical evaluation of these conceptions as part of a dominant family ideology. Specifically, there was recognition of diversity and variation, that the ‘normal’ or ‘typical’ family was more a social construct than a social fact.5 This was partly a response (facing the facts, so to say) to the rise of divorce since the 1960s, the sharp increase of non-marital childbirth in the 1980s and, of course, the longer-term changes in sexuality norms and parenthood. These changes were still lamented in the conservative pro-family circles as the decline and disorder of family, but increasingly, there was a shift of attention from family as a collective unity to the position and practices of individuals within in. The change is from family as representing some ‘typical’ structure and arrangement to family as ‘interlinked biographies’. The impetus for this change in approach comes from two sources. First, the feminist scholarship from the 1980s has launched a sharp attack on hitherto sociology for focusing on the “preoccupations and worlds of men rather than the experiences and interests of women” (Morgan 1996). As an example of the sea-change in research agenda, the idea of ‘people work’ (Stacey 1981) was suggested to bridge such divisions. The subsequent concern with unpaid domestic work, and the issue of gender in domestic relations, took family studies to new areas of research. But it is clear that by doing so, family studies

3

See Lee (1992 and 1995). See Bernardes (1985) for a review and critique; also see Walsh (2003) for five definitions of a ‘normal family’. 5 See Hareven (1992) for a succinct historical survey of such facts and constructs for the Western family. 4

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have re-focused on the different positions, interests and experiences of individuals within the family. The second impetus comes from the related theoretical interest in ‘agency’, and its ramifications in late modernity. The idea that the individual is a social agent capable of instigating change, and not merely reacting to structural forces, has captured our sociological imagination. This idea, when placed in the context of contingent and fluid relations, of careers and organizations that are of ‘no long term’, of biological and social families that are no longer ‘for life’, generated the bitter-sweet or ambivalent late-modern or post-modern scenario: an individual who is capable of choice and who has no other choice but to fashion his/her life. What is solid and concrete has become uncertain and tenuous. What is ‘given’ has turned into ‘affinity’, which requires continuous efforts and thus choice (Bauman 2003; Smart & Shipman 2004). Families thus become individual-in-family projects; the search for meaningful relationships and for intimacy has become self-actualization programmes. Family life is more a matter of individual choice than a set of pre-existing and taken-for-granted normative norms and arrangements. Diversity and change (or even fluidity) have become the code words for the modern family. The logical outcome of this is a strong thesis of individualization: The general diagnosis is that people’s lives are becoming more mobile, more porous, and of course more fragile. In the place of pre-given and often compulsory types of relationships is appearing the ‘until the next thing’ principle, as Bauman calls it, a kind of refusal of lifelong plans, permanent ties, immutable identities . . . Instead of fixed forms, more individual choices, more beginnings and more farewells (Beck-Gernsheim, 1995, quoted in Smart and Shipman 2004: 491).

Carried to such an extreme, the reinstating of the individual into family studies has ironically made family life look like a matter of ‘frenetic emotional mobility and fleeting, serial relationships’ (Smart & Shipman 2004). This line of arguments unwittingly, and thus unfortunately, chimes with the tradition of ‘family in trouble’ writings, but whereas the earlier popular lament over family decline sees the problem as movement away from the typical or normal model, the individualization theorists now see it as a nearly impossible task of maintaining coherence and solidity in a nebulous and liquid modernity (Bauman 1995, 2001). We are going to use the thesis of individualization as a framework to understand the change of Hong Kong families. This is meant in two senses: individualization as an approach, and individualization as a thesis.

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First, our starting point is the multiple and different positions and interests of individuals, and how these individuals take to the different domains (practices and normative orientations) of family living. Second, we ask ourselves these questions: is family now more than ever ‘individual-in-family’ projects? Are more individualized choices affecting family mutuality? As individual life-courses become more diversified, what is the impact on family formation and transitions? In the literature, there is already a critical evaluation of this individualization thesis. One criticism centres on the notion of choice. Individualization has focused primarily on individual, ‘free’ choice. But there is also contextual or relational choice, in which, say, in marriage considerations, the individual’s choice could, and often does, involve negotiation, compliance and at least some attentiveness to the wider family. Smart and Shipman’s study (2004) chastises the individualization theorists for their monochrome visions. Instead, they argued, there should be a continuum of choice, one between obligation at one end and individualization at the other. ‘Inter-linked biographies’, once a welcome advance over the earlier conception of family (in terms of static and structural features, and privileging formal/legal positional status rather than actual interdependence and negotiations), have often become unrelated, self-fashioned biographies. In other words, where individualization induces, and requires, choice, such choice has to be seen as relational choice, especially in the family context. Another line of criticism looks at the consequences of individualization. In a study of post-divorce family (the quintessential post-modern family?), it was found that contrary to what a social problems approach might predict (‘decline, disorder and a descent into uncaringness and immorality’), there were attempts to rework ethics and social relationships so that reasonableness, the interdependence and value of relationships, and preservation of dignity to all could be achieved (Smart and Neale 1999; Neale 2000) ‘Frenetic emotional mobility’ and ‘fleeting, serial relationships’ apparently did not bedevil parenthood and childhood that occur as a result of individualization (here seen at both the level of social trend and at the level of individual decisions). In a broad sense, individualization is thus about the reworking of relationships in a more flexible, contingent and negotiated manner. In the family context, such reworking does not necessarily mean the erosion of family mutuality or the discrediting of family values. Stacey’s ‘brave new families’ (Stacey 1990) similarly focused on the ‘creative strategies’ found among her living-on-the edge working-class families. Struggling to cope with divorce, rocky marriages, domestic

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violence and a host of ‘life in the fast lane’ tendencies, Stacey’s informants remade their family life. To Stacey, theirs are stories of ‘domestic upheavals’, for they point to the future: a future of ‘postmodern’ or ‘recombinant’ family that is more egalitarian and democratic than the traditional modern family. Their ‘domestic improvisation’ led them to the steadying force of extended family; they had no illusions about romantic love, just as they had little expectation to rely on the nuclear family for their needs. They reached outward to relatives and friends (and the church) for emotional and material help, and they forged these ties with nary a nod to the modern domesticity ideal and its gendered stereotypes. In a world where, according to the individualization thesis, we are forced to assume responsibilities for our lives, and where sustaining long-term commitments is becoming more difficult than ever, Stacey’s message is: family is well and alive. Stacey might be mistaken to believe that her working class families are the pioneers of the ‘postmodern’ family (in this sense, she is simply replacing the traditional ‘isolated nuclear family’ with another structure or model); if one truly believes in ‘creative strategies’ and their role in shaping family life, then it is more likely for one to find familiesĻġ diversities and differences as closer to the truth of family life, modern or postmodern. But the valid point, and the value, of Stacey’s study is the fact that family is less an entity than process and practices. She might have been naively optimistic, and she might have added little to our understanding by calling her informants’ families ‘postmodern families’ or her informants ‘feminists’ or ‘proto-feminists’,6 but she has listened to how individuals (in this case, individualization by default) ‘do’ families, parenthood and kinship. Chan and Wong’s (2005) paper on the Hong Kong family is a recent attempt to understand the changing nature of Hong Kong families. It is a review of four studies (characterized as vignettes in the article) of family life in Hong Kong, covering working women’s decision to postpone marriage, the repercussions for family life and gender relations in families with foreign-domestic workers, domestic abuse and violence, and cross-border families. In their general discussion, the authors mused on the push-pull relations governed by the myth of family bliss

6 See Lasch’s (1997) acerbic comments on Stacey: “[o]ne does not have to be a feminist in order to admire strong women, to see through male pretensions of superiority, or to assume responsibilities for one’s own life” (p. 159).

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on the one hand, and modernity projects on the other. As young and educated women postpone their age at marriage, and choose to have fewer or no children, they are, as the individualization thesis suggests (as part of a larger claim), embarking on modernity projects. As they (and, of course, their less educated counterparts) live out their family life, they find that not only do they have to juggle work and domestic duties, but their family role is made more ambiguous and ambivalent by the presence of a live-in domestic foreign helper, or, worse still, their family life is made intolerable by domestic violence, etc. Thus, on the one hand, there is reference to the different positions and interests of educated women and their more individualized orientations, as they, in a sense, live out alternative scenarios of marriage and family. On the other hand, these practices take place in the family; as Chan and Wong put it, ‘in the domestic domain, my freedom is bound up with your freedom’. Choices thus should not be seen as some unencumbered, totally DIY, decisions fashioning the life-course. These choices take place in the family, where the presence of a domestic helper or domestic abuse, could make a difference, and give a different meaning to the choices and practices. The result is often changing or renegotiated conceptions of conjugality and parenthood. The implication is that family life, blissful or harried, is to be examined in such an inescapably interlinked context. The vignettes are about individuals and their practices; family is less a structure with pre-given determinants or requirements than a site where individuals, differently and often unequally placed, find their own scripts and their identity as they relate to one another. In connecting the four studies as vignettes, Chan and Wong have come up with some interesting propositions about the changing nature of family life in Hong Kong, and the way one should approach it. Conceptual Framework and the 2006 ‘Family in Flux’ Project The above is an over-simplified and often-unsubstantiated attempt to chart the way family conceptions and family studies have changed in the past forty or fifty years. We began with the functionalist orientations that see the family as a structural form and, in the modern conjugal family, a typical/optimizing entity. Family studies have developed and changed their orientation as they are impacted by actual social trends and by theoretical advances in family sociology and related areas. These

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changes set the stage for our benchmarking attempt to understand Hong Kong families in the 21st century, forty years after Wong Fai Ming’s pioneering studies. Now, there is recognition of the diversity of family forms and family life; no one single form or type ‘works’ in all circumstances, just as there is no golden age of family life “when all families were capable of meeting the needs of all their members” (Coontz 1997: 2). As for the modern nuclear family, it has been argued that ‘the isolated nuclear family is a sociological abstraction that never had much empirical substance until the mass migration to the suburbs, after World War II, broke up the old support systems and made it possible for women to devote themselves, for a time, exclusively to domesticity’ (Lasch 1997: 157). The lament over family decline often operates within a family ideology bolstered by both policy makers and academics alike. More importantly, conceptual developments in the study of family, and the feminist and individualization turn in sociology, have suggested new conceptions of family. There is increasing consensus that families are what families do (Silva and Smart 1999). Morgan has provided perhaps the most systematic treatment of this ‘consensus’. In his recent works (see especially Morgan 1996, 2001), he has asked us to stop seeing family as a thing. Instead, he urges us to look at family practices: in other words, how people do parenthood, kinship and partnership. He proposes to ‘use family as an adjective rather than as a noun, using the term to refer to sets of practices which deal in some way with ideas of parenthood, kinship and marriage and the expectations and obligations which are associated with these practices’ (Morgan 1996: 11). In a similar vein, Neale (2000) argues for the importance of family relationships; it is the quality of these relationships, and not family as a bounded entity with specific institutional status and organizational structure, that is important to the members. Once we focus on family relationships and family practices (and the moral reasoning that goes with them), we cease to think of family “as an institutional ‘thing’ or entity that assumes more importance than the individuals who embody it”. And Neale continues, “we can then begin to side step the interminable debate about whether this institution is in decline or not” (Neale 2000: 10). In this sense, there are no problem families; there are only predicaments and plights faced by individuals who for specific reasons could not achieve, in their family relationships and practices, the qualities of respect, intimacy, cooperation, commitment, etc. In carrying out our family project, we have been informed by the above considerations. We are sceptical of the moral rant of family crisis

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pandered to by policy makers and self-appointed family experts (Ng 1994). In approaching our tasks, we did not set out to verify or falsify such claims. But, as individuals have some sense of family, and their notions of family are important forces shaping and structuring their lives, we need to know systematically their opinions and views on marriage, kinship and parenthood. If we do not uphold a single ideal or normal family type, then the findings, whatever they turn out to be, do not lend automatic support to the claims of resilience/strength or decline of the family. In carrying out our family survey, we are fully aware of the ideological underpinnings of the ‘family-in-crisis’ tradition. Conversely, we make no presumptions that the typical is the ideal. We are aware that the typical family does not always ‘work’, and that strengths as well as vulnerabilities can be found in alternative family forms such as single parent families. We did not expect to find many cases of alternative family forms in our survey, but, in general, we feel that we should not simplistically read off practices from structures. Family structures may define the parameters of relationships and their attendant resources and constraints, but even so, there could be a rich variety in the ways members negotiate their roles, tasks and responsibilities. While our survey findings can provide pointers and suggest parameters of action, it is in our in-depth interviews with families that the variety and richness of relationships and practices can be uncovered. As a benchmarking attempt, our project aims to do justice to both the diversity of forms and the diversity of practices. The earlier response to those fearful of the ultimate decline of family was: ‘change, and not disappearance’. To this, we want to add: ‘diversity, and not decline’. But above all, we want to put the individualization thesis to test. Forty years ago, Wong Fai Ming put modern conjugalism to test, and he found that the modern family ideology, the logic of industrialization and modern conjugalism were functionally interdependent. The modern conjugal family was a form particularly suited to the needs of modern industrial societies. As we noted above, the underlying conception of family in this approach sees family as a thing, an entity, a response to systemic needs. Forty years later, our conception predisposes us to see the family more as an outcome of (sometimes fluid and often reconfigured) relationships and practices. We are now more interested in diversity and choice: are Hong Kong people embarking on modernity/individualization projects in their family life? First of all, instead of using family as a unit of analysis, the investigating subjects of our project are individuals. We collect information about individuals’ co-residing family members, and the composition

26

anita c. koo and thomas w. p. wong

of their families. However, we are more interested in the social agent within each family. Their interactions with other members, their practices (responses and obligations) within the family and their own family formation process are the keys of investigation in our study. Second, with the above information, we mainly focus on the exploration of ‘diversity’ and ‘change’. When an individualized family life is shaped or arranged more by individual choice than by a set of pre-existing norms, we expect to find diversified types of family structure, changes of relationships and practising modes within families and individualized ways of family transitions—people have their own pace and own way to form their families. Third, we identify the major forces of change—the group of people with greater freedom of choice in shaping and structuring their families, as well as their lives. In the society of individualization, this could be the group at greatest risk, with uncertainty or instability fully reflected in their family lives. Or, this group of people might be more conscious of using an individualized way of family life as a selfactualization process. We see our project as an attempt to arrive at a new theoretical benchmark, and to chart the contours and configurations of Hong Kong families at the beginning of the new century. What follows is a brief introduction to our project. Our project is conceived in two parts. The first part is a general societywide survey, adopting the conventional census-district/housing block (Frame of Quarters) random sampling. In total, we successfully interviewed 2,005 cases. The respondents, aged 18 to 65, were chosen by a method similar to the Kish grid method. Interviews with the selected respondents were carried out using a structured questionnaire. This questionnaire was further divided into different parts, to cater to the different marital and parenthood status of the respondents. It was a longish questionnaire, with the average time for completing the interview being 40 minutes. The overall response rate was 70%. We intend to use the survey data to bear on two issues, both of which have been raised earlier in our discussion: individualization and diversity. We attempt to examine how individuals differentially placed in regard to cohort-specific demographic and socio-economic characteristics respond to individualization as the latter bears on marriage and family norms and practices. To determine the likelihood of their pursuing individualized lifestyles, we further include a battery of questions on opinions and norms on marriage, need for children, parenthood, caring responsibilities, conjugal relationships, etc. Is indi-

family in flux

27

vidual bonding within the family weakening? Are Hong Kong people making more individualized choices with regard to family formation and transitions (e.g., from marriage to parenthood)? These issues are taken up in the next section where we present our analyses. The second part of our project consists of in-depth interviews with respondents chosen from our sample. We managed to interview forty cases, the details of which will be covered in another paper.7 In this case studies section, we probe deeper into practices in the interlinked context, often involving cross-generational relationships within the same family: adjustments, re-prioritizations, compromise and innovations in the political, moral and emotional economy. In so far as the survey results suggest some central tendency towards a particular conception or configuration of family (both in terms of norms and practices), we could perhaps say this is one characterization of the Hong Kong ‘family’. We should also remember that people live out their family life with some reference to the idea of family. Our case interviews however attend to different family situations, and, to that extent, we are also unravelling ‘family’. Our benchmarking is conceived in such terms. In both the survey and the case studies, we have followed a similar approach, in that we are mindful of the diversity of family situations, and that we try to avoid reifying typical family forms. To compare our findings to the census data or other studies, we adopt the conventional classification of family types. More substantively, in drawing up our questions, we followed Morgan’s ‘three economies’ approach (Morgan 2001). This approach sees the doing of family as carried out in three domains: the political economy, the moral economy and the emotional economy. Different tasks and decisions are taken up, negotiated, managed or supported in these three economies. ‘Economy’ is used of course as a metaphor; the point being that choices and decisions are involved. The original meaning of family, Morgan noted, is ‘household management’. The attendant arrangements, strategies, obligations and aspirations are tapped by both our structured questionnaire and the in-depth interviews. Thus, in political economy, the survey questions focus on the gendered division of labour in regard to a host of domestic activities, ranging from household chores to savings and investment patterns. As regards moral economy, the questions are about generational responsibilities, especially caring responsibilities towards older members of

7

See Ng and Chan in this issue.

28

anita c. koo and thomas w. p. wong

the family. They also include questions on the scope of kinship and the related obligations towards kinship. Finally, in emotional economy, the survey questionnaire for obvious reasons could only probe superficially the issue of conjugal communication and parent-child relations. It is in the in-depth case interviews that the issue of intimacy, for instance, could be tackled more satisfactorily. Thus our attempt is to achieve some synergy between the two research instruments. The survey hopefully provides some skeleton, some comprehensive benchmark of family life in Hong Kong, with the interviews constituting the flesh and blood, the real substance, of family stories. Family in Flux: Findings from the Survey Data This paper is mainly focused on the analyses of our survey data. Its aim is to investigate individuals’ familial practices and family formation processes to understand the change of Hong Kong families. We first look into the type and structure of families in which individuals exist. After exploring this background information, we focus on the questions related to individuals’ sense of familial mutuality. One set of questions relates to informants’ interactions with their relatives. Another set relates to their financial responsibility and perceived obligation towards their parents. With this data, we are able to understand whether there is any change in individuals’ bonding within their family network. Then, we move to the demographic changes of Hong Kong families. It is well-known that (1) Hong Kong is experiencing a negative fertility rate due to the sharp decline in the birth rate over the past 30 years; (2) we have smaller families; and (3) both men and women have delayed their age at marriage. These indicators have often been used as crucial support for the individualization thesis. They have been taken as important evidence for a greater propensity—at the level of collective trends or social process—to individualize one’s lifestyle and to make more individual choices in family, marriage and parenthood. In the second part of our analyses, we investigate individuals’ family transition processes, including the practice of cohabitation as a form of partnership, the number of children they have, their age at marriage and child-bearing. Through these analyses, we intend to examine whether there has been any fundamental change in the form and pattern of family transitions. Then, we intend to explore this issue further by focusing

family in flux

29

on individuals’ attitudes towards marriage and parenthood. We hope to understand the nature of change in Hong Kong’s family lives. Demographic Trends and Family Types Tables 1 and 2 present summaries of the respondents’ marital status, gender and age. In our sample, over 90% of the informants have either got married (62%) or remained single (29%). Obviously, marital status varies by age. The majority of the informants younger than 30 remain single. There are also fewer single people in the older age groups, as most of them married after age 30. In general, a higher proportion of sampled females than sampled males are married. This age variation in marital status also differs by gender. For example, among informants who are aged between 30 and 34, 76% of females are married, while only 48% of males have this status. Cohabitation is a form of partnership characterized by co-residence without marriage. It is still a relatively new form of family in Hong Kong. In general, it is regarded as a kind of temporary arrangement that acts as a prelude to marriage. At the time of survey, less than 2% of our sampled cases declared that they were cohabiting, and most of these were in the three younger age groups (i.e., 18–24, 25–29 and 30–34). In Hong Kong, the divorce rate has increased sharply in the past decade. However, at the time of survey, only about 4% of our informants were separated or divorced. One possible explanation is that remarriages are also becoming more common in Hong Kong. Also, only 2.5% of our sampled cases are widowed. Statistic clearly show that women are more likely to be widowed, as they live longer than men.8 As shown in Table 2, 23% of women aged 60–65 are widowed, compared with 7.5% of men in the same age group. After showing the distribution of informants’ marital status, we investigate the types and sizes of their families. Table 3 shows that the nuclear family is the dominant family form. Fifty-eight percent of our sample cases live in the ‘married couple with children’ family type, and another 10% live in the ‘nuclear couple’ type. Of course, there are distinct differences within the ‘nuclear couple’ family type. Some of these couples are childless, and others are couples whose children are

8 In 2007, female life expectancy at birth was 84.6 compare to 78.99 for males (Source: CIA World Factbook).

Total

separated/ divorced widowed

single

married % (n) cohabitation

61.96 (1228) 1.77 (35) 29.41 (583) 4.39 (87) 2.47 (49) 100.00 (1982)

Total

58.52 (522) 1.79 (16) 34.98 (312) 3.81 (34) 0.90 (8) 100.00 (892)

male 64.77 (706) 1.74 (19) 24.86 (271) 4.86 (53) 3.76 (41) 100.00 (1090)

female

Gender

2.88 (8) 3.24 (9) 93.88 (261) 0.00 (0) 0.00 (0) 100.00 (278)

18–24 22.22 (34) 6.54 (10) 71.24 (109) 0.00 (0) 0.00 (0) 100.00 (153)

25–29 63.73 (130) 3.92 (8) 29.41 (60) 2.94 (6) 0.00 (0) 100.00 (204)

30–34 73.68 (196) 2.26 (6) 19.55 (52) 4.51 (12) 0.00 (0) 100.00 (266)

35–39 80.13 (250) 0.64 (2) 12.50 (39) 5.77 (18) 0.96 (3) 100.00 (312)

40–44

Age group

82.77 (197) 0.00 (0) 10.92 (26) 5.46 (13) 0.84 (2) 100.00 (238)

45–49

Table 1: Informants’ marital status (by gender and age group)

81.68 (165) 0.00 (0) 7.43 (15) 6.93 (14) 3.96 (8) 100.00 (202)

50–54

77.14 (108) 0.00 (0) 7.86 (11) 10.00 (14) 5.00 (7) 100.00 (140)

55–59

74.07 (140) 0.00 (0) 5.29 (10) 5.29 (10) 15.34 (29) 100.00 (189)

60–65

30 anita c. koo and thomas w. p. wong

Female married cohabitation single separated/ divorced widowed N

Male married cohabitation single separated/ divorced widowed N

25–29 32.05 6.41 61.54 0.00

0.00 (78)

0.00 (141)

0.00 (75)

0.00 (137)

18–24 3.55 4.96 91.49 0.00

25–29 12.00 6.67 81.33 0.00

18–24 2.19 1.46 96.35 0.00

0.00 (113)

30–34 76.11 4.42 16.81 2.65

0.00 (91)

30–34 48.35 3.30 45.05 3.30

0.00 (169)

35–39 77.51 1.18 15.38 5.92

0.00 (97)

35–39 67.01 4.12 26.80 2.06

1.55 (193)

40–44 80.31 0.00 11.40 6.74

0.00 (119)

40–44 79.83 1.68 14.29 4.20

1.61 (124)

45–49 83.06 0.00 8.87 6.45

0.00 (114)

45–49 82.46 0.00 13.16 4.39

7.27 (110)

50–54 74.55 0.00 8.18 10.00

0.00 (92)

50–54 90.22 0.00 6.52 3.26

Table 2: Male and female marital status (by age group)

9.09 (66)

55–59 74.24 0.00 7.58 9.09

1.35 (74)

55–59 79.73 0.00 8.11 10.81

22.92 (96)

60–65 72.92 0.00 2.08 2.08

7.53 (93)

60–65 75.27 0.00 8.60 8.60

3.76 (1090)

Total 64.77 1.74 24.86 4.86

0.90 (892)

Total 58.52 1.79 34.98 3.81

family in flux 31

32

anita c. koo and thomas w. p. wong Table 3: Distribution of informants’ family types

Family Types single-person household nuclear couple married couple with children stem & joint family lone-parent family other Total

n

%

124 196 1,139 187 206 101

6.35 10.04 58.32 9.58 10.55 5.17

1,953

100.00

Table 4: Distribution of family size (by family type) Family types singleperson

nuclear couple & stem & lonecouple children joint parent

other

(972) (604) (283) (91)

100.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

100.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

86.83 10.24 2.44 0.49

59.00 21.00 16.00 4.00

100.00 (1,950)

100.00

100.00 100.00

100.00 100.00

100.00

Family Size Overall 3 or less 4 5 6 Total

49.85 30.97 14.51 4.67

35.71 44.09 16.75 3.44

5.88 31.55 38.50 24.06

grown and have left the family home. The next two most common types of families are lone-parent families and stem and joint families. Each type characterizes about 10% of our informants. Again, lone parenthood can describe different situations. For example, one group of lone parents comprises those who have experienced marital breakdown, while another group is made up of those who have been widowed. Another important finding is the small number of stem and joint families in our sample (10%). When we compare this finding with the 1960 data (Wong 1975), in which stem families constituted 24% of all families, it clearly shows that today, married couples are less likely to live with their parents, siblings or other relatives. This important change in Hong Kong families is also reflected by the decreased family size/household size. Table 4 shows that about half of the informants live in families of three or fewer persons, and less than 20% of their families have five or more members. According to the data collected in 1960 (Wong 1975), over 68% of Hong Kong families had five or more members forty-five years ago. This sharp decrease in

family in flux

33

family size over the past few decades can partly be explained by the change of family structure. The reduced number of stem and joint families dramatically decreases the average size of families in Hong Kong. At the same time, we should not neglect the fact that even if we focus on nuclear families alone, family size has still decreased significantly. In our data, 80% of nuclear families (or 83% if we include nuclear couples) have four or fewer members, while in 1960 only 38.6% of nuclear families were of this size. Looking at these statistics, we know that married couples with children continue to be a prominent family pattern in Hong Kong. At the same time, there is a strong tendency for people to move out of their parents’ households and form their own nuclear families after marriage. Compared with the situation in 1960, there is a substantial decrease in the number of people who share their households with siblings or other relatives after marriage. This increasing tendency to keep a small and private household instead of sharing accommodation could be regarded as an aspect of individualization or at least of privatization (a trend that Young and Willmott (1984) called the ‘symmetrical family’). In the following, we aim to determine the nature of family relationships in the current society. We are mainly concerned with people’s bonding with their extended family/kinship. Are people seldom in contact with their relatives, as they no longer share a household? Is there any change in individuals’ practices and responsibilities within the family network? Interactions with Other Family Members In this section, we select a number of questions from the survey to investigate individuals’ patterns of interactions with their relatives in the year before the interview and their practices with regard to financial support for their parents. Table 5 summarizes the responses to the first Table 5: Interactions with relatives In the past year, you have . . . 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

kept close contact with relatives, such as by visits spent holidays with relatives celebrated the New Year with relatives had more than 5 gatherings with relatives worshiped ancestors with relatives

% 79.45 83.48 88.84 68.31 69.95

34

anita c. koo and thomas w. p. wong

set of questions. The majority of our sampled cases kept in close contact with their relatives (79%) during the year. Nearly 90% of them had spent the New Year with relatives, and over 80% of them had done so during other holidays. In addition, about 70% of the informants have more than five gatherings with their relatives per year and worship together. This clearly shows that regardless of the prevalence of ‘isolated’ living arrangements, frequent social contact is still maintained with other members of the familial group. Individuals have not retreated from their extended family networks. Rather, in general, they have strong bonding with this social network. One might expect the younger generation to be more individualized and more likely to withdraw from the wider kinship group. On the contrary, young parents or people who have elderly parents are expected to have closer relations with their relatives, as kin are one of their major sources of emotional and moral support. Therefore, it would be interesting to know which group of individuals is more likely to have more interactions with relatives. We use logistic regressions to identify how familial practices vary across gender, age group, educational level, family composition, marital status and household income among the sampled cases. We find that females, those whose parent(s) are still alive, those who have not separated from their partner and those who belong to the higher household income group are more likely to keep close relations with their relatives. Table 6 reports the results. As expected, females tend to have closer relations with their relatives than males. They are more likely to keep in close contact, spend holidays, have five or more gatherings per year and worship ancestors with their relatives. Surprisingly, little age difference is found in the regressions. There is no evidence that the younger cohorts are less likely to interact with their relatives when other factors are controlled. Moreover, most of the informants’ familial practices do not vary with their educational level, except for the last item. The statistics in Table 6 show that compared with individuals whose educational qualification is primary school or lower, those who have a tertiary educational qualification are less likely to worship with their relatives. Moreover, the results in Table 6 show that the likelihood of keeping in close contact with relatives, spending holidays and New Year with them, and having five or more gatherings per year varies significantly with the presence of informants’ parents. When one or both of the informants’ parents are still alive, they have more interactions with their relatives. Compared with the group whose parents have both passed

family in flux

35

Table 6: Logistic regressions of five types of activities with relatives Keep close contact

Spend holidays

Celebrate New Year

5 or more gatherings

Worship ancestors

Constant

0.708 *

0.786 *

1.507 ***

0.031

0.724 **

Female (compared with male)

0.659 ***

0.462 ***

0.282

0.275 *

0.242 *

Age group (compared with “56–65”) 46–55 –0.491 –0.368 36–45 –0.391 –0.186 26–35 –0.222 0.339 18–25 –0.124 0.074

–0.711 * –0.372 –0.183 –0.214

Educational level (compared with “primary or lower”) junior sec 0.347 0.159 –0.133 senior sec 0.300 0.179 –0.151 tertiary 0.112 0.235 –0.315 Parents (compared with “both parents have passed away”) one parent 0.426 * 0.759 *** 0.763 *** both parents 0.270 0.478 * 0.750 ** Have child(ren) 0.603 * (compared with “no child”)

0.248

0.574

–0.038 0.138 –0.022 –0.220

0.015 0.023 0.176 0.391

–0.040 0.003 –0.124

–0.128 –0.331 –0.608 **

0.490 ** 0.423 * 0.050

0.216 –0.248 0.142

Marital status (compared with “married”) co-hab –0.960 * –0.769 –0.581 –0.661 –0.514 single –0.635 * –0.659 * –0.807 * –0.459 –0.384 divorced/widowed –1.238 *** –1.219 *** –1.303 *** –0.715 *** –0.898 *** Household income (compared with “below $10,000”) $10,001–20,000 0.140 0.230 0.519 ** $20,001–30,000 0.219 0.476 * 0.834 ** more that $30,001 0.435 0.292 0.829 ** N R2

0.408 ** 0.806 *** 0.745 ***

0.221 0.313 0.762 ***

1536 1542 1547 1532 1540 0.0732 *** 0.0619 *** 0.0844 *** 0.0446 *** 0.0350 ***

* p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001

away, they are significantly more likely to keep in close contact, spend holidays, celebrate New Year and have gatherings with relatives. One interpretation is that whether parents are still alive is an important factor that pulls the informants into a connection with wider extended families. Another interpretation is that the data on people’s interactions with ‘relatives’ exactly reflect their interactions with their parents. We also find that the likelihood of having these familial practices varies with informants’ marital status. Compared with informants

36

anita c. koo and thomas w. p. wong

who are married, those whose marital status is divorced or widowed9 are significantly less likely to bond with relatives. Instead of having close connections with their extended families in order to gain more assistance and support, the divorced and widowed are more isolated from kinship ties. What has happened to this group of people? What has caused them to retreat from interaction with their relatives? One interpretation is the instability of their identity/position within the family after marital breakdown. Although a dependent child or married couple has a clear role and identity in the family network, after marriage (no longer a child in their parents’ family) or divorce (no longer a married adult with their own family) people have difficulties in positioning themselves in family gatherings. The results in Table 6 also show that people’s pattern and intensity of connection with relatives also vary by their household income. Without doubt, the availability of economic resources is a factor that affects people’s level of activeness in social gatherings.10 When other factors are controlled, the informants in the higher income group are more likely to celebrate New Year with relatives and have five or more gatherings per year. Also, compared with the informants from households with a monthly income of less than HK$10,000, those from the highest income group are more likely to worship ancestors with relatives. However, there is little evidence to show that the likelihood of keeping in close contact and spending holidays with relatives varies with informants’ household income. We now move on to the next set of questions, which relates to people’s perceptions of their financial obligation to their parents and their real practices with regard to it. Providing financial support to parents is regarded as the basic family commitment of the younger generation in Chinese societies. Table 7 shows that over 70% of the informants agree that children have a responsibility to give their parents financial support. When we asked whether they support their own parents financially, such as by transferring money to them or paying for their daily expenses, 78% of the qualified informants (i.e., those who

9 As there are limited numbers of ‘divorced/separated’ and ‘widowed’ cases in our sample, in the analysis, we have combined them into one category, ‘divorced/widowed’, under marital status. 10 This phenomenon has been widely discussed in studies of poverty in Hong Kong. In addition to economic constraints, ‘losing face’ is another concern among poor people. This lowers their level of motivation to join gatherings with friends and relatives.

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Table 7: Children’s financial responsibility towards parents Q: Children have the responsibility to give parents financial support % (n) Agree 71.49 (1,427) Not Agree 28.51 (569) 100.00 (1,996) Q: Do you support your parents financially? Yes No

% 78.32 21.68 100.00

(n) (1,008) (279) (1,287) *

* Informants whose parents had passed away or were full-time students are excluded.

are not full-time students and those whose parent(s) is sill alive) said they do so. Clearly, the majority of people in Hong Kong continue to fulfil their economic obligation to their parents. This practice is highly correlated to attitudes towards responsibility to parents.11 Again, we examine whether there is any group variation in the commitment to support parents. Table 8 reports the estimates of two logistic regressions on people’s attitudes to supporting their parents financially and their practices of it. In terms of attitudes, no group variation is found. People from different social and demographic backgrounds display similar levels of agreement with the idea that children have a responsibility to support their parents financially. Obviously, this idea of commitment to family/obligation to the elder generation is shared by all in Hong Kong. In terms of practice, we find that the informants in the youngest age group, those who have children and those who are currently cohabiting are less likely to provide financial support to their parents. This may be related to the financial situations of these groups. Young adults who have just started their careers usually have lower incomes. Those who have children and those who are sharing accommodation with partners may have more expenses and therefore greater difficulty in providing financial support to their parents. We also find that educational level and household income are positively related to the likelihood of supporting parents when other factors are controlled. The higher their educational level and the higher their income group,

11 The positive correlation between people’s attitudes and practices is confirmed by a chi-square test, with the results: X2 = 15.7991; d.f. = 1; p < 0.001.

38

anita c. koo and thomas w. p. wong Table 8: Logistic regressions of people’s attitudes and practices of supporting parents financially Attitudes

Practices

Constant

0.557

1.068 *

Female (compared with “male”)

0.111

Age group (compared with “56–65”) 46–55 36–45 26–35 18–25

–0.044

–0.211 –0.125 –0.024 –0.270

0.118 –0.298 –0.282 –1.635 ***

Educational level (compared with “primary or lower”) junior sec –0.071 senior sec 0.214 tertiary 0.344

0.470 * 0.990 *** 1.035 ***

Parents (compared with “both parents have passed away”) one parent 0.097 both parents 0.203 Have child(ren) (compared with “no child”) Marital status (compared with “married”) co-hab single divorced/widowed

0.103

–0.700 *

0.507 0.206 0.016

–1.363 ** –0.159 –0.107

Household income (compared with “below $10,000”) $10,001–20,000 0.122 $20,001–30,000 0.069 more than $30,001 0.305 N R2

— —

1548 0.0115

0.473 ** 0.896 *** 1.151 *** 1104 0.0903 ***

*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001

the more likely informants are to give financial support to their parents. In this sense, we may say that the likelihood of practising this social norm is strongly related to the informants’ ability to afford to do so, even though the norm itself is shared by most people in Hong Kong. The evidence in this section shows that people do keep in close contact with their relatives. Providing financial support is still commonly regarded as a basic responsibility to parents. This analysis shows that maintaining independent nuclear households does not diminish roles

family in flux

39

or reduce responsibility in the extended family network, especially with regard to the provision of support to parents. The increase in the number of nuclear families mainly describes the change in Hong Kong people’s living arrangements. Their commitment to family and relatives has undergone limited change. However, we also find that practices related to family commitment vary largely by economic situation. People from higher income groups are more likely to have gatherings with their relatives and provide financial support to their parents. Family Formation Process Of our 2,005 informants, 1,290 declared that they have been married at least once, and 1,199 of them told us their age at first marriage. Of those who are married, the mean age at marriage for males and females is 28.86 and 24.61, respectively. Another 37% of the informants in the sample had never been married. Most of these belong to the younger age groups. More males (42%) than females (34%) have remained single. From Table 9, we can see that only 16% of the male informants and 40% of the female informants were married by age 25. However, by age 35, the percentages jump to 52% for males and 65% for females. Table 9: Data of informants’ age at first marriage (by gender)

First marriage by 20 by 25 by 30 by 35 by 40 41 or later Never married Total

Overall

male

female

7.21 (138) 29.26 (560) 52.82 (1,011) 59.25 (1,134) 61.91 (1,185) 62.64 (1,199)

2.62 (23) 16.42 (144) 41.62 (365) 52.00 (456) 56.90 (499) 58.38 (512)

11.09 (115) 40.12 (416) 62.30 (646) 65.39 (678) 66.16 (686) 66.25 (687)

37.36 (715)

41.62 (365)

33.75 (350)

100.00 (1,914)

100.00 (877)

100.00 (1,037)

40

anita c. koo and thomas w. p. wong

To examine the change in the timing of marriage over time, in the following analyses, we compare informants from three age cohorts: those born from 1966 to 1975, those born from 1956 to 1965, and those born from 1946 to 1955. All of the respondents in these three cohorts were aged 30 or above at the time of survey. This arrangement enables us to compare the proportion of people who remain single at age 30. Table 10 presents the data of informants’ age at first marriage by the three age cohorts. Among the oldest cohort (those born from 1946 to 1955), 41% had married by age 25, while only 31% of the youngest cohort (those born from 1966 to 1975) had done so. Moreover, while only 28% of the oldest cohort remained single at age 30, 40% of the youngest cohort did. This shows that the younger generation tends to delay marriage. We then further divide the cohort groups by gender. Table 11 shows that fewer males and females of the younger generation get married by 30. Of men who were born between 1966 and 1975, less than half (47%) were married by age 30. This contrasts with those who were born between 1946 and 1955, 62% of whom were already married when they turned 30. Females have undergone a similar change. Of women who were born between 1946 and 1955, only 17% remained single at age 30. One quarter of those who were born between 1956 and 1965 were not married by 30. Among the youngest cohort, more than 30% remained single at this age. The change in the timing of marriage among females is more significant and substantial. Table 10: Informants’ age at first marriage (by three age cohorts)

First marriage by 20 by 25 by 30 Remain single at 30 Total

1966–1975

1956–1965

1946–1955

5.32 (24) 31.26 (141) 59.65 (269)

6.73 (36) 32.15 (172) 64.86 (347)

11.11 (36) 41.05 (133) 71.81 (233)

40.35 (182)

35.14 (188)

28.09 (91)

100.00 (451)

100.00 (535)

100.00 (324)

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Table 11: Male and female age of first marriage (by three age cohorts)

Male Married by 30 Remain single at 30 N

1966–1975

1956–1965

1946–1955

46.77 53.23 (186)

51.08 48.92 (231)

60.64 39.38 (160)

X2 = 6.8590; d.f. = 2; p = 0.032 Female Married by 30 Remain single at 30 N

68.68 31.32 (265)

75.33 24.67 (304)

82.93 17.07 (164)

X2 = 10.9958; d.f. = 2; p = 0.004

One of the possible engines behind the movement towards a later age at marriage is the rise in cohabitation. Although only 1.8% of our total sampled cases were cohabiting with partners at the time of survey, at least 15% of those who were married had cohabited before marriage.12 This shows that men and women living together outside of marriage is not new in Hong Kong. But these statistics also show that cohabitation is generally believed to be a prelude to, rather than an alternative to, marriage. Few people continue to cohabit for a long period of time. Table 12 shows that more males than females cohabited before they got married, although the gender difference in the practice is not significant. When we focus on informants from the three age cohorts, as shown in Table 13, 28% of those from the youngest group cohabited before they got married, while only 4% of those in the oldest cohort had done so. A similar trend applies to both males and females. The cohort differences are substantial and statistically significant. For people who were born between 1946 and 1955, cohabitation is uncommon for both males and females. Less than 5% of them had cohabited with a partner before getting married. For those who were born between 1956 and 1965, cohabitation is more common among males (10%)

12 The question asked in the survey is: ‘Did you ever live with your husband/wife as a couple before you actually got married?’ Therefore, people may have cohabited with other partners, but failed to report it during the interview. In addition, the question was only asked of informants whose marital status was married. The sample size drops to about 1,200.

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anita c. koo and thomas w. p. wong Table 12: Experience of cohabitation (by gender)

Never cohabited Had cohabited before Total (N)

Overall

male

female

85.16 (1016) 14.84 (177) 100.00 (1193)

83.59 (433) 16.41 (85) 100.00 (518)

86.37 (583) 13.63 (92) 100.00 (675)

X2 = 1.7922; d.f. = 1; p = 0.181

Table 13: Experience of cohabitation (by three age cohorts)

Overall Never cohabit Had cohabited before N

1966–1975

1956–1965

1946–1955

72.06 27.94 (315)

89.57 10.43 (422)

95.82 4.18 (263)

X2 = 74.9311; d.f. = 2; p < 0.001 Male Never cohabit Had cohabited before N

69.91 30.09 (113)

82.42 17.58 (182)

95.68 4.32 (139)

X2 = 30.1407; d.f. = 2; p < 0.001 Female Never cohabit Had cohabited before N

73.27 26.73 (202)

95.00 5.00 (240)

95.97 4.03 (124)

X2 = 57.7078; d.f. = 2; p < 0.001 [Ed note: ‘Never cohabited’.]

than females (5%). Among the youngest cohort, the percentage of cohabitation before marriage increases to 30% for males and 27% for females. Clearly, cohabitation before marriage has increasingly become a common practice among young people in Hong Kong. This could be one reason for the trend towards delayed marriage. However, as previously mentioned, young people seldom treat cohabitation as an alternative to marriage. They cohabit with their partners for a certain period of time, but eventually they marry. Also, there are

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very few cases in our sample of people have children while they are cohabiting. A total of 1,217 individuals in our sample have one or more children, and the great majority of these parents are married. Table 14 shows that having children outside of marriage is still an uncommon practice in Hong Kong, with only 11 cases of it in our sample (three among people who are cohabiting and eight among single parents). About 90% of the married people in the sample have children, with a similar distribution found in the divorced/widowed group. To investigate whether there has been any change in the fertility practices and composition of the nuclear family, we select married informants from three age cohorts to make a comparison. Table 15 shows that only 3% of married people who were born between 1946 and 1955 Table 14: Distribution of parenthood (by marital status) Overall

married

cohabitation

single

divorced/ widowed

61.84 (1,217)

89.24 (1,087)

8.57 (3)

1.38 (8)

88.15 (119)

38.16 (751)

10.76 (131)

91.43 (32)

98.62 (572)

11.85 (16)

100.00 (1,968)

100.00 (1,218)

100.00 (35)

100.00 (580)

100.00 (135)

Have child(ren) No child Total

Table 15: Number of children that married individuals have (by three age cohorts) Number of children

1966–1975

1956–1965

1946–1955

22.57 (72) 40.75 (130) 30.72 (98) 4.70 (15) 1.25 (4) 100.00 (319)

6.97 (31) 31.46 (140) 44.72 (199) 14.83 (66) 2.02 (9) 100.00 (445)

3.32 (9) 19.93 (54) 45.02 (122) 25.09 (68) 6.64 (18) 100.00 (271)

0 1 2 3 4 or more Total X2 = 151.1460; d.f. = 8; p < 0.001

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anita c. koo and thomas w. p. wong

are childless. Most of those in this group, the oldest cohort, have two children (45%). A quarter of them have three children, and about 20% have one child. More of the married people who were born between 1956 and 1965 are childless (7%). Also, more of them (31%) have only one child. Obviously, their family size is smaller than that of the oldest cohort. At the time of survey, 22% of the married individuals in the youngest age cohort (aged 30–40) remained childless; 41% of them had one child, and 31% two children. As most of these individuals are still within their fertile period, we do not know how many of them will remain childless and how many of them will have more children in the future. However, the trend towards having fewer children is clear. The survey has no separate question asking informants the age at which they first became parents. However, they were asked, ‘your first child was born after how many years of marriage?’ Using these data, we find that over 40% of the individuals who are married and have children set up their family within one year of marriage.13 Over 70% of them became parents after they had been married for two years. Table 16 shows the cohort difference in terms of the time lag between Table 16: Time lags between marriage and parenthood among informants who are married and have children (by three age cohorts)

Within 1 year 1.1 to 2 years 2.1 to 3 years 3.1 to 4 years 4.1 to 5 years Above 5 years Total

1966–1975

1956–1965

1946–1955

43.44 (96) 24.43 (54) 12.22 (27) 6.33 (14) 7.69 (17) 5.88 (13) 100.00 (221)

41.55 (155) 24.93 (93) 13.67 (51) 5.63 (21) 5.90 (22) 8.31 (31) 100.00 (373)

41.95 (99) 36.86 (87) 10.17 (24) 4.24 (10) 2.12 (5) 4.66 (11) 100.00 (236)

X2 = 21.6548; d.f. = 10; p = 0.017 13 Our data on the time lags between marriage and parenthood include only informants who followed the conventional pattern of the family formation process—parenthood after marriage. In the survey, we were unable to collect related information from people who have other types of family formation processes.

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marriage and parenthood. The results show that the timing of childbearing after marriage has not changed substantially over time (at least among married individuals). Having children within one year of marriage is common practice for individuals in all of the cohorts. There is some evidence that individuals in the youngest cohort have a stronger tendency to delay parenthood after marriage. However, the difference is not substantial. About 68% of those in this group continue to follow the most conventional pattern—becoming parents after two years of marriage. It is important to bear in mind that the foregoing analysis involves only individuals who are married and have children, with those who were single or childless at the time of survey excluded. To better measure the change in the timing of child bearing, we use individuals’ age at the birth of their first child.14 From Table 17, it can be seen that of 1,683 available cases, only 37% had become parents by age 30. Less than half of the women (48%) had experienced this life transition by 30, and less than a quarter of the men (24%) had done so. Table 18 shows the significant cohort differences in the age of parenthood. Among the oldest cohort, 54% had become parents by age 30. This percentage drops to 47% for the middle age cohort and further to 38% for the youngest cohort. Fewer people now go through this family transition before age 30. Table 17: Informants’ age at parenthood (by gender) Overall

male

female

2.02 (34) 15.03 (287) 36.84 (620)

0.51 (4) 7.74 (61) 23.86 (188)

3.35 (30) 25.25 (226) 48.27 (432)

Remain childless at 30

63.16 (1,063)

76.14 (600)

51.73 (463)

Total

100.00 (1,683)

100.00 (788)

100.00 (895)

First parenthood by 20 by 25 by 30

14 This is a derived variable achieved by adding up informants’ age at first marriage and the time lag between marriage and parenthood. Cases with either piece of information missing are regarded as missing cases.

46

anita c. koo and thomas w. p. wong Table 18: Informants’ age at parenthood (by three age cohorts)

Overall Parenthood by 30 Remain childless at 30 Total N

1966–1975

1956–1965

1946–1955

38.37 (155) 61.63 (249) 100.00 (404)

47.35 (214) 52.65 (238) 100.00 (452)

54.34 (144) 45.66 (121) 100.00 (265)

X2 = 17.2146; d.f. = 2; p < 0.001 Male Parenthood by 30 Remain childless at 30 N

20.00 80.00 (175)

31.30 68.80 (198)

39.70 60.30 (136)

X2 = 14.6638; d.f. = 2; p = 0.001 Female Parenthood by 30 Remain childless at 30 N

52.40 47.60 (229)

59.84 40.16 (254)

69.77 30.23 (129)

X2 = 10.3848; d.f. = 2; p = 0.006

Males and females have undergone similar changes in the timing of parenthood. Of those who were born between 1946 and 1955, 40% of men and 70% of women had become parents by 30. However, in the youngest cohort, only 20% of men and 52% of women are parents at age 30. This cohort difference in the timing of family transition is significant and substantial. In this section, we find that cohabitation has become more common among the younger generation. More than one-fourth of those who were born between 1966 and 1975 have cohabited before marriage. Also, there has been a noticeable delay in marriage and parenthood among both males and females. More than half of men and over 30% of women remain single at age 30. Over one-fifth of the married individuals in our sample who were born between 1966 and 1975 (aged 30–39) are still childless. We are not sure whether they have chosen to have no children or are just postponing parenthood. However, the trend towards later parenthood and fewer children is unambiguous.

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Table 18: Informants’ age of parenthood (by three age cohorts) No cohabitation vs Cohabited before marriage Male Constant

2.626 ***

Female 4.255 ***

Age group (compared with “56–65”) 46–55 –0.197 –1.312 36–45 –2.143 *** –2.005 26–35 –2.800 *** –3.976 *** 18–25 –4.452 *** –4.523 ***

Married at 30 vs Remain single by 30 Male 0.063 –0.368 –0.610 * –1.240 *** –5.355 ***

Educational level (compared with “primary or lower”) junior sec 0.329 –0.510 0.381 senior sec 0.588 –0.086 –0.243 tertiary 0.841 0.029 –0.481

Female

Male

Female

2.435 ***

–0.721 **

1.478 ***

–0.385 –0.815 * –1.281 ** –4.086 ***

–0.573 * –0.867 ** –1.594 *** –4.582 ***

–0.558 –0.556 –0.981 ** –3.701 ***

0.062 –0.959 *** –1.402 ***

0.372 –0.335 –0.541

0.111 –0.960 *** –1.895 ***

Household income (compared with “below $10,000”) $10,001–20,000 0.294 0.090 0.656 ** –0.048 $20,001–30,000 0.458 0.203 0.842 *** 0.456 more than $30,001 –0.103 1.170 * 1.390 *** 0.238 N R2

Have children at 30 vs Childless by 30

452 573 728 847 0.1368 *** 0.2105 *** 0.1795 *** 0.2721 ***

0.995 *** 0.872 ** 1.054 **

0.305 0.134 0.008

670 759 0.1528 *** 0.2363 ***

* p < .05, **p < .01, *** p < .001

We perform further logistic regressions to find out which groups of men and women are more likely to cohabitate before marriage and remain single and/or childless at age 30. First, the results in Table 19 show age to be highly correlated with all three of the variables. The younger the informants, the more likely they are to live with a partner before marriage; the greater their likelihood of remaining single at 30; and the greater their likelihood of remaining childless at 30. When we look at family transitions one by one, we find that the likelihood of cohabitation before marriage does not vary by educational level or household income, but only by age. However, the statistics also show that informants’ likelihood of remaining single and childless at 30 does vary by educational level and household income. When we compare men and women, we produce some interesting findings. Household income is a major factor in men’s likelihood of getting married and having children by 30 when other factors are controlled. Controlling for age effects, men in the highest income group have the significantly

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anita c. koo and thomas w. p. wong

Table 19: Logistic regressions of experiencing three family transitions—cohabitation, marriage by 30 and parenthood by 30 No cohabitation vs Cohabited before marriage Male Constant

2.626 ***

Married at 30 vs Remain single by 30

Female

Male

Female

Male

Female

4.255 ***

0.063

2.435 ***

–0.721 **

1.478 ***

–0.385 –0.815 * –1.281 ** –4.086 ***

–0.573 * –0.867 ** –1.594 *** –4.582 ***

–0.558 –0.556 –0.981 ** –3.701 ***

Age group (compared with “56–65”) 46–55 –0.197 –1.312 36–45 –2.143 *** –2.005 26–35 –2.800 *** –3.976 *** 18–25 –4.452 *** –4.523 ***

–0.368 –0.610 * –1.240 *** –5.355 ***

Educational level (compared with “primary or lower”) junior sec 0.329 –0.510 0.381 senior sec 0.588 –0.086 –0.243 tertiary 0.841 0.029 –0.481

0.062 0.372 –0.959 *** –0.335 –1.402 *** –0.541

Household income (compared with“below $10,000”) $10,001–20,000 0.294 0.090 0.656 ** –0.048 $20,001–30,000 0.458 0.203 0.842 *** 0.456 more than $30,001 –0.103 1.170 * 1.390 *** 0.238 N R2

Have children at 30 vs Childless by 30

0.995 *** 0.872 ** 1.054 **

0.111 –0.960 *** –1.895 *** 0.305 0.134 0.008

452 573 728 847 670 759 0.1368 *** 0.2105 *** 0.1795 *** 0.2721 *** 0.1528 *** 0.2363 ***

*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001

greatest likelihood of entering marriage and parenthood before 30. Presumably, this finding directly reflects the ‘prerequisite’ of economic resources for men to set up a family in Hong Kong. The availability of household resources increases a man’s chance of successfully making this transition. However, there is no evidence that women’s timing with regard to family transitions varies by household income. In addition to age, women’s educational level has a direct relationship with the postponement of marriage and parenthood. The higher their educational level, the less likely they are to get married or have children by age 30. This suggests that the new generation of highly educated women represents a major force in delaying marriage and parenthood. This finding accords with the popular view in Hong Kong. It is interesting to further explore whether the norms of family formation have also changed in Hong Kong. Do people think that marriage and parenthood are compulsory life transitions? Can cohabitation replace marriage? Must parenthood go with marriage? Further,

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do young, educated women hold more diversified or individualized attitudes towards family transitions? People’s answers to these attitudinal questions can help us to gain a better understanding of the general acceptance of the emergence of more individualized ways of family formation and allow us to identify the major forces of change. The five attitudinal questions and the responses to them are listed in Table 20. The first, second and fourth statements relate to people’s attitudes towards marriage. The majority of the informants find it acceptable for men and women to choose to be single (67%). Less than 15% think otherwise. At the same time, just under half of the informants agree with the statement, ‘there is nothing wrong with people living together without marriage’ (47%). Over 20% remain neutral, and 30% disagree. Obviously, many of the informants do not accept the replacement of marriage with cohabitation. People can choose to be single or married, but not to engage in long-term cohabitation. The third and fifth statements relate to child-bearing. Sixty-five percent of the informants accept married couples choosing to remain childless. At the same time, 64% agree that ‘parenthood should go with marriage’. Therefore, although most people accept that marriage does not necessarily have to be followed by parenthood, few accept that parenthood can go without marriage. It seems that, in general, people are readier to accept non-transition (i.e., remaining unmarried or childless) than unconventional or more individualized ways of family transition. As individuals remaining unmarried and married couples rejecting parenthood become more Table 20: Informants’ attitudes towards marriage and parenthood Statements 1. Men choose to be single 2. Women choose to be single 3. Getting married but not having children 4. There is nothing wrong for people to live together without marriage 5. Parenthood should go with marriage

Accept 67.04 66.88 65.47

Average 19.12 18.62 18.30

Not accept (N) 13.84 (1,899) 14.50 (1,896) 16.23 (1,923)

Agree 47.07

Neutral 22.43

Not Agree 30.50 (1,895)

63.63

12.18

24.20

(1,930)

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anita c. koo and thomas w. p. wong

common in Hong Kong, fewer people find this incomplete family transition to be unacceptable. However, if an individual chooses not to be single, but rather to live with his/her partner, then people find this type of partnership to be problematic. Obviously, for most people, marriage cannot be replaced by long-term cohabitation. Also, if individuals choose to have children, then they have to go through the process of ‘family setting’. The transition to parenthood has to be preceded by marriage. Again, it cannot be replaced by other new types of arrangements. We also investigate group variations in attitudes towards marriage and parenthood. In these analyses, we create five dichotomous variables by combining the response categories of these questions.15 Table 21 reports the estimates of five logistic regressions. It can be seen that more women than men accept incomplete life transitions—life without marriage and/or parenthood—but there is no gender difference in the views towards unconventional partnership and parenthood arrangements. We find limited group variations in the informants’ views towards the last two statements. The most significant group differences are: (1) compared with people without religion, those with religion are less likely to approve of cohabitation; and (2) compared with people without children, parents are less likely to disagree that ‘parenthood should go with marriage’. In addition to the gender variation in attitudes towards ‘non-marriage’ and ‘non-parenthood’, people’s answers also vary by age, educational level, parental status, marital status and household income. For example, people with higher educational qualifications are more likely to accept men and women who choose to remain single. They are also more likely to accept married couples who choose to have no children. Individuals from higher household income groups are also more likely to see such

15

For the first three questions, we combine those whose response was ‘average’ or ‘not accept’ into one group to compare it with the group who answered ‘accept’. For the fourth question, we combine those whose response was ‘neutral’ or ‘not agree’ into one group to compare it with the group who answered ‘agree’. For the last question, we combine those whose response was ‘agree’ or ‘neutral’ into one group to compare it with the group who answered ‘not agree’. To group the response categories in the variables, we ran a series of cross-tabulations to examine the patterns of responses of each variable and their relations to respondents’ gender, age, educational level, marital status, household income, etc. Comparing the results of the cross-tabs, the regressions confirm that using collapsed categories is not qualitatively different from using the original categories. Therefore, the assignment should not distort the relationships among the response variables and their pattern with the other covariates.

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Table 21: Logistic regressions of people’s attitudes towards marriage and parenthood Accept Accept men single women single vs vs others others Constant

0.223

Female 0.353 ** (compared with “male”)

Accept childless vs others

Disagree P with M vs others

–0.110

–1.040 ***

0.081

1.040

0.486 ***

0.333 **

0.019

0.119

0.491 ** 0.578 ** 0.013 –0.296

0.224 0.390 * 0.175 –0.214

0.672 ** 0.467 * 0.100 –0.245

Age group (compared with “56–65”) 46–55 0.281 0.299 36–45 0.392 * 0.344 26–35 0.161 0.055 18–25 –0.592 * –0.727 **

Educational level (compared with “primary or lower”) junior sec 0.204 0.153 0.174 senior sec 0.530 ** 0.404 * 0.466 ** tertiary 0.504 * 0.494 * 0.708 ** Have religion 0.008 (compared with “without religion”)

Agree cohabitation vs others

–0.056 0.320 0.231

–0.013

–0.387 ***

–0.085

–0.567 **

–0.197

–0.854 ***

1.273 * 0.270 0.387

0.398 0.044 0.303

–0.265 –0.350 0.313

Household income (compared with “below $10,000”) $10,001–20,000 0.010 0.057 –0.071 $20,001–30,000 0.362 * 0.472 ** 0.351 * more than $30,001 0.796 *** 0.777 *** 0.651 **

–0.172 0.043 0.230

0.178 0.040 0.214

N R2

1,546 0.0175 **

Have child(ren) –0.593 ** (compared with “without child”)

0.022

0.145 0.012 0.026

–0.459 *

Marital status (compared with “married”) co-hab 1.506 * 1.221 single 0.329 0.502 separated/widowed –0.128 –0.159

1,539 0.0621 ***

1,537 0.0581 ***

1,560 0.0599 ***

1,547 0.0270 ***

* p < .05, ** p < .01, ***p < .001

choices as acceptable. We find some age differences in people’s attitudes towards marriage and parenthood. However, there is no clear direction of change or influence. Compared with the respondents from the oldest age group, those in the middle cohort seem to be more likely to accept singlehood and childlessness, while those in the youngest group are least likely to accept men or women choosing to remain single.

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anita c. koo and thomas w. p. wong

To discover which groups of men and women are more likely to accept singlehood and childlessness, we run the three regressions again, but separately for males and females. Table 22 shows the results. First of all, we find no age differences in attitudes towards singlehood among men or women. With regard to the acceptance of childless couples, however, there are significant age variations among both sexes. Compared with men in the oldest age group, men aged 36–45 and 46–55 are significantly more likely to accept couples who choose not to have children. Among females, women in the youngest age group are the least likely to accept childless couples. We also find that fathers are less likely to accept singlehood and childless couples than are other men, although no such difference is found between mothers and other women. Then, more interestingly, we find that females’ attitudes towards marriage and parenthood vary significantly by their educational level, although no such group difference is found among males. Among females, the higher their educational qualification, the more likely they are to accept non-marriage and non-parenthood. These attitudes match our previous analyses of the informants’ practices—these same women are more likely to delay or even reject marriage and parenthood. Finally, we find that men’s and women’s attitudes towards marriage and parenthood vary by household income. The higher their household income group, the more likely they are to accept singlehood and childless couples. The direction of influence is the same for both sexes, but stronger among males. This is an interesting finding. On the one hand, as seen in the analysis of the previous section, men in the highest income group are more likely to get married and have children before 30 than are those in the lower income groups. On the other hand, this group is also more likely to accept people who remain single and/or childless. Or to put it another way, we know from our findings that men in lower household income groups are less likely to accept singlehood and childlessness. However, they are also less likely to get married or have children by age 30. What does this tell us about ‘choice’? We suggest that the propensity to opt for more individualized choices in life-course arrangements is closely bound up with structural factors, such as the ‘prerequisite’ of the necessary financial resources for marriage and parenthood. Low-income men do not choose to defer marriage or parenthood; rather, their economic circumstances perhaps do not allow them to set up a family earlier. This is individualization by default. For men in the highest income group (i.e., the group most likely to get married and have children before 30), the greater acceptance of singlehood and childless marriages suggests a stronger

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Table 22: Logistic regressions of people’s attitudes towards marriage and parenthood (by gender) Accept men single vs others

Accept women single vs others

Accept childless vs others

Male

Female

Male

Female

Male

Female

0.395

0.352

0.205

0.375

0.151

0.259

Age group (compared with “56–65” ) 46–55 0.427 0.194 36–45 0.435 0.328 26–35 0.200 0.081 18–25 –0.562 –0.620

0.462 0.389 0.089 –0.775

0.189 0.262 –0.061 –0.676

Constant

Educational level (compared with “primary or lower” ) junior sec 0.038 0.285 0.055 senior sec 0.406 0.626 ** 0.395 tertiary 0.148 0.861 ** 0.183 Have religion 0.015 0.006 (compared with “without religion” )

–0.006

Have child(ren) –0.910 ** –0.258 (compared with “without child”)

–0.785 *

0.930 0.559 0.101

Marital status (compared with “married” ) co-hab 1.494 1.530 single 0.297 0.340 separated/ 0.167 –0.271 widowed

Household income (compared with“below $10,000”) $10,001–20,000 0.091 –0.025 0.107 $20,001–30,000 0.588 * 0.222 0.691 ** more than $30,001 1.028 ** 0.646 * 0.964 ** N R2

704 0.0785 ***

835 0.0510 ***

695 0.0771 ***

0.193 0.417 0.862 ** 0.042

0.700 ** 0.937 *** 0.373 0.234 0.033 0.209 0.357

0.269 0.216 –0.327 –0.845 * 0.271 0.723 ** 1.062 **

–0.027

–0.010

–0.105

–0.746 *

–0.301

1.626 0.392 –0.311

1.649 0.064 0.471

1.048 0.509 0.317

–0.167 0.280 0.718 *

–0.001 0.411 0.567 *

712 0.0692 ***

848 0.0558 ***

0.047 0.324 0.678 * 842 0.0427 ***

*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001

propensity to see these as alternatives. This reflects a stronger sense of individualization, and, as we argued earlier, it is among highly educated women that we see both these value orientations and actual practice. Obviously, further analyses are required in order to explore further these preliminary observations. Conclusion The foregoing analyses represent a selected use of our survey data in an attempt to come up with some pointers on individualization and the changing Hong Kong family. Clearly, these analyses demonstrate the

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need to unpack the idea of individualization when we study individuals’ practices within families and their process of family formation. Too often, aggregate trends or social processes in marriage and family patterns have been used to suggest a tendency towards fleeting relationships or the erosion of commitment. In our analyses, although increasing numbers of people live away from their parents and relatives after marriage, most of the informants continue to have a strong sense of commitment to their families and actually practise these familial norms. People still bond closely with their families. We can say that relatives/family members (even when not living together) still represent a meaningful social network for most people in Hong Kong. Certainly, we do not see familial commitments and family living being eroded by so-called frenetic emotional and social instabilities that characterize a nebulous and liquid modernity. In terms of family formation, our analyses and discussions show that while there have been unmistakable signs of more young people remaining single, marrying later, having children later and having fewer children, attitudes towards marriage and parenthood have not changed among the younger cohort. In general, people still do not fully accept partnership outside marriage or parenthood without marriage. If there had been a change, or if there are increased choices, then it is more a choice between transition and non-transition, or a choice between early transition and later transition. For example, cohabitation is not an alternative to marriage or a long-term form of alternative partnership. Rather, it is a temporary living arrangement that co-exists and co-works with the arrangement of delayed marriage. Choosing to remain single or childless does not necessarily imply the weakening of the idea, and practice, of family mutuality. Indeed, more individualized lifestyles can be contemplated and practised in certain areas. For instance, people can choose between making and not making the transition to marriage or parenthood. Yet, such choices are accepted only when there is no undermining of family mutuality or the connection between marriage and parenthood. Certainly, there are no really diversified familial lifecourses. Individualization in Hong Kong is compartmentalized in the sense that individualized choices are limited to a few areas while the general familial life-course is preserved. Individualization, and the ‘free’ individual choice it involves, has to be placed in the context of different family tasks, practices and resources. This is the gist of the theoretical position of ‘doing families’. Individualization does not move in a uniform fashion across these various

family in flux

55

domains. At most, we venture to suggest, individualization represents a more flexible, or unconventional, way of handling and managing the multifarious practices and obligations in the three economies of the family. People also flexibly arrange their own family formation process depending on the context of the family situation, for example, household income. The need to contextualize choice in relation to different family practices, aspirations and obligations vindicates the need to see family not so much as an entity, a noun, but as a verb, as practices that are held together, to a greater or lesser extent, by interlinked biographies. This last point sets the stage for our ‘doing families’ analyses. References Bauman, Zygmunt. 1995. Life in Fragments. Cambridge: Polity. ——. 2000. Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity. ——. 2001. The Individualized Society. Cambridge: Polity. ——. 2003. Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds. Cambridge: Polity. Beck, Ulrich and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim. 1995. The Normal Chaos of Love. Cambridge: Polity. Bernardes, Jon. 1985. “Do We Really Know What ‘The Family’ Is?” Pp. 192–211 in Family and Economy in Modern Society, edited by Paul Close and Rosemary Collins. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press. Chan, Kwok-bun and Odalia M. H. Wong. 2005. “Private and Public: Gender, Generation and Family Life in Flux.” Journal of Family and Economic Issues 26(4): 447–464. Close, Paul and Rosemary Collins (eds.). 1985. Family and Economy in Modern Society. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press. Coltrane, Scott and Randall Collins. 2001. Sociology of Marriage and the Family: Gender, Love, and Property (5th edition). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thompson Learning. Coontz, Stephanie. 1992. The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap. New York: Basic Books. ——. 1997. The Way We Really Are: Coming to Terms with America’s Changing Families. New York: Basic Books. Finch, Janet. 1989. Family Obligations and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity. ——. and Jennifer Mason. 1991. “Obligations of Kinship in Contemporary Britain: Is there Normative Agreement?” British Journal of Sociology 42(3): 345–367. ——. and Jennifer Mason. 1993. Negotiating Family Responsibilities. London: Routledge. Hareven, Tamara K. 1992. “American Families in Transition: Historical Perspectives on Change.” Pp. 40–57 in Family in Transition (7th edition), edited by Arlene S. Skolnick and Jerome H. Skolnick. New York: HarperCollins. Irwin, Sarah. 2005. Reshaping Social Life. London: Routledge. Lasch, Christopher. 1997. “Misreading the Facts about Families.” Pp. 153–160 in Women and the Common Life: Love, Marriage, and Feminism, edited by Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Lee, Ming-kwan. 1992. “Family and Gender Issues.” Pp. 1–31 in Indicators of Social Development: Hong Kong 1990, edited by Siu-kai Lau, Ming-kwan Lee, Shirley Po-san Wan and Siu-lun Wong. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

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——. 1995. “The Family Way.” Pp. 1–19 in Indicators of Social Development: Hong Kong 1993, edited by Siu-kai Lau, Ming-kwan Lee, Shirley Po-san Wan and Siulun Wong. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Morgan, David H. J. 1996. Family Connections: An Introduction to Family Studies. Cambridge: Polity. ——. 2001. “Family Sociology in from the Fringe: The Three ‘Economies’ of Family Life.” Pp. 227–248 in Developments in Sociology, edited by Robert G. Burgess and Anne Murcott. New York: Prentice Hall. Morris, Lydia. 1985. “Renegotiation of the Domestic Division of Labour in the Context of Male Redundancy.” Pp. 400–416 in New Approaches to Economic Life: Economic Restructuring, Unemployment, and the Social Division of Labour, edited by Brian Roberts, Ruth Finnegan and Duncan Gallie. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Neale, Bren. 2000. “Theorizing Family, Kinship and Social Change.” Workshop Paper no. 6, prepared for Workshop Two: Statistics and Theories for Understanding Social Change. Ng, Chun-hung. 1994. “Power, Identity and Economic Change—25 Years of Family Studies in Hong Kong.” Pp. 94–110 in 25 Years of Social and Economic Development in Hong Kong, edited by Benjamin K. P. Leung and Teresa Y. C. Wong. Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong. Roberts, Bryan, Ruth Finnegan and Duncan Gallie (eds.). 1985. New Approaches to Economic Life: Economic Restructuring, Unemployment, and the Social Division of Labour. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Roseneil, Sasha and Shelley Budgeon. 2004. “Cultures of Intimacy and Care beyond ‘the Family’: Personal Life and Social Change in the Early 21st Century.” Current Sociology 52(2): 135–159. Salaff, Janet. 1976. “The Status of Unmarried Hong Kong Women and the Social Factors Contributing to their Delayed Marriage.” Population Studies 30(3): 391–412. Silva, Elizabeth Bortolaia and Carol Smart (eds.). 1999. The New Family? London: Sage. Smart, Carol and Bren Neale. 1999. Family Fragments? Cambridge: Polity Press. Smart, Carol and Beccy Shipman. 2004. “Visions in Monochrome: Families, Marriage and the Individualization Thesis.” British Journal of Sociology, 55(4): 491–509. Stacey, Judith. 1990. Brave New Families: Stories of Domestic Upheaval in Late Twentieth Century America. New York: Basic Books. Stacey, Margaret and Price, Marion. 1981. Women, Power, and Politics. London: Tavistock. Walsh, Froma. 2003. “Changing Families in a Changing World: Reconstructing Family Normality.” Pp. 3–26 in Normal Family Processes: Growing Complexity and Diversity, edited by Froma Walsh. New York: Guilford Press. Wong Fai-ming. 1972. “Modern Ideology, Industrialization, and Conjugalism: The Hong Kong Case.” International Journal of the Family 2 (September): 139–150. ——. 1975. “Industrialization and Family Structure in Hong Kong.” Journal of Marriage and Family 37: 985–1000. ——. 1977. “Effects of the Employment of Mothers on Marital Role and Power Differentiation in Hong Kong.” International Journal of the Family 7 (July–December): 181–195. Young, Michael and Peter Willmott. 1984. The Symmetrical Family: A Study of Work and Leisure in the London Region. New York: Pantheon Books.

DOING FAMILIES IN HONG KONG: STRATEGY, MORALITY AND EMOTION Ng Chun-hung, Ng Bo-sze and Anita Chan Kit-wa Abstract In the past two decades, a series of major demographic and lifestyle changes have prompted a growing concern with the state of families in Hong Kong, leading to polar predictions of personal crisis and social renewal. This paper engages with this perceived state of flux by reporting on the findings of in-depth case interviews conducted in 2005 and 2006 with individuals from 40 families. It analyzes their acts and thoughts from a theoretical vantage point that stresses the contingent and achieved nature of family lives. We argue that there are different ways of ‘doing families’ in Hong Kong. Members of families try in their different ways to achieve a better life by coping with the material challenges thrown up by social restructuring. They also try to account for that life by drawing on a diverse range of ideational resources. The results of these acts of coping and accounting are subtle, diverse and intricately patterned by class and gender dynamics. Our findings urge us to eschew universalistic theories about family change. Instead we should systematically study the processes, reasoning and outcomes of uncoupling in familial practices in Hong Kong today. We also need a policy on family that is open and plural, and leaves room for different accounting methods.

Hong Kong Families: Crisis and Renewal In the past two decades, a series of demographic and lifestyle changes have prompted growing concern in both the academic and policy fields about the state of families in Hong Kong. These changes include, among others, a later age of marriage, lowering fertility, rising divorce rate, increasing female education and labour force participation, heightened concern with child education, and issues of sustenance and care in the face of a rapidly ageing population. The scale and speed of these changes have generated polar predictions of personal crisis and social renewal. Thus, some lament the deteriorating health and functioning of ‘the family’. Others celebrate the coming of a new, post-modern age of individualization. Hong Kong families, and the views we have about them, are in flux (Koo and Wong in this issue). This paper attempts to engage with this state of flux. It reports on the findings of in-depth case interviews conducted in 2005 and 2006 with

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individuals from 40 families.1 It analyzes their acts and thoughts from a theoretical vantage point that stresses the contingent and achieved nature of family lives. We argue that there are different ways of ‘doing families’ in Hong Kong. Members of families of different classes try in different ways to achieve a better life by coping with the material challenges thrown up by the social and geographical transformations of the past two decades. They also try to account for that life by drawing on a diverse range of ideational resources. The results of these acts of coping and accounting are subtle, diverse and intricately patterned by class and gender dynamics. Our findings put paid to simplistic notions about family change and crisis in Hong Kong. We should instead systematically study the processes, reasoning and outcomes of uncoupling in familial practices in Hong Kong today. The notion of uncoupling, as we explain in more detail below, highlights the fact that conventional notions of marriage and family are currently being re-examined by ordinary people. The pursuit of intimacy does not necessarily end up in marriage. Marriage does not automatically entail certain forms of family formation, certain preferred modes of children’s upbringing, or forms of couple intimacy and kin obligations. As a result, the accustomed norms and practices relating to marriage and family are being loosened, or ‘uncoupled’, from one another. People are groping for new ways to justify their changing familial practices (Stacey 1996; Silva and Smart 1999). In this context, we need a policy on family that is open and plural, and leaves room for different accounting methods. Studying Families: What? This paper sets out to examine how people in Hong Kong do families in the context of social and economic restructuring in the new millennium.2 It is part of a larger project studying family life and social change in Hong Kong at the beginning of the twenty-first century.3 In our previ-

1 This study was supported by a grant from the Research Grant Council of Hong Kong. The project title is Family in Flux: values, relations and strategies in Hong Kong families, reference number HKU7237/03H. 2 Please refer to the introduction to this special issue for an elaboration of the concept doing families. 3 The project includes a large-scale benchmark survey on family forms, practices, relationships and values in Hong Kong. It also includes a set of in-depth qualitative interviews, which provide the bulk of the data for this paper.

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ous works, we consistently stress the need to properly understand the fluidity of family life today (Ng 1989, 1994, 1995, 2005a; Chan 2004). The current project elaborates on that theoretical position. We propose to abandon the popular conception of ‘the family as a basic unit of society’ and shift our focus of analysis to diverse family practices in the face of emerging risks and possibilities in late modern societies. While our larger project aims to uncover broad trends and plural patterns, this particular paper takes on a narrower focus. It chooses to study what many would call conventional families. They are loosely identified as families of heterosexual union, with partners living together. Most of them have children, both dependent and independent. They are economically viable, and face no major domestic crisis at the time of the interviews. ‘Conventional families’ are interesting for our purposes for the following reasons. 1. They constitute the bulk of the respondents from our territory-wide survey in 2004–5 (Koo and Wong in this issue). In one sense, despite all of the claims about impending trends of family dissolution or individualization, ‘conventional families’ are the mainstay of Hong Kong families. They are still the one main form in which people currently do families. 2. The notion carries rich theoretical baggage in the lineage of local family studies. The conventional families and their variants—whether described as the ‘modern nuclear family’, ‘utilitarianistic family’, ‘centripetal family’ or ‘modified extended family’—are the bearer of the claims on how Hong Kong families perform over time (Wong 1979; Lau 1981; Salaff 1981; Lee 1987). In the literature, ‘conventional families’ are often portrayed as the repository of a mixture of the universal and the particular, modern and traditional, rational and non-rational, that centrally embodies the peculiar features of the developmental path of Hong Kong as a modern society. Studying ‘conventional families’ will thus allow us to look into one prevailing way of doing families in Hong Kong and at the same time reflect on the core concerns of the local literature. To document the processes and complexities of doing ‘conventional families’ is to open up theoretical alternatives for family studies in the new millennium.

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ng chun-hung, ng bo-sze and anita chan kit-wa Studying Families: How?

We aim to probe the processes and reasoning of people doing families. We carried out qualitative interviews with members from forty local families.4 We employed a long and relatively open set of interview questions. In addition to eliciting major information on landmarks of family formation (dating, marital union, child birth, geographical mobility), the interviews were designed to tap three major areas of familial practices and conceptions, or what David Morgan (Morgan 2001) calls the ‘three economies’ of doing families. They are as follows. Political economy: the decisions and practices of sustaining the livelihood and well-being of the family unit and its members. This relates to how members structure their family formation, balance their work plans and domestic obligations, manage household tasks and divide the requisite labour, how they do household decision-making, how they choose to nurture their offspring and care for kin members in light of their practical resources. This is the terrain of decision, strategy and action, and is closely tied to the opportunities and constraints offered by the shifting context of social and economic restructuring. Moral economy: the values for assessing the worth of their familial practices. This relates to the aspirations about family life that members of the families possess. It also relates to moral notions of what makes a ‘good family’ (Coontz 1992; Morgan 1996, 2001). Such notions are often diffuse and intangible, undergirded as they are by a mix of the popular, scientific and traditional (Ng 2000). Some of these notions have been around for a long time, some are recently emergent. They are also not equally endorsed across gender and generation. This is the terrain of moral precepts, and serves as a prime site of contest among members of modern families. Emotional economy: the feelings and emotions generated in family life. Within conventional families, it relates primarily to the feeling of intimacy between couples and across generations. How members

4 At the time of the interviews, the informants’ ages ranged from 29 to 55. All were married, with the period of marriage ranging from three to thirty-three years. Four families did not have children, and for those who had, the number of children ranged from one to four. Among the informants (or their spouses if they had no employment) fourteen held working class jobs (broadly defined as manual labour), while twenty-six were in non-manual, service class occupations. Most were individual interviews with adult household heads, with fifteen of the latter male, twenty-two female, and three interviewed together.

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perform care, practise love and sexuality, display emotions and sustain relationships contribute heavily to their happiness or otherwise in everyday family life. This is the terrain of sharing, support and fulfillment, where micro efforts of care and communication take the front seat. Doing Families: Three Outstanding Findings How do the forty families ‘do families’ in Hong Kong in the new millennium? What do they do? Do they think what they do is right? Are they happy with what they do? In this paper, we focus on three outstanding findings. First, doing families involves hard work, an intelligent deployment of resources, and a high degree of collaboration and investment from family members. Conventional families are indeed achieved. Second, there is in fact a double achievement in the process, one material, the other ideational. The material process of achievement refers to the strategies, decisions and action taken by family members. It is heavily influenced by the availability and use of resources. It impacts directly on the ‘political economy’ of the families concerned, from daily acts to longer-term thinking. The ideational process of achievement refers to the moral codes and emotional sentiments mobilized by family members. Familial practices are never only about decisions on work and the domestic division of labour as such, because these decisions are always shaped by certain normative expectations and emotional baggage. Our findings reveal the interesting interaction between strategies and action on the one hand and norms and emotion on the other in doing conventional families. Third, as a result of the interplay of these material and ideational processes, there exist subtle patterns of collaboration and contradiction among family members on how to do families, often divided along the lines of class and gender. Hong Kong families are indeed in flux, and they cope with this in multiple ways. We are witnessing an uncoupling of familial practices, by force or by choice. Doing Families Involves Hard Work In Hong Kong, the ‘conventional’ families are often seen as a ‘natural’ stage of life. It is almost taken for granted that most people get married, give birth to children, nurture and socialize them, and take care

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of aged relatives in some ways. How did our informants go about these ‘facts of life’? We typically started each of our interviews with questions on family formation. We soon discovered that most of our informants held some sort of modern liberal conception of family life, albeit within the broad parameters of a Chinese patrilineal structure. On the one hand, none questioned the primary status of the male line in terms of surname inheritance and family status distinction according to blood and affinal relations. On the other hand, they adhered to notions of free marriage, planned birth, privatized living units, economic autonomy, non-compulsory obligations to kin, an emphasis on conjugal relations, and children’s cognitive and moral growth. Such a conception was often not explicitly stated and least of all adhered to as a rigid guide (more of this below). Instead it served as a loose framework for them to try out various combinations of familial practices. Here ‘trying out’ is an apt word, for they gingerly lived out their lives in reaction to a shifting context of economic, social and geographical restructuring. Many times when we completed a case interview, we felt exhausted, emerging as we did from conversations that were at once ordinary and extraordinary. All of our informants reminded us that forming and sustaining an ordinary family is at the best of times a feat requiring constant work. Members worked to sustain the family as an economically viable unit by balancing employment and domestic demands. They worked to maintain its nexus of blood ties and affinal relationships. They tried to keep a standard in routine housework. They worked to sustain couples’ intimacy and ensure children got the kind of education and care parents deemed proper. All of this demanded planning, patience and persistence: I’ll do chores when I can manage . . . I do most of my office work on weekdays, so on weekends or holidays I can stay home and do laundry. (Mr Fan, no. 9)5 My husband helps the children with their homework . . . because he’s more concerned about it, while I am more relaxed . . . My husband makes it compulsory that my children have to do Chinese and English dictation every evening. That is, he picks a paragraph from the newspaper for

5 We assigned a case number to each of our forty informants (with joint interviewees from the same families sharing the same number). The first ten numbers were given to the cases we selected for in-depth discussion below. For their personal details, please see Table 1.

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dictation. Both the boy and the girl have to do the dictation together. (Mrs Liu, no. 5)

Ordinary family life demands constant work. It was also clear they lived in an extraordinary time. Our study took place in a Hong Kong context that asked big questions of families. In many ways our informants were not new to this. Throughout its post-war years, Hong Kong has undergone successive economic restructurings, and social ups and downs have been a constant feature of ordinary life. Our interviews were conducted in 2005–6, under the shadow of a series of major social changes: the aftermath of the Asian economic crisis, SARS, an administration that was unprecedentedly unpopular, rapid economic restructuring and social polarization, the further opening up of the northern border which presented unfathomed opportunities and threats; all of this plus the maturing of the ‘fourth generation’ of Hong Kong’s residents who possess quite a different view as to what is good and important in life as compared with that held by previous generations. (Ng 2005b; Lui 2007) Much of the discussion on family life by our informants was heavily shrouded in this looming sense of material and ideological uncertainties. The political economy of family living came to the fore: [They] stalled the payment of my salary. They stalled it for two or three months. I got paid in the end, but it was really hard in those waiting months. We didn’t have savings. It’d be better if we have some savings, but we didn’t have any. Sometimes we had to borrow from others . . . or we had to apply for public assistance . . . (Mrs Tang, no. 1) The construction industry in Hong Kong is not going well. In fact a lot of my friends go to Macau to look for jobs. They are doing quite well there and the pay is good. I want to give it a try too. (Mr Chiu, no. 8)

Family life is not only about economic viability. It involves moral and emotional aspects that are inextricably linked to the way one treats the young and old inside the family. Bringing up a child, for example, is an economic as well as moral act. On hearing Donald Tsang’s suggestion that people in Hong Kong should give birth to three children to help slow down population ageing, our informants responded in no uncertain terms: When you ask people to give birth to more children, do you think there will be enough jobs for them in future? (Mr Ho, no. 24) We shouldn’t follow the government blindly. If you have the ability, you can do it. If you don’t have the ability, but you force it, then it will not bring any good to our children. (Mr Sin, case no. 36)

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Bringing ‘good to the children’ goes beyond ensuring they have a job in future. It involves how they can live out a happy and worthy life. Much of our conversation in the interviews centred precisely around this issue, as we elaborate below in the section on family uncoupling. Similarly, the current and prospective moral duty to take care of the aged and sick weighed heavily on the informants’ shoulders: [On why he gave up emigrating to Australia.] For several reasons. First, there was the financial consideration. Also, I didn’t want to leave my parents behind. I felt worried. We were all leaving . . . If I left, who was going to take care of my parents? So in the end I didn’t leave. (Mr Chan, no. 6)

Understandably, many informants were conservative about their life plans in the medium term: I have thought about it. I hope in three or four years’ time there will be something, some good changes . . . Health is more important. If you have more money but you don’t have good health, that is, you work till sick, then you won’t have the will and energy to stick it out. (Mrs Wong, no. 2)

Nevertheless, they did take concrete action with their family members to cope with the challenges. This involved their making decisions on employment and other forms of economic gain, on managing the domestic household, educating the young and caring for the old, and making adjustments to the respective role of the spouses. For some, they needed to plan for the longer term as well. As a result, our informants’ ordinary family life today involved intensive work, and at times extraordinary struggle. What did they do? How did they decide? How did they modify their life plans? What have they achieved? Who achieved more? Who achieved less? Here class makes a big difference. A Double Achievement Coping with Changes—Class Matters During the interviews, many informants focused on their experience of restructuring in work and employment in the new millennium. Here we encounter a complex picture. It shows us whether and to what extent the liberal conception of family life can be realized depends first and foremost on the informants’ ability to cope materially with the recent challenges. The fact is even if people broadly aspire to the liberal conception, the concrete circumstances, timing and means involved

Housing

Relied on father-inlaw

Tang housewife; Husband construction worker

Owned private flat

Mr. Wong co-owns an electronic factory in Dongguan; Mrs. Wong takes temporary job

Mrs. Wong age 43; Finished Secondary Form 4

Husband age 35; Finished Secondary Form 3

Economic Job

Married; Mr. Wong age 46; Quitted school at 16

Married; Age 29; Finished Secondary Form 2

Profile

Husband age 40; Attained university degree

Married; Age 33; Attained university degree

Rented flat

Lived in rented flat, rent out owned flat

Wife age 46; Finished Secondary Form 5

Married: Age 47; Finished Secondary Form 5

Mr. Chan (no.6)

Rented flat

Owned private flat

The couple Both owns a small clerical insurance workers consultation firm

Husband age 49; Attained university degree

Married; Age 47; Finished Secondary Form 5

Ms. Cheung Mrs. Liu (no. 4) (no. 5)

The couple Ms. Cheung owns a small housewife; fashion stall Husband doctor

Husband age 30; Finished Secondary Form 3

Married: Age 29; Attained university degree

Tang (no. 1) Mr. & Mrs. Ms. Leung Wong (no. 2) (no. 3)

Case

Work close to the modern liberal ideal

Face difficulties in fulfilling the modern liberal ideal

Type

Owned private flat

Mr. Tam baker; Wife nurse

Wife age 35; Finished Secondary Form 5

Married: Age 35; Finished Secondary Form 3

Mr. Tam (no. 7)

Owned private flat

Mr. Chiu engineer; Girl-friend salesperson

Girl-friend age 30; Finished Secondary Form 5

Co-habitated; Age 33; Attained postgraduate degree

Mr. Chiu (no. 8)

Re-married; Age 46; Finished Secondary Form 7 Current wife age 39; Finished Secondary Form 5

Mr. Ho (no. 10)

Owned private flat

Owned private flat

Mr. Fan Both photograher; clerical Wife helps workers out family business

Wife age 32; Finished Secondary Form 3

Married: Age 44; Finished Secondary Form 5

Mr. Fan (no. 9)

Pick and choose from the modern liberal ideal

doing families in hong kong 65

Kin

Spouse

Child

Type

2 (Age 16 and 1 (Age 2) 14)

Mr. Wong’s mother

FreSister-inDaughter’s quent law, friends, classmates’ Contact some parents relatives

Have Parents and Obliga- siblings tion to Care

Tang: to be loved, to aim for better life quality

Aspiration at Marriage

Both satisfied with the division of labor

Mother and sisters

Conjugal love

Relatives or Nil neighbour in hometown

Parents and siblings

1 (Age 19)

Both care about quality

Shared caring duties

2 (Age 18 and 15)

Friends

Mother and sister

Mrs. Liu: admires husband’s quality

Churchmates

N/A

no child

Got married to fulfil parents’ order

Conflicts in child caring

Friends

Friends and colleague

Parents and sister

Mr. Chiu: Will get married to fulfil the wish of girlfriend

Tension in marriage and childbrith

Wife cares N/A about quality, husband not

Wife takes up caring duties

1 (Age 6)

Friends

Parents and siblings

Mr. Fan: An essential part of life, to fulfill mother-inlaw’s wish

Husband makes comprise to suit wife

N/A

N/A

no child

Friends

Parents and siblings

Conjugal love

Good relationship

N/A

N/A

no child

Pick and choose from the modern liberal ideal

Parents and Parents and siblings siblings

Conjugal love

Both satisfied with the division of labor

Wife cares Both care about about quality, quality husband not

Unarticulated Build aspiration economic partnership

Conflicts in Both satisfied child caring with the division of labor

Wife cares about quality, husband not

Wife takes up caring duties

2 (Age 4 and 3)

Work close to the modern liberal ideal

Wife takes up caring duties Wife takes up caring duties

2 (Age 8 and 2)

Face difficulties in fulfilling the modern liberal ideal

Emotional Aspect

Quality of Care

Division of Labor

Profile

Table (cont.)

66 ng chun-hung, ng bo-sze and anita chan kit-wa

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67

are rather different. To simplify the presentation, we tabulated ten outstanding cases from our informants below to highlight three major sets of outcomes. The contrasting outcomes pictured above drive home the fact that class matters in doing families. Family formation is in one major respect about sustaining an economically viable unit over time. Whether and how one can ‘live a good family life’ depends on certain basic material conditions. This fact is clear to our informants, who had experienced first hand the naked capitalist drive of Hong Kong for the greater part of their lives. They were also clear that the recent restructuring had created new challenges. For those holding working class jobs, many faced harsher employment conditions at work, which in many cases necessitated a re-deployment of family resources, requiring the spouse (invariably the wife) to re-enter work or work more part-time jobs to make ends meet. For those in service class jobs, most reported facing a more volatile set of opportunities and constraints. Some underwent a re-tooling of their trade and expertise. Others were intrigued by the prospect of relocating their workplace in search of newer and more attractive openings. Some were made to work long hours, compounded by a felt need to take up more ‘value-added’ courses of learning. Such differences are vividly reflected in the ways they negotiated the ‘political economy’ of their family life. The bottom line is: a viable market situation for the main earners allows for more options in their negotiation of familial tasks and connections. From the table, we see four families (case nos. 3 to 6) practising relatively closely some of the key ingredients of a modern liberal conception of family life. Not surprisingly, they were some of the most economically secure among our forty families. They were well-educated. In one case, both partners in marriage had had stable employment for years. Two currently owned a business. They reported they worked primarily ‘for interest’, or ‘to maintain a certain standard of living’. When a partner stopped work for a period (in both cases the wife) there was a clear rationale and stated plan. For example, Ms Cheung (no. 4) slotted into the role of home carer in marriage, and remarked during the time of interview that the partners discussed the plan and were happy with the division of labour. She herself treated the home caring work as a form of ‘career’, worthy of investment of time and effort. What struck us most in these four cases was a clear sense that the family members actively coped with life circumstances by collectively deploying resources, making decisions and drawing up strategies. Mr

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and Mrs Chan (case no. 6) were long-term civil servants and thus sheltered from the worst impact of the restructuring. Their family strategy was built on safeguarding a future for their daughter, who was doing the matriculation examination at the time of interview: Actually we have made plans for her. We have applied for schools in the U.K. . . . She can have more exposure and learn to live independently. If we don’t have enough money, we shall put the flat on mortgage. . . . We estimate that the tuition fees will add up to HK$300,000. We are giving her the flat. You can say we invest everything in her. When I retire, I shall take up voluntary work in the church. The pension from the government should be sufficient to sustain our needs. I don’t expect my daughter to support us. The most important thing is that she will visit us when she returns to Hong Kong. If she is not staying in the U.K., then having meals together from time to time will be good enough. (Mr Chan, no. 6)

As a result of the availability and similarly effective use of resources, the four cases reported a self-professed satisfying state of family living. All four informants expressed that they enjoyed some form of ‘partnership’ relation with their spouse. The patterning of work and domestic obligations and the choice of employment paths were rationally laid out. They treasured the companionship and intimacy between partners. They consciously designated a relatively small circle of relatives they deem as ‘core’, whom they felt obligated to help when circumstances so demanded, without burdening themselves with unrestricted demands from an outer circle of kin and friends. It should be noted that even for these four families who apparently coped well with the recent restructuring, there was in fact work done at the daily, microscopic level to maintain such a state of living. For example, all four families cared much about the quality of nurturance and education given to their children. They were fortunate in that most of the time the partners shared the concerns and requisite duties, but it was still heavy work, involving daily action and long-term planning, not least in dealing with the different agents involved in the modernday ‘tutelary complex’, such as the school, state, media and all kinds of professionals and their advice (Donzelot 1979). We discuss some of these experiences below. For the moment, we should note that the four cases represented only one of the outcomes we encountered. There were in fact informants who struggled to realize the basics of the liberal conception. Their negotiation of familial tasks walked a more constrained path. Decisions about work and domestic

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arrangements were often forced upon them, and ‘strategy’ is a luxurious word for their family making. They were the ones who faced impending economic difficulties because both partners were temporarily out of a job (no. 1), or who combined two unsteady incomes from husband and wife (no. 2). In one case, the housing situation was unstable. In both cases, the issues of childcare, household division of labour and kin obligations were handled with less open discussion and more takenfor-granted presumptions. This did not necessarily mean the couples were unhappy with all aspects of their family life, only that the recent restructuring, which brought about a deepening polarization of living conditions, had been weighing heavily on their bodies and minds. Doing families in such circumstances was a much more volatile affair. For example, Mr Wong was laid off from a job he had been in for twenty-odd years. He then had cancer treatment and had been in poor health for the past five years. Despite this, he had to continue in his investment cum supervisory work in a small electronics factory in Dongguan, which yielded limited and uncertain returns, as he was the chief earner of the family. Mrs Wong juggled the care of their two dependent children with short-term, parttime work in cleaning and auxiliary jobs in supermarkets. They were not living in poverty, and they owned their small flat, but like many families in Hong Kong, they felt a tangible uncertainty about what was in store for them in a few years’ time. During the interview, it was obvious the partners cared for each other, but the way they ‘do family’ had understandably a more ‘take-it-as-it-comes’ quality—in terms of who and how to care for their children, how to share domestic duties, what kinds of kin network they wanted to nurture, how to maintain the relationship and intimacy between the partners, and how to plan for their future in general. All of these considerations took a back seat to the question of ensuring medium-term survival: You only had five to six thousand dollars a month. It’s just impossible for a man to sustain a family, to pay the mortgage and to pay for the kids’ education on this sum. So when I heard that my husband was going to be laid off I looked for part-time jobs immediately. I have been working part-time for three years. Yes, it’s very difficult for us to find a full-time job. Because I don’t have a good education, and I have already reached middle-age, it’s more difficult to find a full-time job. Even if there is an offer, I doubt if I can cope. What is more, I have two daughters to take care of. (Mrs Wong, no. 2)

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The third group of informants listed in the table presented yet further contrasts. They, perhaps even more than the first group, were free from the direct adverse impact of restructuring. At the time of interview, both of the partners in all four families were in stable employment. They were all relatively well-educated. All four families owned their flats. The way they ‘did family’ differed noticeably from the previous two groups, in that there were obviously more points of conscious departure from the conventional family model. In terms of family formation, Mr Chiu (no. 8) cohabited for nearly two years, while Mr Ho was previously married. Three families had no children, and, during the interviews, there were many more expressed feelings of negotiation, tension and compromise in spousal relations, domestic roles, decisions on childbirth and maintenance of kin relations. [On having children.] We have a lot of quarrels about it. I keep stating my view. I am not sure if she’s really upset or she’s faking it. We quarrel about it. But I hold my ground and insist my position because I don’t like kids. I have other considerations too, like financial pressure, the pressure of being a parent and also I don’t like a noisy environment. (Mr Chiu, no. 8)

This group of informants made decisions on work, employment and domestic duties, but the decisions, when compared with those of the previous two group, were more tortuous, negotiable and reversible. They did plan on the longer term and did strategize, for example, on geographical mobility, but their plans and strategies had a contingent feel to them. It is as if they have a bigger canvas on which to paint their family stories. We see this below when we examine the way they accounted for change. Accounting for Changes: the Modern Liberal Ideal Paradoxically, the foregoing discussion on adaptive action makes clear that strategic action tells only part of the story about family life in Hong Kong today. We saw that informants in broadly the same class situations were making their families work in divergent ways. Informants not strictly bound by economic compulsion obviously tried out more and different ways to do families. As we shall see, they also explained what they did differently. More surprisingly, even though the informants in relatively stringent economic situations coped with the restructuring in outwardly similar ways, they evaluated and felt about the changes differently among themselves. The fact is family life is inherently part

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work and part discursive imagination, and the language of strategy and action is useful only as far as it goes. Family life inevitably involves an ideational aspect, whether as current aspiration, future hope or as a benchmark of retrospective evaluation. Our study reveals that the informants made their decisions and strategies with regard to a cluster of notions concerning what is right and happy about family life. The dynamic interaction of normative notions and strategic action deserves closer examination. Our informants did not just ‘do families’. They did it with a more or less articulated, and more or less coherent, ‘script’. By script, we mean a certain account of family life that defines its core ingredients, ideal state and the desirable ways to achieve the ideal. Such a script is a cultural artefact created and passed along by previous generations of society. Members of society typically modify the prevailing script in accordance with their actual life circumstances. There is hence an element of fluidity with respect to which parts of the mainstream family script they subscribe to or abandon (Stack 1974; Scarf 1995; Morgan 1999; Swidler 2001; Hochschild 2003; Popenoe 2004). During our interviews, we directly asked for informants’ ‘accounts’ of family life. We also extracted relevant notions from the comments they made on concrete issues relating to the political economy of family living. From the results, we can see several common properties to the informants’ ‘family scripts’. During the interviews, the conversation constantly moved between the informants’ accounts of their familial practices and their more general views about family life in Hong Kong. In their scripts, ordinary people live in a family at some stage, and form their own families at some other stage. Families are constituted primarily by a nucleus of husband and wife, plus their parents and children, and in addition a more or less nebulous network of siblings and other kin. Their families were not unique. After all, they were the ones currently doing conventional families. The pervasive ordinariness of family life does not diminish its centrality. In fact, none of the informants had conceived of living a life outside of a ‘familial context’, whatever that means. On the contrary, because family life is an unshakeable part of their personal makeup, they would not hesitate to devote their utmost material and emotional energy to it. For the informants, family practices follow certain identifiable life stages. We often started our interview with questions about their

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pre-marital life. None of the informants had trouble slotting into this narrative mode, and their subsequent life accounts unfolded more or less chronologically. Their accounts were structured less by precise dates and time but by what they deemed to be significant stages of familial transition such as marriage, childbirth, children’s schooling, moving of residence, job change (and its impact on the family) and the passing away of elders. Most accounts, however implicit or inchoate, drew from the modern liberal ideal. The latter is reflected in their taken-for-granted view on the composition of the ‘nucleus’ or ‘core’ members of the family, the importance of free love and life-long marriage, the centrality of the quality of (heterosexual) conjugal relations, the stress on planned birth, the importance of the intellectual and moral growth of children, the need for economic and spatial independence of the conjugal unit, and a self-delimited network of kin obligations and associations (Ng 2000). The foregoing discussion points to some of the basic ingredients of our informants’ family scripts. However, it is clear that what they held was more often than not an evolving script. It was, for most, neither fullblown nor articulated. During the interviews, we saw two facets to the informants’ accounts. When they relayed their daily acts and concrete strategies, they were clear and articulate. They were fluent about why they chose a particular line of work, why they planned for re-location and why having more than two children would be a disaster. They were much more hesitant when it came to explaining the way they acted with reference to some larger family ideals. Towards the end of each interview, we typically asked a set of normative questions about what makes for ‘good family life’. Many a time, we encountered long pauses, vague answers and apologetic amendments. Even when we did get into an elaborate discussion, the informants’ notion of an ideal family often remained a convoluted, self-confessedly contradictory one: Talking about my family ideals, well, I don’t know, I feel contradictory about it. I think I should take care of my dad, but I don’t live with him. I think it’s all right not to get married, but I feel I should get married. It’s so contradictory. Don’t know, don’t know how to talk about it. What I meant by modern and traditional is, well I . . . I am modern in many aspects. But when it comes to taking care of my parents I am . . . I feel that they are the things that one should do whether you are modern or traditional.

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[On relationships,] I am more on the modern side. If I am traditional, then I should have got married when I was twenty years old. I shall be punished if I don’t do so by twenty-five. For my girlfriend to remain unmarried at thirty is just unacceptable. It’s a new thing that people don’t want kids. In fact many other people don’t want kids. I am not alone. But I am more radical because I hate kids. Most people don’t want kids because it’s too big a responsibility, both economic and emotional. If you define it in the above terms, then I am modern. (Mr Chiu, no. 8)

It is understandably difficult to formulate clear-cut answers to abstract questions of morality and emotion in an interview situation. Our informants simply did not carry a full-blown family ideal in the day-to-day ambit of thinking and action. Furthermore, the ideal itself has always been besieged by internal contradictions, for example, in the way it asks women to be free economic agents at the same time they serve as willingly subservient managers of the privatized domestic abode (Forty 1986; Williams 1987), or in the call for children to be freely roaming subjects while being subjected to all sorts of disciplinary practices mandated by the modern tutelary complex (Donzelot 1979; James, Jenks, and Prout 1998). The modern, Western, liberal ideal is also, even today, intertwined with ‘traditional’ or, in the words of M. K. Lee, ‘modified’ notions of Chinese family and kinship, the latter accompanied by more than a trace of Chinese patriarchal preferences (Lee 1987, 1995; Ng 2003). The upshot of all this is the ideal cannot be put to use without compromise and amendment. For our informants, the modern liberal ideal typically served as a loose, working framework for them to fill in their own peculiar life details, modify in accordance with life happenings and rework in the aftermath of life transforming events. In the face of the recent restructuring, the framework was particularly ripe for filling in, modifying and reworking. The informants had to improvise and grope in relatively uncharted territory for a sound, if not the best, way to cope with the challenges and explain to themselves that what they did was proper and right. Therefore, on top of the view that the family is ordinary, central and develops in certain accustomed stages, there was a clear sense among our informants that doing families is an ongoing project. It was a project accompanied by hope, pride, happiness, frustration and crises. Transitions in familial practices were not seen as quasi-automatic happenings, but as challenges to be met and puzzles to be solved. The transitions could not be ‘settled’, but could only be more or less successfully ‘managed’. This explains why among our informants there

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was a prevailing sense that family projects were at all times incomplete. There were bound to be constant negotiations among family members on the best way forward. As a result of such negotiation, we see a tantalizing range of uncoupled familial practices among our informants, and their use of a mix of discursive elements to make sense of such uncoupling. Uncoupling and its Discursive Justifications Familial ideals often present practices surrounding the family as a more coherent package than they actually are. Thus, in the modern liberal ideal, romantic dating normally precedes freely entered marriage, which in turn provides the proper framework for conjugal intimacy, the couples’ pursuit of economic achievement, planned childbirth, tutored child development and appropriate care of the sick and aged. The stages of family life are like successive scenes in a script more or less written beforehand. Now we know this notion of a coherent, unified family ideal has been under challenge almost since its inception in Western European countries in the nineteenth century. Among other things, the notion perpetuates the erroneous view that there is one fixed family type or package endorsed and practised by all, irrespective of class, gender and racial conditions. This view was not true in the nineteenth century and is less so in the twenty-first (Coontz 1992; Hall 1992). Instead, as a result of sea changes in social structure and ideology, today we see various familial practices increasingly ‘uncoupled’ from each other. The presumed ‘natural’ links among romance, love, intimacy, marriage, sex, childbirth, child education, caring duties, economic achievement and the preferred sexual and generational division of roles are detached to an increasing extent (Coontz 1997; Morgan 2001; Hantrais 2004). Scholars have long been interested in how marital partnerships are made, unmade and remade. The terms uncoupling and re-coupling in family studies originate from a concern with understanding the rising tide of divorce and remarriage in the US and a number of Western countries in the past few decades. By looking closely at how marital partnerships are uncoupled and re-coupled, scholars aim to examine the moral, emotional and rational edifice of modern marriages (Wolfinger 2005). This concern with the nature of modern marriages soon expanded in scope, with increasing interest in the principles and practices of

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different modes of partnership in addition to marriage, ranging from cohabitation to step-families, the phenomenon of living apart together (LAT), multiple partners (or so-called polyamour) and same-sex marriage. Heterosexual monogamous marriage is now considered not to be the only or even the preferred mode of partnership. People can and do choose whether, when and how to form unions. Once a union is formed, people can and often do deliberate and decide on how best to engage in a range of practices previously deemed more or less obligatory in a marital union, e.g., setting up a secure and comfortable abode, giving birth to and nurturing children, maintaining a certain gender division of labour in household tasks and decision-making, and practising a certain form of care and intimacy towards partners and relatives. They also try to rethink these acts with principled justifications. In other words, the package of practices previously associated with marriage and family is now seen not as a rigid package after all. In an era of ‘individualization’ and the rise of the ‘new family’, conventional notions of marriage and family are being re-examined, with the seemingly automatic links among familial practices loosened, or ‘uncoupled’, from one another, thus resulting in a state of what sociologist Ulrick Beck calls ‘precarious freedom’. People have to work on these freedoms and choose their own modes of living, familial or otherwise (Giddens 1992; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 1999; Stacey 1996; Silva and Smart 1999). Our informants came from ‘conventional families’, yet even among them, we see tendencies of uncoupled familial practices. We see multiple combinations in the way our informants did families. We also see multiple ways in which they explained what they did. We can group these into two broad scenarios. In both, class and gender dynamics abound. Survival and the Male Breadwinner Model For those in working class jobs, the harsh demands of life often compelled a certain degree of uncoupling, irrespective of what the family members desired. From the supposed ‘chain’ of familial practices, the informants stressed one part of the package and touched slightly on the others. Typically, the matter of survival and security took priority. In terms of political economy, husband and wife devoted the best part of their energy to sustaining an economically viable unit. Very often both partners had to work, and they stayed in their current, often undesirable, jobs out of necessity. They adapted to their work patterns and carried out their familial tasks methodically, seemingly without a

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moment’s thought on other so-called ‘requisite’ moral precepts of the modern liberal ideal, e.g., creating a child-centred moral regime or building a genteel private enclave that fulfils the dream of the modern domestic ideal. The informants cared for their children, practically and emotionally, but they never elaborated to us a vision of childcare and development. Their children went through a lot less of the ‘prescribed’ acts of learning for self-enhancement that their better-off middle class counterparts deemed indispensable. Their domestic abode was often plain and functional, with nary a thought to matching decorative colours with children’s characters in the name of moral and cultural cultivation (Kan 2000; Ng 2000; Fong 2007). Any discussion of the couples’ sexual and emotional intimacy was deemed firmly off-topic. The tone of accounting for their survival was almost matter-of-fact: I don’t know about economy. But if it goes on like this, we need to plan for changes after the new year. A new casino in Macau will open soon. We plan to go back to Macau. I don’t know about my daughter’s education yet, but one of us can go back first if we can’t find a job here. If both my husband and I have a job in Macau, then we [the entire family] can all go over there. I shall think about my daughter’s education then. I don’t have to worry so much about money in Macau. You can survive on three to four thousand dollars a month . . . but the working hours are not so stable. Working in the casino you can earn at least five to six thousand dollars a month . . . if my husband earns ten thousand or so, and I earn a few thousand then there’ll be twenty thousand and it’s enough. (Ms Tang, no. 1)

As we saw in the aforementioned case of the Wongs (no. 2), for some informants the acts of adaptation came down to a variant of the male breadwinner model, with the husband as the main earner and the wife supplementing (with part-time jobs) and doubling up as home carer. They seldom discussed the pattern, obviously not seeing it as a wellplanned act or a strategically or morally preferred outcome. It would be easy to fall back on the Chinese patriarchal notion of ‘men for the outside and women for the inside’ for ideological comfort. However, that was not what they preferred. In terms of discursive justifications, the language of fate, chance and self-reliance predominated. Th ey preferred to put their current difficulties down to ‘luck’, ‘co-incidence’ and ‘that’s the way things are in Hong Kong’. They did not expect or ask for help from the government or other social agents. They had to count on themselves:

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[On his illness from cancer.] I am not too worried. You don’t need to worry too much about life. If you get sick, you find a doctor . . . The doctor said it’s no big deal . . . things would be OK after the treatment . . . The only concern was whether I’d be fit to work again. It’s lucky that I was an office worker then. If I worked in a construction site then I wouldn’t be able to manage. (Mr Wong, no. 2)

It was not only about survival. They thought ‘doing their part conscientiously’ was the right thing to do, and that would see them through the worst scenes of life. Their self-defined primary task now was to make the best of a world full of unknowns, and live life with ‘perseverance and dignity’. When talking to them, we were reminded of the stories of the working class described in Richard Sennett’s The Corrosion of Character (1998). In this book, the life narrative of the workers revolved around the notion of character. The workers studied felt they were respectable not because of what they achieved in material terms (which often amounted to little), but because they devoted their lives to a career of craft work and persevered through thick and thin, taking responsibility for making a living for themselves and their families. Devotion and self-control endowed them with the right character. And that earned the respect of family members. Our study was not designed to elicit in detail these notions of working class narrative and character from the informants. However, we did detect a similar sentiment among them. In the case of Mr and Mrs Wong, neither spent time questioning the way they currently went about work and the domestic division of labour (although Mrs Wong was obviously worried about the health of her husband). They shared the same discourse that by performing the male breadwinner and female carer/supplementary earner role to the utmost, they would secure the livelihood of their family and set a good, or one might say moral, example for their children. They did not know whether this had anything to do with notions of ‘tradition’, ‘modernity’, ‘Chinese’ or ‘Western’. They just knew it was a project they could take pride in. There were other informants in a similar situation, offering a similar response. What they drew on was obviously not the modern liberal discourse of good family life, and even less on notions of Chinese familism. They lived in ‘conventional’ families, yet forming and sustaining those families was a project that required daily hard work and major adaptation to shifting social circumstances. Their projects were not articulated in terms of explicit visions and plans. Their accounts of family life were couched more in terms of pressure points and strategic resolutions.

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They developed a set of familial practices that currently highlighted economic security over and above other precepts, no matter whether grounded in the Western liberal ideal or in Chinese patriarchalism. They relied on a social discourse that stressed the fickleness of life and the importance of self-reliance. Their self-respect and life satisfaction came from ‘doing it the right way’ rather than ‘making it’ in the cutthroat game of social aggrandizement in Hong Kong. Dignity and care mattered more than success and growth. Adapting, Upgrading and Uncoupling For those in non-working class jobs, their relatively better-off (but also volatile) conditions encouraged them to pick and choose from the package of the modern liberal ideal and live out a life that fit their interests and moral preferences. They did families more flexibly, and accounted for what they did in more divergent and well-considered ways. Here we can detect several forms of uncoupling projects, particularly from the last three informants listed on the right-hand side of Table 1. On the surface, all three families share certain common features with the modern liberal ideal, tinged with certain elements of Chinese familism, especially in relation to kin obligations. They got married or were planning to marry at a ‘socially appropriate’ age. They subscribed to notions of romantic love and deemed intimacy between the couples to be a paramount ingredient in a good family life. They designated a core group of kin consisting of their parents and siblings for frequent interaction and mutual aid, but were consciously selective outside of that core. They had a strong desire for economic achievement and at the time of interview were economically relatively well-off and able to own their own flats. However, each of them chose some form of uncoupling in familial practices and utilized different elements of moral justification for their choice. Amidst all this, the importance of individualization and gender negotiation stood out. Individualization: the literature on the modern family has pinpointed the ‘transformation of intimacy’ and the trend of individualization as a significant turning point in family development in the West (Giddens 1992; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2001). In Hong Kong it is surmised that, in common with the trend in many advanced countries, sections of the population have begun to question whether the ‘conventional family’ is the only or ideal form of family to live in (Koo and Wong in

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this issue). This has repercussions for their decisions about marriage, childbirth, family formation and the way they handle conjugal and generational relations. In the West, individualization is manifested in people’s preferences to uncouple love, marriage and childbirth. It also is underlined by their readiness to rework partner relations, gender roles and generational and affinal linkages with defensible moral principles. Two of our cases nicely revealed how individualization works here in Hong Kong. Mr Chiu (no. 8), aged 33, had been cohabiting with his girlfriend for nearly two years at the time of interview. He had all along preferred not to get married, as ‘he has no particular fondness for children’ and getting married would only compromise his mobility and career plans. The latter was driven home to him concretely when he had to contemplate a move to Macau in search of career opportunities because of the uncertainties of his trade in Hong Kong: So far I am still unmarried and we are going quite steady. I asked her about moving to Macau. She was against it. But she can’t stop me. I have to do it. Maybe we’ll break up then. (Mr. Chiu, no. 8)

The move did not materialize. He currently very much enjoyed the companionate relationship with his partner and could envisage living happily with her and the four cats he had reared for an indefinite period of time. However, tension arose as his girlfriend was looking to get married to him and eventually to have children. For this they had been ‘in constant negotiation’, with the pros and cons of the relevant decisions repeatedly brought into the open. At the time of interview, Mr Chiu was contemplating making a compromise to agree to get married, but was not willing to budge on the issue of children, for which they had been in a series of big quarrels. Why then did he agree to get married? Sometimes I have little confidence in the marriage system . . . If I can choose, I’d rather not get married. In the past I resisted it [marriage]. Then I disagreed with it. Now I begin to accept it. Maybe I am getting old. I think that life . . . life has no aim. Life is a journey to enjoy. Marriage is a journey too. Maybe one needs to marry once. (Mr Chiu, no. 8)

Children, as he currently assessed, were a nuisance and an economic and moral burden:

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ng chun-hung, ng bo-sze and anita chan kit-wa I still hate kids now. Maybe in five or seven years time, or maybe it won’t take that long, I’ll change and I’ll want my own kids. In fact, I can wait till then to get married. (Mr Chiu, no. 8)

His tactic now was to “stall, until she is thirty-five years of age, when giving birth might entail some danger. Then it would be time to make a decision”. Mr Ho (no. 10), aged 46, was in his second marriage at the time of interview. His first marriage ended in a most unhappy manner and he was weary of any repeat. Before he decided to get married again in 1996, he made it clear to himself and his future wife that they should reason things through and lay things down in principle before making any decisions. They were to have no children, even if their parents objected. He reached a consensus with his future wife through prolonged and open discussion: I told her I came from a divorce, and I didn’t want more kids. She agreed to it. She didn’t mind. She thought it’d be happier if we shared the same views. This is a decision that affects my happiness, not that of my family members. She thinks the same too. She does not want children. Even though her parents don’t agree, it’s none of their business. She is not going to have kids just to satisfy them . . . You shouldn’t do something that affects your whole life for this reason. There is really no need. She has the same view too. So we really match each other. It’s rare . . . This is how we handle it. Because we handle it skilfully, the outcome is good. (Mr Ho, no. 10)

Their parents did object, but as the couple had made a firm decision with a clear rationale well before marriage, there was no point to insist otherwise. They now thoroughly enjoyed life as a childless couple. Both worked in the government, with stable jobs and a steady income. They owned a well-decorated and comfortable flat; kept a cat and a rabbit, had a decent hi-fi system, a collection of toys and bottles of red wine in a cupboard. They discussed and decided upon a mutually agreed sexual division of labour—he was responsible for ‘things outside’ and she for ‘things inside’, in principle, with a degree of give and take. Gender: This pattern of sexual division of labour may provoke unease among scholars who predict that individualization will work to undermine existing gender divisions and elevate women’s autonomy in the process. It is especially deflating for feminist scholars to observe that

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despite trends towards increasing individual deliberation and reasoned negotiation, men are often still the stable core of the family, acting as bread winner, or as Mr Ho put it, the person ‘responsible for things outside’. Apparently, patriarchal thinking dies hard. However, for our informants, the process actually worked in subtly more interesting ways. Mr Fan (no. 9), aged 44, was a photographer by trade. In 1998 he married his wife, who is 12 years younger, and who worked at a coffee shop. She continued to be in gainful employment after marriage and worked until late on the evening of our interview. Compared with Mr Ho’s family, they engaged in a much looser form of sexual division of labour at home. Mr Fan expressed that he liked his home neat and tidy, and “could not bear rubbish lying around”, while his wife had an “aversion to tidying up things”. As a result, he took on more responsibilities for the ‘things inside’: My wife has to go out early every morning to help in her mother’s store; I therefore have more time. I’ll do housework when I can manage. I do laundry because I have more time. (Mr Fan, no. 9)

The re-negotiation of domestic roles and gender expectations continued with the question of having children. Mr Fan said he simply “loved children”, and “tradition decreed that a good family should have children around”. Having a child would also help to keep his wife, who reportedly loved to run free and did not live by the books as far as rituals and family relationships are concerned, around more: Before I got married some friends analyzed things for me . . . So I knew what they encountered when they got married and had kids. I knew what I needed to do and how to do them. (Mr Fan, no. 9)

However, Mrs Fan resisted the proposition, and after extensive discussion, Mr Fan gradually came to see the issue differently: When men reach forty . . . My friends said if you have kids when you’re older, you won’t have the energy. You can’t stay up late with the kids. Also in the early months, you have to get up at night to feed the baby. You have a part to play. And then later you have to spend time to nurture the children. You have a responsibility to fulfil. (Mr Fan, no. 9)

In view of these considerations and hesitations, he agreed to do it her way. At the time of interview, the couple remained childless and their negotiated family project continued apace.

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The case of Ms Cheung, aged 33 (no. 5), presents another interesting take on matters of gender roles and divisions. Ms Cheung worked in music education before marriage. She quit work one year after marriage, on giving birth to the first of her two children in 2001, to become a full-time home carer. Ms Cheung’s husband was a doctor, who earned stable and high income, and they remain economically well-off despite the restructuring. On the surface, this is a classic enactment of the male breadwinning model, and Ms Cheung sacrificed her own interests and talent in music for her children and family. However, the interview was memorable for the energy and elation shown by Ms Cheung on how she took on and achieved in this home caring role. She stated in no uncertain terms that she never regretted quitting her job in music education: I don’t feel lost. On the contrary, I feel I have wasted time. I should have given birth to children earlier so I could get the task done earlier. I should have given birth to more. Two is not enough. It’d be wonderful if time could be reversed. I would have given birth to more. Children are very lovely. Also my husband has a theory. He said Bach’s mother gave birth to many children, and she produced only one Bach. I have only two children, so the chance that they will become someone big is low. There wouldn’t be a good chance even if I had more than two children. (Ms Cheung, no. 5)

She accepted the prevailing practice that man is the economic provider, but insisted there was another equally important job to be done outside of the economic sphere. For her the family project is primarily a child-centred project. At the end of the day, the success or otherwise of a family project is assessed not by its accumulated wealth, but by the achievement of its children. To ensure such achievement, the ability of the one who led the way and managed the requisite routines was central. She placed herself squarely at the helm of this project, and throughout the interview detailed the ways she engaged in macro planning and micro management: I create songs with my kids. Sometimes I sing some notes and they turn into a song which I’ll keep singing. My kids follow me and learn to sing the song. My kids joined some classes for a short time, but I found there were problems. The teachers were not good enough. Hong Kong, unlike other places, is very materialistic. There are many things that draw your mind away. The teachers are not focused enough. They cannot execute a good programme. (Ms Cheung, no. 5)

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She made detailed plans for her children from early on and discussed them frequently with her husband. She proposed to move to their current residence because it is close to the Central Library, and her children could be exposed constantly to a learned environment. We actually had our interview at the Hong Kong Central Library, where her two small children were left free to roam, read and absorb the atmosphere. If family projects are projects of pride and hope, then Ms Cheung certainly shows tremendous pride in a project she has pinned a lot of hopes on. She felt this was the right thing to do. She was happy. The moral and emotional economy did not follow the logic of political economy. Familial practices and individual scripts can be uncoupled in unexpected ways. Ms Cheung’s case confirms Koo and Wong’s (in this issue) argument that “individualization is thus about the reworking of relationships in a more flexible, contingent and negotiated manner. In the family context, such reworking does not necessarily mean the erosion of family mutuality or the discrediting of family values”. In sum, the above experiences departed in interesting ways from the core features of the modern liberal ideal. We see some of the informants choosing cohabitation, deferring marriage, deciding on childlessness, entering into reconstituted marriage based on principled discussion and initiating a subtle re-negotiation of gender roles. The informants were relatively less constrained by their class conditions, and were able to recombine their familial practices in relation to childbirth, child socialization and the gender division of labour. They worked with the ideological resources at their disposal to add unforeseen elements into their family scripts. For all of them, family life is a working project with no predetermined outcome. The project may be rife with tension and uncertainties, but it is also full of hope and promise. This is as life should be. We have analyzed the experience of a group of conventional families. We expect the tension, uncertainties, promises and hopes to multiply as we move to examine other families in our future work. Summary and Implications Family life is an ongoing project that brings together members’ overarching ideals, local interpretations and action in context. Modern Hong Kong families are constituted by practices that require constant negotiation and sense making. They are surrounded by contradictory moral calls and pressure points. They also act as sources of personal

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elation and frustration. The theoretical and practical implications of this picture are many. Here we would narrow our observations to four. 1. Universalistic theories about family change in Hong Kong should be eschewed. We should instead pay full heed to the call to examine how people do families in context. The aim is to identify multiple paths, complex actions and negotiable ways of family life (Ng 1994; Shae and Ho 2001). As we have seen, class and gender dynamics play a big part in these and should be at the centre of future analysis (Wong and Lui 1992; Ng 2005a; Kong in this issue; Ng and Ng in this issue; Wong in this issue). 2. We should systematically study the processes and outcomes of uncoupling in familial practices in Hong Kong today. Uncoupling has often been linked, not without controversy, to trends of individualization in the literature (Vanevery 1999; Bauman 2001; Beck and BeckGernsheim 2001; Smart and Shipman 2004). Here we see that even in conventional families who have no intention of trying out new principles of confluent love or alternative ethics of care, uncoupling is the order of life. Uncoupling is sometimes brought about by the fact that the prevalent family script is not of one piece. It is a mix of contradictory elements demanding users to make adjustments of their own. Uncoupling is also encouraged by strategic reactions to tangible pressures brought by social and economic restructuring. 3. This paper highlights some of the processes and reasoning in doing families in contemporary Hong Kong. More needs to be done, not least in identifying broader patterns and systematic packages in how people adapt and change in the process of social restructuring (Koo and Wong in this issue). Our future work will expand on these issues based on a territory-wide survey of over 2000 respondents. 4. Families exist in the plural. Family projects are multiple, contingent and negotiated. It is dangerous, in the name of overcoming a crudely imagined family crisis, to devise a family policy that attempts to mould and fit all. We have seen there exists in Hong Kong a mix of familial practices and ways of accounting for them. The fact is Hong Kong families do not exist outside of social structures that produce systematically divided opportunities and challenges. Social restructuring is not class or gender blind. Any policy on the family must contain a serious examination of such social structural conditions of enablement and constraints for different sections of the population. We should also note the existence of conflicting

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discourses within the modern liberal family ideal. Different family members have different interests and perceptions in negotiating their way through familial discourses and practices. A policy on family must be open and plural and leave room for different accounting methods, catering to divergent but equally valid ways of conducting family life (Hantrais and Letablier 1996; Wright and Jagger 1999; Demo, Allen and Fine 2000; Hantrais 2004; Shae and Wong in this issue). References Bauman, Zygmunt. 2001. The Individualized Society. Cambridge: Polity. Beck, Ulrick and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim. 2001. Individualization. London: Sage. Chan, Kit-wa. 2004. “The Making of Gender in Families.” Pp. 397–419 in Gendering Hong Kong, edited by Kit-wa Chan and Wai-ling Wong. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. Coontz, Stephanie. 1992. The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap. New York: Basic Books. ——. 1997. The Way We Really Are: Coming to Terms with America’s Changing Families. New York: Basic Books. Demo, David H., Katherine R. Allen and Mark A. Fine (eds.). 2000. Handbook of Family Diversity. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Donzelot, Jacques. 1979. The Policing of Families. New York: Pantheon. Fong, Ka-ki. 2007. Consuming Home in Hong Kong: A Qualitative Study of Middle Class Aspirations and Practice. Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong. (M.Phil. Thesis). Forty, Adrain. 1986. Objects of Desire: Design and Society from Wedgewood to IBM. London: Thames and Hudson. Giddens, Anthony. 1992. The Transformation of Intimacy. Cambridge: Polity. Hall, Catherine. 1992. White, Male and Middle Class: Explorations in Feminism and History. Cambridge: Polity. Hantrais, Linda. 2004. Family Policy Matters: Responding to Family Change in Europe. Bristol: The Policy Press. ——. and Marie-Therese Letablier. 1996. Families and Family Policies in Europe. London: Longman. Hochschild, Arlie. 2003. The Commercialization of Intimate Life: Notes from Home and Work. Berkeley: University of California Press. James, Allison, Chris Jenks and Alan Prout. 1998. Theorizing Childhood. Cambridge: Polity. Kan, Man-yee. 2000. Between House and Home: Contesting Domestic Ideals of Middle Class Couples in Hong Kong. Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong. (M.Phil. Thesis). Lau, Siu-kai. 1981. “Utilitarianistic Familism: The Basis of Political Stability.” Pp. 195–216 in Social Life and Development in Hong Kong, edited by Ambrose Y. C. King and Rance C. L. Lee. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. Lee, Ming-kwan. 1987. “The Hong Kong Family: Organization and Change.” Pp. 152–178 in Hong Kong Politics and Society in Transition, edited by Ming-kwan Lee. Hong Kong: The Commercial Press. (in Chinese) ——. 1995. “The Family Way.” Pp. 1–20 in Indicators of Social Development: Hong Kong 1993, edited by Ming-kwan Lee, Shirley Po-san Wan and Siu-lun Wong.

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Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Lui, Tai-lok. 2008. Hong Kong’s Four Generations. Hong Kong: Step Forward. (in Chinese) Morgan, David H. 1996. Family Connections. Cambridge: Polity Press. ——. 1999. “Risk and Family Practices: Accounting for Change and Fluidity in Family Life.” Pp. 13–30 in The New Family?, edited by Elizabeth B. Silva and Carol Smart. London: Sage. ——. 2001. “Family Sociology in from the Fringe: The Three ‘Economies’ of Family Life.” Pp. 227–248 in Developments in Sociology, edited by Robert G. Burgess and Anne Murcott. New York: Prentice Hall. Ng, Chun-hung. 1989. “Family Crisis: Whose crisis?” Ming Pao Monthly 1: 3–10. (in Chinese) ——. 1994. “Power, Identity and Economic Change: 25 Years of Family Studies in Hong Kong.” Pp. 94–110 in 25 Years of Social and Economic Development in Hong Kong, edited by Benjamin K. P. Leung and Teresa Y. C. Wong. Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies, The University of Hong Kong. ——. 1995. “Bringing Women Back in: Family Change in Hong Kong.” Pp. 74–100 in Women in Hong Kong, edited by Veronica Pearson and Benjamin K. P. Leung. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. ——. 2000. “From ‘Shelter’ to ‘Home’.” Pp. 22–37 in Hong Kong Home: Multi-stories, edited by the Hong Kong Heritage Museum. Hong Kong: Leisure and Cultural Services Department. ——. 2003. “Family.” Pp. 69–98 in The Hong Kong Women’s File, 2003 Edition, edited by Suet-lin Hung and Kwok-kin Fung. Hong Kong: Association for the Advancement of Feminism. ——. 2005a. “Women.” Pp. 237–246 in Social Development In Hong Kong: The Unfinished Agenda, edited by Richard Estes. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ——. 2005b. “After the Crises: Changes in Social Ethos.” Pp. 265–284 in Indicators of Social Development: Hong Kong 2004, edited by Siu-kai Lau, Ming-kwan Lee, Po-san Wan and Siu-lun Wong. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Popenoe, David. 2004. “Modern Marriage: Revising the Cultural Script.” Pp. 170–185 in The Gendered Society Reader, edited by Michael S. Kimmel and Amy Aronson. New York: Oxford University Press. Salaff, Janet. 1981. Working Daughters of Hong Kong. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Scarf, Maggie. 1995. Intimate Worlds: Life Inside the Family. New York: Random House. Sennett, Richard. 1998. The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism. New York: Norton. Shae, Wan-chaw and Kwo-leung Ho. 2001. “W(h)ither Hong Kong Families and Family Studies: From the Traditional via the Modern to the Postmodern?” Hong Kong Journal of Sociology 2: 85–122. Silva, Elizabeth B. and Carol Smart (eds.). 1999. The New Family? London: Sage. Smart, Carol and Beccy Shipman. 2004. “Visions in Monochrome: Families, Marriage and the Individualization Thesis.” The British Journal of Sociology 55(4): 491–509. Stacey, Judith. 1996. In the Name of the Family: Rethinking Family Values in the Postmodern Age. Boston: Beacon Press. Stack, Carol. 1974. All Our Kin: Strategies for Survival in a Black Community. New York: Harper & Row. Swidler, Ann. 2001. Talk of Love: How Culture Matters. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Vanevery, Jo. 1999. “From Modern Nuclear Family Households to Postmodern Diversity? The Sociological Construction of ‘Families’.” Pp. 165–184 in Changing Family Values, edited by Gill Jagger and Caroline Wright. London: Routledge. Williams, Peter. 1987. “Constituting Class and Gender: A Social History of the Home 1700–1901.” Pp. 154–204 in Class and Space: The Making of Urban Society, edited by Nigel Thrift and Peter Williams. London: RKP. Wolfinger, Nicholas H. 2005. Understanding the Divorce Cycle: The Children of Divorce in their Own Marriages. New York: Cambridge University Press. Wong, Fai-ming. 1979. “Family Structure and Processes in Hong Kong.” Pp. 95–121 in Hong Kong; Economic, Social and Political Studies in Development, edited by Tzongbiau Lin, Rance Pui-leung Lee and Udo Ernst Simonis. New York: M. E. Sharpe. Wong, Thomas Wai-pong. 2002. “Parent’s Choice: A Note on Parental Values and Social Class.” Pp. 183–208 in Indicators of Social Development: Hong Kong 2001, edited by Shiu-kai Lau, Ming-kwan Lee, Po-san Wan and Siu-lun Wong. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. ——. and Tai-lok Lui. 1992. “Reinstating Class: A Structural and Developmental Study of Hong Kong.” Occasional Paper No. 10. Hong Kong: Social Sciences Research Centre and Department of Sociology, University of Hong Kong. Wright, Caroline and Gill Jagger. 1999. “End of Century, End of Family?: Shifting Discourses of Family ‘crisis’.” Pp. 17–37 in Changing Family Values, edited by Gill Jagger and Caroline Wright. London: Routledge.

WHO SHOULD CARE? PERCEPTIONS OF CAREGIVING RESPONSIBILITY WITHIN THE HOUSEHOLD Odalia M. H. Wong Abstract Who Should Care? Perceptions of Caregiving Responsibility within the Household As the population continues to age across the world’s industrial economies, the question of how to care for the elderly is becoming an increasingly pressing issue. Hong Kong is no exception to this global trend. In fact, Hong Kong’s population is set to age even more rapidly than many industrial economies, in part because of its combination of an exceptionally low fertility rate and high longevity, even when compared to countries well known for their population aging issues. For example, in 2008, the life expectancy at birth for Hong Kong was 82, and the fertility rate was 1.0. Corresponding numbers were 78 and 2.1 for the US, 79 and 1.9 for the UK, 81 and 1.9 for Sweden, and 82 and 1.3 for Japan, respectively (Population Reference Bureau 2008). Consequently, a quarter of Hong Kong’s population is expected to be aged 65 or above by 2031, while the size of the workforce is projected to shrink as the prime working age population declines (Hong Kong Government 2003). Evidently, the issue of how to care for the elderly is set to become increasingly challenging in the coming years. Since most elderly care is provided within the household, the question naturally arises as to how the increasing burden of elderly care will be handled within the family, and what its impact and implications are (Shanas 1979; Schneider and Wang 1994; Liu and Kendig 2000). One important question is how the increasing caregiving burden will be shared among household members. This paper examines families’ attitudes towards family-based elderly care, especially regarding the division of labour among household members in this task. The question boils down to a simple one—who should care for the elderly in the household? Of course, perceptions of the proper assignment of responsibilities of household tasks among

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family members are related to its practice, and therefore the object of study in this paper is not limited to perceptions, but also includes family practices. Despite its importance, not much research has been done in gauging the general attitude of family members as to who should care for the elderly. Past research on family caregiving has focused on primary caregivers and considered why they have become caregivers and the challenges that confront them (Stein et al. 1998; Xiong 1998; Walker et al. 1989). A smaller body of research has focused on the care-receivers, and their perceptions of the preferred caregiving arrangement for themselves. By contrast, little research has been done on the attitudes and roles of general family members—i.e., members of the family other than the primary caregivers and the care receivers. This gap in the literature is unsatisfactory because it leaves us with little understanding of how the family functions as a unit in providing care for its elderly members (Guberman, Maheu, and Maille 1992; Piercy 1998; Davey and Szinovacz 2008). The growing body of literature on doing families also indicates that families and what they practise cannot be properly understood without examining the underlying dynamics of the relationships among family members. In applying the analytical approach of doing families to the issue of family-based caregiving, it becomes apparent that for a family member to become the primary caregiver is usually not a decision made unilaterally and in isolation. Rather, it is often the product of a process influenced by the attitudes of siblings and other family members, and the relative availability of resources to them. Furthermore, the caregiving arrangement is often the product of a negotiating process that may be open and direct or concealed and indirect, and laden with ideas of exchange and reciprocity (Morgan 2001). Clearly, to understand how the family delivers caregiving and why certain family members actually end up taking up the role of primary caregiver requires research that goes beyond the primary caregiver to encompass the whole family (Finch and Mason 1999; Keating et al. 2003; Szinovacz and Davey 2007). Research into perceptions of family members towards elderly care will also facilitate our understanding of some key issues of ongoing research interest in the caregiving literature, namely societal caregiving values and gender. The focus on primary caregivers in the existing literature raises the issue of sample bias due to self-selection when it comes to the issue of caregiving values. In such studies, filial piety has typically been found to be a motive for family members to take up caregiving.

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But does this result imply that filial piety as a cultural value is alive and well? Or is it due to biased sampling because we have limited our investigation to individuals who have ended up serving as primary caregivers to begin with? This point illustrates that research into the perceptions towards caregiving among general family members that typically include both caregivers and non-caregivers is important in gaining a proper understanding of societal caregiving values such as filial piety and how this aspect of the moral economy of the family may be evolving over time (Morgan 2001). Another aspect of particular interest is the gender dimension in caregiving, as we investigate public attitudes as to how caregiving responsibilities should be assigned among family members, and how such attitudes may explain observed genderized patterns of caregiving practice. Again, such a research strategy that uses the family rather than selective family members (such as primary caregivers) as the unit of analysis is preferable from the point of view of doing families as we investigate how family values and practices evolve over time in response to social and economic change. Literature Review and Research Issues This brief literature review is not meant to be comprehensive, but instead focuses on two issues that are central to the purpose of this paper: gender and filial piety. Genderization of Caregiving It is well known that the household division of labour regarding caregiving tasks remains skewed along gender lines. A number of empirical findings have indicated that women continue to undertake most of the daily chores involved in elderly care despite their increased participation in the labour force (Stone, Cafferata, and Sangl 1987; Coward and Dwyer 1990; Moen, Robinson and Fields 1994; Brody 2004). Similar findings are obtained in studies in Hong Kong (Hong Kong Council of Social Service 1994; Ngan and Wong 1995; Wong 2003). A critical paper was contributed by Finley (1989), who finds that existing theories cannot account for the lack of male contribution to the caregiving process. Adding an ironic twist, males typically believe that they have done their share, while in reality they have not (at least according to Finley’s research and her review of the evidence in the literature). Finley suggests that such inconsistency may be due to male

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dominance in society where male contributions are simply deemed to be more valuable.ġThus, even when a male puts in less time and effort to a task compared to a female, the two could be perceived to have contributed equally if the male is generally seen to be more productive. Another line of argument found in the literature is that the predominance of female caregivers is due to socialization processes that have led women to become care providers (Hooyman and Gonyea 1995). A contrary—though in the minority—finding was reported by Kwok (2006) in the context of Hong Kong. Kwok reports that Hong Kong adult sons actively participate in the actual behaviour of care of their elderly parents, especially in financial and emotional support, to an extent comparable to their female counterparts. One has to wonder why there exist such irreconcilable findings in the literature. One reason may be due to insufficient attention to the distinction between the role of care manager and that of care provider (Montgomery and Datwyler 1990). A care manager is one who has broad responsibility for the well-being of the care receiver and coordinates the provision of services by others, while a care provider is one who physically performs these services him or herself. A related source of confusion may be common among the subjects of many of these studies along with the researchers who study them, and that is the failure to distinguish between the different types of caregiving tasks, such as financial support, emotional support and support with daily living tasks. Support with daily living tasks is physical in nature and includes tasks such as cooking, laundry, cleaning, and shopping for groceries and other necessities. It is also often understood to include nursing care such as help with bathing and other tasks related to personal hygiene. Support with daily living tasks is tangible and often measurable, which is perhaps why it is often the focus of researchers in caregiving. Emotional care or support generally refers to care (or doing things) in satisfying the emotional or psychological needs of the elderly parents. It includes visits and phone calls to the elderly, and more generally time spent on keeping company with the elderly, such as Sunday lunches (Lam 2006). Emotional care is generally not as tangible or measurable, but it can be equally important in some circumstances. For example, for an 80-year-old suffering from dementia and other physical handicaps, support with daily living tasks becomes essential to something as basic as life sustenance and is rightfully seen to be of dominant concern. In contrast, a 65-year-old who is generally healthy and self-sufficient may have little need for physical

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caregiving, but nonetheless has a genuine need for emotional support and care from the family. Financial support is usually not measured or even accounted for in studies of caregiving, which is odd, considering that it is a matter of basic livelihood. The heavy focus on support with daily living in the literature has made it easy to overlook the importance of emotional and financial support. Also, because men have generally been found to have provided less daily living support than women, it has also led to the conclusion that men have not been much involved in caregiving overall. However, the fact that the focus on physical care has not accounted for other aspects of caregiving such as emotional and financial support means that men’s contribution to caregiving could well be undercounted. In fact, although Finley (1989) has made a distinction between care providers and care managers, it appears that her definition of care manager may be narrow; for instance, it may have undercounted the relative importance of financial support. In any case, there is little dispute in the literature that women have taken up the bulk of daily living support for the elderly. What remains less established is the extent to which males—particularly sons—have contributed to other aspects of the caregiving process. Filial Piety While filial piety is in many ways a universal value shared across different cultures, it is generally accepted that it holds a more revered position in traditional Chinese society than elsewhere. The resolute reverence for one’s parents and ancestors has been compared to the worship of God in the West (Holzman 1998), and Chao (1983) observes that filial piety is the very cornerstone of Chinese civilization. As the Chinese family is organized around the patrilineal system, filial obligation naturally becomes the purview of the son—in particular the eldest son. In such a setting, the desirable living arrangement is the multi-generational household, and the cornerstone of the family structure is “the father-son relationship [which] is based on the principle of mutual dependency throughout life” (Lee and Kwok 2005). In recent years, there has been much debate about how well the traditional Chinese notion of filial piety is preserved in industrial societies like Hong Kong and urban China (Fei 1985; Lee 1987; King 1992; Lee 1999; Qi 1999; Yue and Ng 1999; Lee et al. 2000; Ng, Philips and Lee 2002). One argument that has been advanced is that filial piety as a

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core cultural value has suffered erosion due to a combination of factors including urbanization, the increasing prevalence of the nuclear family and the eroding economic interdependence between family members in the modern economy where family members tend to work in jobs and perform economic functions that are largely independent from one another. An oft-made observation that has been posed as a paradox in the literature on Confucian societies is that although traditionally the son has the primary responsibility for caregiving for elderly parents, in practice that task has fallen very much on the women in the family (Zhan and Montgomery 2003). As discussed above, in the Western literature this is sometimes cast as the males not pulling their weight in the care of their parents. In the context of a Confucian society like Hong Kong, sometimes the relatively lacklustre involvement in caregiving by sons could be taken as evidence of the breakdown of traditional Chinese values and the traditional Chinese family. As discussed earlier under the section on the genderization of caregiving, it could be pointed out that sons could well have been doing their tasks after all, but they could well have been specializing in providing financial and emotional support, rather than support with daily living. More generally, sons could well have been taking up the role of the care manager rather than the care provider. Indeed, it is the expected role for the son to be care manager, rather than care provider, that leads to the importance of daughters-in-law as caregivers in Chinese societies, at least in comparison with non-Confucian societies (Hermalin et al. 1990; Miller and Cafasso 1992; Campbell and Ingersoll-Dayton 2000; Zhan and Montgomery 2003). Indeed, in the study of family caregiving in Chinese families, cases of the daughter-in-law serving as the primary caregiver abound, but not so for the son-in-law as caregiver (Wong 2000). This illustrates the more prominent role of sons relative to daughters in serving in the role of care managers and in mobilizing other household members and resources to that end. From this brief review of the literature, it can be seen that several questions of interest await further research. First, are traditional Chinese values being eroded? Specifically, is filial piety losing its place as a core value underpinning caregiving for the elderly? Second, when it comes to sons’ involvement in caregiving, is the perceived gap between what is expected by traditional norms and what is practised real, or illusionary, such as the failure to distinguish between the roles of care manager and care provider? Is the role of sons in caregiving being eroded, and, if so,

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does that imply a decline in filial piety in general? Third, is caregiving being genderized? Are women destined to take up a disproportionate share of caregiving chores even as the demand expands over time as the population ages? Methodology and Data Description The data used in this paper are taken from a research project whose primary purpose is to investigate the perceptions of the general public towards family care, community care and institutional care. This paper focuses only on those aspects of the project that concern the public attitude towards the preferred arrangement of family-based elderly care. The analysis is conducted with the use of two different surveys—one being a general survey with a standardized questionnaire, and the other using in-depth interviews. The reason for using two different types of data collection and analysis is that there are advantages to both, and the two are complementary in facilitating our understanding of the public perception of what the preferred caregiving arrangement is within the household. A general survey, conducted over the telephone, can handle a large sample that would be impractical for in-depth interviews, and is useful in generating an overview of the public attitude towards family-based caregiving. In contrast, in-depth interviews conducted face to face allow us to delve deeper into issues, some of which may be quite nuanced and not readily captured with the use of a standardized questionnaire. Also, respondents in in-depth interviews can draw on the complexity of real-life observations and experiences that put their opinions in the proper context and offer important qualifications. By surveying the attitudes of individuals, we also learn about their behaviour as they describe and make sense of the caregiving arrangements within their households. Such a methodological approach accords well with the analytical approach of doing families, where the researcher examines practices, including all of their intricate processes, and digs out the grounded reasoning from the members themselves (Ng, Ng, and Chan in this issue). Both the telephone survey and the face-to-face in-depth interviews were conducted in 2004. The total sample size collected from the telephone survey was 1,102, with a response rate of 48.7%. There were slightly more female than male respondents in the sample. In terms of age, one-half of the respondents were below 45 years old, 30.3% were

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between 45 and 59 years old, and 18.2% were 60 years or above. One quarter of the respondents had a primary or below education, whereas one-fifth of them had a college or above education. In fact, over one-half (55.4%) of the respondents had attained an upper secondary or above education. About one-third of the respondents were never married (32.9%) and among those who were married (67.1%), 42% of them had dependent children under the age of 15. In terms of employment status, 52% were employed, 16% were full-time home-makers, 17.3% had retired, 6% were unemployed and 8.8% were students at the time of the survey. In terms of monthly household income, one-quarter of the respondents were in the under-HK$10,000 per month category (24.1%), 28.3% in the $10,000–$19,999 category and 21.6% in the $20,000–$29,999 category, with the remaining 25.9% in the $30,000or-above category. In addition to the telephone survey, nineteen face-to-face interviews were conducted to allow us to explore in more detail the reasoning behind the respondents’ expressed perceptions and attitudes towards elderly care. And for those interviewees who were serving as caregivers at the time of the survey or had served as caregivers in the past, their personal experiences in providing care at home or at a nursing home were also addressed. However, for the purpose of this paper, we only focus on the data collected from the interviewees (with or without caregiving experience) towards the assignment of care-giving roles and tasks in the family with an elderly parent in need of care and support. The respondents were identified through a network of personal contacts centred on the author and research assistants involved in the study, and extended to the colleagues, staff and students at the Hong Kong Baptist University and their relatives and friends. Most interviews took place in the homes of the interviewees, with a few taking place at other venues (usually coffee shops) suggested by them. The interviews, averaging sixty minutes each, some with telephone follow-ups, were tape-recorded with the permission of the respondents. The questionnaire covers a lot of other issues, but here we focus on those issues that relate to the assignment of caregiving responsibility within the household. Table 1 summarizes the results of the telephone surveys. A series of statements were read to the respondents, to which the responses were to be chosen from among ‘agree’, ‘disagree’ and ‘neutral’. Neutral means the respondent has no strong view either way on the issue, or that ‘it depends’. The author is aware that some respondents may have felt that such categorized responses are limiting,

Note: Responses may not add up to 100% due to rounding.

It is the obligation of the family to care for elderly family members It is the children’s filial obligation to care for their aged parents Sons should bear more responsibility than daughters The eldest son should bear more responsibility than other children in caring for the parents The eldest daughter should bear more responsibility than other children in caring for the parents Female members are better than male members at caring for elderly family members It is better for elderly family members to be cared for by family members of the same sex Elderly family members should be cared for by family members who are living nearby Elderly family members should be cared for by family members who have a better relationship with them Elderly family members should be cared for by better-off family members Elderly family members should be cared for by non-working family members Elderly family members should be cared for by never-married family members

Attitude statements 6.1 2.0 10.6 8.5 10.6 11.8 12.1 10.0 8.6 11.1 6.6 14.9

67.2 23.5 24.8 12.7 6.7 19.8 23.1 53.6

Neutral (%)

1.4 1.0 46.3 62.3

Disagree (%)

Table 1: Attitudes towards caring for elderly family members

31.5

70.3

69.1

84.7

77.3

63.1

64.6

22.2

92.5 97.0 43.1 29.2

Agree (%)

1077

1083

1092

1102

1098

1095

1089

1090

1098 1095 1095 1094

N

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and this is where the in-depth interviews often came in handy. In general, those who were younger and better educated had the greatest tendency to answer neutral. Survey Results To start with, the respondents in our sample strongly subscribed to the value of filial piety. On the question of whether they agreed that the family has an obligation to care for elderly family members, an overwhelming 92.5% agreed, with only 1.4% disagreeing and 6.1% being neutral. Similarly, when asked whether children have a filial obligation to care for their aged parents, 96.4% of the respondents agreed, with less than 1% disagreeing. As to whether sons should bear a heavier responsibility than daughters in caring for elderly parent, the respondents were, as a whole, quite evenly split on the issue, with 43.1% agreeing and 46.3% disagreeing, and the remaining 10.6% being neutral. This means that, for this question, the neutrals are significant enough to prevent a majority opinion from emerging. In addition, those who did not agree were respondents with more education, but otherwise there were no significant differences in the responses across different groups by age or by household income. Interestingly, most men agreed, while most women disagreed, that sons should bear greater responsibility. This actually agrees with the findings in the literature that men often see themselves having greater caregiving responsibility than women, but whether they act accordingly has not been borne out by empirical evidence. In response to the question of whether the eldest son should bear more responsibility than other children in caring for elderly parents, those respondents who disagreed outnumber those who agreed by a margin of two to one (62.3% versus 29.2%). This result seems to deviate significantly from traditional notions of filial piety and the special role of the eldest son in caring for parents. Among the subgroups, the better educated, the younger and those with a higher household income disagreed most. But, interestingly, male respondents again tended to agree more than female respondents that the oldest son should bear primary caregiving responsibility, and the difference is statistically significant. This result corroborates with the result where more males agreed that the sons should bear greater responsibility in care for parents.

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As to whether the eldest daughter should bear more responsibility than other children in caring for the elderly parent, most respondents disagreed (67.2%), while only a small minority agreed (22.2%). And here, females disagreed even more than males (72.8% versus 60.6%). The younger, the better educated and those with a higher household income in particular disagreed. As to whether female family members are more suitable than males in caring for elderly family members, a large majority (64.6%) agreed, with only 23.5% disagreeing. Neutrals account for the remaining 11.8%. Thus, caregiving is widely seen to be a female task. What is particularly striking here is that, even among those with a college degree and or above, only about one-third disagreed. Similarly, even among the youngest age group (30 years and under), less than one-third disagreed. A similarly small percentage among those with the highest household income disagreed. When asked whether family members of the same sex as the elderly family members would be more suitable in providing care, most respondents agreed (63.1%), while less than 25% disagreed. Among the various sub-groups, slightly more males than females agreed, and those with less education agreed most. The youngest age group disagreed most, but otherwise the differences between the other three age groups (30–44, 45–59 and 60 and above) are not large. As to whether family members residing in proximity to the elderly would make for more suitable caregivers, the respondents agreed strongly (77.3%), with less than 13% disagreeing. On this point, there is not much variation between male and female respondents. Also, those with college degrees agreed least compared to the other sub-groups, but still only less than 16% disagreed. Interestingly, those entering old age agreed very strongly that children living nearby should take up more caregiving (85%), as did the retired respondents, perhaps expressing a desire to live in proximity to family members. As to whether family members who have better relations with the elderly should take up more caregiving, there was overwhelming agreement (84.7%), with less than 7% disagreeing. On this point, there was strong agreement across respondents with different levels of education, age and household income. As to whether family members who are financially better off should take up more caregiving, there was general agreement (almost 70%). Still, close to 20% disagreed. However, the response here should be considered with care, as there could be a difference in understanding

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between different respondents as to whether to interpret the responsibility for increased caregiving as being in the form of daily living and emotional support, or of a financial nature. Interestingly, the lower income groups tended to agree strongly, while the highest income groups tended to disagree. Furthermore, the retired and the aged (60 or above) tended to agree most. For these older people, it appears that they felt rather strongly that those family members with the better means and resources ought to do more. As to whether non-working family members should take up more caregiving, about 70% agreed, but close to 25% disagreed. Respondents who disagreed were younger with more education and the highest household income. The oldest respondents and retired respondents agreed the most. When asked whether non-married family members should take up more caregiving, the majority of the respondents disagreed, but not by a big margin (53.6%), with 31.5% expressing disagreement. A large proportion was neutral (almost 15%). The key results of the standardized telephone survey can be summarized as follows. (1) Respondents agreed that filial piety remains a strong value to them. (2) Respondents were quite split on whether sons have the primary responsibility for caregiving. (3) More conclusive was the result that most respondents disagreed with the notion that the eldest son should take up the primary responsibility for caregiving. These results differ from traditional notions that hold that the eldest son has primary responsibility for the overall well-being of aged parents. (4) Most respondents agreed that female family members have primary responsibility for caregiving. Importantly, even the younger and more educated respondents agreed with this view, which suggests that this view is prevalent and will continue into the foreseeable future. (5) However, more respondents believed that the eldest son, rather than the eldest daughter, should have primary responsibility for caregiving. (6) There was strong agreement among the respondents that the most suitable caregivers are those with the best relations with the care receivers, those who reside nearby, those with better financial means and those who do not have job obligations. (7) There was much less agreement that unmarried family members should take up more caregiving responsibility. (8) There was some (but not strong) agreement that same-sex caregiving is preferable.

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Results of In-Depth Interviews In all, the survey results suggest that perceptions of caregiving have changed from traditional notions. Most notably the son, especially the eldest son, is no longer seen to have primary responsibility for caregiving. The results also suggest that such changes are due in no small part to pragmatic considerations on the part of the respondents. Indeed, the in-depth interviews reveal that respondents were generally quite mindful of the complexity of real-life circumstances, and they provide important qualifications to the categorized response in the general survey, along with some very useful insights. The detailed interviews also reveal that sometimes different people have different interpretations of words and terms that are normally taken to be readily and universally understood, including a most fundamental term such as ‘caregiving’ that even seasoned researchers use routinely without being mindful of its multi-faceted nature in practice. For example, while there is general agreement that family members who do not have job obligations should take up more caregiving responsibilities, a woman aged 30–35 pointed out some important qualifications. This woman opined that while generally speaking it might make sense for a person who is not employed to provide care, one should be mindful that becoming a caregiver should not inhibit the individual in question from joining or returning to the labour market. In addition, this woman suggested that to naturally assume that someone who has lost a job should take up caregiving is to stigmatize the unemployed. (Note: In the quotes to follow we use only the masculine case, even though this should be taken as gender-neutral): For a family member who is not presently working, one has to ask why he isn’t working. Is it because he is already caring for small children? If so, then with only one breadwinner in the family, that family is already less well-off financially (so why should that family be burdened with extra caregiving responsibility?). One should not just make the assumption that, if someone doesn’t have a job, then he must naturally take up caregiving responsibility.

On the issue of whether unmarried children should naturally assume greater caregiving responsibility, this woman also agreed, and in fact her own parents were living with her unmarried siblings. However, other respondents expressed reservations. For example, a 48-year-old man did not agree that unmarried children should naturally be called upon to undertake caregiving, because unmarried children can have

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busy schedules too, so it depends. Another woman of age 45 also expressed that unmarried children may have legitimate priorities other than caregiving. According to this woman: The unmarried child, he may also have his own life; he may be busy having a social life, or maybe he is just having his own way, and I don’t think that one should just push the responsibility on him . . . Besides it is impossible to generalize. One has to look at the circumstances carefully, and the ability of the family member in question . . . I don’t think one could assume that because someone is unmarried, he would make for a more suitable caregiver giving better care.

The respondents also expressed the opinion that there are different ways of caring for the elderly and showing support. They stressed that elderly people required attention and wanted to be thought of by their family members, especially sons and daughters. Some of the respondents who were not living with their elderly parents would make frequent contacts by phone or home visits. For example, a married woman aged 48 observed that even if the elderly were living in a home for the aged, children could still fulfil their responsibility by visiting them. Another woman said that her grandparents were in good health and so did not require much physical care, but their children and grandchildren still had the obligation to provide emotional care and support. Male respondents also noted the importance of providing emotional care to their elderly parents by interacting and spending time with them and by talking and listening to them. They indicated that they wanted to let the elderly know that they had not been forgotten or left alone. For example, a 47-year-old man whose father was living with his younger sister said, ‘I have to visit him or call him; otherwise I cannot say I am providing any care to him’. Another married man aged 49 expressed that there are many ways to fulfil one’s filial responsibility without taking on physical, handson tasks. This man’s mother-in-law had suffered a serious stroke and had to be institutionalized at a convalescent home. However, the man emphasized that he has the responsibility to visit her and keep her company: The staff at the convalescent home, they have taken up our responsibility in terms of providing three meals a day and helping with the daily routines of the aged, but we [the children] have to provide the spiritual care . . . It is important that we go and visit them, to see them. Communication [with the elderly] is very important. You can’t just leave them just because they have been physically provided for.

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This same man emphasized that everyone has a filial responsibility, and he would like his children to be filial to him too. In this view, this individual invoked a kind of intergenerational reciprocity, with the child repaying the care previously received from the parent and with such reciprocity being passed down to future generations by example: I agree that [I have a filial responsibility to my parents]. By the same token, I also hope that my children will be filial toward me. Whether they can actually accomplish this is a different matter, but I will try to instil in them that this is in the Chinese value outlook.

A woman aged 41 observed that it is not necessarily true that children who are better off financially should take up caregiving, because the financially better off can contribute more money while others can contribute more time. Again, what this reflects is a general attitude among respondents that children can contribute to the care of their parents in myriad ways according to their resources and circumstances. Very often, respondents were thinking of different types of caregiving when they contemplated how children could contribute to the well-being of parents: through daily living support, emotional support and financial support, among others. A 23-year-old woman showed a lot of flexibility in her attitude towards caregiving. She believed that her grandmother should be cared for in the family, because otherwise she would not be happy. However, she felt that her mother could be happy receiving institutionalized care, due to her more independent character. Yet, this same woman did not want to care for her father, because she had poor relations with him. Overall, this particular woman gave the impression that she was on the best terms with her grandmother and was most willing to care for her, over her own parents. This particular respondent is representative of a general impression given by the respondents in our survey indicating that, above all, good relations between caregivers and care receivers matter a great deal, and the willingness on the part of the children to engage in caregiving is key to a satisfactory caregiving outcome. For example, a married woman of 45 mentioned that her family was Chaozhou (Chiuchow), and her parents held the traditional view that favours boys would prefer to have sons caring for them in old age. However, she observed that her parents may be due for disappointment, as her brothers were not interested in caring for them. In fact, although this woman’s parents were already living with their second son, she felt that her brother was not really taking care of them, nor was he capable of doing so:

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odalia m. h. wong Our family is Chaozhou, and it is our tradition for the parents to be cared for by sons, not daughters. So, it doesn’t really matter whether I have the ability to care for my parents, because I’m a daughter and so they won’t rely on me . . . Yet, in my family, the sons in reality are not that capable of caring for their parents . . . and that is why my parents are unhappy . . . I have three older brothers; the second one is actually living with my parents, yet he is not even capable of taking care of himself, as he’s not employed . . . And for my other two brothers, they both have their own families, and they’re too busy to care for my parents. That’s why my parents are quite upset. What my parents really want is for the sons to care for them, but in reality I don’t think the sons are giving them hope.

Similarly, a 30- to 35-year-old woman observed that it is not necessarily the case that relatives living in the same household would naturally become better caregivers. She cited the example of young men who lived with the elderly but were not inclined to help with caregiving. Finally, on the issue of whether same-sex care is preferable, a 41-yearold woman disagreed that it is more desirable: after all ‘most nurses are women, and they care for male patients all the time’. Another woman in her early 30s said that whether caring for the opposite sex would pose a problem depends on the relationship between the caregiver and the care receiver. For example, she felt that it would be a problem to care for her father-in-law, but not to care for her own father, because her father has cared for her from infancy. Discussion and Conclusion Overall, our results show some noticeable departures from the traditional notions of caregiving arrangements, yet there is no suggestion that families’ commitment to caregiving has weakened. Traditionally, filial piety is the cornerstone of old-age security, and sons—especially the eldest son—bear primary responsibility to see to it that elderly parents are well cared for. Our results show that while the son is no longer automatically assumed to bear primary responsibility for elderly parents, there is no evidence that filial piety has weakened. In fact, the survey respondents were strongly in unison in indicating that filial piety remained an important value to them. Their responses suggest that they largely saw caregiving as a shared responsibility where every family member, depending on circumstances, has an obligation to pitch in. This could actually mean better security and assurance for the elderly compared to a system where much responsibility is placed

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on one person, or at least sons exclusively. In fact, the de-emphasis on the role of sons may be due in part to simple pragmatism. After all, given that couples tend to have many fewer children than did previous generations, the notion that one may never have a son to care for one in old age is hardly an unusual proposition for many people. But it surely does not follow that the notion of filial piety has weakened correspondingly. In fact, what has transpired, according to the survey responses, is that while family members feel they have the moral obligation to provide elderly care, they also take a highly pragmatic approach to the nittygritty of how this care should be provided in practice. Such pragmatism is evidenced by the very strong agreement among the respondents that the most suitable caregivers are those with the best relations with the care receivers, those who reside nearby, those with better financial means and those who do not have job obligations. In other words, respondents exhibited a “sense of obligation and responsibility coupled with a recognition that choices need to be made within a range of variable options” (Morgan 2001: 238). Our results dovetail in other ways with the tenet of doing families in analyzing family values and practices. In particular, we see how the notion of a ‘family script’ is a useful concept in understanding how families adapt to changing circumstances by modifying practices without losing sight of their core values. A “[f]amily script represents a certain account of family life that defines its core ingredients, ideal state and the desirable ways to achieve the ideal . . . [Family members] typically modify the prevailing script in accordance with their life circumstances” (Ng et al. in this issue). In the present study, filial piety is the family script that underpins elderly caregiving, but its manifestation has been modified considerably to adapt to modern circumstances. This is how one should interpret the view that the well-being of elderly parents is no longer primarily the son’s responsibility, and that family members in general have been called upon to contribute to the caregiving process in accordance with their means and circumstances. A paradoxical result from the survey is that while the respondents in general had de-emphasized the role of the eldest son in caregiving, they nonetheless felt that the eldest son still had a greater responsibility than the eldest daughter in caring for parents, even at the same time that they saw women as better suited to caregiving. This seeming contradiction reflects well how people often have different notions of just what caregiving means and what it involves. When people think of females as

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better suited to caregiving, they could well be thinking mostly of daily living support, as opposed to financial or emotional support. At the same time, they may also view that although caregiving is ultimately a shared responsibility, the eldest son has greater responsibility than the eldest daughter in looking after the overall well-being of the parents. But this role for the eldest son in having overall responsibility for his parents is really that of a care manager rather than a care provider who physically delivers care. This issue is closely related to another question that is also taken to be something of a puzzle in the literature, and that is that men tend to express the belief that they have caregiving responsibility, but do not act accordingly, at least according to what they tell researchers. One also observes this seeming inconsistency in our sample, in that the male respondents, compared to the female respondents, saw a greater role for men in caregiving. Yet, at the same time, the male respondents, like the female respondents, also saw women as more suitable caregivers. Again, the explanation for this paradox may well lie in the lack of distinction between different caregiving roles, such as financial support versus daily living support and care manager versus care provider. In addition, differences in subjective perceptions regarding one’s own contribution to caregiving could also be a factor. This also suggests that, in future research, more efforts should be made to distinguish between the different types of caregiving tasks and roles. In any case, we can attempt to address the question posed earlier; that is, when it comes to sons’ involvement in caregiving in a Confucian society, is the perceived gap between what is expected by traditional norms and practices real or illusionary? Further, is the role of sons in caregiving being eroded, and, if so, does that imply a decline in filial piety in general? One could venture to answer that this perceived gap is illusory. Traditionally, the son was never called upon to become the provider of physical care in the first place. This is why daughters-in-law tend to play an important role in caregiving in traditional Confucian societies. Hence, recent findings that females have been undertaking most daily living support does not demonstrate a break from tradition, and therefore it does not follow that the traditional value of filial piety is eroding. Of course, none of this is to dismiss critics who argue that the pervasive arrangement whereby women are naturally expected to undertake

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the bulk of the daily support chores of caregiving is unjust. Indeed, one should be careful not to overplay the role of the male as care manager too much, because in its purest sense a care manager does not have to do anything other than direct others to do things. This in itself implies special status, which could be due to male dominance in society, as Finley (1989) has argued. Indeed, not all caregiving tasks are created equal. There is a world of difference between spending leisure time with a parent who is 60 years old and healthy and providing relentless physical assistance and care to a parent who is 80 years old and suffering from chronic illness or disability. It has been documented that, in cases involving the very old who are highly immobile and suffering from dementia, caregiving can become an extremely stressful and formidable task (Wong 2005). One may certainly question the equity of the situation if females are naturally expected to take up such tasks. Yet, our survey shows that socialization that places precisely such obligations on females remains strong, even among the younger, better-educated and financially betteroff generation. As demographic projections not only point to an ageing population, but also to the composition of the elderly population shifting from the ‘young old’ (aged up to 70) to the ‘old old’ (aged 70 and above), this suggests that the burden of caregiving will continue to grow for women, and disproportionately so. References Brody, Elaine M. 2004. Women in the Middle: Their Parent Care Years (2nd edition). New York: Springer Publishing Company. Campbell, Ruth and Berit Ingersoll-Dayton. 2000. “Variations in Family Caregiving in Japan and the U.S.” Pp. 231–247 in Caring for the Elderly in Japan and the U.S.: Practices and Policies, edited by Susan Orpett Long. London and New York: Routledge. Chao, Paul. 1983. Chinese Kinship. London: Kegan Paul International. Coward, Raymond T. and Jeffrey W. Dwyer. 1990. “The Association of Gender, Sibling Network Composition, and Patterns of Parent Care by Adult Children.” Research on Aging 12: 158–181. Davey, Adam and Maximiliane E. Szinovacz. 2008. “Division of Care Among Adult Children.” Pp. 133–159 in Caregiving Contexts: Cultural, Familial and Societal Implications, edited by Maximiliane E. Szinovacz and Adam Davey. New York: Springer Publishing Company. Fei, Xiaotong. 1985. “Change in Family Structure: Maintaining the Standard of Living of the Elderly.” Pp. 3–12 in Proceedings of the Conference on Modernization and Chinese Culture, edited by Chiao Chien. Hong Kong: Faculty of Social Science and Research Centre, Chinese University of Hong Kong.

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Finch, Janet and Jennifer Mason. 1999. “Obligations of Kinship in Contemporary Britain: Is There Normative Agreement?” Pp. 300–320 in The Sociology of the Family: A Reader, edited by Graham Allan. Oxford: Blackwell. Finley, Nancy J. 1989. “Theories of Family Labor as Applied to Gender Differences in Caregiving for Elderly Parents.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 51(1): 79–86. Guberman, Nancy, Maheu, Pierre & Maille, Chantal. 1992. “Women as Family Caregivers: Why Do They Care?” The Gerontologist 32(5): 607–617. Hermalin, Albert I., Ming-chen Chang, Hui-sheng Lin, Mei-lin Lee and Mary B. Ofstedal. 1990). Patterns of Support among the Elderly in Taiwan and Their Policy Implications. Research Report no. 90–4. Ann Arbor: Population Studies Center, The University of Michigan. Holzman, Donald. 1998. “The Place of Filial Piety in Ancient China.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 118(2): 185–199. Hong Kong Council of Social Service. 1994. Role of the Family in Community Care. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Council of Social Service. Hong Kong Government. 2003. Report of the Task Force on Population Policy. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Government. Hooyman, Nancy R. and Judith Gonyea. 1995. Feminist Perspectives on Family Care: Policies for Gender Justice. New York: Sage Publications. Keating, Norah, Karen Kerr, Sharon Warren, Michael Grace and Dana Wertenberger. 2003. “Who’s the Family in Family Caregiving?” Pp. 103–123 in Family: Critical Concepts in Sociology, edited by David Cheal. New York: Routledge. King, Ambrose Y. C. 1992. Chinese Society and Culture. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press (China). Kwok, Hong-kin. 2006. “The Son Also Acts as Major Caregiver to Elderly Parents: A Study of the Sandwich Generation in Hong Kong.” Current Sociology 54(2): 257–272. Lam, Richard C. 2006. “Contradictions between Traditional Chinese Values and the Actual Performance: A Study of the Caregiving Roles of the Modern Sandwich Generation in Hong Kong.” Journal of Comparative Family Studies 37(2): 299–313. Lee, Jik-joen 1999. “Family Care Based on Filial Piety.” Hong Kong Council of Social Service Quarterly 148: 25–30. Lee, Ming-kwan. 1987. Hong Kong Society and Politics in Transition. Hong Kong: Commercial Press Ltd. Lee, William K. M. and Hong-King Kwok. (2005). “Differences in Expectations and Patterns of Informal Support for Older Persons in Hong Kong: Modification to Filial Piety.” Ageing International 30(2): 188–206. Lee, Rance P. L., Jik-joen Lee, Elena S. H. Yu, Shon-gong Sun and William T. Liu. 2000. “Living Arrangements and Elderly Care: The Case of Hong Kong.” Pp. 269–296 in Who Should Care for the Elderly? An East-West Value Divide, edited by William T. Liu and Hal Kendig. Singapore: Singapore University Press. Liu, William T. and Hal Kendig. 2000. “Critical Issues of Caregiving: East-West Dialogue.” Pp. 1–26 in Who Should Care for the Elderly? An East-West Value Divide, edited by William T. Liu and Hal Kendig. Singapore: Singapore University Press. Miller, Baila and Lynda Cafasso. 1992. “Gender Differences in Caregiving: Fact or Artifact?” The Gerontologist 32: 498–507. Moen, Phyllis, Julie Robison and Vivian Fields. 1994. “Women’s Work and Caregiving Roles: A Life Course Approach.” Journal of Gerontology 49: S176–S186. Montgomery, Rhonda J. and Mary M. Datwyler. 1990. “Women and Men in the Caregiving Role.” Generations 14(3): 34–37. Morgan, David H. J. 2001. “Family Sociology in from the Fringe: The Three ‘Economies’ of Family Life.” Pp. 227–248 in Developments in Sociology, edited by Robert G. Burgess and Anne Murcott. New York: Prentice Hall.

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Ng, Anita C. Y., David R. Philips and William K. M. Lee. 2002. “Persistence and Challenges to Filial Piety and Informal Support of Older Persons in a Modern Chinese Society: A Case Study in Tuen Mun, Hong Kong.” Journal of Aging Studies 16(2): 135–153. Ngan, Raymond and William Wong. 1995. “Injustice in Family Care of the Chinese Elderly in Hong Kong.” Journal of Aging and Social Policy 7(2): 77–94. Piercy, Kathleen W. 1998. “Theorizing about Family Caregiving: The Role of Responsibility.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 60(1): 109–118. Population Reference Bureau. 2008. 2008 World Population Data Sheet. Washington DC: Population Reference Bureau. Retrieved 4 November 2008. (http://www.prb .org/pdf08/08WPDS_Eng.pdf ). Qi, Yi. 1999. “The Elder Population and Studies of Aging Chinese in Asia.” Pp. 9–21 in Research on Problems in the Asian Elderly, edited by Qi Yi. Hong Kong: Han Chuan China Professional Management Centre. Schneider, J. W. and L. Wang. (1994). “Mother Zhang, Children Du, Daughter Rong: A Story of Women and Caregiving from Tianjin.” Pp. 161–166 in International Conference on Family and Community Care. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Council of Social Service. Shanas, Ethel. 1979. “The Family as a Social Support System in Old Age.” The Gerontologist 19: 169–174. Szinovacz, Maximiliane E. and Adam Davey (2007). “Changes in Adult Child Caregiver Networks.” The Gerontologist 47: 280–295. Stein, C. H., V. A. Wemmerus, M. Ward, M. E. Gaines, A. L. Ferrberg and T. C. Jewell. 1998. “ ‘Because They’re My Parents’: An Intergenerational Study of Felt Obligation and Parental Caregiving.” Journal of Marriage and Family 60: 611–622. Stone, Robyn, Gail L. Cafferata, and Judith Sangl. 1987. “Caregivers of The Frail Elderly: A National Profile.” The Gerontologist 27: 616–626. Walker, Alexis J., Clara C. Pratt, Hwa-Yong Shin and Laura L. Jones. 1989. “Why Daughters Care: Perspectives of Mothers and Daughters in a Caregiving Situation.” Pp. 199–212 in Aging Parents and Adult Children, edited by Jay A. Mancini. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books. Wong, Odalia M. H. 2000. “Adult Children and Children-in-Law As Caregivers in Hong Kong.” Pp. 297–321 in Who Should Give Care to the Elderly? An East-West Social Value Divide, edited by William T. Liu and Hal Kendig. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press. ——. 2005. “Gender and Intimate Caregiving for the Elderly in Hong Kong.” Journal of Aging Studies 19(3): 375–391. ——., Beatrice Chau, and S. M. Kung. 2003. “Primary Caregivers: Experiences of Male and Female Adult Children in Providing Care for Elderly Parents.” Sociological Research 103: 60–70. (in Chinese) Xiong, Y. G. (1998). “Views of Grown-Up Children on Taking Care of Their Elderly Parents.” Sociological Research 5: 72–83. Yue, Xiaodong and Sik-hung Ng. 1999. “Filial Obligations and Expectations in China: Current Views from Young and Old People in Beijing.” Asian Journal of Social Psychology 2: 215–226. Zhan, Jenny H. and Rhonda J. V. Montgomery. 2003. “Gender and Elder Care in China: The Influence of Filial Piety and Structural Constraints.” Gender and Society 17: 209–229.

SINGLE WORKING WOMEN IN HONG KONG: A CASE OF ‘NORMAL DEVIANCE’? Evelyn G. H. Ng and Catherine W. Ng Abstract Hong Kong women are marrying later, and the number of never-married women has been steadily increasing. The recent interest in this rise has remained at the level of media narratives with little input from academic research and, where it exists, centres on statistical analyses. Our article examines who some of these single women are by drawing heavily on interviews conducted with nineteen informants in full-time employment. We found that there was a strong sense of affirmation and assertiveness about their singleness. While nearly of all them wanted to get married if they met a suitable person, the centrality of work, besides providing our informants with a strong sense of identity, also rendered them less willing to compromise for a partner. In time, their status was accepted as an alternative life choice, as they generally felt that single women faced little stigmatization. Such a state can be described as ‘normal deviance’. In addition, the informants tended to pursue independently what was important to them with little regard for macro social and political issues, and rarely engaged with pro-family or pro-natalist policies when negotiating their identities.

Single Working Women in Hong Kong: A Case of ‘Normal Deviance’? In Hong Kong, women who postpone marriage because of educational and professional involvement are told that they face a bleak future. Single women who are well educated and earn relatively higher incomes are warned that because of the declining number of males in the local population (especially in the marriageable age group of 20 to 39), they may not be able to find partners in the near future (So 2002). Faced with this statistical fact, and competition from eligible women in mainland China, local women are advised to be ‘reasonable about their expectations’.1 Although population trends in the mainland suggest that this gender imbalance in Hong Kong could be counter-balanced by eligible males across the border, it is claimed that unmarried women in Hong Kong ‘for cultural reasons . . . may not desire to pair up with bachelors

1 Ascribed to Paul Yip, an academic from the University of Hong Kong, and a member of the support group on population policy under the Sustainable Development Council, by Chan (2006).

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from the mainland’.2 These cultural reasons have not been articulated openly, and the ominous narratives of single women’s lives in the media, curiously, have not elicited serious critiques in Hong Kong. Instead, there is much reticence, or diffidence, from the singles population. A volume on ‘doing families’ is incomplete without examining single working women’s perspectives about their lives, and the meanings they ascribe to work, marriage and family. This article aims to contribute to that examination. Media coverage, in tandem with official reports, has highlighted the declining fertility rate in Hong Kong3 and has causally related it to the ‘rise in rootless single people’ and to the disintegration of the family unit.4 There is much discussion about the economic implications of an ageing populace and a shrinking group of working adults in the near future. This ‘fertility panic’5 is framed within the parameters of heterosexual coupling and the creation of children within wedlock. Basically, the problem is configured as either the reluctance of married couples to procreate, or the reluctance or inability of single women to find marital partners to procreate with.6 By remaining single, it is perceived, women are shirking their responsibility to reproduce future workers. Simultaneously, the obligations of citizenship have recently been framed within a very public revival of the ‘harmonious family’ and a proposal to set up a ‘Family Council’ under the Chief Secretary for Administration.7 In one fell swoop, the government created an overarching structure (‘integrated, holistic and high-level’) to support

2

Editorial, South China Morning Post, August 18, 2006. Fertility rates in 2002: Hong Kong, 1.02; Singapore, 1.6; Japan, 1.34; Germany, 1.36 and the United Kingdom, 1.64. (Hong Kong Government, 2002: 53). Fertility rates in 2006: Hong Kong, 0.95; Singapore, 1.06; China, 1.7; EU, 1.47; Italy and Spain, 1.28; and the US, highest at 2.1. (The Economist, October 14, 2006, pp. 37–38, ‘America’s population: Now we are 300,000,000’.) 4 South China Morning Post, ‘Rise in rootless single people poses threat to family life, says academic’, December 24, 2002, p. 3. 5 Natasha Cica, ‘What’s with the Fertility Panic?’, On-Line Opinion, 15 September, 2002. Quoted in Kevin (2005). 6 Paul Yip (see note 1 above) was quoted as saying, ‘It will be very difficult to ask the people who have two [children] to go for three. It is much easier to ask those who do not have babies to have one or two. So the emphasis should not be so much on married couples, but rather on the ‘never-married’ (Cheung and Benitez 2005: A1). 7 The ‘Family Council’ was explained in para. 84 of the Chief Executive’s 2007–08 Policy Address, titled ‘A New Direction for Hong Kong’. Its original form was the ‘Family Commission’ (paras. 35–42) in the 2006–2007 Policy Address—Proactive, Pragmatic, Always People First. On December 3, 2007, twenty people were appointed. 3

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and consolidate the ‘family’ as a ‘core social value’.8 In contrast, the Women’s Commission, formed in 2001, has continued to be embedded within the labyrinth of what is now known as the Labor and Welfare Bureau, despite persistent calls by some women’s groups to place it at a higher policymaking level. While the tenor of official discourse in Hong Kong appears to be gender neutral, the term ‘family’ is assumed to be self-explanatory, and the implication is unmistakable: women, as citizens, have obligatory wife and mother roles. It also implies that singlehood, while not to be denied to any woman who desires it, is not to be encouraged because of its potential negative impact on the economy. In this discourse, women’s needs to be independent, autonomous persons, and the prevailing gendered power relations inherent in a traditional family hierarchy, have largely been glossed over. Activism in Hong Kong has helped improve women’s status and situation in recent decades. Yet, women’s advancement has been limited because barriers still exist as a result of women’s role as carers and the persistent “sexual division of labor in society” (Leung 2006: 189). Overseas evidence9 suggests that countries with high female labour participation rates and reasonably high birth rates are those with many births outside of wedlock, and that countries that have seen fertility collapse are those that have sought to maintain traditional family patterns. In this light, the Hong Kong government’s hope to boost the fertility rate by encouraging married couples to have more children or for single people to get married (and have children) will not be successful. It instead serves to highlight that the particular issue of ‘singleness’ for working women is very much interwoven with the issues of citizenship, gender relations, marital stability and the ‘double burden’ of holding down a job and childcare. Debates elsewhere are concerned about the negotiation of women’s identity as an autonomous individual and the social or political issues they face as procreators of the next generation. In an insightful, historical overview on maternal citizenship, abortion and motherhood in Australia, Kevin (2005: 5–7) pointed to the tension created by the Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) in the 1970s because of a theoretical preoccupation with women’s autonomy that did not leave

8

Para. 37 of the 2007–08 Policy Address. The Economist, June 16th 2007, pp. 25–27, ‘Suddenly, the old world looks younger’. 9

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much conceptual space for a debate on maternal citizenship. Critiques from the WLM in the main were dominated by the view that “fecundity was an impediment to women’s freedom”, and the focus was on the “singular individualized body” that strived to go beyond “marriage and maternity”. Feminist arguments from this end strained negotiations with maternalist feminism and threatened the tenuous alliance among different groups of women. Debates around motherhood at that time also created different interest groups, ranging from the movement for maternity reforms (natural childbirth, breastfeeding) to civil groups arguing for liberal changes to abortion laws. Nevertheless, despite the ensuing fissures created by feminist writings, those that “highlighted the non-mothering possibilities of women’s subjectivity” were most influential in stimulating women to demand a host of women-friendly policies: safe, free and legal abortion; better working conditions; and government-funded childcare. In Hong Kong, such engagement is hardly evident. Despite their rising numbers, single working women have largely been rather silent. As financially independent women, they go about their lives quietly achieving what they need to achieve, and hence are “below the radar” (Hertz 2006: 139). This article aims to give them a voice and to present their perspectives on work, marriage and family. Are single working women in Hong Kong a deviation from the norm, or is their state more a ‘normal deviance’ (Forsyth and Johnston 1995)? Do they, as citizens, feel ‘obliged’ to marry and procreate, or do they place more importance on (their) being autonomous individuals who are free to choose the best lifestyle options for themselves? In the following sections, we outline our research method and our sample of informants, followed by a discussion of our findings and their implications. We hope to contribute to a better understanding of an important group of women in Hong Kong as well as the political and social environment that contextualizes their choices. Additionally, we hope that the findings will illuminate further possibilities for positive engagement among Hong Kong women (activists and non-activists, single and married, with or without children) as they negotiate their identities. The City Single Our interest in single women and our conception of the study was greatly influenced by the work of Gordon (1994a, 1994b). She argued that conservative familist policies with their emphasis on traditional

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standards, morality and gender differences in organizing sexual relationships and the rearing of children work to marginalize single women. Instead, Gordon posed the figure of the autonomous “city-single” (1994a: 167), who is claimed to be gradually replacing the relatively powerless figure of the ‘old maid’. The ‘city single’ has been enabled to view herself as free from the control of men and traditional sexual mores. This evolving metamorphosis has been enabled by education and financial independence as a result of labour participation among a growing group of women. In Asia, this growing phenomenon is reported regularly in the media from cities as culturally dissimilar as Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai, Bangkok and Singapore, among others. Although these cities belong within a continuum of developing to developed economies, they are nodes of economic activities that can support a growing number of economically independent unmarried women. Empirical findings suggest that the rise in their numbers is a result of dissatisfaction with the ‘traditional’ marriage, and they echo, in particular, Tsuya and Bumpass’s (2004) contention that as long as women in highly developed societies enjoy the same education as men, and are employed in large numbers, but do not enjoy equality in the family or support for their roles in the family, they are less likely to marry or to have children, or to have more than one child. The challenges in crafting an empowered autonomous alternative to the negative ‘old maid’ persona are noteworthy. However, this alternative continues to face resistance within mainstream thinking, as many researchers tend to regard singlehood as a deviation from the norm, more like a ‘transient state’, and a little “pathological about remaining in it too long” (Forsyth and Johnston 1995: 91). Whilst the numbers of both single women and men are rising, they are still a minority. Nevertheless, Forsyth and Johnston (1995: 101) conceded that while the alternative ‘lifestyle’ of singles was becoming a visible phenomenon, it was not a normative situation but a state of ‘normal deviance’. This contradictory juxtaposition captures the evolving process of how rising numbers, to a certain extent, can normalize so-called ‘deviant’ behaviour. Research Method and Hong Kong Informants In our study, we define single working women as any women in fulltime paid work who are not in a cohabitation relationship. They can be never-married, divorced, separated or widowed, and they may or

29

45

40

36

40

36

43

36

41

Amy

Anita

Carly

Cory

Dorothy

Ella

Enid

Gigi

Age

Alice

Name

Never married Never married

Never married

Never married Separated

Separated

Never married Never married Never married

Marital status

Expecting a baby

Daughter (2+ years old) –

–

–

Son (5.5 years old)

–

–

–

No. of children and age

No

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

No

No

Yes

In a relationship

Alone in mortgaged flat

Nephew in mortgaged flat Alone in rented apartment Alone in staff quarters with daughter and helper Alone in family flat

Helper and son in rented apartment

Parents, younger brother Younger sister in mortgaged flat Parents, younger brother

Living arrangement

Master’s degree Master’s degree Doctoral degree

Master’s degree

Bachelor degree Bachelor degree Bachelor degree

Education

Sub-editor for Master’s TV degree University Doctoral teacher degree

University teacher

Translator

Assistant general manager Business development manager Nurse

Financial analyst Nurse

Profession

Table 1: Profile of the 19 single working women informants

Yes (UK)

Yes (Canada)

Yes (UK & USA)

No

Yes (NZ)

Yes (UK)

Yes (Australia) No

Yes (US)

Overseas education/ residence

116 evelyn g. h. ng and catherine w. ng

50

39

48

36

42

42

41

41

Letty

Mandy

Millie

Pamela

Pauline

Rosie

Sharon

Yvette

Jean

Late 30s 31

Age

Hannah

Name

Table 1 (cont.)

Never married Never married Never married

Never married

Never married Never married Never married Never married Never married Never married

Marital status

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

No. of children and age

No

No

Yes

No

No

No

No

Yes

No

No

In a relationship Assistant to director Mid-level manager Teacher

Profession

Education

Bachelor degree High school Master’s degree Alone in mortgaged TV producer Master’s flat degree Alone in mortgaged Insurance High school flat consultant Alone in mortgaged ViceMaster’s flat president degree in bank Parents, elder sister AdminisMaster’s tration degree officer Alone in fully paid- Social work Master’s up flat officer degree Mother Secretary Postsecondary Parents in mortgaged Creative Postflat director secondary

Alone in mortgaged flat Parents, younger brother Alone in rented flat

Living arrangement

Yes (Canada) No

No

No

No

No

Yes (UK & Canada) Yes (UK)

Yes (France) No

Overseas education/ residence

single working women in hong kong 117

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may not have children in future. The nineteen women who responded to our request for an interview reflected this spectrum (see Table 1). Although seventeen of the nineteen had never been married, two had a child out of wedlock. Two of the women were divorced and, together with twelve others, were not in a romantic relationship at present. Of the remaining five women who were in a romantic relationship, three of them wanted to get married eventually, but two resisted the idea. Because of their above-average incomes, eleven of the nineteen women were able to maintain their own accommodation, either because their senior position entitled them to housing or rental benefits or because they could afford a mortgage. Although we had a list of semi-prepared interview questions (see Table 2), the interviews basically took a free-flow format that allowed the informants to speak or elaborate on the topics of their choice whenever they wished. The intrusive and personal nature of the inquiry also explains why there is not much research information about the singles population in Hong Kong. It was not easy to get interviewees to agree to a sustained session that normally lasted from one and a half to two hours, and one contact reported that a number of her single female colleagues declined to be interviewed. Nevertheless, the snowballing approach among friends and contacts, in the end, obtained for us nineteen informants, most aged between 35 and 45 years (sixteen respondents). The two youngest were 29 and 31, and the oldest was 50. In addition to these nineteen single heterosexual women informants, one lesbian and two married women with children gave us their views about themselves and their single friends. We view the informants in the present study as a very select group. In terms of income, most of the women earned more than the median monthly salary of HK$30,000 for workers in the managerial, administrative and professional sector (Hong Kong Government 2001b: 53). Based on this data, they belonged to the middle-income group. They were also ‘self-selected’. The fact that they were prepared to talk about their situation openly reflected their confidence. All but two of them had received more than eleven years of formal schooling, with the majority holding a Bachelor or Master’s degree. We specified that our informants come from ethnic Chinese backgrounds, with two identifying themselves as Canadian Chinese10 and one other as an overseas

10

They were born in Hong Kong and had migrated during their formative years.

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Table 2: Semi-structured interview questions Who are the 10 most important persons in your life? What are your first thoughts about the following words? Single women, Single men, Marriage, Family, Children, Work, Money, Hong Kong, Feminism, and Your future. Public-space questions: Can you describe your job to me? Do you like your job? Is work important to you? Do you work very hard? Are you ambitious, career-wise? How do you get on with your colleagues at work? How does singlehood impact your work life? Do you feel any discrimination at work? Is there anything you would like your work organization to do for you? Private-space questions: How do you like living alone (or with family, etc., whichever applies)? Do you do housework? Do you cook? How often do you entertain at home? Do you feel lonely? Do you like going out (to restaurants, movies, for instance) by yourself? Do you have a lot of friends? Can you describe your ideal partner to us? What, if anything, would you like to change about your life?

Chinese from France. The rest were born and raised in Hong Kong and considered themselves to be local residents (‘Hong Kong people’), although a few held British passports. ‘One-Person Woman’ Overall, our informants viewed single women positively. The dominating perception was that they had ‘freedom’, were ‘independent financially

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and emotionally’ and ‘educated’. A few commented that single women could feel ‘lonely’. In spite of the prevailing stigma attached to spinsterhood, our informants reported that subjectively, they perceived that society is kinder to single women than to single men as women suffer more constraints in meeting a partner, whereas men have a wider (age) group to choose from. While most of our informants had no particular responses about single men, those who did failed to offer positive associations: Many people feel that single women do not have a choice, but men do. If they want to get married, they can. But he probably has a problem. That’s why he is unmarried. (Rosie, 42)11 If a woman is not married by a certain age, it is difficult for her to get married at all. For a man, he is the most eligible bachelor. For a woman, she is a ‘lo ku por’ [old maid]. (Pamela, 36)

Most of the participants in this study, however, were confident that at present not many people would use the old-fashioned (and derogatory) term ‘lo ku por’ to designate single women, although the stereotypical portrayal of an ‘old maid’ in local films and popular media has been unflattering and unkind: In the movies there is this stereotype, but the characters don’t look like me. I have not gone to that stage yet in physical appearance. (Pauline, 42)

Although most of the participants were aware of the stigma and negative connotation associated with an ‘old maid’, none of them seemed to feel that they fit this negative stereotypical image. It was seen to be a term used among the older generation while the younger generation referred to themselves as ‘dan sun lui yan’, literally translated as ‘oneperson woman’. The popularity of this neutral term, and the readiness shown by the informants to use it, reflects that the status of singles in Hong Kong is slowly gaining some acceptance. The Importance of Work One overwhelming impression gained from the interviews was the readiness of our informants to talk about themselves in relation to their work life. They appeared to spend a great deal of their time working. Many of them said that they were so busy that they did not have time to look for partners or to date. Many respondents returned to the office

11

No real names are used; the number refers to informants’ age.

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at the weekends, and those who worked in nursing, in the media or in social work had irregular working hours. All of them mentioned during the interview how stressed and physically spent they were most of the time. In comparison, the two married women informants, who, like the single ones, perceived themselves as committed workers, came across as less ‘attached’ to their jobs and tended to keep more regular hours. The personal (family) and the public (work) assume a different relationship for single women than for married women. Career-Partner Choice Our sample appears to be very similar to Gordon’s (1994b) with regard to the way the respondents dealt with the career-partner choice. She found that ‘[single] women had not prioritized work over relationships as such’ (Gordon 1994b: 75). Quite a few of our informants said that they have just not met the right person and that, paradoxically, because they are unattached, they spend more time at work: I don’t mind working overtime. I have nowhere to go anyway. I’m not dating, and if I don’t work, I’ll just go home and watch TV; so, might as well work since watching TV is not very productive. If I had a boyfriend, my life wouldn’t be just work and nothing else much. I prefer to have a boyfriend, to go out and see things with him. If I had a boyfriend, I would choose having fun with him over work anytime. (Jean, 31) I am single and the only thing I need to do is go to work. (Pauline, 42) We have no family. I don’t know if it is sad to say this, work can fill in our time. (Hannah, late 30s, whose family is not in Hong Kong)

It is clear from the interviews that the respondents attached great importance to their jobs. These single women showed remarkable similarity to their Western counterparts in that work was very important, and from which they derived a lot of pride and satisfaction. They did not see themselves as overly ambitious or hardworking. To them, taking work responsibilities seriously, doing their jobs well and getting on with their colleagues were often more important than promotion opportunities: I wouldn’t know how else to make use of my time. Work gives me a sense of self-worth; i.e., I’m a useful person when I work. (Amy, 45) I want to grow and take on more things. Satisfaction and sense of worth are greater when one does more things. (Anita, 40) People think that I’m a workaholic. In fact, I just want to do a good job. I take my responsibilities seriously. I want to show people that despite my lack of higher education, the quality of my work is really good. (Jean, 31)

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Because work is central to single women’s lives, their identity is very much bound up with their jobs and careers. Many of them derive genuine pleasure from their work achievements. It is more accurate to say that when compromises seemed necessary, single women decided not to make them. As they grew older, they became more and more comfortable with their singleness. To them, being with a partner invariably involved giving up some freedom and independence, and therefore, they would think very carefully before settling into a relationship at this stage of their lives since they were doing well. Other single women, however, had not had to make partner-career choices, because in practice, they worked in a way that reduced the likelihood of being able to form and maintain relationships. In other words, for some women, work was central because they were single, and for others they were single because of the centrality of work (Gordon 1994b). Career and Financial Stability Gordon (1994b) found that while some of her informants from Europe and America complained about their salaries being low, the majority were not too concerned about the extent of their financial resources. They tended to be quite contented managing with what they had. Our study indicates that this is less true in Hong Kong. The first and foremost reason for our informants when they were asked to explain why work is important to them was the money they earned from paid employment. Our informants, by and large, considered themselves as moderately hardworking and ambitious, and all of them were professionals and managers who had carved out well-established careers and earned fairly high salaries. Their perceived need for money, apart from livelihood reasons, was to achieve financial security in the long term. Money was also very important to those single women who needed to support their parents and/or younger siblings. Some informants worked hard to save up enough to start their own business eventually, or to go for further education locally or overseas. Carly (36), as a single parent with a young son, was working hard to achieve financial stability in five years’ time. Dorothy (36) was trying to save up to start up her own company eventually. “If I work for myself,” she said, “I can work into my old age”. Gigi (41) was saving up for early retirement, and Jean (31) wanted to save up to go abroad for studies. Many of the informants who lived with

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their parents helped with the mortgage. They appeared to be important contributors to the household income, either supporting their parents directly, or helping out a younger sibling with educational fees in one case. Some, who were living in their own mortgaged flats, continued to give an allowance to parents. Privileged Workers The single woman is privileged. I think bosses will like you. Married women will have to go home to look after their children. (Hannah, late 30s) [I face] no real discrimination [against single workers]. I wonder if it’s the other way round. Those women who have family may not be thought of as being able to devote so much time to work. (Gigi, 41) You see a lot of female employees opt out at the levels of associates and up. Some of them are really smart and intelligent. At the senior levels most of the managers and directors are men. Women managing directors are either not married or married without children. (Dorothy, 36)

Instead of resenting the ‘privileges’ (e.g., family emergency time to tend to sick children, or taking time off to attend parent-teacher-association meetings and sports days) granted to working parents (Coyne, Coyne, Sr., and Lee 2004: 46), our single informants are empathetic of working mothers’ juggling act. Also, two differences can be discerned between our and Gordon’s (1994b) findings. First, the single women in our study did not feel that their singleness had been detrimental to their employment status; nor did they feel that being single had hindered their career advancement. Instead, many informants were sympathetic to the stress married women, and men, with children face. Secondly, unlike Gordon’s (1994b) informants who were critical of sex discrimination at their workplaces, few of our informants felt that they suffered sex discrimination. Those who had problems at work normally identified issues that had more to do with mismanagement or with the hierarchical inequalities among personnel rather than problems arising from their gender. Gordon (1994b: 81) described her informants as ‘post-feminists’, those who “have been influenced by feminism and its achievements, whilst holding their distance from feminist identity and politics”. Most of our informants, we would say, were non-feminists, as they did not appear to know about the concept of feminism, or thought much of it when it was explained to them. The single informants in our study

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were accomplished professionals, who appeared to be very confident about their own personal abilities to overcome difficulties and hurdles. They might not want to emulate men, but were quite willing to accept the terms set by their work organizations. They were also pragmatic and achievement-oriented. They did not wish to be labelled ambitious, aggressive or radical. Feminism—both in terms of fighting for gender equality and in terms of women gaining more decision-making power—meant little to them. Many of the informants accepted, if not accommodated, to the ‘masculinized’ work culture with its long and irregular hours. Their work preoccupations were sometimes used to explain any disinterest in marriage, because their status in the workplace compensated for any perceived lack of a stable partner. For many of these women, the benefits and status as a worker in the paid economy far outweighed any emotional rewards that a married woman was assumed to enjoy with a husband and children. Singlehood or Marriage When asked to describe their ideal partner, many of the informants hinted that he must possess a motivation to excel and a willingness to continually learn, grow or improve. You look around, and you see a lot of professional women who are energetic, dedicated to their work, full of vitality, who actively make plans such as further studies, better jobs, and who are proud of doing a good job. Yet, you look around, men in similar levels are only doing their jobs for the money. (Jean, 31) If I think the person wasn’t living up to his own potential, [he’d] definitely turn me off. (Enid, 36) He cannot be stupid . . . I like him to be knowledgeable about many things. (Amy, 45)

The majority of the respondents viewed marriage in a positive light, but they were not prepared to marry just any man. Unlike single men who were seen to have more choices in marriage partners, the choice single women had was the choice not to marry for the sake of marrying. We reported that fourteen of the respondents were not in a romantic relationship, but none had rejected the idea of meeting a stable companion or husband. The only person who showed the least interest was a recent divorcee with a young son. Five were in romantic relationships, but only one spoke of a strong desire to get married so that she could have a child. Two were neutral and two actively resisted getting married despite some pressure from their boyfriends.

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Most of our informants appear to have been comfortable as singles although they sometimes had doubts about whether they had acted wisely and had made the right decisions. They saw themselves as selfdetermined, yet, sometimes unable to choose between partner and career, or unwilling to take active steps to pursue a partner when they wanted to. This contributed to their sense of ambivalence about their singleness even though they were proud of their independence.12 Resisting Marriage Although most of the respondents appeared to be ambivalent about their single state and were not negative towards finding a partner some day, two respondents in a long-term romantic relationship actively resisted marriage. Whether they can be considered as atypical cases is debatable as the singles population in Hong Kong reveals more diversity in attitudes than originally envisaged. The youngest respondent, Alice (29), who worked in a well-known American investment firm, gave a number of reasons for not getting married, and two reasons quoted below are associated with the institution of marriage. These concern children, and the duties and obligations of a daughter-in-law: I don’t like marriage that much. It’s OK if I eventually get married, but it’s OK if I don’t. I have softened a bit now. In the past I really hated the idea . . . But the most that I fear is having children. I like to play with them, but having one’s own is such a great responsibility. It’s not just giving birth to them, they look cute, but they will grow up, and you have to give them proper education, think about their upbringing, lots of things. And if one does not teach them well, what does one do? You can’t say you don’t want them. I think it’s a great responsibility and at present society is not that great so why bring someone into the world to suffer in such a terrible world? But my boyfriend likes kids a lot and he wants to get married. I said I would like a dog . . . I am not concerned about the commitment (issue) as I don’t intend to look for another person. He’s the one. I feel it’s because of the ‘children’ factor. If one gets married, one is required to have children. If we cohabit, there is a good excuse not to have a child, we are just cohabiting, but if we get married, people will feel that you have an obligation to have a baby . . . It’s OK to have a baby (when you are married) . . . but being single means that one is free. ‘Free’ not in the sense that I can go

12

It is interesting to note that some informants would explain their time commitment to their career or personal interests by prefacing their behaviour as ‘perhaps I am selfish’. It does suggest their awareness of the perceived self-sacrifices that married women make, and their hesitation in making them.

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evelyn g. h. ng and catherine w. ng and have a relationship with another man, but that I can go off with my friends and not go to his place to be with his mum and have a meal with them. I can do that now, but after our marriage, in a Chinese society, as part of a couple, I can’t refuse to visit his mum, or say that I am not in the mood to see her. It’s not good to do this often; one can hurt the relationship. (Alice, 29)

Could this be attributed to youth and the desire to have less responsibility? However, another informant who resisted marriage, Rosie, was comparatively older, at 42. Her reasons for remaining unmarried are that she enjoyed the best of both worlds: freedom as a single and intimacy with a long-term companion without marital obligations. She had her own flat and a full-time domestic helper. Her parents had passed away and she maintained close contact with her brother and sisters and their children. She also had many friends, both married and single: I enjoy the fact that I am not accountable, where I am going, and when I am coming back . . . I go out with my male (married) friends, nothing romantic, just enjoy each other’s company . . . Female married friends just stick to those old friends and not make new ones. With their family, they would socialize more with the husband’s family or friends. I don’t see them making new friends – the situation seems to be more male-centred. (Rosie, 42)

Rosie did not need marriage to enjoy the wider network of friends and kin. Her success in handling her need for intimacy with a male friend was balanced by the wide circle of friends and kin whom she saw when it pleased her, and whose warm company, in return, extracted comparatively lesser demands that a child (or husband) probably would. Motherhood Many never-married informants said that as single working women, they were in a better position as a worker than their married colleagues with children. Millie (48), an insurance consultant, observed that her colleagues would normally rush home to see to their children’s meals and homework. Our informants are not immune to observable happenings around them. Jacobs and Gerson (2001: 60–61) have pointed out that while workers are suffering ‘family time deficits’ due to longer work hours, simultaneously, cultural pressures for ‘intensive mothering’ have increased. The perceived expectations about being a ‘good mother’ in a fast-paced society have turned into perceived difficulties of parenthood. This added stress arising from childcare duties can partly explain why

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some of our informants are not keen to be mothers, and perhaps, by extension, not drawn towards marriage as married couples are under some pressure to explain their childlessness to close kin and friends (as explained in the preceding section). More often though, was the claim that given the long hours that they had to spend on their jobs, they could not even look after themselves properly, let alone a child. When asked, the majority of our informants did not want to have children on their own without a husband.13 Many said they liked children, and enjoyed the company of their siblings’ or friends’ children but they were not keen to have any while still single. Overall, unlike their Western counterparts (Gordon 1994a), our informants did not report the sense of loss or pain associated with their childless state. This, as reported by a few informants, could be due to the close attachments they had formed with their nephews and nieces. For some, it could also be due to strong ties to immediate kin as they reported making financial contributions to their parents’ and younger siblings’ living expenses. On the whole, these working daughters identified closely with their family of origin, and this has provided them some emotional support. However, the same close familial ties, from which some Hong Kong single working women can draw strength, also exacted a certain price from them in the form of emotional labour. Gigi (41) shouldered a considerable amount of responsibility, compared to her single brother, in the supervision of her mother who could not look after herself. Rosie (42), rather than her married older brother, looked after her parents before they both passed away. Earlier, we saw that Alice’s resistance to marriage had more to do with her resistance to motherhood. In addition, she also mentioned that her responsibilities towards her parents (and she takes them seriously) were already a burden to her. “I want freedom but I know my responsibilities”, she said. “I don’t like people to tell me what to do.” The distinction she made about the pressure to have children after marriage, but not when a couple is cohabiting, is compounded by the potential pressure to deal with the bonds of another set of kin, her in-laws. By being unmarried, she avoided childbearing and child-rearing issues, and the expectations of an expanding familial network. 13

For example: “I like [children],” said Pauline (42). “In-vitro fertilization? I wouldn’t do that to the child. A family should consist of two parents. That’s why I’m so serious about marriage. I wouldn’t like to be divorced, and having children would make the matter worse”.

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Our study tried to look beyond numbers to interpret what some single working women are saying about themselves and what mattered to them. We examined the attitudes of only a small group of avowed heterosexual single women, the majority of whom were in the never-married category. Coming from different backgrounds and aged between 29 and 50, their lives reflected the various permutations of single life; those in relationships or not; having children or childless; desiring marriage or not; and desiring children or not. Many of our respondents could afford their own housing. They thus could choose not to live with any immediate family member. It was not so very long ago that the normative expectation was that a single woman would live with older kin until she found a husband. Apart from the fact that it was financially prohibitive to live alone in a room or an apartment in one of the most expensive real estate areas in the world, the other, perhaps more important, reason was that her moral reputation had to be protected. Hence the fact that more than half of our respondents in their mid 30s and early 40s were able to live on their own without much thought about what others might think about them, speaks much about the changes occurring among the female single population. While single women, in popular media, are at times portrayed as confident, sophisticated and independent free agents (Moy 2001: 1), they are also presented as harbingers of a lonely future—‘husbandless and childless’, facing ultimate frustration and stress (Moy 2003: C3). Our findings however reflect a far more complex picture. As the number of singles rise, their status has become acceptable as an alternative life choice. The majority of the single working women informants in this study had positive images of themselves and did not identify with the powerless ‘old maid’ stereotype, and instead referred to themselves as ‘one-person women’. Gordon’s (1994a, 1994b) observations of ‘city singles’ who are autonomous and who also have familial support are also true for our informants. Living in Hong Kong, a relatively crowded urban setting, with a good transport network, these single women, especially those who are in one-person households, were not physically isolated from close kin and friends. Instead, they had friends to go out with, regular social outings with family members, and invitations to meals at friends’ homes during festival holidays. In short, there was an emotional community from which they drew support.

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Paid work consumed a large part of our informants’ time and, in turn, the financial rewards obtained (very generous for some) enabled them to live an independent life centring round their jobs, travel, further studies and recreational interests. For single women, the public arena was where they excelled, developed valued workplace skills, defined their identity and derived satisfaction, self-worth and self-identity. If there was a sense of loss related to singlehood, it was the lack of a partner who would be available on occasions when they needed attention and emotional support.14 All of the single informants, in varying degrees, wanted to have caring partners or to get married if they met a suitable person. In this regard, our research lends further evidence to Wong’s (2003) view that Hong Kong women are postponing rather than abandoning marriage. However, many are still waiting. “Where are the good men?”, asked 36-year-old Enid. On the whole, the participants in this study are unlikely to be drawn to men who are not as motivated to grow and to improve, and who are not as focused and disciplined in their life pursuits. Hence, there appear to be two strands of force working in concert in favour of singlehood for them. Work is central to their lives and identities. They derive satisfaction and pride from being competent in their jobs and committed to their careers. Yet, these high standards that the women set for themselves were also their ‘basic’ expectations for their partners. In other words, the centrality of work to single women, besides providing them an identity or identities, also rendered them less willing to compromise for a partner of lesser qualities. In examining the resistance towards having children, the majority did not want to have children without a husband. There were also expressions of anxieties about parenthood, and the circumscribed social circle for married women, but the most frequently heard was that these women’s stressful and responsible jobs dampened their inclination to think about child rearing, if they ever had it in the first place. If being committed to a demanding job means not being able to be good mothers, they would rather not assume parenthood. Furthermore, as significant financial contributors, parents could continue to enjoy the salaries that single daughters earned, and some were also important

14 Another respondent, Sharon (41), admitted that she only wanted a partner when she was going through a difficult period. She realized that having a husband would also involve dealing with in-laws, and that was not something she relished.

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caregivers to ageing parents. (A few informants, when asked, said that family members stopped pressuring them to get married after they were 35 years of age). Those with close kin ties enjoyed ‘substitute children’—nephews and nieces, or the children of close friends, and hence did not report feeling any great sense of loss that they had no children of their own, nor did the majority feel a great pressure to bear children. The overall picture is that singlehood does not appear to be as stigmatized as in the recent past, marriage and motherhood are becoming less attractive to financially independent women, and childbearing outside of marriage is still not acceptable in Hong Kong. Given this situation, a decreasing fertility rate in Hong Kong has been inevitable and the downward trend looks likely to continue. There is a hint of something new in the formation of attitudes among our informants. There was a strong sense of affirmation and assertiveness about their singleness. Waite (1995) identifies the financial independence of women from paid work as an important factor for the decline in marriage. If, as has been further postulated, women tended to benefit materially from marriage, while men tended to benefit emotionally from it, then the single women in our study who were financially stable will need to feel that they must benefit emotionally, and intellectually, from their partner before they will change their marital status. In recent years, when the fertility panic occurring elsewhere15 surfaced in Hong Kong, there was a relative lack of qualitative data regarding single women. Although a statistical minority,16 the rising numbers of never-married women have become a subject of much interest and concern. The concern, however, is not so much about how gendered roles in the family structure may have been a contributing factor to the rising non-marriage rate among women, but rather how single women can be persuaded to get married and procreate future workers, and to delay or prevent the emergence of an ageing populace. Our study sug-

15 In Singapore, the decline in marriage and procreation rates there is considered a ‘national problem’, and the dating and mating habits of citizens are zealously monitored by the authorities. The official rhetoric of pronatalism in Singapore flows over into public space and letters to newspapers openly link motherhood and female citizenship. Male citizens, it was argued, were obliged to serve national interests by spending two years in the military. In the same spirit, it was claimed, Singaporean women had a national obligation to procreate. 16 For the never-married 30–34 age category, in 1991 it was 19.8%, rising to 34.1% in 2005. For the 35–39 age category, in 1991 it was 10.4%, rising to 21.4% in 2005 (Hong Kong Government 2001a, 2006).

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gests that while many single working women in Hong Kong had not become disillusioned with marriage and did not resist it per se, they were also not likely to marry for the sake of marriage and/or procreation. Additionally, they tended to pursue independently what was important to them, as best as they could, and accepted the social and work codes of male-dominated structures. Ng and Ng (2004: 13) term single women’s negotiation of work and personal space as “pragmatic individualized strategies”, as their main concern is achieving their goals by adopting what works under the prevailing cultural norms (rather than attempting to change them). This study shows that, unlike the case in Australia (Kevin 2005), single women in Hong Kong rarely engage in pronatalist discussions to demand more women- and family-friendly policies. Future Challenges Leung (2006) enumerated a number of landmark campaigns that have improved Hong Kong women’s rights: equal work for equal pay in the 1960s, abolition of polygamy and concubinage in 1971, maternity leave benefits from 1979 to 1980s, separate taxation from 1981 to 1990, awareness-raising of domestic violence since 1980s and childcare service provision since late 1980s. In the main, women activists in Hong Kong succeeded in improving women’s situation using legal avenues and a rights discourse to argue their case for equal opportunities and status. However, our research informs us that persistent sexual division of labour within the family, a primary site, continues to organize women’s life choices and, therefore, singlehood needs to be examined in the broader context of gendered relations in the family. Nearly all of our informants were unaware of feminist goals and uninterested in being engaged in any feminist aspirations, although it appears that their state of ‘normal deviance’ cannot be separately analyzed from larger gender issues. An optimist might hope that in the face of a declining fertility rate and the community-wide anxiety that this has produced, women can start to negotiate and engage with the pronatalist policies now recommended in Hong Kong. The fact that it has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world can be used positively or negatively depending on the ideological leanings of different interest groups. One positive reading is to regard it as a clarion call for women to examine their location within the family, and thence to examine (maternal) citizenship as proposed by the authorities and advisory

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bodies. As more women attain some of the financial and social power that was the prerogative of men not too long ago, persistent gender inequalities in the division of labour in the family must be attended to with some urgency. A feminist perspective might not appeal to everyone, but there is a need to work out a progressive conceptual framework that addresses the multiple identities of Hong Kong women. Individualism, as a theoretical tool, might partially account for their complex behaviour, but is not sufficient to capture the real business of living in, coping with and running ‘families’. This special issue makes a timely attempt to unravel the various possibilities that might engage them to ‘do’ something about families. Singlehood also needs to be analyzed in the context of the current political climate. Ku and Pun (2006: 1) pointed to the “reconfiguration of Hong Kong as the Special Administrative Region of China” as a “project of remaking citizenship in the city”. In the 2006 Policy Address there was a call for a ‘harmonious family’. In the 2007 Policy Address, it was stated that the family in a Chinese society like Hong Kong was a core value. With its overtones of a quintessential Confucian ideal, the harmonious family is proposed as an idealized entity. While there is nothing wrong in aspiring to harmony as an ideal, the costs can be heavy if women are not vigilant in ensuring that progress achieved so far is not undermined by potential conservative political and cultural policies and practices that emphasize women’s wife and mother roles at the expense of their right to be autonomous persons. By making the family a problematic enquiry, single working women can take up the challenge to re-negotiate the terms of engagement between work, marriage and family. References Chan, Quinton. 2006, September 18. “Close up: Our Cradle of Life.” South China Morning Post, p. A15. Cheung, Gary and Mary Ann Benitez. 2005, February 22. “Incentives May Be Offered to Boost Birth Rate.” South China Morning Post, p. A1. Coyne, Beulah S., Edward J. Coyne, Sr. and Monica Lee. 2004. Human Resources, Care-giving, Career Progression and Gender: A Gender Neutral Glass Ceiling. London: Routledge. Forsyth, Craig and Elaine Johnston. 1995. “A Sociological View of the Never-married.” International Journal of Sociology of the Family 25(2): 91–104. Gordon, Tuula. 1994a. “Single Women and Familism: Challenge from the Margins.” The European Journal of Women’s Studies 1: 165–182. ——. 1994b. Single Women. London: Macmillan.

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Hertz, Rosanna. 2006. Single by Chance, Mothers by Choice: How Women are Choosing Parenthood without Marriage and Creating the New American Family. New York: Oxford University Press. Hong Kong Government. 2001a. 2001 Population Census Summary Results. Hong Kong: Census and Statistics Department. ——. 2001b. Women and Men in Hong Kong: Key Statistics. Hong Kong: Census and Statistics Department. ——. 2002. Hong Kong Population Projections: 2002–2031. Hong Kong: Census and Statistics Department. ——. 2006. Women and Men in Hong Kong: Key Statistics. Hong Kong: Census and Statistics Department. Jacobs, Jerry A. and Kathleen Gerson. 2001. “Overworked Individuals or Overworked Families? Explaining Trends in Work, Leisure, and Family Time.” Work and Occupations 28(1): 40–63. Kevin, Catherine. 2005. ”Maternity and Freedom: Australian Feminist Encounters with the Reproductive Body.” Australian Feminist Studies 20(46): 3–15. Ku, Agnes and Ngai Pun. 2006. “Introduction.” Pp. 1–15 in Remaking Citizenship in Hong Kong: Community, Nation and the Global City, edited by Agnes Ku and Ngai Pun. London and New York: Routledge. Leung, Lai-ching. 2006. “Engendering Citizenship.” Pp. 175–194 in Remaking Citizenship in Hong Kong: Community, Nation and the Global City, edited by Agnes Ku and Ngai Pun. London and New York: Routledge. Moy, Patsy. 2001, August 28. “Unwed Women Attract Admirers from Afar.” South China Morning Post, p. 1. ——. 2003, March 20. “HK’s Yuppies: Single, Stressed but Solvent.” South China Morning Post, p. C3. Ng, Catherine W. and Evelyn G. H. Ng. 2004. “Hong Kong Single Working Women’s Pragmatic Negotiation of Work and Personal Space.” Anthropology of Work Review XXV(1–2): 8–14. So, Antoine. 2002, May 8. “Men Spoilt for Choice as Number of Women Rises.” South China Morning Post, p. 3. Tsuya, Noriko O. and Larry L. Bumpass. 2004. “Views of Marriage among Never-married Young Adults.” Pp. 39–53 in Marriage, Work and Family Life in Comparative Perspective: Japan, South Korea and the United States, edited by Noriko O. Tsuya and Larry L. Bumpass. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Waite, Linda. 1995. “Does Marriage Matter?” Demography Washington 32(4): 483– 508. Wong, Odalia M. H. 2003. “Postponement or Abandonment of Marriage? Evidence from Hong Kong.” Journal of Comparative Family Studies 34(4): 531–554.

WHERE IS MY BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN? Travis S. K. Kong Abstract Based on forty-five in-depth interviews with Hong Kong Chinese gay men, this paper examines how non-heterosexuals ‘do’ family and intimacy. I argue that my respondents actively and creatively constituted their own meanings of the notion of family by embracing a ‘friends-as-family’ model, which seems to be one of the major features of contemporary gay life in Hong Kong and elsewhere. Moreover, they focused on the couple relationship as the major site of intimacy. Monogamy as a defining principle in the couple relationship was set as an ideal, yet they did not treat it as a given but as an active choice that might be accomplished. Consequently, they practised different forms of non-monogamous relationships, accordingly to certain explicit or implicit rules. By performing various ‘experiments in living’, they create new ways of life which may give us—heterosexuals or non-heterosexuals—insight into how to live in a culture of diverse relationships in an increasingly complex world.

Where is My Brokeback Mountain? A way of life can be shared among individuals of different age, status and social activity. It can yield intense relations not resembling those that are institutionalized. It seems to me that a way of life can yield a culture and an ethics. To be ‘gay’, I think, is not to identify with the psychological traits and the visible masks of the homosexual, but to try to define and develop a way of life. —Michel Foucault, “Friendship as a Way of Life”

Ang Lee’s movie Brokeback Mountain (2005) shook the Hollywood movie industry by featuring two lonesome cowboys, Jack and Ennis, who engage in an intense, bitter, passionate relationship over decades. Heated debates usually stormed around the difficulties of such closeted young gay men’s lives in the pre-LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, queer) movement period which most western cities experienced; or around their struggles for masculinity and fatherhood within the American patriarchal system, which tended to equate American masculinity with exclusive heterosexuality, physical strength, aggression, stoicism, authority and independence. However, what interests me is rather the idea of ‘brokeback passion’, articulated metaphorically, in contrast to a mundane marital relationship. The passion is not just

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about the sex between these two young gay men with a desire that ‘dared not speak its name’, but the joy and pleasure that they shared together—hanging out, smoking, drinking, fishing, swimming, in short, having fun; as contrasted with the low-paid, long-hours ranch work, mundane household chores and other tedious family duties. Brokeback Mountain is basically a story of adultery, set in Wyoming in the US in the 1960s. The modern American family ideal seems to have come into popular acceptance in the 1950s—a family with middleclass inclinations, consisting of a breadwinner husband, a homemaker wife and two or three biological children. Although it has never been empirically verified as having commonly existed and has been frequently criticized since the 1960s (e.g., Stacey 1990, 1996; Mason, Skolnick, and Sugarman 2003), this ‘modern nuclear family’ type, with a specific structure and specialized functions and well-defined roles for the sexes and generations, was an ideal in the Parsonian functionalist framework. Any deviation from this model seemed to be negative or somewhat failed. The love between the two protagonists in Brokeback Mountain was thus deemed to be a tragedy, as it violated the ideal on two fronts: homosexuality as an antithesis of the basic definition of family (heterosexual by default), and adultery as breaching the assumption of a loving sexually monogamous couple. If this story had happened in the 21st century, would it have been told differently? What has happened over the past few decades in terms of family, marriage, and intimacy? In an interview, Beck uses ‘the family’ as an example of a ‘zombie category’—one that once had life and meaning but for many now means little, or something very different (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2002). Why should we still talk about family and marriage? What is the significance of family and marriage? What do people in general, and gay men in particular, think about the family and marriage today? This paper discusses how non-heterosexuals ‘do’ family and intimacy, based on forty-five in-depth interviews with Hong Kong Chinese gay men. By situating it in the ‘doing family’ project, which views family not as an institution or ‘thing’ but as a set of social practices through which we live (Morgan 1996, 1999, 2001), I argue that my respondents actively and creatively constituted their own meanings of the notion of family by emphasizing ‘family of choice’, which included not just families of origin, but their lovers and a range of chosen friends. This ‘friends-asfamily’ model seems to be one of the major features of contemporary gay life in Hong Kong and elsewhere (Weston 1991; Weeks, Heaphy,

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and Donovan 2001). Moreover, the respondents tended to shift from the family-and-marriage institution to the couple relationship as the major site of intimacy. Although monogamy as a defining principle in the couple relationship was set as an ideal for some respondents, most of them apparently did not treat it as a given or restrictive rule but as an active choice that might be accomplished. Consequently, they practised different forms of non-monogamous relationships, accordingly to certain explicit or implicit rules. These gay men’s biographies exemplify how social actors ‘do’ family in the post-colonial Hong Kong context. The way they do family is related to the way they do “gender, sexuality, work, caring, and the other activities that make up the totality of life experience” (Weeks, Heaphy, and Donovan 2004: 345). Their narratives thus tell us of the fluidity, diversity and multi-facetedness of our everyday life practices, including family and intimate practices. By performing various ‘experiments in living’ (Giddens 1992; Weeks 1995; Weeks, Heaphy, and Donovan 2001), they create new ways of life which may give us—heterosexuals or non-heterosexuals—insight into how to live in a culture of diverse relationships in an increasingly complex world. From Doing Family to Doing Relationships A profound transformation of our personal lives—the family, marriage, relationships, and sexuality—has taken place in late modern societies under the rapid process of globalization and the ramifications of individualization, and has resulted in a variety of patterns of (re-)organized intimacy that successfully dissociate sex, love and the marriage institution—e.g., pre-marital sex, cohabitation, divorce, remarriage, step families, single-parent families and same-sex marriage, etc. (Giddens 1991, 1992, 1999; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 1995; Mason, Skolnick, and Sugarman 2003; Weeks 2003; Scott, Treas, and Richards 2004). In all of these patterns, one significant new factor is that the couple relationship has replaced marriage and family as the major site of intimacy in many modern societies. As Jamieson (2004) argued, from the 1950s to the 1990s, at least in the industrialized West, the emphasis shifted from the married domestic heterosexual couple to “a range of forms of emotionally intense dyadic relationships between two equal adults” (p. 39), be they married, cohabiting or living alone, with or without children, heterosexual or homosexual, etc. However, the result

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of this development has not been the end of marriage or family but the emergence of marriage-like arrangements (e.g., cohabitation, serial monogamy, same-sex marriage) and neo-conventional family types (e.g., step family, single-parent family, and the childless and fewer-children family) (Lewis 2001; Weeks 2003). Central to the couple relationship is the notion of monogamy. Although the idea was criticized by feminists in the 1970s as sexual exclusivity, the institutionalization of coupledom and the presumed ownership of another individual (Jackson and Scott 2004), it remains salient as a marker of commitment and stability in contemporary constructions of heterosexual relationships, and is usually measured in terms of sexual fidelity as symbolic of ‘trust’, with sexual exclusivity symbolic of ‘specialness’ in a couple relationship and with non-monogamy equated with infidelity (Reibstein and Richards 1992). Hence, adultery and ‘affairs’ are still regarded as a major marital or relationship problem and a legitimate reason for divorce or the breakup of a relationship, as they appear as breaches of the marriage contract, breaches of trust between couples, and breaches of implicit rules of erotic ethics. Serial monogamy (not promiscuity), rather than life-long marriage, has become the norm (Weeks 2003). Giddens’s (1991, 1992) notion of a ‘pure relationship’ tries to capture the nature of the modern couple relationship. A pure relationship refers to ‘confluent love’, in which mutual trust should be established through disclosing intimacy. Giddens argues that pure relationships are equal and democratic relationships between individuals but not necessarily heterosexual or non-exclusive (i.e., not necessarily monogamous). However, although the concept of a pure relationship does try to accommodate the issue of non-monogamy, Giddens puts certain limits to the non-exclusionary possibilities of couple arrangements. As Jamieson (2004: 41) points out, the concept “does not envisage any challenge to being-a-couple as the most sought after type of relationship in adult life”. Non-monogamous relationships may be practised (from secret affairs to open relationships including, for example, threesomes and swing couples), but ‘living as a couple’ remains the ideal domestic state for most adults. As the cornerstone or building block of society, the family has traditionally been seen as the antithesis of homosexuality. Lesbian and gay studies from the 1950s to the 1970s focused overwhelmingly on identity and coming-out issues and usually offered a strong critique of the family, which was supposed to be hostile to homosexuality. However, as lesbians and gays moved from a politics of identity in the

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1970s to a politics of relationship and partnership rights in the 1990s and beyond, the debate over same-sex marriage (e.g., Seidman 2003) and the language of family has re-emerged (e.g., as in the phrases ‘new brave families’ (Stacy 1990, 1996), ‘families we choose’ (Weston 1991) and ‘families of choice’ (Weeks, Heaphy, and Donovan 2001). Although non-heterosexual relationships are not necessarily nonmonogamous, same-sex couples are unlikely to take monogamy for granted. That is why Giddens (1991, 1992) frequently refers to lesbian and gay relationships as good examples of pure relationships. Without much baggage of traditional gender expectations and heterosexual guidelines and scripts (e.g., monogamy), lesbian and gay men are ‘condemned to freedom’ in reconstructing relationships on their own terms. Studies have started to document relationships among lesbian and gay couples in different western societies (e.g., Yip 1997; Adam 2006; Mutchler 2000; Weeks, Heaphy, and Donovan 2001, 2004; Heaphy, Donovan, and Weeks 2004). This article is thus an attempt to join this international debate by looking at how Hong Kong gay men ‘do’ family and intimacy. So what about the situation in Hong Kong? The only legal marital system in Hong Kong is the Western form of monogamous marriage. Polygamy (a man with more than one wife) and arranged marriage have hardly been practised in Hong Kong since the 1970s. However, there has been a trend of increasing premarital sex among secondary school students and out-of-school teens (Ng and Ma 2004), while the median ages for first marriage for men have increased from 27.0 in 1981 and 30.8 in 2003 to 31.2 in 2007, and those statistics for women have increased from 23.9 and 27.8 to 28.3, respectively. This may be associated with the rise of cohabitation. Meanwhile, the divorce rate has increased from 354 cases in 1972, 2,062 in 1981 and 13,432 in 2001 to 18,403 in 2007; single-parent families have increased from 34,538 in 1991 and 58,460 in 2001 to 72,326 in 2006; and remarriages have increased from 1,891 in 1981, 3,333 in 1986 and 4,689 in 1996 to 15,060 in 2007 (Lam, Lam, and Leung 2005; Wong 2005; Women and Men in Hong Kong: Key Statistics 2008). With the specific social, economic and political changes in Hong Kong, new or quasi-family types have emerged. Examples include cohabitation, step families, single-parent families, ‘astronaut families’, cross-border Hong Kong-mainland families, quasi-polygamous family (married Hong Kong men with mistresses in China—baau yih naaih), new-arrival immigrant families (particular from mainland China),

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lesbian and gay families, and probably many more (e.g., Ong 1999; Leung and Lee 2005; Mulvey 2005; Salaff, Shik, and Greve 2006). Family studies in Hong Kong started off from a functionalist framework based on how traditional Chinese patriarchal extended families have changed under the vigorous processes of modernization and westernization. The focal point was how Chinese family have adopted and been modified under the imperatives of industrialization in Hong Kong, and how this has resulted in different forms of family, such as the stem family, the nuclear family or isolated conjugal family (Wong 1972), and the modified extended family (Podmore and Chaney 1974; Lee 1987). The ideological orientation of these studies has been a utilitarianistic familism (Lau 1978, 1982). Discussions have focused on the functions of the assumed nuclear family (e.g., stabilization of adult sexuality, primary socialization of children), and thus its dysfunctions (e.g., extra-marital affairs, divorce, sexual abuse, domestic violence), the relations with other family members (e.g., conjugal and parental relationships), and the gendered division of labour within the family (assumed ‘male breadwinner-female homemaker’ binary) and between family and work (e.g., ‘second shift’, ‘third shift’, dual-career family) (e.g., Law et al. 1995; Lee and Lu 1997). This framework has been rigorously criticized, as it simplifies the process of modernization to regard only industrialization and utilitarianism; overemphasizes the size, structure and especially materialistic functions of family; and neglects the non-material or affective aspects of the family and the dynamics among family members in the current post-colonial Hong Kong context (e.g., Ng 1994, 1995; Shae and Ho 2001). Recent studies have tended to situate themselves in the specific socio-political, economic and colonial conditions that shape and have shaped family life in Hong Kong, and to treat family not as a ‘thing’ but as a series of practical everyday life practices (e.g., Koo and Wong, and Ng, Ng and Chan in this special issue). Perhaps the most salient feature of this agency-and-family-practice approach is the discussion of the roles of women. For example, Ng (1995) urges we “bring women back in” to family studies. Chan and Wong (2005: 447) argue that “a sociology of family is . . . by necessity a sociology of women in particular and gender relations in general”. Ng and Ng (in this special issue) discuss single working women; Wong (2005) the determinants of postponement of first marriage among women; Chan (2005) the effects of live-in foreign female domestic workers on family dynamics, especially motherhood; and Tsun and Tsang (2005) violence against

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women and children. Tam (2005) gives an anthropological account of the baau yih naaih phenomenon, and Ho (2006) discusses men and women with multiple partners, while Ho (2007a, b) discusses the identity and sexuality of middle-aged Hong Kong housewives. There are still many areas that deserve more attention and investigation. For example, there is relatively little study of minority families (e.g., ethnic minority families such as South Asian families, and disability families), the changing family role of men, the impact of reproductive technologies on family life, surrogate mothers, and many other family issues. Nevertheless, such studies would have an overwhelming focus on heterosexual families. Gay and lesbian studies in Hong Kong, in contrast, predominantly focus on identity formation and its relations to coming out and social discrimination (Ho 1995; Chou 2000; Ho and Tsang 2000a, 2000b; Kong 2002, 2004; Wong 2007; Tang 2008), or on cultural (mis-)representation in mass media and popular culture (Kong 2005; Yau 2006; Leung 2008). This paper attempts to fill that gap by examining how Hong Kong gay men ‘do family’ (see Wong (2006) for how lesbians ‘do’ family). Following Morgan (1999: 16), I view family as representing “a constructed quality of human interaction or an active process rather than a thinglike object of social investigation”. Family is thus a set of everyday life practices through which we live and through which meanings are given by its participating members. In a Butlerian sense, this set of family practices, like gender, is ‘performative’ (Butler 1990; c.f., Finch’s (2007) idea of ‘displaying’ family). As Weeks, Heaphy and Donavon (2004) have argued, we live family rather than dwell within it. And if family life is a set of historically specific practices, linked with all of our activities, then there is no theoretical reason to exclude the everyday practices of non-heterosexuals from the pantheon of family and kin. A Note on Methodology This paper is drawn from a larger project of de-centring heteronormative processes of gender conventionality, heterosexuality and family traditionalism (‘doing gender’, ‘doing sexuality’ and ‘doing family’, respectively; see Oswald, Blume and Marks 2005) through ninety personal stories (semi-structured in-depth interviews) of gay Chinese men collected in Hong Kong, London and mainland China between 1996 and 2008, some of which involved ongoing conversations. The men were

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recruited mainly through personal contacts, gay-affiliated organizations and the snowball technique. This particular paper is part of a ‘Doing Family’ project based on semi-structured face-to-face formal interviews with thirty-four self-identified Hong Kong gay men conducted in 1997 and 1998, with updated interviews with one third of them in 2007–2008, and with eleven new interviews carried out in 2007–2008. Through their personal stories, I try to understand how these men ‘do’ intimacy and/or family in non-heterosexual relationships. Although my primary research orientation is on Hong Kong gay men, references will be made to other LGBTQ members where appropriate. I, by no means, suggest that LGBTQ space is unified, nor do I privilege gay space over lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and closeted spaces. Interviews ranged from one and a half to three hours. Respondents ranged from 18 to 61 years old during the second interview period of 2007–08, and in education from secondary to university level. Apart from a few students, most were working in different sectors in society, and included businessmen, managers, professionals, semi-skilled manual labourers and others.1 Interviews were free-flowing in style but focused on these men’s identity formation in relation to their experiences about love, intimacy and family. Guided by a grounded theory approach (Strauss and Corbin 1997) and following Ryan and Bernard’s (2000) framework, data analysis involved several readings of the transcripts, categorizations through open coding and identification of themes emerged from the data analysis process. Findings and analyses were compared to those in the existing local and international literature (see Miles and Huberman 1994). Doing Family and Doing Intimacy: A Gay Version After the British took over Hong Kong in 1842, homosexuality was criminalized. One major defining moment of Hong Kong lesbian and gay history was the decriminalization of homosexuality in 1990, which not only protected people legally but also triggered first the mushrooming of gay and lesbian organizations and then the establishment

1 The nature of the study was carefully explained to all participants, and confidentiality and anonymity were emphasized. All names that appear are pseudonyms, and minor alterations of biographies have been made to protect respondents’ identities. Consent was sought before tape-recording interviews, which were transcribed from spoken Cantonese to written Chinese, with quotes translated into written English.

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of different venues of entertainment (e.g., bars, clubs, saunas, massage parlours, cafes, bookshops, etc.), all of which provided meeting places for the constitution of a lesbian and gay ‘community’. Other major events have included the equalization of the age of consent for heterosexuals and homosexuals in 2005, the annual International Day against Homophobia in 2005, the first gay pride walk in 2008, and the annual Hong Kong Lesbian and Gay Film Festival that has been held for about 10 years. However, Hong Kong is still a homophobic society. There is no legislation against discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. Same-sex partners are not entitled to the right to marry or the right to adopt children, the right to inherit if a partner dies intestate, and so on. Many discrimination cases based on sexual orientation have been reported (Hong Kong Christian Institute et al. 2006). One recent case should be noted: the Broadcasting Authority issued a serious warning to RTHK after receiving a few complaints concerning ‘Gay Lover’, a July 2006 episode of the long-running and highly-acclaimed RTHK documentary programme “Hong Kong Connection”. The Broadcasting Authority charged that the episode was “unsuitable for family viewing” because the documentary featured a gay man and a lesbian couple and discussed the possibility of same-sex marriage, and that it was “too positive” about homosexuality and tended to be “promoting an acceptance of gay marriage”. The documentary thus only presented a “partial” view of this “controversial” issue without giving enough “pro-and-con arguments” (see www.leslovestudy.com). One of the interviewees, Joseph Cho, a post-graduate student, and two other interviewees, took the case to court and eventually won the legal battle this year. In an open thank-you letter to their supporters sent by email on 12 May 2008, these three litigants summarized the whole court case by saying: . . . Although Hartmann’s judgment is very encouraging and made a timely redress of injustice, we are saddened by the very fact that the sexual minority needs to safeguard our very fundamental human rights in a cost- and time-consuming legal battle. The government simply failed to properly do its job to stick itself to the principle of equality but became complicit in discrimination and hatre [sic]. We are convinced that it is high time the government enacted an anti-sexual orientation discrimination law, as a means of long overdue legal protection and public education. What Hartmann stroke [sic] down is not only the discriminatory decision by the Broadcasting Authority, but also the whole set of the homophobic assumptions (i.e. homosexuality is always controversial, representation of the gay and lesbian people’s life without opposing views is

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Although it is widely discussed that heteronormative culture has numerous adverse effects on gay lives, it is also argued that the lack of institutional support and cultural guidelines may have some positive unintended consequences (Weston 1991; Plummer 1995; Weeks, Heaphy and Donovan 2001). Without much pressure of any presumed script governing intimacy, gay men are relatively free to create new scripts that might set them apart from the heterosexual hegemony of “doing” courtship, marriage, intimacy and family practices. Doing Family Jeff comes from a rich family and is an architect. When I first met him ten years ago he was 26, a closeted young gay man who was almost ignorant of the gay subculture. However, as he said, he is a fast-learning baby. He has now transformed from an upper middle class closeted gay man to an ‘out and loud’ queer with an in-your-face attitude who is politically liberal, sexually adventurous and fashion conscious. He is now settled in England, but has lived back and forth between Hong Kong and London for the past ten years: If I were straight, I would do what other straight people normally do, you know, get married, have children, etc., etc. . . . but if I were straight . . . I wouldn’t have to be opened to a lot of things that I’ve seen or experienced . . . that’s what it is meant to be gay . . . I would probably become a doctor, I wouldn’t have gone to do art . . . I wouldn’t have been exposed myself to so many different things . . . the club scene, the drug scene, the gay scene . . . and I think if I were straight, I would be much more narrow-minded . . . self-thinking, independent-thinking . . . I think this is the difference.

Jeff may have exaggerated the difference between straight and gay lives a bit. However, when asked what being gay meant to them, most of my respondents, like Jeff, reported that “being gay”, apart from widelyexperienced social discrimination and marginalization, represented “liberation”, “freedom”, “pleasure” (in particular “sexual pleasure”), “opportunity”, etc. In their accounts they frequently drew on heterosexual, and especially married, life for comparison, charging it with being boring, mundane and mindless. The difference seems to come from the fact that they had had to invent, from A to Z, relationships

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that were still formless (Foucault 1996; Bech 1997). New narratives and stories are in the making (Plummer 1995). Even though most of them did not have their own families, they certainly had their visions of what family was about. As Jeff said: My family . . . since my dad passed away, now it’s just my two brothers and my mother, really, that’s my family . . . and now with Klaus [his latest boyfriend], he is certainly part of my family . . . and Thompson [his exboyfriend], I have a circle of close friends . . . and friends are also part of my family. You are always part of my family!

Many informants tended to expand the definition of family to include a range of people such as their lovers and ex-lovers, members of families of origin, and a group of close friends. This ‘friend-as-family’ (Weeks, Heaphy, and Donovaon 2001) or ‘families we choose’ model (Weston 1991) is very prominent in gay life. This is the case for sexual minorities because friends, especially those who are non-heterosexual, provide emotional, social and even material support, as well as an affirmation of identity and belonging (Nardi 1999). As Altman (1982: 190) points out, “what many gay lives miss in terms of permanent relationships is more than compensated for by friendship networks, which often become de facto families”. Doing Intimacy In terms of intimacy, gay men are said to be ‘condemned to be free’ to create relationships, yet they do not live in a social vacuum. Two dominant competing, practised sexual scripts came out from these gay men’s narratives—the romantic or ‘Mr. Right’ script and the sexual adventure script. Aron is now 43. I first interviewed him right before he migrated to Canada in 1999. At that time, he was a medical professional and had been living with a man for four years, but their relationship was then on the rocks: I don’t like to fool around with love. I can’t accept the idea that you can hang out every weekend and then bring different guys back home. It may be very difficult to find someone whom you can live with forever, but at least you should try . . . So if I go out with a bloke, at least in the beginning, I can’t accept that he goes cruising . . . I never tried one night stands or any casual sex.

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Martin is now 37, a media curator living in London who travels around the world. When I first interviewed him in 1998, he was a student in London with a boyfriend in Germany. He was very wild in terms of sexual adventures. Having sex with many men seemed to be a daily routine for him: I just go to school. After school, I am alone, I go clubbing every day. Well, actually I go clubbing three or four times a week, other times I go cottaging.2 Well, I quite like it. You don’t need to love them just for sex, and you have a lot of experiences. It’s so natural . . . it’s such a man’s kind of thing.

Most gay men I interviewed seemed to be torn between the two scripts illustrated above. On the one hand is the romantic script of finding Mr. Right, a more ‘feminine-inclined’ discourse that prescribes an ideal trajectory of a relationship through courting, dating, falling in love, life-long commitment and sexual exclusivity. This is the script that is still commonly found in mainstream popular love stories (Illouz 1997; c.f., Swidler’s (1980) notion of the love myth). However, this script runs against another script—the script of sexual adventure. This is the script for seeking excitement—a more ‘male-centred’ discourse that emphasizes a spontaneous and explosive male sex drive, sex as fun and pleasure without commitment. This is the one that is largely endorsed and facilitated by the gay culture (c.f., Mutchler 2000; Adam 2006). As argued by Mutchler (2000), although heterosexuals and lesbians also experience gendered sexualities, the uniqueness of gay men’s sexuality is due to the men’s dual positions as males, in the sense that they share with many heterosexual men the view of sex as an irresistible and impulsive drive, according to the ‘biological or hydraulic’ model; and as gay men, in the sense that there are unique sexual outlets of the gay culture (e.g., dark rooms, saunas, massage parlours, etc.). What I am interested is how the respondents, especially those who are in relationships, live out different alternatives governed by these two scripts under various social constraints.

2

Cottaging is a British term for cruising at public toilets, which is called a ‘beat’ in Australia and ‘fishing’ in Hong Kong. Other unique sexual practices in gay cultures are sex in dark rooms (i.e., rooms inside gay bars or clubs for sex, common in most European countries) and in gay saunas or bathhouses, where there are many private cubicles and public halls for sexual possibilities.

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Boy’s Own Stories 1+1 = 2: Monogamous Ideal Before Aron migrated to Canada in 1999, he split up with a man (Steve) who he had been going out with for four years. When he looked back at that relationship, he said: Oh! It’s too long. Four years. It seemed to be too long. Many things had happened . . . Honestly speaking, how can you only love one person in your whole life? But I thought that as I was going out with him, I shouldn’t allow myself to love others . . . You know, at first, I thought that we were the perfect match but then I discovered that we weren’t . . . I used to be very healthy. I mean, I like hiking, camping, having picnics, all of those sorts of thing, but he didn’t . . . But more than that, we had diff erent agendas in our lives . . . at that time, there was a tide of migration, which I thought was an opportunity. I thought living elsewhere would be a good chance for me to experience many different things . . . Steve seemed to have obstructed my own development. It may be unfair to say that, but I think that our relationship couldn’t go any further . . . I then found out that he fancied another guy. I wasn’t angry . . . if it had happened two years previously, I would have definitely gone mad . . . in fact, before I left Hong Kong, we still lived and slept together. Isn’t it weird? . . . So if I go out with a bloke, at least in the beginning, I can’t accept that he goes cruising. After some time, if the attraction has gone, I don’t know. Maybe it is all right to hang out.

The romantic or Mr. Right script (or love myth, c.f., Swidler 1980) involves the attempt to define one’s self by the free choice of the partner, fusing the two sides of the problematic dichotomy of the search for one’s true self and the quest for one’s ideal partner. The prerequisite for such self-definition in identity is faithfulness. Faithfulness to one’s own choices becomes faithfulness to one’s self. The ability to make a commitment and ‘stick with it’ is seen as a measure of the successful formation of one’s identity. Although having no socially binding forces such as marriage to centre on, Aron is very serious about having a committed relationship. He realizes that it is quite impossible to love only one person in his life but he is willing to ‘stick’ with the choice he has made. He prefers to choose only once, after which the commitment closes off alternative choices and identities. He is faithful to the unwritten contract sanctioning the ideal of committed love. The sexual relationship seems to be a significant tool for measuring the ‘faithfulness’ of his commitment.

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What’s going wrong with the monogamous relationship? It could be a ‘natural’ progression, a loss of passion (“if the attraction has gone”), dissatisfaction with certain aspects of the partner (“I used to be very healthy . . . but he didn’t” [sic]) or personal growth and development (“Steve seemed to obstruct my own development”). These may drive gay men to consider searching for another ‘right’ person, or to desire sexual experimentation (“maybe it’s all right to hang out”) (c.f., Yip 1999). The modern moral ideals of the self tend to emphasis self-actualization and the continuing demands for growth and change in adulthood. A good relationship may not be defined by how much a person can commit to a relationship, but rather by how much one can learn about himself (or herself) from a relationship. Continuing self-exploration, rather than a crystallized identity, structure the notion of modern love. Although monogamy was reported as an ideal for aspiration, most respondents acknowledged the gap between practice and the ideal and tended to treat it not as a given or a restrictive rule but an active choice that should be accomplished (Mutchler 2000; Adam 2006). If this ideal cannot be realized, what other possibilities can be imagined and created? Apart from the monogamous model, which usually defines as emotional and sexual exclusivity, non-monogamy can take three different forms: emotionally exclusive but sexually non-exclusive; emotionally non-exclusive but sexually exclusive; and both emotionally and sexually non-exclusive. From my samples, and also as reported elsewhere (Yip 1999),3 none was employing the ‘emotionally non-exclusive but sexually exclusive’ model. The other two models will be discussed here. One is what I call the ‘2 + many’ model, i.e., having an emotionally monogamous relationship but engaging in casual sex as well. The other is the ‘1+ 2’ model, i.e., developing another ‘quality’, but secondary, relationship (c.f., Adam 2006). 2+ Many: Emotionally Monogamous but Engaging in Casual Sex Most respondents who are in a relationship seldom referred to themselves as practising an ‘open relationship’, even though they had numerous casual sexual encounters. For them, open relationship means ‘no relationship’, as ‘a relationship is a commitment’ and open relationships 3 In Yip’s (1999) study of gay male Christian couples in Britain (n=30), no couples were in the category ‘couples who expect the partnership to be sexually non-exclusive, but are so far behaviourally exclusive’.

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mean ‘fooling around and having different boyfriends every weekend’. Their accounts for their non-monogamous practices seem to be a compromise between the Mr. Right script and the sexual adventure script: commit to a primary loving relationship with a man but seek sexual gratifications in other men. Non-monogamy is interpreted as a distinction between sex and love—to be more precise, between sex with the partner, which is regarded as ‘sex-with-love’ and thus should be with only one person and exclusive; and sex with casual partners, which is seen as ‘sex-as-fun’ and thus can be performed with many different ‘anonymous’ men. Calvin is now 43. When I first interviewed him, he was a medical professional who was going out with a man. He was very committed to his boyfriend. He liked to take care of his boyfriend and treated him like a ‘princess’. But he would go to saunas for casual sex secretly: I think I basically believe in monogamy but I can have sex with others. If I just wanted sex, I wouldn’t talk to him [the casual partner] much. I’d be very committed to having sex but I would also let him know that this would be the only time. I don’t like the idea of a part-time lover . . . I would say quite clearly that this was the first and also the last time.

Peter is now 36. He has been living with a man and his family for a couple of years. He sometimes has other affairs but he regards these affairs as simply fun. However, he mainly keeps them secret, a typical ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy: [Our relationship is] very stable. I think we are like a straight couple. We live together and we share everything. . . . Well, sometimes I will go out for fun. I won’t tell him that I do it but I hope that he doesn’t do it. As far as I know, he doesn’t. But he found out I did once. . . . We had a fight when he found out that I had sex with others, but we are still together. I don’t think either of us wants to split up. . . . Maybe that’s because we live together. We are happy. My family can accept him and his family can accept me as well . . . I like staying at home and playing TV games or having a pet. He accepts it. So when I have a day off, I usually stay at home and we just play TV games. We are both happy with this way of life.

Mathew is now 48 and single. When he was interviewed in 1998, he had been living with his boyfriend for eight years. He said he talked explicitly with his boyfriend about the rules. For him, he could not accept himself or his boyfriend having casual relationships if they were both in Hong Kong:

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travis s. k. kong I told him . . . If you are away from Hong Kong, no matter whether you are on holiday or at work, you can do whatever you want to do. I don’t care. But if you are in Hong Kong, please don’t do anything. . . . If you have an affair, you have given him a chance. You shouldn’t give anyone any chances at all . . . that’s because Hong Kong is so small, and the gay world is so small. Everyone knows everyone. The one you sleep with may be my friend’s friend. It’s so easy. Then I will feel very embarrassed, very awful. . . . Basically, if you have a relationship, I don’t think you can totally open up your relationship. Don’t be too outrageous.

Martin seems to be an extreme case of experimenting with sex and love. When I first met him, ten years ago, he was very proud of having a loving relationship with his German boyfriend, whom he said he was deeply in love with. They eventually got married in 2002 through their same-sex partnership. When they were together, they liked to go cruising together. They frequently visited cottages, parks, dark rooms and saunas. They enjoyed open group sex very much. They developed different strategies for cruising. Cruising together was actually one way of enhancing their relationship. However, they had their own rules. For example, they could not cruise separately; if they did, they could not stay till dawn. When I re-interviewed him in 2007, he had separated from his German boyfriend, but he was still into this mode of relationship with other men. These respondents illustrate tactics that most respondents employ to deal with their non-monogamous practices, ranging from total secrecy to total disclosure, with implicit or explicit rules. Calvin conceals the information about his casual encounters in a highly discreet way but sets the rule of ‘no second date’ for himself. Peter values very much his family life with his partner, practises the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy and treats casual acquaintances as recreational fun that one should not take too seriously. Mathew chooses to talk it over by establishing explicit ground rules (e.g., ‘don’t do anything when we are both in Hong Kong’). Finally, Martin and his boyfriend set the rule of ‘doing together’ or ‘don’t sleep till dawn’. These non-monogamous practices might be criticized as forms of selfish sexual gratification, but for the practitioners, these are the ways they protect their primary relationships. 2+ 1: ‘Quality’ Secondary Relationship James is now 32. When I first interviewed him ten years ago he was single, but he enjoyed cottaging and clubbing, and was studying at a university in Hong Kong. He is now working as a freelancer, and has been

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living with his boyfriend for five years (2003–2008). In the follow-up interview in 2008, he talked about his previous romances in retrospect. He had been with a man whom he regarded as the second boyfriend of his life, and their relationship last for three years (2000–2003). During that period with his second boyfriend he also had another relationship, for almost two years: At that time . . . I didn’t live with my second boyfriend . . . I then met a man, a married man . . . he is Chinese but migrated elsewhere, but came back to Hong Kong quite frequently . . . we saw each other quite often . . . almost once or twice a week. Sometimes I would stay in his place . . . so it was very frequent . . . but of course I wouldn’t see him during the weekends . . . as I had to be with my boyfriend . . . I thought I told him at the very first beginning that I had a boyfriend already but he didn’t seem to understand . . . we had been together for almost two years . . . then one day in ICQ he found out I did have a boyfriend . . . he was very upset and ended the relationship . . . . . . the difference between these two men [i.e., his second boyfriend and the married man] hmm . . . I treated my boyfriend as boyfriend because we did what lovers would do, like dining out, watching movies, shopping—and he had met most of my friends . . . and more importantly he had met my family . . . and we spent time at major festivals . . . [with] the married man, we did less that sort of thing . . . more into sex . . . but still we did develop something more than sex . . . but it’s hard to tell . . . well, I never told my boyfriend about this . . . by the way, when I was with him and the married man, I also had some few acquaintances . . . but they were more fleeting . . . maybe seeing once or twice a month.

What distinguishes James’s non-monogamous practices from the above respondents is the development of a secondary and ‘quality’ relationship. James marked off this second man (the married man) from other, more fleeting and casual, sexual acquaintances. What he had with the married man was something more than sex, something difficult to tell—there was something special about that relationship which was much more than other casual sexual encounters. Although he placed the married man in a special position which cannot be substituted, even by his ‘official’ boyfriend at that time, the reverse was the same. He had no intention to substitute the married man for his ‘official’ boyfriend, who was more public and important (he met my family and friends) and with whom he shared other more important ‘quality’ time (e.g., festival times, birthdays, weekends, etc.). As a result, he regarded his relationship with the married man as secondary.

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Whilst James kept his affairs secret, other respondents chose to disclose their other relationships. The third party is usually regarded as secondary in importance, and the two relationships are normally distinguished by ‘love’ and ‘fun’, respectively. However, without any institutional binding forces (e.g., marriage, parents, children), relationships can easily slip from one type to another—from primary to secondary, or vice versa. Tom is now 40, and has two relationships, one in England, which he has had for five years, and the other in Hong Kong, for four years. His boyfriends know each other: They are different, but they serve different “functions” in my life. . . . Jimmy [his UK boyfriend] is such a lovely guy, he is more than my boyfriend, but a best friend, a soul mate, a companion . . . we can talk about anything and he is always so understanding . . . and Jerry [his Hong Kong boyfriend] was primarily for sex, that’s why I call him ‘take away Man’, as he ‘delivers’ his services to my home. . . . but as time passes, I can hardly call him a take-away, as he has become a regular meal! . . . I don’t think I would want to quit either one of them even if they both lived in the same city . . . well, as I have been constantly seeing Jerry in Hong Kong, I am a bit worried that Jimmy would soon become my ‘take-away man’!

Tom prioritizes these two relationships: he regards the one in England as his soul mate and partner, with whom he can talk about anything, whilst he calls the one in Hong Kong his ‘take-away man’, with whom he has a primarily sexual relationship. However, as time passes, he recognizes the fluidity of these two relationships and understands that sometimes they might swap roles. Discussion and Conclusion . . . many forms of life can be “moral” or ethically valid, especially with regards to the erotic. It is not so much what you do, but how you do it that should matter: less a morality of acts, more an ethics of relationships. Concepts such as care, responsibility, respect and love have become the currency of recent debates around personal behaviour. I argue that these are important virtues, but they cannot, and should not, be identified with any particular form of domestic arrangement or sexual activity. They embody values that inform a variety of lifestyles and “experiments in living”. Their meaning needs to be struggled for, not assumed. —Jeffrey Weeks, Invented Moralities

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Between tricks and lovers and exes and friends and fuckbuddies and bar friends and bar friends’ tricks and tricks’ bar friends and gay pals and companions “in the life”, queers have an astonishing range of intimacies. —Michael Warner, The Trouble with Normal

As Bauman (1992: 94) argued, “an existence without a script written in advance is a contingent existence”. The growing sense of our own contingency seems to urge us constantly to ask questions such as ‘How do I want to be?’ (Giddens 1992), ‘How to live with diversity?’ (Weeks 1995) or ‘How should we live?’ (Addelson 1994). In recent debates in the sociology of love and emotion, these questions have become a central concern (Bendelow and Williams 1998). No matter whether we are straight or gay, these questions are not easy to answer. The narratives of my respondents tell us a lot about doing family and intimacy in late modern times. First of all, they are sexual stories (Plummer 1995)—stories that were told with laughter, joy, happiness, and pride, as well as with tears, anger, remorse, shame and guilt. Their stories are powerful, at least for me, as they point to emerging narratives that have not been presented before, or have only been presented in a very negative way—as ‘perverted’, ‘bizarre’, ‘promiscuous’, ‘bad’ and ‘immoral’ stories. The narratives that these men are presenting to me include new stories about family, intimacy, relationship and sexuality. They participate in this study, knowing that their stories will then be told publicly and not only have the effect of expanding their life-space (c.f., Ho 2006) but also contribute to a new public space where old and new scripts about personal lives are juxtaposed, competed, challenged, redefined, and negotiated. Their narratives exemplify how non-heterosexuals ‘do’ family in a Chinese context. They challenge the traditional definition of family through biological links and nuptial arrangements. They broaden the definition by including not just ‘families of origin’ but ‘families of choice’, which consist of their boyfriends and chosen friends. In terms of ‘doing’ intimacy, they identify one man as their primary partner, with whom there is an emotional commitment which signifies security, care, love, and support. Juggling between the romantic and sexual adventure scripts, they have ‘ventured out’, either together or separately, open or in secret, with explicit or implicit rules, to have different forms of relationship, ranging from fleeting casual sexual encounters to ‘quality’ but secondary relationships (c.f., Mutchler 2000; Heaphy, Donovan and Weeks 2004; Adam 2006). They have experimented with different ways of ‘doing’ intimacy, and challenge what is traditionally viewed as the

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cornerstone of couple commitment: sexual exclusivity. They subvert the monogamous ideal by separating emotional and sexual fidelity. New ground rules for relationship are in the making—e.g., ‘reflexive trust’ (Allan and Harrison 2002), ‘confluent love’ (Giddens 1992) or ‘disclosing intimacy’ (Jamieson 1998). However, even if they were in 2 + many or 2 + 1 non-monogamous relationships, most of the gay men I interviewed did not challenge the notion of coupledom. The non-monogamous narratives are mainly narratives of ‘couples’. Moreover, as in studies elsewhere (Adam 2006), they did not refer explicitly to the public debates around same-sex marriage as relevant or influential in guiding their own relationships. Parenthood was something even further distant for them to envision, which is very different from lesbian families in which children are mostly involved. Narratives of non-heterosexuals contain insights for ideals and values that are becoming more common in the broader heterosexual culture. First of all, the respondents have expanded the definition of family. A new basis for family seems to have formed. Maybe we should define family members as those with whom ‘quality’ time is spent and include parents and siblings, but also include immediate (primary) partners, friends/sexual acquaintances/regular sexual partners, ex-partners, children from former marriages, parents or relatives of one’s own, parents or relatives of one’s partner, and many more. These ‘families of choice’ seem to be largely endorsed by non-heterosexuals, but are also increasingly accepted by heterosexuals (Heaphy, Donovan, and Weeks 2004). For example, what really touches me in the movie version of Sex and the City is not the drama of the big wedding that Carry Bradshaw has long dreamt of, which is blown-off at the last minute by Mr. Big’s commitment problem, nor even their final union at the end of the movie, but the friendship between Carrie and her three ‘girlfriends’. Their friendships can be seen when the three girls take a vacation with Carrie to cheer her up after the last minute cancellation of the wedding, and when Carrie rushes to see lonely Miranda on New Year’s Eve, and in many more scenes. Those are the moments that are as sweet and as important as a loving relationship between couples. If Carrie had to write an article about family in her famous column, her version of family would probably include Mr. Big and her three best friends. Second, what is the significance and relevance of the love-marriagesex trilogy? Why do we still privilege the ideal of life-long, heterosexual

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and monogamous marriage as the actualization of romantic love and the precondition for sex? What are the normalizing effects of compulsory monogamy and coupledom? Who benefits from them? If there is a long-term shift towards a democratic egalitarian model between men and women, men and men, and women and women (Giddens 1992), how do we search for a new form of emotional democracy? What other alternatives can be imagined, apart from the monogamous model? How should we define a relationship—what are the reasons for choice and the principles governing erotic ethics—do they involve ‘intimate strangers’ (Mansfield and Collard 1988) or ‘intimate friendship’ (Dunne 1997)? Alternative lifestyles and sexual and intimate relationships that might go beyond the culture of ‘compulsory monogamy’ and the notion of coupledom have slowly emerged, and need more attention and investigation. For example, why is solo living or singlehood always seen as a second choice? How about ‘living apart together’, which involves committed long-term couples that are not co-resident (Levin and Trost 1999) and which may be more common among long-distance relationships facilitated by globalization? Is polyamory, as a responsible non-monogamous relationship, possible? Alternative terms are in the making: ethical slut, significant others, families of close relationships, friends with benefits, fuck buddies, metamours, e.g., partners’ partners or significant others’ other significant others, and many more (see Easton and Liszt’s (1997) classic Ethical Slut; also Haritaworn, Lin, and Klesse’s (2006) special issue on polyamory in Sexualities; Barker 2005). If Jack and Ennis had lived in the 21st century, they might have had more choices, and the gay love story might not have ended in remorse and tears. References Adam, Barry. 2006. “Relationship Innovation in Male Couples.” Sexualities 9(1): 5–26. Addelson, Kathryn Pyne. 1994. Moral Passages: Toward a Collectivist Moral Theory. London: Routledge. Allan, Graham and Kaeren Harrison. 2002. “Marital Aff airs.” Pp. 45–63 in Inappropriate Relationships: The Unconventional, the Disapproved and the Forbidden, edited by Rubin Goodwin and Duncan Cramer. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Altman, Dennis. 1982. The Homosexualization of America, the Americanization of the Homosexual. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

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Ho, Petula Sik-ying and Adolf Ka-tat Tsang. 2000b. “Beyond Being Gay: The Proliferation of Political Identities in Colonial Hong Kong.” Pp. 134–150 in Discourse Theory and Political Analysis, edited by David Howarth, Aletta J. Norval and Yannis Stavrakakis. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Hong Kong Christian Institute et al. 2006. Equal Rights for LGBT People: Hong Kong Report. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Christian Institute, Blessed Minority Christian Fellowship, Civil Rights for Sexual Diversities, and F’union. (in Chinese) Illouz, Eva. 1997. Consuming the Romantic Utopia: Love and the Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism. Berkeley: University of California Press. Jackson, Stevi and Sue Scott. 2004. “The Personal is Still Political: Heterosexuality, Feminism and Monogamy.” Feminism and Psychology 14(1): 151–157. Jamieson, Lynn. 1998. Intimacy: Personal Relationships in Modern Societies. Cambridge: Polity Press. ——. 2004. “Intimacy, Negotiated Nonmonogamy, and the Limits of the Couple.” Pp. 35–58 in The State of Affairs: Explorations in Infidelity and Commitment, edited by Jean Duncombe, Karen Harrison, Graham Allan and Dennis Marsden. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Kong, Travis Shiu-ki. 2002. “The Seduction of the Golden Boy: The Body Politics of Hong Kong Gay Men.” Body & Society 8(1): 29–48. ——. 2004. “Queer at Your Own Risk: Marginality, Community and Hong Kong Gay Male Bodies.” Sexualities 7(1): 5–30. ——. 2005. “Queering Masculinity in Hong Kong Cinema.” Pp. 57–80 in Masculinities and Hong Kong Cinema, edited by Lai-kwan Pang and Day Wong. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Lam, Chiu-wan, Wai-man Lam and Timothy Y. K. Leung. 2005. “The Changing Nature and Ideology of Marriage in Hong Kong.” Pp. 243–266 in Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage: Professional Practice in the Hong Kong Cultural Context, edited by Katherine P. H. Young and Anita Y. L. Fok. Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press. Lau, Siu-kai. 1978. “From Traditional Familism to Utilitarianistic Familism: The Metamorphosis of Familial Ethos among the Hong Kong Chinese.” Hong Kong: Occasional Paper No. 78, Social Research Centre, the Chinese University of Hong Kong. ——. 1982. Society and Politics in Hong Kong. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. Law, Chi Kong et al. 1995. Contemporary Hong Kong Families in Transition. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Women’s Foundation and the Department of Social Work and Social Administration, University of Hong Kong, Monograph Series No. 21. Lee, Ming-kwan. 1987. “The Hong Kong Family: Organization and Change.” Pp. 152–178 in Hong Kong Politics and Society in Transition, edited by Ming-kwan Lee. Hong Kong: The Commercial Press. (in Chinese) ——. and Shu-hua Lu. 1997. “The Marriage Institution in Decline?” Pp. 183–201 in Indicators of Social Development: Hong Kong 1995, edited by Shiu-kai Lau, Mingkwan Lee, Po-san Wan and Siu-lun Wong. Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Leung, Helen Hok-sze. 2008. Undercurrents: Queer Culture and Postcolonial Hong Kong. Toronto: UBC Press. Leung, Hon-chu and Kim-ming Lee. 2005. “Immigration Controls, Life-course Coordination, and Livelihood Strategies: A Study of Families Living across the MainlandHong Kong Border.” Journal of Family and Economic Issues 26(4): 487–507. Levin, Irene and Jan Trost. 1999. “Living Apart Together.” Community, Work and Family 2: 279–294. Lewis, Jane. 2001. The End of Marriage: Individualism and Intimate Relations. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Mansfield, Penny and Jane Collard. 1988. The Beginning of the Rest of Your Life? London: Macmillan.

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FAMILIAL IDEOLOGY AND FAMILY POLICY IN HONG KONG Shae Wan-chaw and Wong Pik-wan Abstract The Hong Kong government recently announced the establishment of a Family Council to develop an holistic approach to formulating family support policies. Yet that Council will only be effective if it scrutinizes the ideological assumptions of Hong Kong’s family-related policies and directly addresses the hardships suffered by many families. Hence, we begin by deconstructing the very notion of family policy and discuss seven primary characteristics of the conservative familial ideology that has been dominant in Hong Kong since the 1970s. We then discuss the tensions and contradictions between the various elements of that ideology, between the ideology and Hong Kong’s various social policies related to the family, and between the ideology and the social and structural forces that besiege Hong Kong’s families. Our conceptual and empirical analysis shows that the various family-related policies adopted in the past have not only been internally incoherent but also inconsistent with other government policies. We conclude by arguing that only a concerted social policy that takes into account recent changes in the family structure can hope to rebuild family harmony, allowing individuals to have a greater degree of control over their lives.

Familial Ideology and Family Policy in Hong Kong1 For more than two decades, members of the social service sector and other interest groups in Hong Kong have called for the creation of an explicit family policy,2 as they did for a youth policy, a women policy, a policy for the old, etc. Partly in response to these demands and partly following international trends, the government has set up several statutory advisory bodies during the past twenty years including the Commission on Youth (1990), the Elderly Commission (1997), the Women’s Commission (2001) and the Commission on Poverty (2005). This compartmentalized approach has resulted in a fragmentary and piecemeal approach to tackling social problems. With hindsight,

1 The authors would like to thank Drs Anita K. W. Chan and K. C. Yeung for their useful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Any oversights belong entirely to the authors. 2 Kamerman and Kahn (1978) first distinguished between an ‘explicit’ family policy and an ‘implicit’ one. We do not think that such a distinction is a useful one, for what is important is not whether a government’s family policy is explicit or otherwise, but the contents of its family or related policies.

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officials have realized that this approach has led to many areas of overlap and that better co-ordination is required. In his 2006–2007 Policy Address, the Chief Executive, Mr. Donald Tsang, put forward the idea that “an integrated, holistic and high-level Family Commission responsible for policies and initiatives relating to family support” may be “worth considering” (Hong Kong Government 2006: 13, #37). He also indicated that such a commission “would bring under one roof the various commissions and committees currently responsible for handling issues regarding different age groups and genders”. A year later, the Chief Executive’s 2007–2008 Policy Address announced that a family council, rather than a family commission, would be set up in 2008 (Hong Kong Government 2007: 36, #84). On December 3, 2007 a government press release announced the formation of the Family Council with the following terms of reference. (a) To advocate cherishing the family as a main driver of social harmony; and to promote a family-based support network to forge closer and harmonious relationships amongst family members. (b) To advise the government on the formulation of policies and strategies for supporting and strengthening the family and on development of related programmes/activities; and to monitor their implementation. (c) To advise the government on the integration of family policies and related programmes across different bureaux and departments for individual age and gender sectors to ensure effective coordination; (d) To plan/implement programmes and activities for particular age and/or gender sectors; and oversee the work of the Elderly Commission, the Women’s Commission and the Commission on Youth. (e) To initiate research to promote better understanding of matters related to the family as necessary. In the October 15, 2007 Legislation Council meeting the Secretary for Home Affairs, Mr. Tsang Tak-sing has indicated that during the first year of the Family Council, the three commissions on youth, the elderly and women will continue to function as they have been, but their respective responsibilities will eventually be merged into the Family Council before the end of March 2009. While this arrangement may bring some consistency to the various policy areas, it is unlikely to go unchallenged by stakeholders in the present arrangements and by those who feel their views have been neglected. It is even less likely to solve

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the ‘family problem’. Immediately after the delivery of the 2006–2007 address, the Association for the Advancement of Feminism (AAF) responded that the role of women should not be narrowly confined to “family responsibilities”. The AAF objected to the proposal, arguing that it could easily result in strengthening gender stereotyping and the belief that women’s rights should be subordinated to the family interest (Choi 2006). Similarly, the Hong Kong Committee on Children’s Rights issued an open letter to the Chief Executive to express its concern that “the proposal to set up a Family Commission . . . will overshadow a Children’s Commission . . . We agree that children are also members of a family; however, their needs are unique . . . [The proposal] risk[s] submerging the voice of the child with other louder voices and interests of the more senior members of the family” (Hong Kong Committee on Children’s Rights 2006: 1). The demand for a separate children’s commission was echoed by the Hong Kong Council of Social Services (HKCSS); it also maintained that “all these Commissions and relevant Government Committees . . . should continue be independent bodies performing their specific roles and functions” (HKCSS 2007: 2). It is easy to foresee that other interest groups will make similar arguments. Their concerns are valid: while some of the issues related to children, youth, the elderly and women are family-related, others are unique and in conflict with other interests. More importantly, the effective resolution of these issues often requires measures that take into account more than the family. The problems associated with setting up a family council are more complicated than choosing between centralization and decentralization. The impetus for the commission itself is symptomatic of an ideology that goes beyond subsuming women’s or children’s interests under the heading of ‘family’. This ideology assumes that Hong Kong does not have an adequate family policy and that it desperately needs one. Indeed, a more comprehensive family policy is often regarded as a panacea for our social problems, because familial problems are often viewed as the root cause of major social problems. In opposition to this view, we argue that Hong Kong is not short of a family policy; in fact, ironically, family policy—because of its ideological nature—is itself one of the major causes of the problems encountered by some Hong Kong families. Hong Kong’s family policy has hitherto been socially and politically conservative: it idealizes a particular version of family life, exalts a particular set of family values, and places ‘social’ interests above family interests and family interests above individual freedoms.

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Family policy can be defined descriptively or prescriptively. Descriptively, it refers to “everything that government does to and for the family” (Kamerman and Kahn 1978: 3). This leads one to wonder what differentiates family policy from social policy in general. Most specialists in this field agree that, in its broadest sense, family policy is almost coterminous with social policy,3 but they still insist that family policy is characterized by its basic goal: the maximization or, at least, promotion of family well-being (Kamerman and Kahn 1978; Zimmerman 1995). Zimmerman, a proponent of family policy, argues that the goals of social policy in general and family policy in particular do not differ: both are intended “to stabilize and support family life by meeting the needs that the market cannot or will not meet for large segments of the population” (Zimmerman 1995: 18). It could be argued that this renders the concept of family policy superfluous. Even if one were to grant that family policy is distinct from other branches of social policy, there remains the problem of the definition of ‘family’. Writers on family policy are very aware of the difficulties of defining the family. There is the implication that, without a clear consensus about what a family is, the specific territory and mandate of family policy cannot be determined. Usually these writers, aft er acknowledging that family systems and practices vary historically and geographically, and that recent social changes have made the family almost impossible to define, simply fall back on government definitions, so-called ‘common-sense’ understandings, or functionalist presuppositions. The opinion Kamerman and Kahn (1978: 9) expressed almost thirty years ago is still prevalent today: If family policy is a useful idea, it requires a family definition that means something . . . [and we] suggest that it is worth exploring for some policy purposes a definition of family that involves a primary emotional commitment and relationship . . . we are inclined to think that any family type in which at least one minor child is present warrants special attention.

3

Myrdal (1968) once said that family policy is nothing less than social policy itself. Titmuss also assumed that all models of social policy “involve considerations of . . . the institution of the family in modern society” (1974: 32) and must include the stabilization of family life as one of their key goals.

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Similarly, after reviewing the arguments for various defi nitions of family, Zimmerman (1995: 16) argued that “[a]lthough who is and who is not family continues to be a matter of debate among academics and the general public, the courts have tended to take a functional approach in defining the term. That is, if persons perform the functions of family in relation to each other, the courts tend to view them as family, complete with its associated rights and responsibilities”. However, a few paragraphs later, he is forced to conclude that, even within the U.S., courts disagree on what constitutes a family. In Redefining Family Policy, the editors observe that the definition of family has important consequences for family policy and its goals, but then note that “[d]espite critical variations in definitions of families, core elements are common to all families and provide a basis for considering some uniformity in assessing family policy” (Mercier and Garasky 2000: xii). The core elements they cite are the textbook characteristics of the family from a functionalist perspective: family provides “basic personal and social identity”, “nurturance of the next generation” and “protective care for the most vulnerable members who cannot care for themselves” (p. xii). This is obviously a narrow view of the family. It overlooks the fact that in many cases, the nuclear family with dependent children is but one stage in the family cycle, and it simply ignores other forms of family that also need support, including but not limited to the relationships between adult children and their elderly parents (Land and Parker 1978). Indeed, the number of ‘modern’ nuclear families is declining, while variants of ‘postmodern’ families4—childless couples, same-sex couples, unmarried partnerships, single households, single-parent households, couples with adopted children, etc.—are on the rise. One more example from the local context should suffice. The Family Concern’s5 Alternative Family Service Review in Hong Kong (2000) maintains that “no family policy has been formulated nor implemented by the Hong Kong government so far”. After proposing a family policy

4 So much so that there is now a tendency among some writers to refer to the ‘modern’ family as the ‘traditional’ family. For a detailed discussion of this and related issues in the context of Hong Kong, see Shae and Ho (2001). 5 The Family Concern was formed in 1999 by 13 social work academics and practitioners in response to the government’s Family Service Review; hence the title of their report: Alternative Family Service Review.

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where “the family should be a basic unit of welfare planning” (p. 6), it acknowledges that: In all the policy papers, service reviews and evaluations, ‘family’ is taken as a given. The underlying assumption is that there is an [sic] universal conception of ‘family’ and every one agrees on what is ‘family’. There is no query on what is ‘the family’ that our welfare policy and services are designed to preserve and strengthen . . . [However], taking the normative view that ‘nuclear family’ was ‘the family’ would contribute to a pathological perspective on alternative forms of families . . . [and] people with different social and cultural background may have different constructions on ‘family’ . . . It is necessary to look beyond the normative family to understand the personal definitions of our service users (p. 7).

Unfortunately, the document did not follow its own advice: it is primarily devoted to a review of family services over the last decade and a relatively lengthy list of ‘recommendations’, which are based on the assumption that ‘[t]he family is the basic unit of our society and Hong Kong had always pledged its commitment to preserving its integrity and well-being’. The authors suggest the establishment of “a mechanism whereby harmful elements and processes (e.g., the ‘money comes first’ culture) in our society which threaten family well-being could be continually monitored . . . something like an official ‘family defenders’ or ‘family watch’ group” (p. 22). Although, at the outset, the authors appear to challenge the dominant assumptions, they conclude by reinforcing the most conservative approach to ‘the family’ and propose a form of monitoring that the liberal-minded would never dream of, except in nightmares. Apart from the thorny issue of defining what the family is, family policy must take into account the many variables involved in deciding whose perceptions of what problems for which families it will address, as well as how family well-being is defined and measured. In other words, all definitions of family policy inevitably touch upon issues of what the family is or is supposed to be, whether it should be helped and, if so, how. Family policies are inescapably normative and implicitly prescriptive; they idealize a particular form of family life and its relationship to society, thereby discriminating against other forms of families. As we have noted, ‘family policy’ does not have much purchase in a descriptive sense. There is no sharp line demarcating the boundaries between family policy and other policy areas. And because there is no definition of the family that is not controversial, family policy tends to be used in a prescriptive sense, often contains a functionalist bias

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and is usually politically conservative. This view does not minimize the importance of the family (or rather, families); instead, it points to the ideological underpinnings of many writers on family policy. Indeed, family policy has often been invoked to rationalize rolling back welfare aid in difficult economic times and reliance on family members rather than state welfare (Leitner 2003). Analyzing the language used in the congressional hearings and debates prior to the introduction of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act in the U.S. in 1996, Gring-Pemble (2003: 481) found that witnesses and legislators alike used discourse that privileged the ‘mystical family ideal’: they “frequently compare and contrast the ‘intact’ ideal family with single-parent welfare families . . . [and] what they refer to as ‘broken families’ or ‘dysfunctional’ families . . . [and often] advance causal arguments, beginning with the assumption that out-of-wedlock births result in welfare dependence” (even though these views have no scientific basis). From a historical and comparative perspective, the more conservative a government is (and the less legitimacy it commands), the more likely it is to resort to strategies of demonology and/or hagiography, constructing imaginary legends of ‘folk devils’ and ‘folk heroes’ to garner popular support. ‘Strengthening the family’, ‘defending family values’ and ‘promoting social stability’, etc. are slogans adopted by such regimes, accompanied by fear-mongering references to imminent ‘moral panics’. There is nothing wrong with promoting social stability; but without asking whether the current state of affairs is worth preserving, the exercise simply reinforces existing social inequalities and exacerbates social problems. For example, too much emphasis on ‘keeping the family intact’ may deter a battered woman from leaving her abuser. Hong Kong’s Dominant Familial Ideology (and its Internal Contradictions) Leung et al. (2003) have recently distinguished three major types of familial discourse in Hong Kong. The first is a ‘conservative discourse’, which advocates the preservation and strengthening of the conventional nuclear family. This discourse is represented by the government. The second is a ‘middle-of-the-road discourse’, which also assumes that it is ‘natural’ and ‘correct’ to foster the conventional nuclear family, but has a more pessimistic prognosis of its future. Proponents of this discourse,

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including Chow (1996) and the HKCSS (2001),6 urge the government to adopt a more systematic and comprehensive approach to the protection of the nuclear family. The third is a ‘reformist discourse’. AAF is its key representative. The AAF rejects the very concept of family policy, arguing that such “policies overlook the fact that the familial arrangements and relationships which they aim to strengthen are an important basis for the reproduction of gender inequality” (AAF 1990: 128; quoted in Leung et al. 2003: 9). There is, we would argue, little substantive difference between the first two discourses, and, together, they form the dominant familial ideology in Hong Kong. The welfare sector’s often pessimistic prognosis for the Hong Kong family has often been strategic—a means to increase the government’s provision of ‘family services’. Its understanding of what ‘the family’ should be and what family services should achieve are very similar to, and often no less conservative than, the government’s.7 For example, when Chow (1996) urged the government to formulate an ‘explicit’ family policy, he provided nothing more than a list of vaguely formulated goals, most of which were simply restatements of the government’s own policy objectives (Chow 1996: 69–70). It is difficult to object to these very generally expressed goals; however, it is surprising that Chow did not consider it necessary to (re-)define ‘the family’ in the formulation of explicit family policy. More significantly, his objectives, like the government’s, were based on an idealized concept of the family as ‘a haven in a heartless world’, where members naturally love, and care for, each other. Chow’s ‘explicit’ family policy therefore does not depart significantly from the government’s ‘implicit’ policy; the only difference appears to be one of degree rather than kind. Chow wants the government to provide more resources in terms of professional services for families in need. But is more necessarily better? And better for whom?

6 The authors noted that the HKCSS report differed from Chow (1996) in that its proposed family policy is more inclusive in the sense that it should be able to serve different forms of families, rather than the merely conventional ones. It also called for more research in the study of these different family forms, so that government policies can better cater for their special needs and problems. 7 We are aware that the welfare sector is composed of many different agencies and individuals, and each may have a different view on the ‘family problem’. Nevertheless, a generalization of their overall stance as judged by their more vocal representatives is possible, as the examples offered in this paper testify.

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The AAF’s argument rightly draws our attention to the ‘gender blindness’ of family policy. However, family policy cannot simply be rejected as it already exists in a range of government policies, services and legislations. The point is not to resist the implementation of an emerging family policy; first, we must understand its implications. This involves exploring the core elements of the already existing family policy. We would argue that the existing family policy is based on a set of problematic and mutually contradictory beliefs. Since the implementation of the new Marriage Reform Ordinance in 1971,8 the government has espoused a body of beliefs about the Hong Kong family, the latest expression of which can be found in the Chief Executive’s 2006–07 policy address. In the section on ‘Cherishing the Family’, Donald Tsang states that cherishing the family is a core value of the community, and family harmony is the foundation of social harmony . . . the key lies in establishing a family-based support network and forging closer and harmonious relationships among family members. . . . Social problems are often rooted in different family problems, for example, the lack of proper care and attention for family members, including the elderly, women, youngsters and children. To tackle social problems, it is necessary to start with supporting and strengthening the family; fostering a sense of responsibility and obligation in every family member, nurturing care and love, and developing a relationship of mutual support. Our social welfare measures should strengthen, rather than detract from, the functions of a family (Hong Kong Government 2006: 13, #35, 36).

What is remarkable about this passage is not its innovation but its reiteration of themes familiar from almost all related government

8 The Marriage Reform Ordinance (1970) has terminated the legal recognition of concubinage by confirming that the Christian monogamous and heterosexual marriage model was the only model that would be allowed, and consequently further strengthened the core element of family ideology in Hong Kong. In fact, monogamous marriage has a long history. In the earlier colonial period, the Hong Kong government passed two marriage ordinances specifically catered for the needs of European Christians and Chinese Christians in Hong Kong. As the operation of these ordinances was confined to the registration of ‘Christian marriages’, all these marriages were monogamous. In August 1896, the marriage ordinance was further amended to enable non-Christians to enter into a valid civil marriage as understood in Christianity before the Registrar General. Amendments made to the marriage ordinance at later stages did maintain that every legal marriage has to be a “Christian marriage” or “the civil equivalent of a Christian marriage’. It implied “a formal ceremony recognized by the law as involving the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others” (Wong 2000: 140–141).

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documents since the 1970s.9 The familial ideology it assumes is loosely formulated, as it has never been the government’s objective to spell out its family policy in any comprehensive and coherent manner.10 It is important nonetheless because it informs, to a greater or lesser degree, the basic objectives of virtually all major areas of the government’s family policies—cash benefits, family services, legislations, entitlements and related policies (Gauthier 1996). It represents the cornerstone of the government’s family policy. Moreover, the government is not alone in subscribing to this familial ideology; it also forms the basis of the belief systems of many social service professionals and members of the evangelical churches and Christian community. It has permeated the mass media, from soap operas to commercials. This familial ideology has at least seven core elements, as follows. Hegemony of the ‘heterosexual-monogamous-nuclear family’: the nuclear family based on monogamous marriage between a man and a woman, understood as a voluntary contract, is the only family system that is regarded as natural and accepted by law. Couples in gay ‘marriages’, cohabitation and other forms of intimacy have no legal status. Polygamy was outlawed in 1971. All government policies tend to treat the nuclear family as the norm. One result of this is that members of an extended family have few, if any, legal rights.11 Under existing policy, elderly persons who live with their families receive less comprehensive social security assistance (CSSA) than those live alone and apply for CSSA as independent persons. The public housing policy also discourages extended families.12 In recent years, the government initiatives to

9 Space does not allow us to revisit these documents; but examples of similar passages abound in the following government documents: Hong Kong Government (1965, 1973, 1979, 1991 and 1998). Leung et al. (2003) also provided a good synopsis of these documents in support of this interpretation. 10 This is why most local social work academics think that there is no family policy in Hong Kong. 11 For a more detailed treatment of this issue in the local context, see Chiu (2006). 12 The public housing policy was criticized by many legislators such as Chan Yuenhan, Choy So-yuk and Albert Chan as ‘one which will adversely affect a family-oriented social structure’. When children from a household in a public rental housing unit grow up and form their own family, the head of the household is only allowed to have one of his children to live with him while the rest will have to move out or to apply for public housing independently. The Housing Department, however, does not take the ‘extended family’ into consideration in allocating public housing units. The applicant may not be able to live in proximity with their extended family. As a result, although the parents or elderly members of families are living in urban areas, 99% of the younger

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battle discrimination based on sexual preference have drawn strong objections from the evangelical churches and Christian community. The leading anti-gay rights Christian groups such as the Society for Truth and Light and the Hong Kong Alliance for Family launched several petitions, and published advertisements against the legislation and against same-sex marriage in local Chinese newspapers (Sing Tao Daily, May 31 2005; Mingpao, March 8 2006, A27). The ‘Covenant on Defending Family’, drafted by the Hong Kong Alliance for Family and signed by numerous Protestant churches and Christians, stresses that ‘marriage is the union of one-man and one-woman’ and deplores the threats posed to it by divorce, cohabitation, sexual indulgence and same-sex marriage.13 The City of David Cultural Centre celebrates the ‘Husband and Wife Festival’ annually on November 11. According to this Christian group and its supporters, maintaining virginity before marriage, and avoiding extra-martial sex and cohabitation are holy virtues and ideal family values.14 Division of labour based on sex: within the family, the husband and wife are still assumed to have different roles. Husbands are regarded as the main source of income, whereas wives are expected to shoulder most of the household chores and provide care for other family members, especially those who cannot take care of themselves (AAF 1990). In the early 1990s, the Social Welfare Department (SWD) pointed out that the best care for children under two was that provided by a mother at home (Hong Kong Legislative Council 1991). Indeed, the entire community care system is based on the assumption that women are natural caregivers. Even though women’s groups, the Democratic Party, and various legislators have been urging the government for years to provide paternity leave, the government has not adopted any measures to help men assume more domestic duties (Hong Kong Legislative Council 2001: 5471, 5477; Sing Tao Daily, Feb. 21 2006).15 generations would be allocated housing in new towns that are far away from the urban area (Hong Kong Legislative Council 2001: 5455, 5465 and 5479). 13 See the website of the Hong Kong Alliance for Family: http://www.hkchurch .org/family (retrieved on 16 November 2007). 14 See the website of the City of David Cultural Centre: http://www.cdcc.org.hk/index .php?id=158 (retrieved on 16 November 2007). 15 In the opening speech of a conference on ‘Strengthening Hong Kong’s Families—Awareness, Commitment and Action’ organized by the Central Policy Unit on September 5, 2006, the Chief Executive acknowledged that many ‘dual earner families’ are in fact ‘dual earner, dual career’ families. He also encouraged the community to adopt such a perspective in discussing this issue. How this perspective is reflected and

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Idealization of ‘the family’: this includes both the romanticization of the conjugal relationship and the exaltation of the parent/child relationship. The government’s Family Life Education (FLE) initiative was launched in 1979; its goal is to promote harmony among family members so as to enable the family to function more effectively. FLE programmes are organized throughout the year to enhance family functioning, teach the skills necessary to cope with changing roles and demands in life, and promote public awareness of domestic violence. However, the underlying message of these programmes is that the hegemony of the heterosexual-monogamous-nuclear family is an ideal setting for the socialization of children, and that when spouses love each other and perform their established roles, they create a ‘haven in a heartless world’ where all family members can live together harmoniously. Selective incorporation of ‘traditional Chinese familial ethics’: the law only recognizes the hegemony of the heterosexual-monogamous-nuclear family, but the government seldom condemns traditional Chinese familial ethics. Elements of traditional Confucian familial ethics such as filial piety and mutual care of extended family members are encouraged by the government through FLE programmes, press releases and official speeches, though material support is minimal. In a recent press release supporting the establishment of a family commission and endorsing the government’s commitment to ‘caring families and harmonious society’, Dr. York Chow, Secretary for the then Health, Welfare and Food Bureau (HWFB),16 blamed “personal choices” and “personal aspirations” for the alleged weakening of “family values”, which include “filial piety, mutual love and respect between spouses, and parental love for children” (Secretary for HWF 2006). This pitting of ‘personal interest’ against ‘familial interest’, of modernization against a nostalgic and selective traditional Chinese familial ethics, reduces familial problems to conflicts of values, ignores the barriers that prevent people from exercising their ‘personal choice’ to care for their family members and produces unsatisfactory results. Chow continued, “[t]o address the problem at source, we are promoting and strengthening family education to re-instil in our com-

translated in concrete policies remains to be seen. His speech, in Chinese, is available at www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/200609/05/P200609050086_print.htm 16 The Health, Welfare and Food Bureau was renamed as Food and Health Bureau under the restructuring of the government in 2007.

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munity the need to live out the basic family values capped under the umbrella of ‘modelling’, ‘harmony’, ‘care’ and ‘commitment’”. The familization of social problems: families are viewed as the foundation of social order, and family malfunctioning is regarded as the root of social problems. It is widely believed that many problems, including juvenile gangs, originate in ‘broken’ families. (Hong Kong Legislative Council 2001: 5459). In other words, social problems are perceived as familial problems. It follows that what is good for the family must also be good for the society: “[f]amily harmony is the foundation of social harmony. Social problems, far and wide, find roots in the nonfunctioning of some of the family values. The key to strengthening the family fabric lies in the fortification of relations among individual family members. Families, whose members are ready to hold on to one another and stand by each other, find problems easier to resolve” (Secretary for HWF 2006). The private/public dichotomy: the family belongs to a ‘private’ realm outside of state interference. Solving familial problems is, therefore, the responsibility of family members, and the government should not intervene. The 1991 White Paper, while recognizing the emergence of new needs and problems, nevertheless maintained that “emphasis will continue to be placed on the importance of the family unit as the primary provider of care and welfare, and thus on the need to preserve and support it” (Hong Kong Government 1991: 16). Government should only step in when familial networks fail. It can provide welfare services to families in need but not to the extent of replacing the alleged ‘natural’ and ‘normal’ functions of the family. The government and the Liberal Party have repeatedly stated that ignoring this dichotomy would result in unwelcome “pan-welfarism” (p. 5463). Selective interventionism and the instrumentalization of the family: the ways that the Government offers provisions to families are highly selective and depend on its overall policy priorities. The family is often not valued as an end in itself but as a means to achieve other policy goals, such as controlling population size, fighting crime, attracting ‘appropriate’ immigrants, or, more generally, promoting social stability. The government’s utilitarian approach is exemplified by its appropriation of the right of abode of Mainlanders who are married, or have direct blood ties, to Hong Kong residents for fear of overpopulating Hong Kong and overburdening its public services.

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These, then, are the main elements of the dominant familial ideology that informs Hong Kong’s family policy.17 It should be emphasised that elements of this ideology are not unique to Hong Kong.18 While it has been heavily criticized by feminists and others,19 it reflects the views of many people on the family and its relationship to the state. This view of the family as natural and universal, and therefore unchangeable and desirable, reinforces the existing state of affairs. However, since it is based on ideology rather than reality,20 it is ill-equipped to deal with the actual situation. The nuclear family is a fragile entity, easily ‘broken’. Monogamy is in constant conflict with the ideologies of individualism and ‘free love’, and the quest for sexual and emotional gratification. Idealizing the family, particularly the hegemony of the heterosexual-monogamousnuclear family, is, at best, unnecessary in a multicultural and pluralistic society, and, at worst, patronizing and stigmatizing. The fact that the social environment is not favourable to this ideal adds insult to injury. It leads to various contradictions: the family is both the source of social problems and the major mechanism of solving them. When it suits its purposes, the government sometimes takes a much more instrumental view of the family (for example, when it permits entry to Hong Kong for wealthy, professional immigrants but not for mainlanders who have family ties). The sexual division of labour is as outdated as it is sexist, and places undue pressure and strain on female members of the family. The hegemony of the heterosexual-monogamous-nuclear 17 It could be objected that we are here lumping the strategies of familial ideology together with its core elements. In particular, both the ‘selective incorporation of traditional Chinese familial ethics’ and the ‘selective interventionism and instrumentalization of the family’ may reasonably be regarded as strategies rather than core elements of the dominant familial ideology. However, we wish to maintain that the line between core elements and strategies is often blurred and subject to change. One might argue that the pre-1997 government always paid lip service to elements of traditional Chinese familial ethics (e.g., filial piety and mutual support) as an excuse (strategy) to limit its commitment to welfare provision, but it would be hard to separate this from its belief that the family should be the primary provider of care and welfare for its members. Since unification in 1997, official references to selective traditional Chinese familial ethics are even more frequent. Again, the instrumentalization of the family is by definition a strategy to achieve other ends; but this is only the case from the point of view of outsiders. Form the government’s point of view, these different ends all fit together rather ‘logically’ and without contradictions, which is precisely why it is ideological. 18 See for example Neidhardt’s (1978) brief discussion of the ideological factors affecting Germany’s family policy. 19 For an excellent critique of the ‘private/public dichotomy’, see Okin (1989). 20 For a more detailed treatment of this gap, see Shae and Ho (2001).

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family clearly intrudes into the ‘private’ realm, undermining traditional Chinese familial ethics, gay rights, and alternative intimacies. Under this hegemony, the legal rights of the nuclear family members take precedence of those of extended family members, though the latter’s caregiving is still considered the family’s responsibility. In the name of social and economic development, the government has weakened many families’ extended ties by relocating young couples to new towns or housing estates thereby depriving them of family support. In his 2006–07 policy address, the Chief Executive observed that while the nuclear family is the most common family unit in Hong Kong, people still maintain a close and supportive relationship with their extended families. He stated that these “Chinese virtues” are currently “encouraged and promoted” by Hong Kong’s “public housing allocation policy” and “tax regime”, and promised that the government “will consider further ways to enhance support for extended families” (p. 14, #39). These are admirable sentiments, and are likely to remain so unless the government is willing to increase the legal rights of extended family members. The familization of social problems is wrongheaded from the start: it tends to treat symptoms as causes, and, when coupled with an instrumental view of the family, encourages government to breach the ‘private/public dichotomy’ that, at other times, it regards as sacred. These contradictions indicate that the familial ideology is not coherent. Each of the elements has a unique relationship with the logic of capital. The hegemony of the heterosexual-monogamous-nuclear family, the ideology of romantic love, the sexual division of labour, and traditional Chinese familial ethics have all been shaped by the development of capital, but all existed long before the advent of capitalism. The familization of social problems, the private/public dichotomy, and the instrumentalization of family seem to have the most direct links to the logic of capital (although different capitalist societies have not gone into the same length). Still, these tensions and contradictions are part and parcel of the dynamics of the capitalist economy and are symptoms of a more fundamental contradiction that is inherent in all capitalist societies: the contradiction between the ceaseless pursuit of profit and the desire to fulfil human needs. It is, in short, the contradiction between the demands of production and the demands of reproduction. Capitalism cannot survive without the fulfilment of at least some of the needs and aspirations of its population; but their fulfilment places a severe constraint on the maximum accumulation of profit that drives the capitalist enterprise. The extent to which this family ideology is

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determined by a capitalist agenda remains to be seen. If some elements are only tangential to the logic of capital, then it may be possible to effect a change. The Chief Executive’s 2006–2007 address is an indication of the administration’s concern that the frustration experienced by Hong Kong citizens might have reached a point that it threatens the continual expansion of capitalism. However, it is highly unlikely that the new family council would introduce any substantial changes to the familial ideology outlined above. Hong Kong Families Besieged: Socio-Structural Threats Among the major areas of family policy, it is direct family services that the government regards as the most important instrument for the promotion and protection of family well-being. In recent years, the government has greatly expanded these services. Currently, it boasts a three-pronged approach to helping vulnerable families: preventive measures, supportive services and specialized services/crisis intervention (Fu 2006). However, without disparaging these efforts, one could argue that the reliance on direct services may indicate a degree of reluctance on the part of the government to introduce more structural reforms. At issue is not the range of services provided, but whether these services are effective and not ideologically limited. With regard to their efficacy, these family services are inherently inadequate as they are largely remedial. The huge gap between the promise and the reality of the specialised services and crisis intervention has often been noted.21 However, the problem did not receive much attention until the Tin Shui Wai22 tragedy in 2004 when a man stabbed his wife and twin daughters to death before killing himself. With regard to their ideological perspective, the government services have not proved to be ‘politically correct’. They endorse ‘preventive

21

See, for example, the report in The South China Morning Post (13 June 2006). Tin Shui Wai is a ‘new town’ developed in the 1980s on the north-western part of the Hong Kong Special Administration Region. A great majority of its inhabitants live in public housing; many of them are new arrivals from the Mainland. It has an unemployment rate of nearly 9%, the highest in the territory and more than double the average rate. Not surprisingly, many inhabitants are Comprehensive Social Security Allowance (CSSA) recipients. The town also lacks public facilities, and transportation to the city area is expensive given most inhabitants’ income. To date, there are only three family services centres in the area, most of which do not operate at night, when most crisis situations occur. 22

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measures’ and have embarked on large-scale publicity campaigns to promote ‘healthy’ familial values. The AAF (1990) pointed to the gender bias inherent in the promotional ads on radio and television for FLE programmes. As Kwok et al. (1997: 254) note: The ‘ideal family’ propagated . . . for the public was one in which the father was the main breadwinner, while the mother took primary responsibility for housework, although sharing of housework was encouraged. The mother was supposed to be the main child caretaker . . . In addition to prescribing a very traditional domestic role for women in the family, this programme interpreted women’s inability to adhere to this ideal as individual failure, not as a result of insufficient social institutional backup.

Such promotional activities are also culturally insensitive: they promote an idealized version of a Western, Christian and middle-class conception of conjugal relationships and parenting methods, while nodding to traditional Chinese familial ethics to reinforce adults’ responsibilities towards their parents. In one FLE broadcast, adult children were encouraged to take their elderly parents out for dim-sum on Sunday mornings. Another one encouraged parents to spend more time playing and watching TV with their children. This constant bombardment of propaganda is both paternalistic and totalitarian; it threatens to turn Hong Kong into a ‘nanny state’ or ‘therapeutic state’.23 The most a government should do in terms of encouraging a particular way of life is to provide incentives. Moreover, media campaigns are highly ineffective. Their view of human behaviour is overly simplistic; it is based on the naive assumption that once people are provided with sufficient information, they will automatically change their behaviour or risk being perceived as irrational. This assumes that ‘familial harmony’ is or should be the central consideration in people’s decision-making. It also encourages a very narrow understanding of knowledge acquisition. ‘Disharmonious families’ are portrayed as the result of individual behavioural problems, not societal failures. Ultimately, all these campaigns are forms of victim-blaming; they fail to tackle the structural forces that caused the problem in the first place, such as social isolation, unemployment

23 The term is Polsky’s (1991); see also Donzelot (1979). The ‘nanny state’ is a ‘populist’ term often used by libertarians who are wary of the government’s intrusion into individuals’ lifestyles. ‘Therapeutic state’ is a more academic and leftist term denoting the ‘collusion’ between the human service professions (especially social work, psychoanalysis and psychiatry) and the government in the attempt to produce a docile population.

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and poverty. As Coontz (1995: 14) notes, “[r]omanticising ‘traditional’ families and gender roles will not produce the changes in job structures, work policies, child care, medical practice, educational preparation, political discourse, and gender inequities that would permit families to develop moral and ethical systems relevant to realities”. While this is not the place for a comprehensive review and evaluation of the effectiveness of all the family services that the government provides, it should be noted that local studies have pointed to the inconsistency between the government’s stated objectives of ‘enhancing family well-being’ and the regulation of entitlements (Chan 1997; Leung 1998; HKCSS 2001). Even the government’s own statistics do not allow for an optimistic view. They show that the ‘ideal family’ is a myth rather than the reality. The number of divorces soared from 2,062 in 1981 to 17,424 in 2006, while the number of all marriages fell from 50,756 to 50,328 over the same period (Census and Statistics Department 2007: 31). The increasing number of reported cases of child abuse and wife battering have led to calls for more government intervention.24 Incidents of wife-battering rose from 2,150 in 2000 to 3,600 in 2005 (SWD 2005).25 The Hong Kong Standard (August 1, 2006) reported that “[d]omestic violence such as spouse battering has become a serious social problem with a 31 percent rise in cases in the first half of this year when compared with the same period in 2005”. Our argument is not that the existing welfare services are of no help to families in need, but that the piecemeal remedies they offer are inherently inadequate. Most of these cannot meet the needs that rapidly changing social, cultural, political and economic forces have wrought. Shae and Ho (2001) attribute these forces to a combination of events that have had a profound effect on Hong Kong since the 1980s. The Chinese economic reform introduced in 1979 increased the opportunity of direct interaction between residents of Hong Kong and Mainlanders to an unprecedented degree. Given the differences in the economic development of these two areas, this interaction created an opportunity for many lower- and middle-class Hong Kong men to obtain a wife (or even a second wife, often much younger than the husband himself) from

24 According to the statistics of the SWD’s Child Protection Registry, the number of first reported child abuse cases in 2004, 2005, and from January to September 2006 were 622, 763 and 594 respectively. See the Official Record of Proceedings of the Legislative Council (31 January 2007: 4260). 25 See also www.swd.gov.hk/vs/english/stat.html (retrieved on 26 Oct. 2006).

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the mainland. In 1986, there were only 782 ‘cross-border marriages’ registered in Hong Kong, and 703 of these involved brides from the mainland. By 2006, these numbers reached 21,588 and 18,182, respectively (Census and Statistics Department 2007b: FB9). Men’s acquisition of ‘second wives’ residing in the mainland has resulted in many divorces and strained marriages, while cross-border marriages have produced numerous ‘split families’ that are geographically separated as a result of the government’s reluctance or inability to unite them.26 Peggy Lam, Chair of the pro-government Hong Kong Federation of Women, has argued that ‘family union is important, but family harmony is even more important’ and has urged the government to seek help from the Chinese central government to stop the influx of mainlanders (Hong Kong Standard, 18 May 1995). The government complied: the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress’s interpretation of Articles 22(4) and 24(3) of the Basic Law was announced on 26 June 1999 (Hong Kong Standard, 27 June 1999). This announcement, together with the Court of Appeal’s decision on 16 March 2000 (Mingpao, 17 March 2004), effectively deprived those mainland children who were born to, or adopted by, Hong Kong residents the right of abode to Hong Kong. Even the Task Force on Population Policy (2003: vii, #27) acknowledged that “[t]he discrepancy in the arrival times in Hong Kong between the Certificate of Entitlement (CoE) children and their mainland parents often gives rise to separated families. The situation has to be properly addressed”. Moreover, while the first wave of ‘astronaut families’ has faded in recent years,27 a second wave is gaining ground as a result of the Asian

26 In the mid-1990s, the Hong Kong government allowed the Chinese government to increase the daily intake of immigrants from the Mainland to 150, effective 1st July 1995, but since there is little co-ordination between the Hong Kong government and its counterpart in the Mainland, this results in an influx of ‘new immigrants’ and ‘split families’ who tend to settle in isolated new towns or rundown urban areas with inadequate facilities. It is true that, since 2002, the government has adopted a more sensible, flexible and pro-active approach in the handling of the daily ‘One-Way-Permit’ quota so as to reduce the number of ‘split families’. Still, spouses from Guangdong have to wait for an average of seven to eight years before they can join their families in Hong Kong. The Task Force on Population Policy (2003) has recommended that the government shorten the waiting time to about five years, in alignment with the waiting time for spouses from other provinces. 27 The signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984 and the confirmation of the return of Hong Kong’s sovereignty to China by 1997 has resulted in a great ‘exodus’ of local middle-class Chinese people to overseas countries throughout the eighties and nineties. This created numerous ‘astronaut families’ where members suffered from long-

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financial crisis in 1998 and its subsequent economic downturn. The unemployment rate in Hong Kong was 7.9% in 2003,28 which forced many Hong Kong people work or retire outside the territory, mostly in the Mainland but also in other countries in Asia.29 The increasing globalization of the world economy (and the attendant popularity of globalization theory among top government officials and the business elite), economic restructuring, the proximity of Hong Kong to the mainland and the recent economic downturn have all contributed to a widening gap between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’. An increasing number of families are living in poverty. The gini-coefficient rose steadily from 0.430 (1971) to 0.451 (1981), 0.476 (1991) and 0.525 (2001).30 As of 2005, 17.7% of the population were living in poverty, defined as a monthly income less than or equal to half of the median income of other households of equal size.31 The number of poor (defined as those having incomes below that of the CSSA level) reached 1.03 million in 2005 (Commission on Poverty 2006: 3). Needless to say, poverty places tremendous pressure on families. Government policies in other areas, such as legislation prohibiting unlicensed selling, have weakened the possibility of self-reliance through informal or underground economic channels. Finally, the spread of instrumental rationality, the rise of individualism and the associated quest for freedom, the growing consciousness of women’s rights and gay rights and the increasing participation of women in the labour force have all contributed to radical changes in our gender and familial relationships. Most importantly, they have undermined traditional gender roles, resulting in the dissolution of many conventional marriages and the creation of new types of living

term separation. Many families are still living in its aftermath. According to the Task Force on Population Policy (2003: iv, #14), the number of people emigrating from Hong Kong has drastically declined from 66,200 per year in 1992 to only 10,500 in 2002. 28 See Census and Statistics Department 2006: 68 (Table 4.16). The Hong Kong Economic Times (20 Nov. 2007) reported that the latest unemployment rate has further dropped to 3.9%, a rate that is back to the level of the first quarter of 1998. 29 The Task Force on Population Policy noted that while “the recent rising unemployment does not seem to have given rise to increased emigration” (2003: iv, #14), there is a “growing number of Hong Kong residents living, working or retiring in the mainland” (p. iv, #16). In 2005, there were 228,900 Hong Kong residents who had worked in the Mainland (Census and Statistics Department 2007a: 74). 30 See www.cop.gov.hk/b5/income_disparity.htm (retrieved on 19 Nov. 2007). 31 Figures cited from Poverty in Hong Kong. See www.hkcss.org.hk/cb4/ecp/pov_ rate_91–05.pdf (retrieved on 19 Nov. 2007).

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arrangements. The figures contained in Census and Statistics Department report (2007a), while incomplete, nevertheless reflect increases in persons living alone, later marriages, later first pregnancies, divorces and single parents. This list of pressures is certainly not exhaustive; it is, however, sufficient to show that merely paying lip service to family values does little to help those in need, and that the existing family services are not adequate to combat the larger forces that disrupt our families. It seems clear that the so-called family problems, far from being the root cause of other social problems, are in fact caused by changing social conditions and environments. It follows that any effective family policy must transcend the narrow confines of family services and deal directly with these forces. Unless the government can come up with more effective strategies to do so, no system of family service, no matter how comprehensive it may appear, will alleviate the problems experienced by vulnerable families. It is true that the government implemented the first phase of the five-day workweek initiative on 1 July 2006 in an attempt to create a more ‘family-friendly’ society, but it is still not mandatory for those who are not civil servants, and it is too early to assess its effects. One might argue that, without corresponding measures (such as minimum wage legislation), workers themselves will not welcome a five-day workweek. Despite repeated demands from the labour sector and some members of the Legislative Council, the government has refused to establish a statutory minimum wage. The Chief Executive commented as follows: As to whether a statutory minimum wage and standard working hours should be introduced in Hong Kong . . . different sectors of the community remain diverse. Taking into account the views of stakeholders . . . the Government considers that the pragmatic approach at this stage is to provide wage protection through non-legislative means . . . [T]he Government will launch a Wage Protection Movement for employees in the cleansing and guarding services sectors . . . I believe that the next Administration will follow up on this matter (Hong Kong Government 2006: 12, #34).32

32 In his 2007–2008 Policy Address, the Chief Executive did promise that an overall review of the Wage Protection Movement would be conducted in October 2008, and that, if the results are unsatisfactory, the government would “introduce the bill on a statutory minimum wage for security guards and cleansing workers” (Hong Kong Government 2007: 34, #78).

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In other words, we should wait, and, while waiting, many people in Hong Kong in the 21st century will be living in conditions not too dissimilar to those of the 19th century English working class as depicted by Engels (except that of child labour):33 the social order makes family life almost impossible for the worker. In a comfortless, filthy house . . . overcrowded with human beings, no domestic comfort is possible. The husband works the whole day through, perhaps the wife also and the elder children, all in different places; they meet night and morning only . . . what family life is possible under such conditions? Yet the working man [sic.] cannot escape from the family, must live in the family, and the consequence is a perpetual succession of family troubles, domestic quarrels, most demoralising for parents and children alike (Engels 1973: 149).

Conclusion: Family Policy Strikes Back? Our discussion has established the following points. (1) The term ‘family policy’ is vague and unsatisfactory: used descriptively, it cannot be distinguished from other social policies, and, used prescriptively, it often betrays certain ideological commitments. (2) Hong Kong does not lack a family policy: the government has established many laws, policies, entitlements and direct services related to families. Whether this policy works (and works for whom) is another matter. (3) The existing family policy is both static and incoherent. It is static in the sense that the government has never departed from the dominant familial ideology discussed above. It is incoherent because the policies resulting from this ideology are often fragmentary and even contradictory, and often cause even more problems for families in Hong Kong.

33 It must not be forgotten that child labour in Hong Kong only ended in the early 1970s subsequent to the implementation of compulsory education. A major factor for the introduction of free education was the massive increase in exports in the post-War period. So much so that overseas manufacturers (especially those in the UK) alleged that rampant child labour was the key behind this expansion in exports. Partly in response to such allegations and pressures coming from the British government (and also partly in response to local pressures), the colonial Hong Kong government implemented compulsory education as a means to demonstrate the end of child labour.

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(4) The major factors affecting Hong Kong’s families are primarily social and structural, but the government’s family policy so far has tended to focus on individual families and to blame problems on deviations from the ‘normal’ and ‘standard’ heterosexual-monogamous-nuclear family. (5) The establishment of a family council and the expansion of family services are unlikely to solve the ‘family problem’ if they do not take arguments (1) to (4) into account. Although we have argued that the notion of family policy is problematic, we do not intend to reject it entirely. ‘Family policy’ is not a scientific term; it does not have a single, clear and axiomatic meaning. If we rid ‘family policy’ of its association with an outmoded and politically incorrect ideology, what would the term refer to? Ideally, a family policy is simply a package of coherent social policies that respects and facilitates the rights of members of society to live and arrange their intimate lives according to their own choice as much as possible; that has sufficient gender and sexual sensitivity to the effects of its initiatives on all members of society; and that enables all people to pursue their own choice of lifestyle with pride and dignity. The keywords here are ‘coherence’ and ‘choice’. If the government wants to address family issues effectively, it must adopt the following measures more or less simultaneously: (1) Rename the proposed ‘family council’; we should follow New Zealand’s model and use the plural—‘families council’. Nomenclature matters. The Families Commission Act (2004) introduced in New Zealand, unlike Singapore’s National Family Council (2006), has an inclusive definition of ‘family’ and “a legal mandate to advocate for the interests of all families” (Prasad 2005: 14). The new name would send a clear message, both within and outside the country, that the government does not privilege any particular type of family model. (2) Stop exalting the family in any of its guises. Tolstoy’s oft-quoted opening sentence in Anna Karenina—“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”—is simply untrue. Even the happiest family has its dark underside, just as the unhappiest ones have silver linings. The FLE programmes that idealize a particular form of family life may inadvertently leave almost everybody unsatisfied with their existing family relationships. There

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is nothing wrong with promoting mutual respect and support among family members, but it is obviously wrong to suggest that these attributes can only be found in family relationships; they also characterize relationships with friends and colleagues. Moreover, strong family values are not always an indication of mental health: even psychopaths and terrorists who kill promiscuously have been known to adore their families. Indeed, xenophobic attitudes often have their foundation in strong familial sentiments. (3) The government should also distinguish between genuine and factitious family problems. Rising rates of divorce, late marriages, single-parent families, childless couples and cohabitation are not, in themselves, problems and should not be treated as such. At worst, they are the concomitants of modernization, a price that we have to pay for other forms of progress. More positively, they are manifestations of our hard-won freedoms and should be cherished as such. ‘Genuine’ family problems—those that we should be determined to reduce if not eliminate—include domestic violence, forcibly separated families, lack of public services and facilities, social disadvantages and economic hardship. These problems would be much more effectively tackled at their source, rather than through a patchwork of family services masquerading as a self-sufficient family policy. (4) It follows that the government should address more directly the socio-structural factors that affect Hong Kong families. It should divert some of its current resources to alleviate the problems that many families face, and introduce family-friendly employment policies, such as flexible working arrangements, paid parental leave, and more comprehensive child and elderly care. A minimum wage policy is also critical. Needless to say, these measures can only come from a government representing a society that is fully committed to the promotion of individual autonomy and protection of human rights. Given the government’s past tendency to succumb to the interests of capital, its reluctance to take a pro-active approach to issues of social justice and human suffering, its preference for propaganda over genuine dialogue, and the dominance of the familial ideology espoused both by the government and society in general, it seems hardly possible that the newly formed Family Council will respect and protect our families rather than reiterate traditional

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family values. Hardly possible, but not impossible: the onus is on the government to prove otherwise. References Association for the Advancement of Feminism. 1990. Women and Welfare Policies in Hong Kong. Hong Kong: AAF. (in Chinese) Census and Statistics Department. 2006. Women and Men in Hong Kong: Key Statistics. Hong Kong: Census and Statistics Department. ——. 2007a. Women and Men in Hong Kong: Key Statistics (2007 Edition, updated with 2006 Population By-census Results). Hong Kong: Census and Statistics Department. ——. 2007b. Hong Kong Monthly Digest of Statistics, November 2007. Hong Kong: Census and Statistics Department. Chan, Kam-wah. 1997. Social Construction of Gender Inequality in the Housing System: Housing Experience of Women in Hong Kong. Aldershot: Ashgate. Chiu, Man-chung. 2006. Eros of Law: Postcolonial Han-Chinese Erotic Politics and Legal Discourse. Hong Kong: New China Books. (in Chinese) Choi, W. S. 2006 (25 October). “Women’s Affairs Replaced by Family Affairs: A Backward Governing Ideology.” Mingpao. (in Chinese) Chow, Nelson W. S. 1996. “The Chinese Society and Family Policy for Hong Kong.” Marriage & Family Review 22(1–2): 55–72. Commission on Poverty. 2006. “Indicators of Poverty: An Update for 2005.” (CoP Paper 14/2006). Coontz, Stephanie. 1995. “The Way We Weren’t: The Myth and Reality of the ‘Traditional’ Family.” National Forum 75: 11–14. Donzelot, Jacques. 1979. The Policing of Families. New York: Panetheon Books. Engels, Friedrich. 1973. The Conditions of the Working Class in England. Moscow: Progress Publishers. Fu, D. H. M. 2006 (18 March). “Protection of Women against Violence.” Paper presented on behalf of the Health, Welfare and Food Bureau in Forum on Due Diligence: A Framework to Stop Violence against Women and Its Implications to Domestic Violence in Hong Kong. Jointly organized by Amnesty International, Centre for Comparative and Public Law of the University of Hong Kong, and Hong Kong Women’s Coalition on Equal Opportunities. Gauthier, Anne Helene. 1996. The State and the Family: A Comparative Analysis of Family Policies in Industrialised Countries. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Gring-Pemble, Lisa M. 2003. “Legislating a ‘Normal, Classic Family’: The Rhetorical Construction of Families in American Welfare Policy.” Political Communication 20: 473–498. Hong Kong Committee on Children’s Rights. 2006. Responding on the Proposed Family Commission (October 2006). From: www.childrenrights.org.hk/family_commission .htm (retrieved on 4 Nov 2007). Hong Kong Council of Social Service. 2001. Building a Caring Society, Fostering Family Solidarity, HKCSS Annual Submission to the Chief Executive. Hong Kong: HKCSS. (in Chinese) ——. 2007. Views on the Formation of Family Commission and the Conducting of Family Impact Assessment. Unpublished response paper to the government. (Personal source) Hong Kong Government. 1965. Aims and Policy for Social Welfare in Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Government Printer.

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——. 1973. Social Welfare in Hong Kong: The Way Ahead. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Government Printer. ——. 1979. Social Welfare into the 1980s. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Government Printer. ——. 1991. Social Welfare into the 1990s and Beyond. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Government Printer. ——. 1998. The Five Year Plan for Social Welfare Development in Hong Kong—Review 1998. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Government Printer. ——. 2006. The 2006–07 Policy Address: Proactive, Pragmatic, Always People First. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Government. ——. 2007. The 2007–08 Policy Address: A New Direction for Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Government. Hong Kong Legislative Council. 1991. Hong Kong Hansard: Official Report of Proceedings (17 July 1991). ——. 2001. Hong Kong Hansard: Official Record of Proceedings (16 May 2001). Kamerman, Sheila B. and Alfred J. Kahn (eds.). 1978. Family Policy: Government and Families in Fourteen Countries. New York: Columbia University Press. Kwok, Pui-lan, Grace Chow, Ching-kwan Lee and Rose Wu. 1997. “Women and the State in Hong Kong.” Pp. 237–266 in EnGendering Hong Kong Society: A Gender Perspective of Women’s Status, edited by Fanny M. Cheung. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. Land, Hilary and Roy Parker. 1978. “United Kingdom.” Pp. 331–355 in Family Policy: Government and Families in Fourteen Countries, edited by Sheila B. Kamerman and Alfred J. Kahn. New York: Columbia University Press. Leung, Benjamin K. P., Chun-hung Ng, Thomas W. P. Wong, Cindy Y. W. Chu and Anita K. W. Chan. 2003. “Social Cohesion and the Hong Kong Family.” Paper presented at the Conference on Social Cohesion, Nov. 28–29. Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong. From: www.hku.hk/socsc/cosc (retrieved on 1 Nov 2006). Leung, Lai-ching. 1998. Lone Mothers, Social Security and the Family in Hong Kong. Aldershot: Ashgate. Leitner, Sigrid. 2003. “Varieties of Familialism: The Caring Function of the Family in Comparative Perspective.” European Societies 5(4): 353–375. Mercier, Joyce M. and Steven B. Garasky. 2000. “The Need to Refine Family Policy.” Pp. xi–xxii in Redefining Family Policy, edited by Joyce M. Mercier, Steven B. Garasky and Mack C. Shelley II. Ames, Iowa: Iowa University Press. Myrdal, Alva. 1968. Nation and Family. Cambridge: MIT Press. Neidhardt, Friedhelm. 1978. “The Federal Republic of Germany.” Pp. 217–238 in Family Policy: Government and Families in Fourteen Countries, edited by Sheila B. Kamerman and Alfred J. Kahn. New York: Columbia University Press. Okin, Susan M. 1989. Justice, Gender, and the Family. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Polsky, Andrew J. 1991. The Rise of the Therapeutic State. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Prasad, Rajen. 2005. “The Families Commission: What Is It and What Can It Achieve?” Paper presented to the 9th Australian Institute of Family Studies Conference, Melbourne. From: www.familiescommission.govt.nz/media/speeches/2005 (retrieved on 26 Nov 2007). Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food. 2006 (18 October). “Caring Families, Harmonious Society.” Press release. From: www.news.gov.hk (retrieved on 4 Nov. 2007). Shae, Wan-chaw and Ho, Kwok-leung. 2001. “W(h)ither Hong Kong Families and Family Studies: From the Traditional via the Modern to the Postmodern?” Hong Kong Journal of Sociology 2: 85–122. (in Chinese) Social Welfare Department. 2004. Report of Review Panel on Family Services in Tin Shui Wai. Hong Kong: SWD.

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Task Force on Population Policy. 2003. Report of the Task Force on Population Policy (revised on 27 Feb. 2003). From: www.info.gov.hk/info/population (retrieved on 1 Nov 2006). The Family Concern. 2000. Alternative Family Service Review in Hong Kong. From http://swforum.socialnet.org.hk/article/010202.doc (retrieved on 30 Oct 2006). Titmuss, Richard M. 1974. Social Policy. London: George and Unwin. Wong, Pik-wan. 2000. Negotiating Gender: The Women’s Movement for Legal Reform in Colonial Hong Kong. Ph.D. dissertation. Los Angeles: Department of Political Science, University of California. Zimmerman, Shirley L. 1995. Understanding Family Policy: Theories and Application (2nd ed). Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.

ARTICLES

SKETCHING THE DISCURSIVE OUTLINES OF COSMOPOLITAN HYBRIDITY IN POSTWAR HONG KONG: CITY MAGAZINE IN THE EMERGENCE OF 1980s POPULAR CULTURE AND CULTURE INDUSTRY1 Allen Chun Abstract This paper is part of a larger project to explore the genealogies of cosmopolitanism in the emergence of mass culture in postwar Hong Kong. The sociological and intellectual roots of a mass cosmopolitan culture in the 1970s and 80s represent significant phenomena in their own right. In this context, the history of City Magazine (haowai) and its underlying mentalité that has made it a representative voice of Hong Kong’s urban youth culture is worth attention. In its thirty years of publication, it has reflected in sophisticated ways the ongoing evolution of a forward-looking, youth-oriented and trendy popular culture that eventually became the staple of Hong Kong life. What was its role in promoting the advent of such culture?

The Geopolitics of ‘Identity’ Space in Colonial Hong Kong To say that the 1980s spawned the advent of a unique Hong Kong culture and an intrinsically diverse way of life there is an understatement. There is already an overwhelming literature attesting to Hong Kong’s paradigmatic development in urban, pop cultural, cosmopolitan, capitalistic, colonial and postmodern terms, among others. Such developments have given rise to mindsets and lifestyles that have begun to impact worldwide as well. I suppose much of this began to emerge in that era of Hong Kong that one has typically ascribed to its status as free market port, but it was an era where one began to see the birth of a local (place-based) Hong Kong culture, that is, one constructed not only in the context of explicit Westernization but also in a liminal space between two nationalistic forces. To confront such a large topic would seem on the surface vague and overly ambitious, but I think there are

1

The research for this paper was based on preliminary data collection and benefited from conversations with Chan Koon Chung, Lui Tai Lok, Peter Wong, Leo Lee and Cheung Likkwan. Further research is ongoing. The author would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for the journal, who provided insightful criticism.

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many reasons why this evolution should be unusual, if viewed from the perspective of prevailing theories. If tradition is ongoing, there would seem to be every reason to believe that local Hong Kong culture and society is the result of intrinsic developments or extensions thereof instead of impositions from the outside. However, when placed in a historical context and at the apex of overarching political forces, there are actually many more reasons to believe that this emergence is a result of unlikely circumstances and global, nationalist struggles within which the impulses of self-determining autonomy are minimal at best. I would argue that much of this initially has to do with the situatedness of Hong Kong at the intersection of overlapping frames of reference or governance, one being colonial and the other being nationalizing. To say that Hong Kong is/was a colony is to say little or nothing at all. In both theory and practice, colonialism has always been an evolving institutional phenomenon. British colonialism may be intrinsically different from French or Dutch ones in many respects, but it has also evolved as the result of changing political ideological imperatives at home as well as in nuanced response to expedience and feasibility in each colony in ways that has had more abstract consequences for local culture and society than just literal ones. In any case, it has been much more than just the politics of difference, as postcolonial theorists argue. Hong Kong’s colonial polity was in many regards a caste society, especially in an administrative sense, which allowed for peaceful co-existence with a majority of inhabitants who still lived as though they were part of China. The borders were open until well into the Cold War era, and the rise of Chinese nationalism, in many senses, enveloped people in Hong Kong despite its colonial status. In regional terms, Hong Kong had been at best a marginal satellite of a Cantonese sphere of influence based in Guangzhou. In short, there were many hegemonic forces working against the self-determination of a Hong Kong culture, represented especially by the kinds of hybridized, pop cultural, irreverent and egotistical lifestyles and mindsets that people now take for granted and unabashedly champion. How then did this all come about? I approach this question not as a historian but more as a culturologist. I think too many books are written about Hong Kong in the genre of unilineal narrative of progress, triumph of Westernization, inevitability of a free-spirited can-do determinism and postcolonial liberation of various sorts. The formation of a Hong Kong identity and the evolu-

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tion of a mass culture, among other things, are all complex sociological phenomena in their own right that are more importantly made possible by politico-institutional transformations and corresponding change in the geo-cultural landscape. They may be invoked from above, but they respond to local needs. Men make history, as Marx astutely put it, but not necessarily of their own free will. At this point, one may ask, why cosmopolitanism? In this regard, I am less interested in exploring cosmopolitanism as a theoretical problem or general sociocultural phenomenon than in using cosmopolitanism as a reference point for understanding the unique and complex changes that precipitated the rise of a place-based Hong Kong culture and identity during the postwar era. It does not comprise all the seminal transformations that took place, of course, yet on the other hand the peculiarities of Hong Kong’s experiences can also shed light on the content and form of the culture that ultimately emerged. In short, what is cosmopolitanism? Needless to say, cosmopolitanism is not unique to Hong Kong. One can view it as an intrinsic feature of the global city, of which there is a long history and for which there are many prominent examples, even before capitalism. The very idea of a city as a cosmopolis suggests that its scope of ambition and imagination aims to transcend secular and territorial boundaries. Its quest of worldly consumption and sacred communion reinforces its political elitism or vice versa. It should in literal terms be something quite contrary to an indigenous identity and popular culture. In the context of Hong Kong, if its colonial governance counts for something, one cannot consider cosmopolitan or Western influences alien either. It was above all a trading entrepot and a base of regular interaction between Europeans and Chinese at all levels. Hong Kong has a long history of cultural exchange, if this is cosmopolitanism, at least in part.2 Yet at the same time, there is a sense in which cosmopolitan exchanges did not fundamentally disrupt for a long time the caste-like relationships between Europeans and Chinese or did not fundamentally change cultural perceptions of the polity until much later. In the long-term transition into the postwar era, many things changed. In addition to the task of reconstructing society from ravages of war

2 Matthew Turner’s ‘Made in Hong Kong’ exhibit is especially influential in this regard (see Turner and Ngan 1995).

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and economic deprivation, the British Empire had already entered the final stages of an irrevocable decline. Despite its liminality, Hong Kong was a Cold War battleground for competing nationalisms. Whether colonialism was subsumed by nationalism or was eventually the pivotal factor that enabled Hong Kong to transcend nationalism is a matter of interpretation, but I mention these historical conditions to argue that these changes beneath the geopolitical ground ultimately played an important role in establishing the conditions by which a place-based Hong Kong identity was able to emerge and in carving out a framework within which cosmopolitan influences ushered in a new kind of popular culture. Within this geopolitical process, the concrete agency of institutions and the creative force of culture were important vehicles in defining new lifestyles and mindsets, but I think it is crucial to dissect the complex interplay between them in its historical context. My early comparative study of the emergence of public culture in contemporary Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore outlines for present purposes a framework for articulating a role for geopolitics (Chun 1996). Among other things, it shows how three Chinese populated societies can have radically different notions of ethnicity and cultural identity, resulting from the way in which nationalism, colonialism and market capitalism interact. In the case of Hong Kong, its transformation into a free market port was prompted by a colonial regime determined in essence to neutralize nationalist conflict in the territory. It brought about a de-politicization of public culture that spawned, among other things, the emergence of a mass-mediated Hong Kong cultural identity, but the ways in which explicit Westernization formed in collusion with the evolution of a class-based, market society were unintended consequences of this kind of top-down state politics and were in actuality products of a different dynamic interaction. It is easy to say that utilitarian capitalism translates everything into monetary terms, but when culture begins to be seen as commodity in a kind of identity space that becomes deracinated from the politics of nation, strange things happen. For one thing, it makes possible forms of culture, ways of thinking and lifestyles that are forced to negotiate themselves on the basis of some kind of transnational, intercultural logic, and this is the unique matrix of what I see as Hong Kong’s diverse yet inherently fractured public sphere. Among other things, it is easy to understand why, by contrast, the sort of ethnic politics that characterized Taiwan is wholly absent. One tends to forget that, in terms of ethnic composition, Hong Kong

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and Taiwan are similar (25% of their postwar inhabitants are from other provinces of China), but in Taiwan everything (politics as well as culture) is ethnically dualized, or at least people seem to think so. In Hong Kong, ‘a borrowed place and a borrowed time’ is a cliché that reflects its liminal status vis-à-vis conflicting and overarching national spaces, but it ultimately marks the advent of a locally born generation increasingly estranged on the one hand from an older diasporic generation yearning to return to the motherland and a growing proportion of people who on the other hand began to identify with Britain (mostly those who by class, education, political affiliation or through migration benefited most from ties to Britain). The geopolitical spaces are important, but the way in which people negotiate these spaces is equally important. Cosmopolitanism and cultural hybridity can in theory be the product of many possible reasons and intentions, but in practice they had to compete with prevailing cultural mindsets in Hong Kong and in the end transcend or overcome the latter. As cultural agency, it is both the result of people being able to create new forms of cultural sensibility that can successfully capture elements of such a complex, unsettled space as well as the result of social institutions successfully targeting the tastes and interests of a newly emerging public. In this interaction between people and institutions, I think the discursive and representational aspects of such a changing culture are worth careful scrutiny. This is the point of departure for my analysis. It is possible to produce an exhaustive list of unique features about Hong Kong’s culture and diverse lifestyles in the early 1980s. This has already been the object of countless essays in a massive journalistic and scholarly literature. But since I began by focusing on issues of identity and how forces such as nationalism, colonialism and capitalism can craft perceptions toward ethnicity, regardless of actual demographic origin, I think it is equally relevant to ask how and why certain forms of identity (especially politicized ones) find it necessary to invoke culture as an explicit label (and discourse), while consumption of culture in other respects (as goods, ideas, values or lifestyles) does not necessarily invoke culture as a marked category. In short, I argue that cosmopolitanism and creolism are inherently different forms of cultural appropriation, as they differ less because of any inherent cultural attributes than because they represent different practical strategies of ‘culturalizing’. To promote cosmopolitanism as the ethos of a mass culture should be

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a contradiction in terms, at least on the surface of things. One is an effort to maintain social exclusivity, as the other intrinsically sublimates difference. I do not mean to say that cosmopolitanism is undesirable or impossible as cultural ideal. We all wish to be cosmopolitan, multilingual, multinational and multicultural, all the while consuming the original and unique. Yet in real life, we all know that this is available only to a privileged few; otherwise we accept it as purely imaginative. On the other hand, creolism operates on a different cultural logic. Here, cultural mixing is a norm, but without regard to the conditions of use attached to it or nuances implied by its explicit marking. In practice, cultural interchange and hybridity of all kinds operate between both extremes, but I suggest that, rather than view them as different forms of cultural mixing, one can see them as diverse strategies of culturalizing, within which pragmatic intents and social meanings are implicitly embedded. For example, hybridity can be used to reinvent staple and nouvelle haute cuisine but the underlying strategies in each case are quite conscious of their accommodation of local or original taste and the sacrifices involved in each case. The transformation of McDonald’s from American hamburger to transnational staple is an example of selective accommodation. Intellectual Salon ‘Culture’ in the Transformation of the Public Sphere Locating the discursive origins or representational aspects of cosmopolitanism or hybrid culture in Hong Kong involves in the first instance articulating the possible contours of that culture and secondly defining the agency of persons and institutions in that process of cultural construction. Culture is an ongoing phenomenon everywhere, and while it is not necessary to single out a culture’s uniqueness in order to recognize the nature of its existence, it is fair to say that Hong Kong’s imagined community as a culture began in large part with a growing awareness of its autonomous identity. Like Anderson’s (1983) abstract nationalism, which intertwines notions of the imagined community with cultural identity, it can be seen as a positional break vis-à-vis given sociopolitical frames of reference, but positional autonomy can be a function of many situational forces. In this case, rootedness in the local imposed by its deracination from traditional frames of reference cultivated the formation of a liminal identity space that cultivated assumed shared-

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ness through a colloquial language, mass media and other popular values rooted in the ongoing present in ways that were not dissimilar from the way the consciousness of shared nationhood eventually occupied through the spread of mass literature and colloquial language, homogenous time-spaces of Anderson’s imagined communities. That Hong Kong culture became firmly rooted in a concrete sense of place or locality should not be regarded as a natural given but rather as the end product of ongoing sociopolitical forces and strategic practices by people to define and reshape mutating life conditions. The complex of institutions that one has typically associated with this newly emerging Hong Kong culture produced without doubt novel mindsets and life practices that later became a cultural hub for ‘Greater China’, but this novelty, at least at the outset, along with its appeal to cosmopolitanism and modernity, was more precisely the apt confluence of factors that actively induced or prompted the autonomy of a depoliticized, colloquially local culture in ways that contrasted forcibly with hegemonic, nationalist cultures rooted in ethnic and other orthodoxies of state prevalent elsewhere in Asia. Consonant at the same time with the evolution of cultural institutions, lifestyles and behaviour that broke away from traditional spheres of influence typical of Chinese societies elsewhere was thus the conscious emergence of an indigenous Hong Kong (本港) identity. Insofar as it reflected the subjective autonomy of a shared community vis-à-vis the outside world, identity was by definition a conscious and unconscious set of life choices and value judgments that had to negotiate between alien and native, elite and popular, old and new. Some distinctive features or institutions often noted in this regard include its utilitarian commercialistic ethos that in many ways devalued cultural markers and national origins, a depoliticized mass culture rooted in a popular media industry that was deracinated from historical or intellectual tradition, finally the advent of Westernized influences that reiterated through its modernity the disappearance of colonialism. In such a cultural terrain, cosmopolitan and hybrid processes occupied many niches and assumed many forms. One paradigmatic textual representation of such culture is a trendy magazine entitled Haowai (號外 or City Magazine) that recently celebrated its thirtieth year of publication. From the mid to late 1980s, it became a successful cosmopolitan lifestyle, youth fashion magazine, which especially attracted yuppie professionals among its staple readers. On the surface, it has similarities with high culture magazines like Vogue or

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Cosmopolitan, but it promoted an alternative, countercultural mindset to fashion its views on media, arts, thought and lifestyles. The institutions, lifestyles and behaviour typically associated with the unique emergence of Hong Kong culture in the 1980s are themselves a product of complex changes, to say the least, but many aspects of this evolution can be reflected in the thirty-year transformation of City Magazine itself. Few magazines anywhere have undergone such radical transformation, not to mention enjoying such longevity or continued appeal, and distinctive features of its content and form are worth careful scrutiny. Haowai (號外) literally means ‘newspaper extra’; it was initially called in English The Tabloid, in the spirit of investigative reporting exemplified by The Village Voice. Its first issue appeared in September 1976 as a monthly journal in a newspaper format resembling The Village Voice or Rolling Stone, containing mostly essays, cartoons and reviews of various sorts. In Issue 7 the following March, it changed its English name to City Magazine. Over the first year, it began to establish a recognizable, systematic body of content pertaining to intellectual currents, social criticism, reviews of music and fine arts, contemporary fashion and other trendsetting cultural activities, both locally and abroad, while at the time expanding in pages as a full-fledged magazine publication. During its first five years, its profitability was marginal, if not consistently in the red.3 Its elitist intellectual quality and critically progressive views on social issues made its appeal limited to a narrow readership that consisted of like-minded intellectuals with eclectic tastes or professionals with cosmopolitan values. Even while growing in sophistication, it lingered financially for many years, surviving mostly because of the monastic dedication of a core group of writers and its reliance on outside writers willing to forego payment for journalistic contributions. Its April 1982 issue was a turning point in the history of the magazine, when it completely revamped its design, doubling in size from A4 to A3 page format, adopted a glossy cover, enhanced its textual and spatial aesthetics, added numerous colour illustrations and generally restructured its appearance to match its outwardly cosmopolitan image, trendy outlook and implicitly elite aspirations. The revamped format attracted advertising revenue in the form of full-page ads, which at the same time provided the magazine a staple, sustainable revenue. Its commercial viability in turn allowed

3

In its early years, editors had ownership shares. See Kam (1998).

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it to develop more fully and diversely as a trendsetting cosmopolitan cultural magazine. The twenty years saw at least two succeeding generations of writers, and the successful marketing of the magazine established it in the long run as a systematic, important beacon of Hong Kong contemporary culture, with interests in all aspects of pop culture, mass media, fine arts, lifestyle, taste and modern fashion. In a word, if any magazine exemplified the ongoing pulse of a uniquely Hong Kong culture, reflected most typically by the gradually dominant tastes, attitudes and consumption patterns of locally bred Hong Kong people, this was an ideal representative. There are without doubt many features of City Magazine that deserve detailed attention in this regard, but the very evolution of the magazine in the context of ongoing social and political changes is itself a noteworthy development that ultimately has important resonances for understanding the formative relationship between culture and public sphere as well as the role of discursive and representational imagination in that social agency. At least in its mature evolution, the magazine captured in many obvious respects diverse aspects of Hong Kong’s newly emerging culture, namely its open embrace of a cosmopolitan ethos, its extensive appeal to latest currents in film, music, fashion, the arts and other aspects of progressive (commercialist-oriented) culture and its inherent cultivation of a public culture identified with and intricately tied to a popular and Cantonese speaking TV and film industry. In various regards, it overlaps with many competing publications. In terms of cosmopolitan appeal, it is probably not the first or most prominent magazine to promote elite Western tastes, if this is what cosmopolitan means. The Hong Kong Tatler, an English language magazine published by and mostly for British expatriates, devoted primarily to reportage of happenings in the West and information about expatriate social events and culture in Hong Kong has had a longer existence as a publication, but its relationship to the lives and interests of local Hong Kong people is minimal. While cosmopolitan in one respect, its definition and tastes tend to be exclusively colonialist in nature. City Magazine was not the first publication to promote cosmopolitan fashion either. Style Hong Kong (時式 shishi) is a bilingual, largely women’s magazine devoted to cosmopolitan high fashion with a long history of publication and broad commercial appeal. The Chinese edition of Esquire debuted in 1984 and clearly catered to cosmopolitan tastes of educated, professional males. Like the two other magazines, it was successful in attracting people with culturally eclectic taste and high end consumer lifestyles. Yet on

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the other hand, the clientele drawn to such publications seemed limited to a privileged niche and did not seem representative of cultural sensibilities amongst the populace at large. The role that Haowai has played in the development of local popular culture has already been discussed by various writers in the cultural studies literature on Hong Kong.4 However, its significance must be seen first of all in the framework of the magazine’s metamorphosis over the decades. The magazine began as something quite different from what it eventually evolved into, despite the continued guidance of the first generation of editors and writers for most of its initial decade. As mentioned above, it was founded explicitly in the style of The Village Voice, and its English title The Tabloid was meant to embody a socially critical ethos and its explicit penchant for countercultural currents and alternative intellectual perspectives, whatever their origin. The contents of its inaugural 1976 issue are illustrative in this regard: 1) Featured Essays a. Tabloid Report: “Maternity hospital makes wrong transfusion of blood, resulting in death”. b. Essay: “The psychological burden brought about by super (successful) women”. c. Essay: “Reflections of a methadone user”. d. Essay: “Dale Carnegie should teach a course on how to deal with salesmen”. e. Essay: “Local community support organizations—are they activist groups”? 2) Centrefold (five short columns) a. Literary review b. Introduction to yijing hexagrams c. Survey of late night eating d. Listing of concerts, dance, film and art events e. ‘Jest Set’.

4 See in particular the special issue on Hong Kong culture edited by Leung Ping Kwan (1995), which also focused on the role of the magazine.

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3) Book Review Section a. Review essay on Robert Heilbroner, An Inquiry into the Human Prospect and Gordon Taylor, Rethink Radical Proposals to Save a Disintegrating World. b. Review essay of two novels by Zhou Shou-zhuan. c. Review essay on critical theory entitled “Some problems in Marxist theories of the state”. 4) Arts Section a. Review of Art Garfunkel’s album “Breakaway”. b. Review of jazz albums by Gabor Szabo, Maynard Ferguson, Herbie Mann and Pat Rebillot. c. Review of an out-of-print album by Josh White. d. Commentary on the creative syncretism of the Hong Kong Youth Ballet Theatre Troupe. e. Commentary on the past and future of domestic handicrafts. f. Two reviews of the film Tiao hui. g. Essay on the diverse uses of classical music in some films. 5) TV Programme Commentaries a. One entitled “The existence of Zhong Ding-dang”. b. One entitled “Let go of Francis Lai”. A brief perusal of the above content shows that it began less as a trendy cosmopolitan lifestyle magazine than as an intellectually flavoured journal grounded in contemporary social and cultural currents, not unlike the Parisian Le Nouvel Observateur. If it was cosmopolitan in outlook, it shared little with the colonialist expatriate tastes of The Hong Kong Tatler. In cultural content, it was not exclusively devoted to fashion and fine arts of a kind that typically dominated women’s magazines, such as Style Hong Kong. Even in its refined style, culture here appealed less to the professional elite who tend to read Esquire and catered explicitly to countercultural influences or alternative lifestyles. The five main essays also aptly reflected the socially critical and investigative spirit of its title The Tabloid. This was not a magazine for popular consumption that attempted to appeal to mainstream interests. Its readers were most likely intellectual eclectics who shared similar sociopolitical viewpoints. As a Chinese language publication, it was remotely distanced from the traditional and nationalist concerns that dominated most other Hong Kong intellectuals and activists. In such a context, it would have been

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difficult to imagine this magazine appealing to anyone who was not already highly Western educated, if not literate in English as well. In fact, when Haowai first appeared, it was viewed as perilously alien by students belonging to various nationalist (guocui) cliques.5 Thus, from the Chinese mainstream, it is easy to regard Haowai as a Western influenced magazine with radically different cultural interests that did not seem relevant to Hong Kong at that time. If it was cosmopolitan, it should really be seen as an effort to introduce a larger worldly outlook into a Hong Kong context. Despite its attention to Western pop music and art, there was also little explicit concern to developments in local Hong Kong popular culture, which were firmly Cantonese, if anything. Western pop culture appeared here as an eclectic element from a Hong Kong cultural point of view and was something still alien to most there. Culture here was treated as largely literary and intellectual in nature; at least, its attention to more mundane aspects of lifestyle, most notably as fashion, cuisine and material consumption of various kinds did not appear until somewhat later. Its subtle social criticism should also be regarded as a mindset that deliberately set itself apart from the popular public or the mass, whatever that was. Even the satirical cartoons that were interspersed along with the essays resembled manga but probably took their inspiration more from the underground comics of Robert Crumb. In short, its underlying cosmopolitanism and critical ethos set it apart from popular culture, as it had existed ‘locally’ at the time, even as it appeared to articulate the grounds for a different kind of popular culture or everyday lifestyle. Yet more importantly, in assessing the nature of this cosmopolitanism, perhaps its most significant feature was the way in which it tended to routinely embrace both Western and Chinese culture as equals, with little attempt to dualize or categorize them separately. There was also little attempt to cultivate hybridity, through mixing; there is at least a clear sense in which both represented compatible elements within the larger view of things. Even in the texts themselves, English terms were routinely interspersed with Chinese ones (without translation or romanization), which was disorienting, if not unacceptable and incomprehensible as well, in terms of conventional Chinese writing (Yau 1995). In sum, at the time of Haowai’s appearance, there were many more reasons for viewing it as something consciously alien and removed from the mainstream than 5 See especially Siu Kwok Wah’s (1984) discussion of ‘non-academic academicism’, which one could also call ‘academic non-academicism’. This academicism separated Haowai from other influential popular culture magazines, such as Mingbao Weekly.

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anything constitutive of a newly emerging popular culture or public sentiment. Many things changed in due course. Over the next five years, Haowai expanded its cultural coverage to include fashion, fine cuisine, and subtle changes in the arts, most importantly developments in the emerging film and mass media industry. Attention to intellectual developments in contemporary theory continued to be strong along with reporting on social issues. The combination of its esoteric interests and concern with alternative cultural and social lifestyles was a potentially explosive mix, but what characterized its underlying ethos was a unique mindset, perhaps best reflected in the keywords often invoked throughout the magazine: fashion (時裝), consumption (消費), vogue (潮流), sensuality (情色), culture (文化), middlebrow (中產), style (姿態), perspective (角度), objectivity (中性), high class (貴族), taste (品味), form (型格), image (形象) and brand respectability (氣派).6 In terms of content, it was probably the first magazine in Hong Kong to deal bluntly with topics such as 1960s counterculture, the disco scene, homosexuality, feminism, not to mention sexuality in general, and other explicitly irreverent issues, even bad taste. It was very conscious of its contemporaneity, occasionally reflecting on the passing of decades perdu, even speculating about the advent of upcoming ones. In fact, the potpourri of essays and regular columns on diverse aspects of culture, from literary thought to practical lifestyle, reflected interest in a wide range of issues, but its surface representations of worldly sophistication and progressive alterity were always driven by a uniquely irreverent attitude or ethos of nonconformity that seemed less driven on changing the public as a whole than on giving voice to a heretofore unrepresented niche community, while ramifying its world view. That niche community was, of course, a generation of Hong Kongbred youth that was disenfranchised from the public by other more dominant sectors of the population, namely the diasporic interests of a refugee constituency caught between two sides of a nationalizing Cold War, colonialist interests of the government and a resident populace that still viewed itself as a satellite city within Guangdong and its Cantonese sphere of influence, albeit in increasingly unsettling terms. Haowai’s cosmopolitan eclecticism was radical for its time, and one can ask whether it actually influenced the emergence of new cultural sensibilities or just blended in with the times. Over time, I argue that

6

One house ad is reproduced in Lui (2007: 188).

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prevailing nationalizing forces, traditional spheres of influence and diasporic ethnic elements began to wane not because of any inherent demise but because of fundamental paradigmatic shifts toward a geopolitical ground that necessitated a new place-based imagination. Whatever these cosmopolitan forces were, they had to be in the long run accommodated by or assimilated in line with this emergent sense of community that was increasingly dominated by a locally bred population explicitly identifying with Hong Kong as its primary cultural frame of reference. In short, postwar Hong Kong was a setting that witnessed diverse, competing cultural forces and had ramifications in all aspects of local thought and lifestyle, but what impacted the most were those elements that eventually melded best (most successfully) into the institutions and mindsets of that emerging public culture. The Aesthetics of Cultural Eclecticism in an Emerging Culture ‘Industry’ The early evolution of Haowai invokes a familiar question prompted first by Habermas’ The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1989), namely, what is the role of the salon and critical discourse in the creation of a space of rational communication that eventually became the basis for the emergence of a public sphere by galvanizing a practical field of opposition to hegemonic domination by the state and other vested interests in society? Gramsci also resonates here. In many respects, Haowai seemed to provide a discursive space for such critical communication, whether or not it actually was able to promote effectively the content of this ideology. Its later evolution, if anything, manifested growing interest in and cultivation of a locally emergent popular culture influenced heavily not only by cosmopolitan ideals, utilitarian values and modern lifestyles but also identification with a mass media industry that gradually became the ‘colloquializing’ framework for a new public and its imagined sensibilities. In this regard, the transformation of the magazine was perhaps significant less for its change in content than in form. A major turning point that propelled it into a successful widely read magazine and firmly established it as a representative voice of a newly emerging public culture was a decision by the editors in April 1982 to radically alter the magazine’s design from a text-based journal focused on the literal content of its essays, printed in A4 format, to a glossily illustrated magazine, doubled to A3 size, with restyled headers and a considerably more spacious aesthetic look.

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A crude comparison of the two issues before and after the new design exemplifies the essence of this structural change. Another significant outcome here was a marked increase in full page ads. March 1982 (Issue 67): Number of pages devoted to the following content categories: Text based essays: fifty-nine pages. Non-commercial promotion (mainly public service announcements, event listings): eight pages. Feature cartoons: four pages. Full-page photographs: five pages. Full-page commercially paid advertisements: four pages. April 1982 (Issue 68): Number of pages devoted to the following content categories: Text based essays: forty-one pages. Non-commercial promotion (mainly public service announcements, event listings): five pages. Feature cartoons: none. Full-page photographs: twenty-three pages. Full-page commercially paid advertisements: thirteen pages. The number of full-page ads in Issues 69–71 occupied eleven, twentytwo and twenty pages, respectively, and continued in general to increase in subsequent issues. Full-page photographs increased many times over and became a staple feature of its new look. The number of pages devoted to text essays tended to decline slightly as a result of the new design, but this was offset also by its switch to A3 format. Equally importantly, the proportion of pictures to text in essays increased drastically from 20–30% in the old format to 40–60% in the new format, with blank space accounting for 20% on average (as aesthetic enhancement). While font size remained the same, the amount of space and pictures that occupied each page, more than the number of pages itself, tended to overwhelm the impact of the text on the page. The table of contents, which usually appeared just inside the cover, was now also buried inside the magazine, under six to eight pages of colour ads, mimicking standard commercial magazines. Whether this revolution in form fundamentally changed the impact of the magazine in substance can be debated, but it is clear that the feel of the magazine altered by its format changes introduced subtle changes in the way the magazine (as writers, editors and owners) perceived its relationship to the kind of cultural values, trends, lifestyles and institutions that it actively wrote about and promoted.

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Without doubt, the new format magazine sold well, and its commercial success was the most important factor that guaranteed its continued survival. In comparison to its competing magazines at the time, the amount of commercialism in Haowai was much less. The April 1982 issues of Style Hong Kong and The Hong Kong Tatler devoted the same overall number of pages to essays, while carrying fifty-one and eight-four pages of full-page ads, respectively, and burying their table of contents under sixteen pages of ads. The proportion of illustrations to text in essays tended to average 30–40% in the latter two magazines, which should have made Haowai, with its more aesthetic format, even more out of character with the supposedly serious, intellectual content of its writings. Its trend toward aesthetic appeal was inextricably related to a greater reliance on commercial appeal as a principle of operation, and both factors had inevitable and subtle influences on the content and form of its writing in the long run. As the baton passed to succeeding generations of writers and editors, the commercial viability of Haowai allowed it to expand in volume as well as to intensify its focus on high fashion, haute cuisine, cutting edge technology and esoteric dimensions of the good life in general, all driven by urban chic, trend pacing, heuristic consumption and cosmopolitan eclecticism as the ethos of the new age. While its editors proclaimed in March 1982 that Haowai’s eccentric worldview would remain unchanged, in the long run one could unavoidably witness a gradual disappearance of writing on trendsetting developments in intellectual theory and the blunt investigative journalism that had represented a more staple presence in its early issues. What does all this really mean? The constraints of space cannot do justice to the complex evolution that Haowai actually underwent during its heyday in the latter half of the 1980s and into the 1990s. By 1988, one might venture to say that it became a full-fledged commercialist enterprise, after its conscious editorial makeover to promote a haute couture cosmopolitan lifestyle that was combined with the advent of computerized typesetting and its embrace of digital technology as the staple of everyday life. Surveys conducted by the magazine also revealed that its readers tended to be predominantly yuppie professionals, with many of them claiming to drive SAABs.7 It also underwent several organizational changes, wit7 See Chan (1988). The ‘Attitude and Style Manual’ served as an editorial preface in each issue.

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nessing a change of publisher from Seven Hills, Ltd. to City Howwhy, Ltd. in 2000, then its purchase and absorption by the mainland Chinese conglomerate Xiandai Chuanbo in 2003, which made it a flagship publication within a family of magazines devoted largely to modern lifestyles. In content, one witnessed without doubt a refinement and expansion of existing coverage in cultural tastes and social lifestyles that it had already promoted extensively since its inception, even though the relative proportion of attention to various fields of interest changed gradually in the long run. One might also say that the change in form primarily enhanced the appeal of such interests to a wider readership. However, in attempting to appeal to that broader public, one can question whether its success was really the result of its aesthetic and sophisticated effectiveness in promoting the critical, intellectual values that primordially drove its writing or whether it successfully transformed itself in a way that made it acceptable and digestible to an emerging public that was changing of its own accord. That is to say, who was accommodating whom, and what really changed in the process? Despite the many distinctive features of mindset or ethos that characterized the early evolution of Haowai, as noted above, and appeared to presage the behaviour, thought patterns and practical outlooks that later became commonplace in subsequent decades, I am more inclined to believe that the emergence of a new public imagination rooted largely in the development of a mass media industry provided the primary institutional frame of reference through which new cultural sensibilities and practical lifestyles became galvanized. In this regard, one can also detect a subtle change over time in Haowai’s critical relationship to the rest of society and its emerging culture at large. As cosmopolitan thinking and commercial consumption became more commonplace and extolled as the new gods of everyday life (as a result of de-politicizing tendencies of unregulated utilitarian capitalism and moves away from prevailing nationalistic struggles), the critical sharpness that initially characterized Haowai (represented by differences that it cultivated vis-à-vis the mass) softened correspondingly too. One can undeniably say that Haowai continued to promote (even more successfully) the inherent interests, tastes and values of a locally bred generation of Hong Kong youth who at the same time were increasingly distanced from an older generation of diasporic residents on the one hand and those people associated primarily with a mutating colonial regime and other expatriate interests. However, rather than

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directly influencing this new local generation, it appeared that the latter matured of its own accord and that its interests became shaped largely by a (politically de-sensitized and commercially oriented) mass media industry. This locally bred generation embraced many of the interests, tastes, and values promoted by Haowai, and Haowai in turn successfully transformed itself by accommodating those interests, tastes and values and shaping them into a systematic worldview at the expense of other interests, tastes and values that happened to reflect its more socially activist, critical intellectual perspectives. Haowai actively embraced and inevitably became an integral part of that popular culture emerging from this new entertainment media and film industry, which cultivated a distinctive Hong Kong style or ethos of its own. Such a culture industry may or may not have entirely resembled that archetypically described by Horkheimer and Adorno (1989), who described the inherent tendency within capitalism to transform mass culture into objects of commoditized consumption, but it played to a large extent an important role in commoditizing a heuristic, mass-mediated lifestyle that served as a ‘standard linguistic community’ for local culture. Unlike elsewhere, this popular culture served in the absence of a political community, defined typically by common citizenship and shared social values. By virtue of its being an object of popular veneration and commercial consumption, driven by the imperatives of profit maximization through mass appeal, such a culture was correspondingly less moved by esoteric, intellectual trends or fine-tuned aesthetic norms. Thus, was commercial desirability or viability the new guiding principle that in the long run softened the critical edge and eclectic quality that epitomized Haowai’s initial years and subtly transformed the underlying mindset of the magazine in subsequent phases? Subjective changes of mindset are difficult to gauge and interpret, but it is clear that the gradual shift in Haowai’s detached eccentricity or eclectic intellectualism inherent before the 1980s contrasts with its progressive posture in promoting the film and mass media industry in later years and collusive involvement in its institutional development. This gradual shift in subjective positioning was in effect a direct consequence precipitated by the radical changes in format and aesthetic design that restructured the magazine in 1982, changes that apparently took on a life of their own. At this point, one should ask in what sense this burgeoning mass media entertainment industry was able to repre-

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sent an emerging ‘public’ sensibility, which at the same time served as a standard lingua franca for a distinctive ‘local’ cultural imagination. In many respects, the development of Hong Kong film and TV captured public appeal in terms of broad popular acceptance and its ability to transcend class differences and political ideologies. Insofar as de-politicization of culture was implicitly enforced by colonial policy, one can say that a certain kind of public already predicated to some extent a certain genre of cultural landscape. At the same time, the development of the local was less a rediscovery or invention of such traditions than an explicit break away from prevailing national and regional spheres of influence. In the case of film, Hong Kong ‘style’ established itself in contrast to Mandarin and Cantonese genres while at the same time rooting itself either in the place-based contemporary or in abstract mindsets peculiar to Hong Kong sensibilities. TV also emerged at a time when the mass media began to play a dominant role in establishing a standard public community and institutional frame of reference for a shared culture. That both TV and film adopted Cantonese as their lingua franca was not an insignificant factor, even as the content of popular culture was continuously drawn from the outside and its constructive synthesis of many unlikely elements. Huanle jinxiao, a nightly entertainment show, was by far the most heavily watched TV programme in Hong Kong in the 1970s and 1980s and perhaps best epitomized the cultural sensibilities of Hong Kong’s general populace. Cosmopolitan influences were certainly one aspect of this creative mix but so were commoditizing forces imposed by the ethos of a marketdominated way of life as well as nomadic or liminal impulses derived from living in a borrowed place and time that glossed over a surreal, apathetic political worldview. The commercial superficiality of popular culture cultivated by the mass media has been criticized typically as an intellectual desert, and this contrasts with the intellectual seriousness (albeit irreverent) that has always been characteristic of Haowai, but the media industry drew on mindsets, behaviour and values that happened to connect with a newly emerging cultural landscape that was already in the making as a result of diverse and complex forces. Like the mass media, Haowai also connected with part of that landscape of public imagination, which it iconically defined as synonymous with the ‘City’. In the process of successfully tapping into these currents, it began deliberately or unwittingly to transform itself. It lent a uniquely sophisticated voice in promoting

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this City lifestyle and ethos, to say the least, but its collusive relationship with the evolution of mass-mediated popular culture made it an inherent part of the latter’s development as a mainstream that contrasted with its critical distance in an earlier era and contributed in the long run to a subtle metamorphosis in its overall guiding principles. The geopolitical creation in Hong Kong of a de-politicized public paved the way for the wholesale transformations spawned by utilitarian capitalism and its commoditizing ethos as a staple lifestyle, which in turn enabled Hong Kongers to redefine themselves in multicultural terms and through cosmopolitan consumption. These developments were consonant with an emerging consciousness of a local Hong Kong identity. Like all the above, this identity was not just a realization of its place-based existence or a discovery of its indigenous essence but rather a complex subject positioning that by force of circumstances made peculiar life choices in a process of strategic rationalization or selective accommodation. Although the invention of the local was not the product of intentioned free will, the advent of such an identity as well as the processes by which it became discursively articulated and institutionally disseminated took on a dynamic of its own that transcended simple appropriations of the global order. The Birth of ‘Local’ Popular Culture in the Context of Cosmopolitan Hybridity On the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of Haowai, Joint Publishing Co., Ltd. (Lui 2007) compiled a three-volume selection of exemplary essays and materials from its thirty years of publication.8 Edited by Lui Tai Lok, a sociologist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, who was an avid reader of and keen contributor to the magazine throughout its history, this collection of material and supplementary commentaries provided rich insights into the complex, diverse history of the magazine and its extensive connections to Hong Kong culture and society. An artistic collage reproduced from Issue 225 (1995) prefaced one section, entitled ‘Hong Kong Style’. Perhaps more interesting than the collage itself, which was meant clearly to reflect the inherent hybridity of Hong Kong culture, was an editorial footnote: ‘Finally, Haowai is a

8

This compendium was initiated by the publisher, not the magazine.

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Hong Kong magazine’ (Lui 2007). Echoing Lui’s introductory essay in the three-volume set, it was as if to suggest that, despite the magazine’s explicit focus on cosmopolitan hybridity and its claim to represent a local generation of Hong Kong and Hong Kongers throughout its long history, it was only in the mid-1990s, according to Lui, that the magazine had accomplished this vision in practice. What cosmopolitan hybridity really means in a Hong Kong context and in what senses this has come about is, rightly so, a question of interpretation and continuing debate. It is possible to read the magazine’s overt representations as well as the intentioned meanings of its writers in many ways, especially after the fact.9 Among other things, the long list of contributors to the magazine have gone on to other ventures, while moving on to other related publications, evolving into important commentators on Hong Kong pop culture and society in general, and becoming involved in other media institutions, such as film and TV making. Underscoring Lui’s argument is less the claim that contemporary Hong Kong society is rooted intricately in its hybridity than his questioning of whether cosmopolitanism, especially of the kind espoused by Haowai in its early years, was really consistent with its intention to fashion a uniquely Hong Kong culture. As Peter Wong (1992), Haowai’s managing editor for much of the past two decades, aptly remarked in relation to the magazine’s routine usage of bilingual heteroglossia in its writing, its founding editors, Chan Koon Chung and Peter Dunn in particular, usually thought things out in English and wrote them out in Chinese. Much of how they viewed the direct import of things Western onto the Hong Kong scene can thus be interpreted in the same vein. On the other hand, the question of how they actually thought is in my opinion less relevant than our understanding of social processes underlying such cosmopolitanism. Even if the hybrid nature of their writing was a result of their ambidexterity in English and Chinese, one cannot say the same for a later generation of Hong Kongers who adopted linguistic heteroglossia as a routine mode of communication; likewise for the trend of youths to adopt English names and other hybrid practices. The latter were consequences of a broader mindset

9 Lui is probably correct to argue that Haowai’s promotion of a uniquely hybrid Hong Kong culture was not an explicit programme designed from the outset, but rather something that became consciously apparent many years after the fact. In this regard, Chans Koon Chung’s (2007) recent collection of essays is especially illuminating. See also http://blog.sina.com.cn/chankoonchung.

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that was already in the making and was not necessarily the product of cosmopolitanism, strictly speaking, or Haowai’s radical chic, which was truly premonitory in many senses. It is not surprising that, especially in its early years, Haowai was more often viewed as culturally elitist. Many of its cosmopolitan tastes were simply alien to those less savant in general and could not have been viewed otherwise as long as such culture remained objects of limited (esoteric) consumption. Orlando Patterson’s (1994) work on Jamaican ‘cosmopolises’ provides a contrasting reference point and shows that any society can be viewed as such a set of overlapping and competing ‘cosmopolises’. Displaying the alternative façade of Gilroy’s (1993) Black Atlantic, the role of West Indian black intellectuals in the development of British philosophy and the promotion of colonialist lifestyles in general has often been neglected and can be viewed as a paradigm of elitist cosmopolitan worldviews.10 This has contrasted with the inherent creolism of working class lifestyles. The development of reggae, which began as bad imitations of African music, then evolved into a hybrid cultural creation of its own and became exported globally as a genre of popular music, followed a different ideology of ‘mixing’. Nonetheless, both approaches to intercultural practice coexisted as local cultural lifestyles but remained sociologically distinct. In the context of Hong Kong, the transformation brought about by its development into a free port has been universally acknowledged as a seminal factor underscoring the utilitarian radicalization of local lifestyles and social values in general, but this in turn enabled, through market accessibility to foreign goods and ideas and commoditized consumption, the inherent demystification of cultural dualisms and nationalist markers.11 Cosmopolitanism ushered in hydridity as an acceptable way of life, but the degree to which a cosmopolitan-based cultural ethos or indigenous syncretism prevailed was still a function of differential access to cultural consumption. That Haowai positioned itself both in relation to cosmopolitan values and the emerging sensibilities of popular culture makes its perspective on ‘cosmopolitan hybridity’ ambivalent

10 Gilroy’s most notable point was to underscore the contribution of Blacks to the development of modernity in the West, but in so doing he accented the significance of a transnational diasporic hybridity. 11 Lee (1999) argues that Shanghai served as a nostalgic ‘other’ for Hong Kong. Postwar Hong Kong was, in my opinion, largely a forward-looking entity; its cosmopolitanism transcended urban modernity.

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and prone to differing interpretations. With the growing affluence of the general public, one can see a general embrace of cosmopolitanism as well as a tendency to define the local in such terms, the latter being, in strict terms, a geopolitical product of identity position. In assessing the important contributions of Haowai, Lui’s problematizing of whether it played in fact a direct role in the formation of a locally bred, uniquely syncretic Hong Kong culture is without doubt worthy but not necessarily the best question to ask. One should ask whether the force of ideas and culture alone, either through rational discourse or imaginative representation, can actively transform the public sphere and the popular landscape. Despite Haowai’s relatively late embrace of the notion of hybridity in the form of the ‘Chinesebarbarian half breed’ (半唐番) (Chan 1982), attention to the Hong Kong scene had been an intimate concern of the magazine since its origins.12 If anything, it had always promoted a clear social realist stance combined with an articulate intellectual viewpoint and a flair for cultural eccentricity, which can be regarded as primordial elements of a socially critical imagination. Its concern with the practice of contemporary life was probably what distanced it from serious, scholarly journals, but it certainly did not lack in intellectual content or wit. Its intellectual qualities and esoteric remove from the tastes of a general populace tended, if anything, to guarantee it a niche readership. The magazine’s transformation over the years was indeed complex, but the context in which it was embedded was more complex and deserves primary consideration, in my opinion. Despite the many growing linkages between the magazine and the emerging popular culture it seemed to nurture, one can ironically witness a gradual decline of precisely those elements that made it an intellectually critical and eccentrically positioned magazine to begin with. This was implicitly also part of Lui’s chagrin in selecting presumably the most exemplary essays over those thirty years, which tended to favour the high-minded writings of the early years over the staple, well-known and more widely read writings that established it as a successful, long running magazine. The question of who really championed hybridity in the birth of the uniquely local pales in comparison to the way the eclectic, intellectual qualities of the magazine were in the long run sublimated and disappeared in

12

Chan has recently focused more explicitly on urban hybridity and cosmopolitanism.

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the formation of the popular culture industry, dominated largely by the imagination of various mass media institutions. The way in which such institutions eventually define the cultural landscape and capture the public imagination thus represent the framework within which one can appropriately ask, what is cosmopolitan hybridity in a Hong Kong context? Its process of cultural negotiation is predicated first of all by complex changes in the geopolitical landscape that makes possible the acceptability of different cultural forms, which then invokes the agency of various kinds of institutions and its vested interests, within which discursive imagination plays an important albeit lesser role in the long run. Cosmopolitan hybridity ultimately takes on different forms, and perhaps more importantly they all have different sociological functions and ramifications. In this regard, nouvelle haute cuisine and McDonald’s are both cosmopolitan hybrid in their approach to cuisine. Both respond to local acceptability, albeit differently classed niches of the local. Cosmopolitanism functions differently in each case, and the nature of their hybrid practices, both explicit and implicit, is determined by the way it perceives culture as an object of promotion and consumption. Both can make equally strong claims of being local in ways that implicitly accent different definitions of uniqueness. In the final analysis, the important issues centre not on how prevalent cosmopolitan hybridity is or even whether, as a concept, it is worth championing but rather the ways in which it has complexly shaped social processes. References Anderson, Benedict. 2006. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (revised edition). London: Verso. Chan, Koon-chung. 1982. “Chinese-Barbarian Half Breed Style.” Haowai 60. (陳冠中著 1982,《半唐番風格》,《號外》第 60 期). ——. 1988. “Attitude and Style Manual.” Haowai 146. (陳冠中著 1988, “Attitude and Style Manual). ——. 2007. After the Fact: A Journal of Indigenous Culture. (陳冠中著 2007,《事後: 本 土文化誌》, 香港 : 牛津大學出版社). Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. Chun, Allen. 1996. “Discourses of Identity in the Changing Spaces of Public Culture in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore.” Theory, Culture & Society 13(1): 51–75. Gilroy, Paul. 1993. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Habermas, Jurgen. 1989. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society [translation of 1962 German edition]. Cambridge: MIT Press.

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Horkheimer, Max and Theodor W. Adorno. 1989 [1944]. Dialectic of Enlightenment. New York: Continuum. Kam, Kin-hung. 1988. “A Retrospective of the Best of Haowai’s Last 12 Years.” Haowai 147. (芩建勳著 1988,《號外十二年精華總結集》,《號外》第 226 期). Lee, Leo. 1999. Shanghai Modern: The Flowering of a New Urban Culture in China 1930–45. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Leung, Ping-kwan. 1995. “Special Issue on Hong Kong Culture”. Haowai 226. (也斯 主編 1995:《香港文化》特集,《號外》第 226 期). Lui, Tai-lok (ed.). 2007. Thirty Years of Haowai: Internal Distribution. Hong Kong: Joint Publishing Co., Ltd. (呂大樂主編 2007, 《號外三十: 內部傳閱, 香港: 三聯 書店》). Patterson, Orlando. 1994. “Ecumenical America: Global Culture and the American Cosmos.” World Policy Journal 11(2): 103–17. Siu, Kwok-wah. 1984. 蕭國華 “Non-academic Academicism.” Haowai 100. (《號外的 Non-Academic Academicism》,《號外》, 第 100 期). Turner, Matthew and Irene Ngan (eds.). 1995. Hong Kong Sixties—Designing Identity. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Arts Centre. Wong, Peter. 1992. “A Dangerous 17 Years of Age.” Haowai 193 (黃源順著 1992,《危險的十七歲》,《號外》第 193 期). Yau, Sai-man. 1995. “On the Question of Haowai’s Language Writing Style: A General Commentary.” Haowai 226. (丘世文著 1995,《略論《號外》語文風格的問題》, 《號外》第 226 期).

INDIGENIZATION AND THE STUDY OF CHINESE RELIGION AND SOCIETY1 Chan Shun-hing Abstract This paper explores the issues and methodological approaches of indigenization in the sociology of religion. I examine four methodological approaches of indigenization in the study of Chinese religion and society: (1) to borrow Western social theories to study the relationship between Chinese religion and society; (2) to use socio-linguistics in the study of religious thought among Chinese people, and interpret how this might help us to understand Chinese society; (3) to study Confucian classics as a source for understanding the pattern of social interaction in Chinese society; and (4) to explore the worldviews and social organization of the Chinese people by conducting comparative study of societies, and to build competing research paradigms. In conclusion, I propose a research agenda and discuss the possibility of building a Chinese sociology of religion.

Indigenization and the Study of Chinese Religion and Society Born in Europe and developed in the West, sociology and EuropeanAmerican society are almost twins. As an academic discipline focused on the study of society, sociology draws its formative elements from the real world, but the material and resources it uses in building its social theories are not limited to Western experience. In other words, the formation and growth of theoretical logic and the discourse of sociology can be independent of, and surpass, experiences derived from the study of Western society. The experiences of other non-Western societies can also provide useful material and resources for the building of social theory, and at the same time correct the biases of the sociological paradigms in the West. Moreover, it can enrich the content of sociology and contribute to its development. Hence, the notion of indigenization

1 An earlier version of this paper was presented at the International Conference on “Religion and Social Integration in Chinese Societies: Exploring Sociological Approaches to the Study of Religion,” Chinese University of Hong Kong, June 28–30, 2007. The author thanks two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions and comments.

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of sociology has its value and role in consolidating the foundation and fostering the future development of sociology as a whole. In fact, the indigenization of sociology has become a common concern among sociologists from around the world (Atal 1981; Genov 1989; Albrow and King 1990; Spickard 1998, 2001). As early as the 1940s, Chinese sociologists and anthropologists in mainland China expressed concern about the overwhelming influence and unsuitability of European and American sociology. For example, in his edited series of sociological publications, Wu Wen-zao called for ‘radical Sinicization’ in social research. Fei Hsiao-tung’s acclaimed work on indigenization, Peasant Life in China, which has since become a classic in Chinese sociology, was completed in 1939. Nevertheless, due to historical and social limitations, the demand for indigenization did not draw enough attention and faded after a short period of time. It was not until the 1980s, that the demand for an indigenization of sociology was again brought to the fore by sociologists in Taiwan (Yang and Wen 1982). This stimulated discussion and debate among sociologists in Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China (Chiao 1985; Di 1987; Tsai 1987; To 1993). It also drew response from Chinese sociologists in the United States (Tsai and Hsiao 1986). Over the past ten years discussion about the indigenization of sociology has gone further into the problematic of indigenization per se, and the related issues of indigenization have been seriously taken into consideration. For example, indigenization and Sinicization (Fu 1991; Hsu 1991), indigenization and globalization (Hu 1994; Yeh 1994), reflections on indigenization in Chinese history (Fei 1994; Gan 1994), and Max Weber and China studies (Chan 1999; Li 1999; Lin 1999), etc. In a special issue on “The Indigenization of Social Research” in the Hong Kong Journal of Social Sciences in 1994, William Liu points out that there are four major types of indigenization of sociology in the context of Chinese society: 1) to interpret Chinese society using Western sociological paradigms; 2) to conduct indigenized social research by using Chinese socio-linguistics; 3) to build social theory through the use of classical Chinese literature; and 4) to develop indigenized sociological paradigms by conducting comparative studies. Liu’s observations were originally made with regard to social research generally related to indigenization conducted by Chinese sociologists. I consider Liu’s categorization inspiring, and argue that it can be applied to the study of sociology of religion. In fact, the approach and methods explored by many Chinese sociologists are either focused primarily on religion,

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or the relationship between religion and society, and there has been an abundance of research produced over the past forty years. Delineating the research on religion conducted by Chinese sociologists not only helps us better understand their valuable contribution, but their work also provides heuristic models of social research regarding indigenization. This paper seeks to explore the possibility of indigenized social research, particularly how the methodological approaches and practices of sociology and anthropology could shed light on the study of Chinese religion and society. I elaborate on four approaches to indigenization according to the classification of William Liu, and comment on the strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches. In addition to the above purpose, one of the issues we need to deal with in this session is the question of religious identity. I will discuss the relationship between indigenized social research and the building of religious identity with reference to the theoretical framework suggested by Nancy Ammerman. In conclusion, I propose an agenda for indigenized social research, showing how the idea and practice of indigenization could be further developed in the study of Chinese religion and society. Methodological approaches to indigenous social research on religion and society Borrowing of Concepts and Social Group Nomenclatures from Social Theory The first approach in indigenous social research is to interpret Chinese religions and society through the use of Western sociological paradigms. In the initial stage, this approach is not significantly different from borrowing and transplanting Western social theory. In fact, sociologists of non-Western societies usually need to study European and American sociology for a long period of time before they become mature enough to reflect on, and be critical of, Western social theory. When they feel Western social theories fail to apply to and adequately explain their own societies, non-Western sociologists are forced to make the effort to interpret their societies by other means. They begin to take historical, political, economic and a range of other factors into consideration and thus the indigenization of sociology begins. One example of that indigenization effort is the borrowing, criticism and re-interpretation of the Weberian sociological paradigms.

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Max Weber’s The Religion of China is considered by many to be an historical sociological classic as well as a groundbreaking work in China studies. The analysis put forth by Weber in The Religion of China has widely influenced many Chinese scholars. For example, C. K. Yang (1964) wrote an introductory article in the new edition of The Religion of China published in 1964. In the article, while critical of Weber’s misunderstanding of Tao (the principles of the universe and society) of the Confucian tradition, he highly praised Weber’s general analysis of Chinese religion and society in the book. Ambrose King (1985a) returned to The Religion of China to look for material on the unfavourable conditions hindering the development of capitalism in mainland China when he talked about the economic miracle of the ‘Four Little Dragons’. King (1987) offered a cultural interpretation in his explanation of the development of Hong Kong’s economy using a Weberian perspective. In the 1980s, sociologists began to assess thoroughly the research paradigms formulated by Weber, and reflect critically on his interpretation of Chinese religion and society. For example, Stephen Molloy (1980) expounded Weber’s theoretical framework in detail by referring to Weber’s research programme on ‘the ethic of world religions’ outlined in Economy and Society. He also criticized Talcott Parsons’ and C. K. Yang’s misunderstanding of Weber’s arguments in The Religion of China. Kao Cheng-shu (1982) pointed out later that Weber’s interpretation of Chinese religion and society was basically a response to his research question regarding the rationalization of Western society. The research question affected his interpretation of Western society and determined his focus when studying Chinese society and culture, which had led to selective and one-sided interpretation. Kao asserted that Chinese sociologists should read Weber’s interpretation critically on the one hand, and re-interpret Chinese religion and society in the context of Chinese history and culture on the other. Gary Hamilton (1985) further criticized Weber’s negative question of ‘Why no capitalism in China?’ Hamilton said Weber not only assumed that the experience of capitalism in Europe was universal, which other societies would necessarily follow suit, but also denied the uniqueness of the economic model developed in China. The debate of sociologists on Max Weber’s arguments in The Religions of China in the 1980s had significant implications for the indigenization of sociology. In the following, I use Stephen Molloy’s reconstruction of Weber’s theoretical framework and show how Weber’s social theory can help advance the study of Chinese religion and society.

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B Religion/Religious Complex

Ideational context

Pragmatic context

Metaphysical assumptions

Psychological/ Pragmatic

Cosmological notions

“Way of Life”

‘sacred/supernatural values’

“Attitudes towards the World”

Economic

‘Practical impulses’ for (economic) action concrete economic mentality

Practical Ethic

D

C ‘Directive elements’ in The life-styles of specific social strata

Socio-economic conditions within a given culture-area

Source: Molloy, Stephen. 1980. “Max Weber and the Religions of China: Any Way Out of the Maze?” British Journal of Sociology 31(3): 387.

Figure 1: Max Weber’s research scheme on religion and society

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Figure 1 shows how Weber perceives the relationships between individuals, society and religion. In the configuration, box A is religion/religious complex, box B is economic ethic, box C is socio-economic conditions within a given culture-area, and box D is directive elements in the lifestyle of specific social strata. The relationship between the boxes can be elaborated as follows. (1) In box A: the practical ethic of individuals is influenced by various kinds of religious elements. (2) From box A to box B: the economic ethic (or social ethic in general) of individuals is influenced by religion or religious complex. (3) Box C and box B: the economic ethic (or social ethic in general) of individuals is influenced by socio-economic (or socio-political) conditions within a given culture-area; the latter can also be influenced by the former. (4) From box D to box A: the religion or religious complex of an individual is influenced by his or her life-style in a specific social strata. The configuration shows how Weber perceived religion as an ideal condition, and socio-economic conditions and life-styles of specific strata as material conditions, which together affect human economic behaviour. This conceptual framework can be extended to explain social behaviour in general, and the building of religious identities. It can be called the Weberian paradigm. Below, I discuss how this conceptual framework can be used to study religious identity, and in empirical research in contemporary China. Nancy Ammerman points out that religious narratives and religious organization are two crucial factors for the building of religious identities. We hold religious identities because we ‘take structuredyet-improvised episodes of social interaction as our basis and recognize the necessary intersectionality of all such episodes’ (Ammerman 2003: 216–217). The conceptual framework of Max Weber bears similar ideas. The ‘religion/religious complex’ in box A can be understood as the content of religious narratives, and the ‘socio-economic conditions within a given culture-area’ in box D can been viewed as religious organization. The ‘economic ethic’ in box B can be seen as religious identities. According to Ammerman, religious identity is built in the process of social interaction when people use common religious narratives to communicate with each other in their religious organization.

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People will negotiate their religious and secular identity when they communicate with others in a secular social context. The result of negotiation is uncertain. Their religious identity could be strengthened or weakened. However, what is missing in Ammerman’s discussion is the function of class. It is likely that people would identify a religious organization with similar class background before they take part in a religious organization and communicate with the members in it. The function of class is the ‘directive elements in the life-styles of specific social strata’ in box D in Weber’s configuration. We now turn to the empirical study of religion and society in contemporary China. In his study of a Catholic village in northern China, Richard Madsen (1998) pointed out that Chinese Catholics are not able to demonstrate the virtue of civility in modern society. It may be explained from their religious values and organizational structure, which are very conservative in form and content. The politically hostile environment is also a crucial factor cutting off the Chinese Catholics from the outside world. Even though the Second Vatican Council brought tremendous changes to the Catholic Church around the world since 1965, it had little impact on the Catholics in China. Using Weber’s conceptual framework, the religious values and practical ethics (box A) are largely determined by the life-styles of peasants in their rural organizational setting (box D). The socio-political conditions strengthen the conservatism of the Catholic community (box C). The religious complex, social organization and the political environment are instrumental in affecting and consolidating the social ethics of Chinese Catholics. This shows that Weber’s conceptual framework can provide a systematic analysis of the question why the Chinese Catholics today are not able to develop modern civic values and morality. However, Fan Li-zhu and Richard Madsen (1997) also notice that the faith of some Chinese Catholics has been weakening due to economic development in the rural areas in northern China. Some Catholics have lost their piety, given up their faith, married non-Catholics and become members of the Chinese Communist Party. Using Weber’s conceptual framework, changes in the economic environment (box C) and the lifestyles of peasants (box D) have been affecting some Chinese Catholics’ faith (box A) and the practice of its related ethics (box B). The changing economic condition and religious complex have jointly weakened Chinese Catholics’ religious identity. This is to show that Weber’s conceptual framework can also help explain religious and social change.

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I hope the foregoing discussion can demonstrate that Weber’s social theory is a heuristic model that is still useful in the study of Chinese religion and society today. In a paper published a few years ago (Chan 1999), I tried to show that Weber’s conceptual framework can be used to explain the relationship between Chinese religion and economic as well as political development in modern China. The Use of Socio-Linguistics in the Search for Meaning in Chinese Society The second approach of indigenization is to grapple with the unique experiences, social relationships, institutions and societal characteristics of a particular society through research into its socio-linguistics. The underlying assumption of this approach is that all societies, Western and otherwise, are complex. Sociologists are not able to grasp the essential characteristics of a non-Western society by using Western sociological concepts and theoretical frameworks. Instead they find that the picture is distorted. Therefore, to use local socio-linguistics as an entry point to interpret a particular society not only preserves the uniqueness of that society, but also leads to the building of a social theory pertinent to that society and culture. In recent years, one illustrative example of such an approach was Tsou Chuan-shyong’s effort to develop a systematic theory of Chinese sociology by introducing two sets of concepts, i.e., checun nanie (literally, the sense of proper limits for action), and yangfeng yinwei (literally, overtly agree but covertly oppose). Tsou (1998, 2000) holds that checun nanie is a typical thinking style of the Chinese people. This thinking style views the logic of the universe as being in a constant state of fluidity, in which the actor needs to develop a sense of proper limits for action by assessing his position in the external environment. This thinking style is characterized by the overall assessment of the environment, intuition, expedient consideration with regard to temporal, spatial, human and situational factors, as well as a strong instrumental orientation of action. The thinking style of checun nanie is closely related to the Chinese religious concept yinyang. If checun nanie is the style of thinking, then yinyang is the underlying vision of the logic of thinking. Yin and yang are the two fundamental forces of the universe, and the relationship between the two can be elaborated by the religious theories of yinyang wangfu (literally, the movement of to and fro between yin and yang) and yinyang jiaogan (literally, the interaction of yin and yang). The theory of yinyang

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wangfu suggests that the logic of the universe is virtually a circulation of movement. The theory of yinyang jiaogan suggests that yin and yang are two independent elements, conditions or functions, and the two affect each other through continuous interaction. The movement and interaction of yin and yang construct together a yinyang context, in which everything exists in the world in a harmonious and inclusive relationship. From the idea of checun nanie and the religious concept of yinyang, Tsou develops his Chinese social theory. He holds that the idea of checun nanie leaves much room for Chinese people to think and act, and this situation has resulted in a flexibility of social behaviour and morality which makes it difficult to discern the meaning of social action. For example, checun nanie has caused the dichotomy and separation of nominal and real meaning in the domain of cultural symbol, and the flexibility of public and private or justice and interest in the domain of morality. The situation mentioned above has far-reaching consequences. The existence of a yinyang religious thought in all kinds of social institutions in Chinese society is one of the social phenomena produced by such situation. In a social institution, yang refers to formal or public situation. Heaven, ancestors, traditions, people, sage kings and the ancient classics are six sacred things that are posited as objective representations in Chinese society. These sacred things form together an enormous system of ideas, and function as theological and legitimate foundations of social institutions. Yin refers to informal and private situations. The objective representations have no power to restrain behaviour in the yin situation. The Chinese people know how to allocate interests and regulate power by looking for ambiguity and taking proper action in every practical situation. The thinking style of checun nanie appears as strategic action in the situation where Chinese people need to exercise power, and forms the individual and organizational behaviour of yangfeng yinwei in the context of social interaction and organization. In sum, yangfeng yinwei is a general way of thinking and social behaviour in Chinese society. Embedded in the religious concept of yin and yang, such thinking and behaviour has constructed the dual character of the ‘culture of li (rite)’ and ‘culture of moulue (strategy)’ in the moral order and the social system of Chinese society. Li is the objective value in public, and mou is subjective strategy in private, and the two could mutually transform each other. The extreme development of the ‘culture of moulue’ has been the privatization of objective

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representations, such as the Tao of Heaven, cultural activity, social institution and personal life. The illustration elaborated above is a simplified introduction to Tsou’s construction of Chinese social theory, and aims to show how the local language of religion can be used to conduct indigenous social research. Tsou’s approach starts from local language, and uses it as the source of interpretation to explain the behaviour of Chinese people and social institutions in Chinese society. Above all, he tries to find the religious connection between language, individual behaviour and social institutions. He holds that the yinyang theory of Taoism is the source of social thought. However, the yinyang theory that Tsou is referring to is not purely a religious doctrine, or intellectual Taoism, but a kind of social Taoism. It is hard to imagine that the Taoist doctrine would have something like yangfeng yinwei in its moral teaching. If so, where does the behaviour of yangfeng yinwei come from in Chinese society? According to Tsou, it is a result of self-interpretation by Chinese people. In other words, Chinese people are not passive Taoist disciples. They are social actors who know how to construct meaning and practise it in society. Second, Tsou considers that Taoism is more important than Confucianism, which historically has had far-reaching influence over human and social institutions in Chinese society. Confucianism is the formal institution, whereas Taoism the informal one. However, the sacred representations of Confucianism are ineffective in restraining human behaviour. On the contrary, the behaviour of yangfeng yinwei is common in Chinese society. This is the social reality. Those who want to know Chinese people and society should study for Taoism rather than Confucianism, and more specifically, social Taoism rather than intellectual Taoism. Tsou’s discussion above is closely related to religious identity. Taking identity as a problem of agency and structure, Nancy Ammerman poses the following questions: ‘To what extent and in what ways do we understand the human person to be an agent in the creation of her or his own persona? Are groups free to define themselves, or are they defined by powerful others?’ (Ammerman 2003: 211–212). To put Ammerman’s question into the present context, we may ask to what extent does Confucianism constrain Chinese people and define their religious identity? And to what extent does Taoism provide resources for Chinese people to become more fluid in their social behaviour?

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According to Tsou, although Confucianism is the objective structure embodied in social institutions, Chinese people are able to bypass it in order to suit their own interests. Chinese people are fluid agents, which means the structure of Confucianism has little effect on them. They are de facto faithful Taoist disciples in every aspect. Tsou’s discussion is an insightful reminder for researchers to use local language to understand Chinese religion and society. Nevertheless, we may ask the following questions regarding his research findings: are there similar local languages in Chinese society that are as influential as checun nanie and yangfeng yinwei? For example, although the word moulue is translated as ‘strategy’, it sometimes carries a negative sense in the Chinese context. Many Chinese people would have reservations about those who are too ‘strategic’ in dealing with human relationships. Hong Kong Chinese would criticize people who often use strategy to grasp power and interest as bu zhenglu (not in the proper way). In this respect, could we say that although the yinyang theory of Taoism is highly influential in Chinese society, Confucianism provides resources for those who are more reflective about the meaning of life and values. The words bu zhenglu shows that Chinese people are critical of Taoist influence on ‘strategic’ behaviour. We may also say that both Taoism and Confucianism are the sources of religious identity for many in Chinese society. But Chinese people are independent agents who know how to choose from these resources in order to build their own social and religious identities. In other words, multiple identities are possible. One famous example is John Wu Ching-hsiung, who sought to integrate his Catholic faith with Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist spirituality (Wu 1951). To borrow Ammerman’s words, ‘all identities are intersectional’ (Ammerman 2003: 212), it depends on time and location. In the following, we turn to Ambrose King and see how he views the influence of Confucian classics on Chinese society. Use of the Chinese Classics based on the Comparative Study of Non-Western Societies The third approach of indigenization is to examine a society’s religious thought and morality as revealed in its classical literature. This can be accompanied by social research conducted in everyday life, through which sociologists can develop rudimentary ‘social theories’ about a society, which could provide valuable resources for constructing indigenous sociology. The assumption of this approach is that religious

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thought remains powerful in dominating society, and is an effective moral force in restraining people’s behaviour. Hence it can produce certain patterns of social behaviour. In addition, this approach also assumes that the cultural differences of religious thought and moral teaching between Western and non-Western societies has resulted different patterns of social behaviour, and is one factor determining a society’s unique configuration. Therefore, sociologists cannot neglect the relationship between a society’s religious classics and social behaviour. In this regard, Ambrose King, a Taiwanese sociologist who has worked in Hong Kong for more than three decades, has published many innovative papers exploring developments in indigenous research. In the following I shall briefly elaborate on some of his ideas. In a series of research work on indigenization of sociology, King (1981, 1985b, 1989, 1991) examines the relationship between the everyday life notion of renqing (literally, human relationships), mianzi (literally, face), guanxi (literally, social network) and Confucian thought. He holds that rich social theories implied in Confucianism are the guiding principles of Chinese social life. The objective of Confucian philosophy is to establish a harmonious social order in the world. The basic skeleton of such social order is morality. The Confucian philosophy presumes that social relations are the foundation of human existence, and that relations are all kinds of morality. The renlun (literally, social ethic) formulated by Confucianism effects social relationships among people. When morality, social ethics and human relationships work properly, then an orderly, harmonious society is possible. In Chinese society, renqing is a generally accepted idea among people. King (1981) points out that renqing, in fact, is a behaviour of social exchange, and such behaviour has been stated as the principle of zhong (literally, faithfulness) and shu (literally, forgiveness) in Confucian ethics. The essence of zhong and shu is to care about other people, beginning with oneself. Zhong is the positive dimension and shu is the negative dimension of the moral teaching. The popular thought of zhong and shu is renqing, which is a constraining force still effective in Chinese society. Sociologically speaking, renqing belongs to the behaviour of social exchange, rather than economic exchange. Chinese people know how to balance human relationships and keep continuous interaction with others, and this allows Chinese society to integrate into a strong social system. However, King regards that the proportion of economic exchange will increase, and gradually replace social exchange following

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industrialization and urbanization. In other words, the social function of renqing will be weakened in Chinese society in the future. Mianzi is another important popular concept. According to King (1989), mianzi has two meanings in Chinese culture, that is, social and moral. The former refers to the reputation gained by social achievement (for example, wealth and education) of a person, and the latter refers to the respect given to a moral person by an organization or society. The social dimension of face is closely related to the Confucian concepts of li and chi (literally, shame). In the teaching of Confucian ethics, a society dependent on the imposition of a penal code is not desirable because people do not have an awareness of chi. On the contrary, a society that relies on the governance of li is desirable, because in that society people have a sense of morality and an awareness of chi. ‘Social face’ can be understood as a system of cultural mechanisms to establish and maintain social order in Chinese society. The moral dimension of face has to do with the cultivation and moral reflection of oneself. Confucian ethics teach yicheng (literally, sincerity) and shendu (literally, try to be blameless in one’s private life). The manifestation of these Confucian teachings in popular thought has resulted in people acting according to ‘conscience’ and the need to be ‘blameless in one’s heart’. If an individual is not able to reach such moral demands, he or she might experience feelings of shame even though there is an absence of public criticism. When comparing ‘social face’ and ‘moral face’, the former is heteronomy and the latter is autonomy. In this regard, King points out a general mistake often made by Western scholars: The West is a society of guilt culture while China is a society of shame culture. The spirit of guilt culture is faith from within, whereas shame culture is sanction from without. King stresses that according to the ethics of Confucianism chi is both social (sanction) and moral (faith). One cannot fully understand Chinese society without some knowledge of Confucian teaching. The third idea to be discussed is the concept of guanxi. In Chinese society, guanxi relates to the social network established among people. King holds that guanxi has a special position in Confucian ethics. In the ancient classics of Confucianism, human relationships are expressed by the word lun. The moral teachings of Confucianism contain the theory of wulun (literally, five human relationships): the relationship between ruler and subject, father and son, between brothers, husband and wife, and between friends. According to the above teaching, lun has two

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meanings, that is, the category of hierarchy between individuals, and the category of relationship between individuals. The ideal of Confucian ethics states that everybody has their role and relationships with others that are defined by wulun. If everyone respects the hierarchy and defined relationships then society will be harmonious and orderly. However, there is another moral teaching that suggests weiren youji (literally, benevolence should start with oneself). Viewed from this perspective, the individual cultivated by Confucian teaching has an active and reflective sense of self. King notices that the individual will comply with the role and relationships given to him in the family, but try to define actively his position and relationship with others in society due to the ambiguity of Confucian teaching on the role of the individual outside the boundary of the family. Generally speaking, Chinese people know consciously or unconsciously how to build social networks and through such networks to mobilize social resources, so that a person’s own goals can be achieved. Therefore, network building can be seen as a dynamic form of cultural engineering or a source of strength in Chinese society. In this regard, King points out another mistake often made by Western scholars: That Chinese people are society or family oriented, that is, are social beings, because of the influence of Confucianism. This misunderstanding neglects the fact that Confucianism affirms individual autonomy at the same time, and such misinterpretation will overlook the capacity of the Chinese people to be power engineers in building social networks. King’s study of the Confucian classics and their relation to Chinese society has many implications for indigenous social research. First, he stresses that researchers could easily misinterpret the behaviour of Chinese people if they lack proper knowledge of the Confucian classics. The two examples he quoted, i.e., the differentiation between guilt culture and shame culture, and the description of Chinese people as social beings who are society or family oriented, are illuminating. Second, some researchers have questioned the role of Confucianism in society, and claimed that the influence of Confucianism in real life was insignificant. The reply of King is that the Confucian classics have popular expression in everyday life, such as ‘conscience’ and being ‘blameless in one’s heart’, which originated from yicheng and shendu. Therefore, he argues, the study of the Confucian classics can help researchers to understand accurately the ideas and behaviour of Chinese people. I consider that King’s study is a powerful reminder for us to seriously consider the following questions: how do doctrines promoted through

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religious classics take form in everyday life and affect the thinking and behaviour of Chinese people? How do Chinese people understand the language of the religious classics, and to what extent do they adopt such doctrines? While acknowledging King’s clarifications, his proposal merits critical examination. Here are some questions: Even though we agree that Confucianism is influential in Chinese society, does it affect people across a range of social classes? Is Confucian moral teaching still effective in modern society? To answer the first question, researchers generally agree that the literati, or intellectuals, are the major carriers of Confucianism in Chinese society. Confucian morality is also disseminated among the lower classes through popular literature and Chinese opera. Despite this, one should note that Taoism, Buddhism and the popular religions are equally influential in Chinese society. Yu Ying-shih (1987), in his study of religious ethics and the spirit of merchants in modern China, stresses that the new form of Taoism and Buddhism were accepted by the intellectual classes of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Tai Hsüan-chih (1992), in his study of secret religion and secret society, also provided abundant evidence to show that popular religion was influential among the lower classes. In other words, although Confucianism has its role in Chinese society, we should also take note of its limitations due to religious competition. To answer the second question, we should look at Confucianism and East Asian economic development. King, in his study of the Confucianism thesis and East Asian economic development, holds that traditional imperial Confucianism has collapsed in modern China. Confucian values have been changing due to the challenge of capitalism. To cite Hong Kong as an example, he points out that Confucianism has become pragmatic. He calls it ‘rationalistic traditionalism’ (King 1996). Chen Chi-nan, who draws his findings from his study of Chinese merchants in the Ming and Qing dynasties, asserts that the family ethic of Confucianism remains influential in modern society (Chen 1991). What King and Chen suggest above is that the role of Confucianism has become limited in modern society. It is only vital in some social institutions (such as the family), and its moral ideas have been transformed by modern capitalistic values. Recent literature suggests that the study of Confucianism in modern society should not narrowly concentrate on the interpretation of the classics. To understand how modern Chinese people perceive the meaning of Confucianism in the capitalistic society,

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researchers should look closely at what has been abandoned, and what is still accepted. The study of King also has implications on the study of religious identities. From the perspective of Nancy Ammerman’s theoretical reformulation, which emphasizes religious narratives and organization as the source of building religious identity, we can ask the following questions in the light of King’s research: In modern Chinese society, are Confucian narratives and organizations effective mediums that help Chinese people build their identities? There may be different answers depending on whether the social context is mainland China, Taiwan or Hong Kong. My limited observation is that Confucian organizations are still operative among ordinary people in Taiwan. The mainland Chinese government is enthusiastically establishing the so-called Confucius Institute around the world in order to promote Chinese culture. In Hong Kong, there are many ancestral halls in traditional villages, and some residents are still practising ancestral worship, such as making Spring and Autumn offerings to the dead. Confucianism in city life seems to be much weaker. There are Confucian organizations, such as the Hong Kong Confucian College and the Confucius Institute, but they are not particularly influential among local organizations. One area that remains effective is the repetition of Confucian narratives in the family. Filial piety and adult children taking care of their parents are considered family virtues among Hong Kong Chinese. Outside the family, Confucian narratives and the morality they promote may not be taken seriously by Hong Kong Chinese. For example, the idea of ‘conscience’, one of the paramount Confucian narratives, seems to have no constraining force in the economic system. A rhetorical question regarding ‘conscience’ is often asked by Hong Kong Chinese: ‘How much does it cost for a catty of conscience?’ From the above, Confucian narratives and organizations may not be a powerful mechanism from which Hong Kong Chinese build their identity. The influence of Confucian values in Hong Kong is limited and fragile. The Effort of Competing or Complementary Research Paradigms The fourth approach of indigenous social research is to explore the essential characteristics of culture and society and their relationship to local religion by comparing local and western societies. The orientation and ultimate goal of this approach is to build sociological research paradigms that are different from the West. There are similarities

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between this and the first approach. For example, both approaches emphasize the universal character of social theory, and both engage in comparative research. However, their differences are that the first approach posits sociological paradigms in the central position of study and applies it to various socio-cultural contexts. In terms of methodology, the researchers use typology and construct ideal-type in their research. The fourth approach seeks to understand the socio-cultural characteristics of each society by using inductive method, from which researchers gather information and data to conduct comparative study. In theory, the uniqueness of a local religion and society can be identified through comparative study. Francis Hsu, a reputable American Chinese anthropologist, and his work Clan, Caste, and Club, published in 1963, can be cited as an example to illustrate how this approach is possible. In this book, Hsu (1963) seeks to explore the ways of life, or worlds among Chinese, Hindus and Americans, attempting to discover each of their organizational characteristics, and from there he shows how these national and social characters express themselves in religion. The hypothesis he presents in the book is that the Chinese world is situation-centred, the Hindu world is supernatural-centred, and the American world is individual-centred. The three worlds are deeply separated from each other, not only in their patterns of practical activities but also in their ideas. The situation-centred world is characterized by ties that permanently unite closely related human beings in the family and clan. Within this basic human constellation the individual is conditioned to seek mutual dependence. That is to say, he is dependent upon other human beings as much as others are dependent upon him, and he is therefore fully aware of his obligation to make repayment. The supernatural-centred orientation enjoins the Hindu society to seek intimacy with the Ultimate Reality and/or Its manifestations and is commensurate with the idea, in interpersonal relations, of unilateral dependence. Unilateral dependence means that the individual need feel no resentment against being a recipient, nor need he feel obligated to reciprocate what he has received. And this non-reciprocal pattern of relationships has firm roots in the supernatural-centred orientation of life. The individual-centred world is characterized by temporary ties among closely related human beings. Having no permanent base in family and clan, the individual's basic orientation towards life and the environment is self-reliance. That is to say, he is conditioned to think for himself, to make his own

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decisions, and to carve out his future by his own hands using his own abilities. Hsu argues that clan, caste and club are important among Chinese, Hindus and Americans, respectively, because, much more than mere forms of human grouping, each of them represents the crucial and outward expression of a way of life. The Chinese, with his situationcentred world and attitude favouring mutual dependence, tends to seek solutions to his life's problems in terms of the human beings of his first social group, the family. The Hindu, with his supernatural-centred world and attitude favouring unilateral dependence, tends to seek solutions to his life’s problems by leaving himself in the hands of gods or persons who, compared with him, enjoy higher statuses or possess greater powers. Caste is an expression of the centrifugality in the Hindu way of life and provides a unilineal ladder of human groupings through which the individual, in his diffused world, can relate to his equals, but especially to his superiors and inferiors, with some clear demarcation of his obligations and rewards. The American, with his individualcentred world and militant self-reliance, is conditioned to view his life’s problems in terms of what he himself thinks and is able to do. Free associations or clubs fulfil the requirements of the American because they are organizations among equals on the whole voluntarily entered into and withdrawn from, and may be multiplied and expanded in any direction according to the wishes of the individuals concerned. The pattern of social integration in Chinese, Hindu and American societies can be described as kinship solidarity, hierarchic solidarity and contractual solidarity respectively, in the Durkheimian sense. Kinship is used in Chinese society because it is the basic principle governing clans and the backbone of mutual dependence. Hierarchy is used in Hindu society because it is the basic principle regulating castes and the outstanding attribute of unilateral dependence. Contract is used in American society because it is the essential foundation of free associations or clubs and the most important way in which a self-reliant individual can be bound to another. A way of life that has its roots in such fundamental human groupings as clan, caste and club has great implications for religion. Hsu observes how Chinese, Hindus and Americans differently approach the supernatural: the Chinese and Hindu approaches to the supernatural are similar in that they both seek dependence upon an unseen power, but the Chinese dependence is marked by mutuality while Hindu dependence is characterized by unilaterality. In contrast to Chinese

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and Hindus, the American approach protests dependence upon unseen powers and yet actively seeks to control them. If religion is characterized as a system, Hsu notes that human relationships with the supernatural in Chinese society are limited because of interpersonal relationships. Among Hindus, human relationships are determined by a person’s relationship with the supernatural. While among Americans, a person’s relationship with the supernatural is subordinate to the expansion of a person’s own self and to everything that such expansion requires, from material goods to naked power (Hsu 1963: 250–251). The discussion on religion provided by Hsu in the concluding chapter of the book reflects only some of his preliminary observations. Nevertheless, his work shows that the fourth approach of indigenous social research is to examine the relationship between cultural pattern and social organization through comparative study, and to find out how such cultural and organizational characteristics express themselves in religion. There are some points related to indigenous social research that merit attention: Firstly, sociologists used to study non-Western religions and societies by using a theoretical framework that is implicitly European and American-centred. The sociological master Max Weber may inevitably have been criticized by many because he was Euro-centric in his study of China and India. In principle, the fourth approach should avoid making such a mistake. Secondly, this approach places much emphasis on the uniqueness and unity of local religion and society, and intends to supplement or compete with Western sociological paradigms. From the work of Hsu, it shows that Chinese sociologists have become more ambitious today about building their own sociological paradigms, vis-à-vis Western sociology. Below I provide some critical comments on Hsu’s analyses of Chinese society. First, is it possible to use stereotypical language, such as ‘situated-centred world’, ‘mutual dependence’ and ‘kinship solidarity’, to grasp the structure of culturally and ethnically pluralistic Chinese society? Obviously, it would be an over-simplified and biased description. Although Hsu did not state specifically what ethnic group and religion he was referring to, we know that it is Han and ancestral worship, judging from what he said. To take the lineage structure of the Han ethnic group as the general characteristics of social organization in Chinese society would be to neglect those of non-Han groups, particularly the ethnic minorities. In the same line, Hsu qualified the Chinese approach to the supernatural as ‘dependence upon unseen power, but the Chinese dependence is marked by mutuality’, which

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suggests that ancestors need the offerings of their offspring, and the latter needs the blessing of the former. Such description would neglect other understandings of divine-human relations in Chinese religions. One example is the ritual of refinement and salvation in Taoism. In the ritual Taoist masters use their vital energy to refine the souls of the dead and help them attain salvation. This relationship is certainly not one of mutual dependence. Second, are the characteristics of Chinese religion and society, as Hsu understood them, still applied today? Many traditional villages have disappeared, and extended or nuclear families have arisen as the new form of family structure. Chinese people who live in urban areas are as individualistic as Americans. So, Hsu’s assertion that a Chinese “tends to seek solutions to his life’s problems in terms of the human beings of his first social group, the family” may no longer be true. Furthermore, the followers of Christianity, both Catholic and Protestant, and Islam, which are firmly rooted in Chinese society today, have been considered by many scholars as members of Chinese religions. The population of Catholics, Protestants and Muslims has been reported to be on the rise in the past 20 years. The believers of the above religions would be quite different from those who consider themselves Confucian followers. In such social context, it is problematic to accept Hsu assumption that the Chinese approach to the supernatural is marked by mutual dependence. Researchers should take note of these issues when they practise indigenous social research. Discussion In this paper I have examined four approaches to indigenized social research on Chinese religion and society. I have also identified and elaborated on the works of those sociologists and anthropologists who have made efforts in this respect, and commented on their strengths and weaknesses. In the following, I propose a brief agenda of indigenized social research on Chinese religion and society, hoping that it may lead to further development in the near future. First, the four types of approaches can be understood as different research strategies for conducting indigenized social research, but they are by no means exhaustive. We should be able to find more approaches in existing literature. Identifying more approaches and further discussion can enrich the idea and practice of indigenized social research in

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the study of Chinese religion and society. One example I can think of is Clifford Geertz’s Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology. The philosophical approach also merits researchers’ attention. For example, John Wu Ching-hsiung, in his famous autobiographical writing Beyond East and West, expounds in detail how he understands Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, and how the religions of China strengthen his Catholic identity (Wu 1951: 149–188). Such writing is useful for researchers seeking to understand how Chinese people construct their own identities. Second, the four approaches can be further developed into an integrated analysis, although I have discussed them separately. Taking Weber’s research scheme as the main frame, the approach of sociolinguistics can well be placed in box B and A respectively, in which an individual’s social ethic (for example, yangfeng yinwei) is reflected by their religious narratives (for example, the Taoist concept yinyang). The approach of using Chinese classics can be placed in the same way. Individual’s social ethic (for example, ‘conscience’ and ‘blameless in one’s heart’) in box B is a function of its religious ethic (for example, the Confucian teaching ‘yicheng’ and ‘shendu’) in box A. With regard to the approach of competing or complementary research paradigms, the configuration including the boxes A, B, C and D can be understood as a particular case (for example, China) having its unique religious and social content. It can be compared with other configurations (for example, the case of India and America). Third, in addition to the approaches, there is also a need to build a Chinese sociological tradition and find its epistemological grounds. This effort can elevate the indigenization of sociology to a higher level of thinking. Some sociologists have already embarked on this journey of adventure over the past two decades. Exploring the possibility of building a Chinese sociological tradition, Chan Hoi-man (1993, 1994, 2002) stresses that the crux of the indigenization of sociology prescribes a rethinking of the foundations of sociology as a whole. In other words, in addressing the issue of indigenization, it is imperative to supersede the level of systematic sociology, together with its contextualizing environment, and enter the field of metasociology. Metasociology can be understood as a reflection on sociology and on the ways of thought that have arisen from it. Yeh Chi-jeng (1994) presents his sociological agenda of indigenization from the epistemological perspective. He remarked:

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chan shun-hing The effort of indigenization should not be only in constructing local concepts, methods, research topics, etc., which are too physical, fragmentary and trivial. The mission of indigenization should aim at a deeper and wider perspective, that is, an ontology of society which is different from the West, and a system of sociological discourse with Chinese characteristics (pp. 71–72).

Fourth, the relationship between indigenization and modern society needs to be clarified. The question is, will the differences between Chinese and western society become narrower as the former modernizes? Will an indigenized approach to the study of Chinese religion and society become insignificant? These questions can be discussed in two ways. The indigenized approach can be used in the study of Chinese religion and society in both a traditional and modern context. For the former, the indigenized approach is particularly important. Furthermore, modernization does not equate westernization. Early in the 1980s, Peter Berger (1990) introduced the idea of Asian modernity, suggesting that Asian countries could have their own developmental model of modernization, which is different from the west. This is also my experience living in Hong Kong. For example, the Hong Kong SAR government announced a public housing plan in May 2007 in which a housing estate for families will be built near to a home for the elderly, so that the former can take care of the latter. This example shows that the Confucian concept of filial piety is still influential today, and affects urban planning in Hong Kong. This example also shows that the indigenized approach to the study of Chinese religion and society is relevant in the modern context. Fifth, the relationship between indigenization and Sinicization needs to be critically examined. I discussed the question of indigenization with some Taiwan sociologists and they disagreed with the idea, stating that indigenization is a means used to suppress local people in Taiwan. Socalled indigenization is Sincization in disguise. According to the logic stated above, the concept of ‘China’ is an illusion. In reality, Chinese culture can take many forms in different Chinese communities around the world. Indigenization/Sincization is a value-laden concept, thus it is not scientific. This comment is valid in some regards. As discussed in the previous paragraph, I disagree with those who impose the concepts of Han religion and society to the study of non-Han ethnic minorities. Taking an indigenized approach should not mean adopting the concepts of Han as a universal criteria and applying it in non-Han societies. For example, when studying an indigenized tribe in Taiwan

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it will be necessary to use their own concepts and language, rather than the Han’s. The controversial question is, can the indigenized approach used when studying the Han tribe, be applied to Han religion and society in Taiwan? I believe the answer is affirmative. Taiwan may have developed some local religious and social structures that are different from mainland China, but is Taiwan a society where all Han elements have been wiped out? This is an interesting question deserving further discussion. Sixth, the mission of indigenization has two different goals. The first goal is to understand Chinese religion and society in its own right using sociological and anthropological ideas, concepts, theories and methods. The next step will be to build a Chinese sociology of religion, comparable to the classical sociology of religion in the West. Such a foundation will assist sociologists or anthropologists in learning how to conduct research on Chinese religion and society, performing the function similar to the classical writings of Marxist, Durkheimian and Weberian sociology. The second goal is to make a contribution to the discipline of sociology of religion as a whole. Researchers should take Chinese sociology as one of the traditions in national sociology around the world, which has a position equal to American, British, French and German sociology. A close example of this effort but not exactly the same in the present discussion is Fenggang Yang’s “The Red, Black, and Gray Markets of Religion in China” (2006), in which he uses the case of religions in China to develop a triple-market model aiming at expanding the explanatory power of religious economies, with the ambition to make this model extendable to other societies. The first goal may be called an emic approach and the second goal an etic approach to the study of Chinese religion and society, borrowing anthropological terminology. In this paper I have concentrated primarily on the first goal, and have not provided detailed discussion on the second. However, the mission of indigenization is a long-term project needing generations of sociologists to take part in it in order to achieve this ultimate goal. What I have done in this paper is to invite sociologists to respond to the call of this mission.

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Appendix Terms, Phrases and Proper Names in Transliteration and in Chinese bu zhenglu Chan Hoi-man Checun nanie Chen Chi-nan chi Confucius Institute Fan Li-zhu Fei Hsiao-tung Han Hong Kong Confucian College Hsu Francis L. K. Kao Cheng-shu King Ambrose Yeo-chi li lun mianzi moulue renlun renqing shendu shu Tai Hsüan-chih Tsou Chuan-Shyong weiren youji Wu John Ching-hsiung Wu Wen-zao wulun Yang C. K. Yang Fenggang Yangfeng yinwei Yeh Chi-jeng Yicheng yinyang yinyang jiaogan yinyang wangfu Yu Ying-shih zhong

不正路 陳海文 尺寸拿揑 陳其南 恥 孔子學院 范麗珠 費孝通 漢 香港孔教學院 許烺光 高承恕 金耀基 禮 倫 面子 謀略 人倫 人情 慎獨 恕 戴玄之 鄒川雄 為仁由己 吳經熊 吳文藻 五倫 楊慶堃 楊鳳崗 陽奉陰違 葉 政 意誠 陰陽 陰陽交感 陰陽往復 余英時 忠

‘MISSING GIRLS’ IN AN ERA OF ‘HIGH QUALITY’: GOVERNMENTAL CONTROL OVER POPULATION AND DAUGHTER DISCRIMINATION IN CONTEMPORARY CHINA1 Leslie Kim Wang Abstract Since the early 1980s, China has experienced an alarming and increasing gender skew in infants, with up to one million more boys than girls reported born annually in recent years. Using the most recent Chinese demographic data, this paper argues that the social causes of this gendered demographic phenomenon can be attributed to two major government-led transitions begun in the 1970s: the privatization of the rural economy and strict family planning regulations. The paper also considers the state-driven discourse of ‘population quality’ (suzhi) as a factor influencing popular attitudes toward reproduction. In a male-centred society, the market logic implicit in this discourse—which encourages citizens to improve the nation’s future through bearing fewer, ‘higher quality’ children—helps to justify the decision to bear a son rather than a daughter. This paper uses the situation of certain marginalized female children to illuminate the pervasive yet often-overlooked gender, class and cultural divides that are currently broadening within contemporary Chinese society.

Walking through an old apartment complex in Beijing’s university district, I spotted an enclosed glass case containing a poster of a smiling Chinese girl in pigtails holding a large rubber ball. Printed above her head in large Chinese characters was a series of slogans: Care for girls. All of society needs to pay great attention to girls’ healthy development. Today’s daughters are the constructors of tomorrow’s society. Caring for girls protects everyone’s future interests. Bearing a boy, bearing a girl, just let it happen naturally. Girls and boys both enjoy the same rights.

Below the child’s picture were three smaller photos. The first showed a weight scale with a group of baby boys seated on one side and baby

1 The author is grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback. Thank you also to Tom Gold, Rachel Stern, Jenny Chio, Mark Dallas, Suowei Xiao and Chungmin Tsai for their comments and suggestions. Please direct correspondence to: Leslie Wang, Department of Sociology, 410 Barrows Hall, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720–1980. Email: [email protected].

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girls on the other, with the weight of more boys tipping the scale precipitously downwards. The second picture showed a laughing father tossing his happy daughter in the air. The third shot was the most striking—depicting a wedding scene between a Chinese bride and groom in full western attire, exchanging vows before an audience made up entirely of anonymous, identical young Chinese men. On first sight the imagery and wording of this poster is alarming, even shocking. But as one travels around the city, surrounding countryside, and further out into distant provinces, the same campaign to ‘care for girls’ ( guan’ai nuhai xingdong) appears time and again in Chinese public spaces. Instituted in 2003, this governmental campaign has been attempting to combat pervasive and increasing social discrimination against daughters, which has become most apparent through the astronomical increase in births of male infants and corresponding drop in female infants in China since the early 1980s. Since this abnormal sex ratio at birth first became evident, demographers and economists have conducted many statistical analyses measuring its scale (Hull 1990; Coale 1991; Johansson and Nygren 1991; Zeng et al. 1993; Coale and Banister 1994; Sen 1998; Banister 2004; Poston 2005; Zeng 2006; Zheng 2006). While large-scale surveys have been immensely useful to gain a larger understanding of this issue, until now there has been a noticeable lack of theorizing about how this trend in population reflects Chinese modernization processes as well as growing social and gender inequalities since the beginning of the reform era. This paper seeks to describe the scope of this predicament and answer the following questions: why has the abnormal sex ratio at birth in China been increasing in recent decades? How does this discrimination against daughters link to Chinese economic reforms and governmental control over population in the reform era? And lastly, what does this trend reveal about the gendered implications of Chinese modernization? I argue that Chinese rural economic reforms and implicitly gendered governmental birth control policies—interrelated processes which both began in the late 1970s—have created an unprecedented stratification of children based on sex. As economic competition has caused Chinese parents to rely on their own family units for social support, bearing a healthy son has become the major way to ensure future security in a time of growing uncertainty. Correspondingly, millions of female children who are deemed as having low economic value are often not being born at all.

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As I will explore, intensified favouritism towards sons in rural areas has also been influenced by the discourse of ‘population quality’ (suzhi). Since the mid-1970s the government has perceived the need to ‘raise the nation’s quality’ through shaping the physical, intellectual and moral characteristics of the populace (Tang 2005). Official publications have promoted the idea that the nation’s ‘low quality’ originates with the vast rural peasantry and hinders the nation’s ability to attain higher status on the world stage (Murphy 2004; Greenhalgh and Winckler 2005). Scholars argue that the discourse of quality places differential value on rural and urban bodies, with the urban, educated, middleclass single child now considered the epitome of modernity in reform era China.2 While analyses of suzhi have tended to focus on how it exacerbates the rural/urban divide (Anagnost 1997, 2004), little attention has been paid to the ways this new logic also reinforces inequality between boys and girls in the countryside. Not only urbanites, but villagers as well have been deeply affected by new fertility norms and increasing societal pressure to invest in fewer, ‘higher quality’ children (Hong 2007). As Murphy (2004) has argued, suzhi ‘legitimates a modernization agenda’ promoted by state authorities that simultaneously intrudes into intimate practices of reproduction and child-rearing, yet also makes individuals responsible for their own welfare in the new capitalist economy (5). In a time of high economic instability and the lack of a social welfare safety net for the elderly, it has become essential to bear children who have the most projected economic potential. I contend that the idea of suzhi as human capital (Hsu 2007) that is externally deposited into children through education, training and health practices is gendered in practice, though not necessarily in theory. In many rural areas which continue to be structured according to patrilineal and patrilocal customs, the decision to invest limited resources in sons brings ‘traditional’ male preference together with the market logic implicit in suzhi discourse.

2 Here I am using Murphy’s (2004) definition of discourse as “a system of meaning that embodies a way of thinking at a point in time and is produced through articulatory practices—practices which establish a relationship among and between objects and actions such that their meaning is altered”. (1) In her Foucauldian view, different texts and practices can be considered part of a single discourse if they refer to the same object or are part of the same general plan. Thus, the societal-spanning suzhi discourse can be seen as one overarching governmental project of self-improvement and economic progress (Anagnost 1997).

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Thus, this paper argues that it is necessary to consider cultural, political and economic factors as intertwined and even mutually constitutive in regards to daughter discrimination, rather than viewing them as separate spheres. Though the Chinese party-state is now taking action to deal with daughter discrimination, as seen with the ‘Care for Girls’ campaign and isolated pilot projects aimed at improving life opportunities for girls in rural regions (Li, Zhu, and Feldman 2003),3 its management of the population nevertheless privileges male interests in ways that are compounded by already existing local gender inequalities (Murphy 2004). While the state pins the blame for son preference and the abnormal sex ratio on ‘feudal’ thinking of villagers (see Xi, Chen, and Gu 2006), the Chinese government and its efforts for modernization, at the levels of policy and discourse, are quite solidly implicated in the creation of this societal dilemma. Sen (1998) has argued about the need to differentiate the origins of gender bias—perhaps thousands of years removed from the present—from more contemporary reasons for its continued survival. In concurrence, this paper presents the gender skew in children and corresponding discrimination against daughters in modern China as an evolving socially-constructed phenomenon rather than a static, unchangeable legacy passed down from time immemorial. The remainder of this paper is organized in the following manner: the first section will utilize the most recent demographic data published in both English and Chinese to describe the scope of China’s ‘missing girls’ and discuss its societal implications. Secondly, this trend will be linked to rural economic reforms and birth control regulations beginning in the late 1970s. Lastly, I will consider how suzhi discourse provides ideological justification for the overvaluation of sons and the undervaluation of daughters in rural China.

3

Tan (2008) argues that the ‘Care for Girls’ campaign focuses more on implementing population policy than actually improving women’s social status. The author notes that ‘the government appears to be aimed at correcting the sex ratio rather than advocating gender equality as a general social ideal’ (13).

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The Scope of the ‘Missing Girls’ Since beginning the transition from a socialist to a market economy in 1978, Chinese society has undergone cataclysmic transformations. The vast restructuring of the economy has led to an influx of commodities, ideologies and practices from abroad as well as increased emphasis on individual capabilities. The Chinese government has been at the helm of these changes, encouraging decentralization and placing more fiscal responsibility on local level governments and individual citizens. While in recent years the state has retreated from its role as major social provider (Shang, Wu, and Wu 2005) and its ideological control over the population has weakened since the 1970s, it has exerted a strong and growing power over the private domain of families. The most obvious example of this has been the institution of wide-ranging birth control regulations (jihua shengyu) strictly limiting fertility as a way to boost economic productivity (Smith 2000; Fong 2004). Chinese population policies have rapidly and dramatically reconfigured the population with alarmingly gendered effects. In the years since the institution of the one-child-per-couple policy in 1979, the nation’s sexual disparity in children has begun to reach extremely abnormal levels. Facilitated by the popularization of ultrasound B technology that enables sex-identification of a foetus after a woman reaches her second trimester of pregnancy, demographers argue that up to one million female foetuses are now aborted annually in China (Zhang and Zhang 2005).4 In addition to sex-selective abortion, countless female children are informally adopted at the local level, kept by their birth families but never registered with the authorities or just abandoned altogether (Johnson, Huang & Wang 1998; Johnson 2004). These children—whose births are missing from official census polls—are known as China’s ‘missing girls’. For the sake of clarity, however, this paper limits the ‘missing girl’ discussion to female foetuses that have been sex-selectively aborted.

4 Chu (2001) notes that China manufactured its first ultrasound B machine in 1979. The Chinese government passed laws in 1986 and again in 1993, outlawing the practice of using ultrasound technology for the purposes of sex-selection. However, it has been nearly impossible to stamp out the practice as these laws have not dealt with the root issue of discrimination against females and preference for sons.

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According to demographers, the sex ratio at birth (SRB) for any country under normal circumstances should average between 102.0–107.0 males per 100 females born, due to male infants’ increased chances of birth defects or illness (Coale 1991). Due to young males’ slightly higher rates of death, over time the sex ratio declines to roughly 102.0–107.0 for ages 0–4, and between 100.0–106.0 for ages 0–14 (Banister 2006: 21). Chinese fertility surveys show that while the sex ratio held close to the average in the two decades preceding the onset of the one child policy, in the 1980s and after there has been a startling upsurge in the number of boys born. Certain regions of China—particularly in central and southern provinces—are experiencing birth rates of more than 130 boys to every 100 girls (Li et al. 2003; Murphy 2003). The 2000 census found that the two areas with the highest abnormal SRB in the nation were the southern areas of Guangdong Province at 130.3 and Hainan Island at 135.6 (Zheng 2006). As Table 1 below demonstrates, since the first official census was conducted in China in 1953 up until the last census in 2000, the sex ratio of children between the ages of 0–4 has steadily risen. While in the 1953 and 1964 censuses, the sex ratio goes up as children get older (denoting differential neglect of young girls under age 4), for the years 1982 and beyond, the opposite holds true (denoting girls who were probably never born). While there have been no further official censuses since 2000, Zheng (2006) reports China’s sex ratio in 2004 as 121.18 (74). Since the sex ratio first began to become abnormal in the early 1980s, scholars have made multiple attempts to estimate the number of missing females in Chinese society. Using 102.0 males to 100.0 females as a standard, Sen (1998) calculated that as of 1992, 48 million females were missing in China.5 However, his tabulation attempted to account for all age ranges within the population. Chinese demographers Zhang Kun and Zhang Songlin (2005), focusing purely on the abnormal sex ratio between children born in the reform era, estimate that between 1980–2000, over 14 million female fetuses were sex-selectively aborted 5 Sen’s (1998) argument regarding China is part of a larger argument he has made estimating that there are 100 million ‘missing women’ across the globe. The major causes of this enormous difference between the sexes, he contends, are ‘gender bias’ and the comparative neglect of female health and nutrition, particularly in childhood. While his argument is convincing, what cannot be accounted for are countries that have patriarchal structures and gender discrimination but are not experiencing abnormal sex ratios, such as Japan and many Muslim societies (Banister 2004).

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Table 1: Sex ratios* of children by age in China, 1953–2000 Age

1953 2000

1964

1982

1990

1995

0

104.9 117.81 105.6 122.7 106.6 122.1 108.6 120.4 109.4 118.5

103.8

107.6

111.8

116.6

105.3

107.8

111.6

121.1

106.4

107.4

110.1

121.3

107.0

106.7

109.1

119.2

108.7

106.2

108.5

115.0

1 2 3 4

* Males per 100 females Source: Banister (2006: 24)1

Table 2: Sex ratio at birth* from 1980–2000 and estimated number of sex-selective abortions of female foetuses Year 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990

Sex Ratio Est. # Abortions 107.35 107.83 107.63 108.69 108.65 108.65 108.47 109.12 110.11 111.59 111.75

216,185 245,966 272,887 369,663 361,840 361,840 368,901 495,465 608,752 752,221 765,541

Year 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

Sex Ratio Est. # Abortions 113.48 114.61 115.21 116.59 117.77 118.52 120.44 122.07 122.65 116.86

839,881 880,846 888,661 917,944 1,030,501 973,096 1,047,075 1,113,934 942,628 797,594

* Males per 100 females. Source: Tongji yanjiu. “Wo guo xuanze xing rengong yinchan zaocheng de yinchan nuying shu guji” 2005, 11: 49.

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(see Table 2). They estimate that for every boy born, at least one female fetus is aborted (48). These same authors predict that by the year 2005, the total number of sex-selective abortions in China had reached 25 million—a conservative estimate by their own admission (49).6 China is not alone in having an extremely abnormal SRB. Other Asian countries, particularly India, Pakistan, South Korea, and Taiwan, as well as parts of North Africa are also facing a similar dilemma of an abnormally low number of female infants (Sen 1998; Das Gupta et al. 2003). However, China is the only one of these countries with policies restricting child-bearing. As a result, the country now faces the highest SRB maintained over the longest period of time of any nation in the world (Zhang 2005). Social Implications of the Gender Skew In popular as well as state and intellectual discussions in China, there have been myriad predictions about the social consequences of millions of women who will be ‘missing’ from future Chinese society. Rather than focusing on the reasons for the trend, most tend to highlight the plight that men will face. Journalistic accounts often predict increased rates of trafficking in women and children while Chinese government publications also tend to focus on the issue of the impending male ‘marriage squeeze’ (hunyin jiya). One recent publication circulated by the Chinese Ministry of Population and Family Planning (Xi et al. 2005) estimates that by the year 2040 there will be upwards of 30 million Chinese men between the ages of 20–49 unable to find wives within their lifetimes. The government tract warns that increased numbers of unmarried men will be harmful to Chinese society because of their ‘unsatisfied biological needs’, leading to a weakening of morals, increased lack of sexual self-restraint and rise in female prostitution (80).

6 Zhang and Zhang (2005) argue that the lower number of estimated sex-selective abortions as well as SRB in 2000 can be explained by social factors. In particular, they state that 2000 was the year of the dragon, which was considered to be an extremely auspicious time to have a child of either sex and thus decreased the chances of abortions for any reason (49). These figures have yet to be published in English.

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As intensified male competition for jobs will squeeze men out of the labour market, some men will be forced to do ‘jobs suitable for women, such as pre-school teachers and nurses . . . which will not be helpful to societal economic and harmonious development’ (Xi et al. 2005: 82). Throughout the rhetoric of this book (authored by the government branch responsible for enforcing birth control policies), male interests and their right to stable, married unions and active participation in the labour force are considered to be most important. Indeed, other than repeated mention of the ‘Care for Girls’ campaign, in the entire publication there is little reference to the fact that the rights and interests of millions of female children are not being defended. A separate, non-governmental Chinese academic publication states that according to the 2000 census, there are already 4% excess men in the marriage market (Zheng 2006: 136). However, rather than as a result of sex selection, this situation has been caused by better living conditions in the 1970s that brought about a decrease in male infant mortality. Zheng’s analysis estimates that by the time those males born in the 1990s reach marriageable age, up to 10% will be squeezed out of the marriage market. This trend will disproportionately affect men in poorer, more remote areas of China, thus exacerbating existing social inequalities between rural and urban areas. Though concerned about the likelihood of China turning into a ‘bachelor society’, this author takes a pointed stance that society’s intense focus on the impending male marriage squeeze is partial to male interests and ignores the root cause of bias against females (131). While much attention has been focused on issues males will face, population regulations are also having a decidedly negative impact on women of child-bearing age. Millions of Chinese women are caught between the dual pressures of needing to bear a son in order to appease their husband’s family and being forced to find semi-legal ways around family planning policies to achieve this goal. One study conducted by the Chinese Women’s Federation (Fulian) in the 1990s found that the most common source of discrimination and abuse cited by women, particularly in the countryside, occurred as a response to not having yet borne a son. Fulian repeated this study in 2000 and found that 6.69% of the 9,476 women they surveyed reported experiencing discrimination for not having borne a son, which ranked it the highest out of all issues, including those of employment, pay differences or educational inequities. There is also serious physical endangerment involved in this quest for sons,

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as during this process most women undergo at least one abortion after they have reached four or five months of gestation (the general time when the sex of a foetus can be determined.) Lastly, demographers also warn that the rapid aging of the population, in combination with highly restricted child-bearing, will lead to deterioration of care for the elderly. According to the latest data from the Ministry of Civil Affairs, China currently has 134 million people over the age of 60, accounting roughly 10% of the population. However, by the year 2050, estimates suggest that the number of people over the age of 60 will number 400 million, comprising over 24% of the nation’s population (China Daily August 21, 2004). Moreover, some fear that if the Chinese government does not loosen its stringent family planning regulations, the workforce and rates of economic growth will not be able to be maintained over the next century (Zeng 2005; Zhang 2005.) Thus it is clear that stringent control over the Chinese population has already begun to have myriad lasting—in many ways avoidable—negative outcomes for various social groups. Population Regulations, Rural Economic Reforms and the Gendered Stratification of Rural Children Throughout recorded history, China’s population has always included fewer women than men, particularly in times of war, famine or natural disaster (Banister 2004). Sons in China have always been more highly valued than girls for their labour power and ability to perform ancestral rites of worship while girls have traditionally ‘married out’ of their parents’ household to become members of their husbands’ families. In patrilineal, patrilocal Chinese society, male offspring bring strength and prestige to their families, helping them to secure economic and political resources (Murphy 2003). The division of labour between sons and daughters within households also reinforces the overvaluation of sons. Daughters’ responsibilities can be taken over by daughters-in-law, while the work and rites that sons perform can be substituted for neither by daughters nor sons-in-law. Even when the infant sex ratio has been normal, such as during the mid-1950s, the mortality rate of young girls has been much higher than that of boys due to discrimination and neglect of daughters (Banister 2004; Zheng 2006). Still, the SRB did not become an unnatural and lasting phenomenon until after sweeping economic reforms and the

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institution of the one child policy—two governmental programmes both geared towards bringing about quick and effective modernization of Chinese society. The abnormal SRB relates directly to major Chinese economic and social transitions that began in the late 1970s. During the years following the chaotic decade of the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), China began its Four Modernizations programme to develop four main sectors of the economy: agriculture, industry, science and technology, and national defence. The programme’s overarching goal was to transform the struggling nation into a modern and globally competitive socialist society. With industrialization in mind, the state began to view China’s vast population and traditionally high levels of fertility as a major constraint on economic expansion. The government began to institute large-scale birth control campaigns in the early 1970s, dramatically lowering fertility through voluntary measures. The ‘wan-xi-shao’ (‘later-longer-fewer’) campaign used financial incentives to promote later marriage, the spacing of offspring at least four years apart, and having fewer children overall. Through this and other voluntary campaigns, the Chinese fertility rate—which peaked around 5.8 children per couple in 1965—dropped to about 2.8 by 1977 (Tang 2005). By the end of the 1970s, expanding industrial and agricultural production plus limiting population growth became the twin pillars of Chinese modernization efforts. These specific goals were laid out in a series of Five Year Plans with the goal ‘to quadruple the gross value of industrial and agricultural production by the year 2000 and to keep the population down to about 1.2 billion by achieving zero population growth at the turn of the century’ (Smith 2000:70).7 In order to achieve the almost inconceivable goal of zero population growth within two decades (which has not yet been achieved), the Chinese government instituted the one child per couple policy in 1979, which became a basic national policy in the 12th National People’s Congress of 1982 (Tang 2005). In addition to population regulations, between 1979 and 1984 the Chinese government phased in an economic reform initiative in rural areas known as the household production responsibility system. The old

7 In the most recent ten-year plan, the government has pledged to control population growth to less than 1.4 billion by 2010 (Tang 2005).

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system of collectivized land, resource pooling and work points that had been in effect since 1955 was replaced by a new structure, one which encouraged private business ventures through wage incentives and the redistribution of land into individual plots to increase rural production (Banister 2004). Under this new arrangement, peasants became totally reliant on their own labour and that of their children for financial security. Greenhalgh and Winckler (2005) assert: ‘The reforms of the early 1980s dismantled the collective, privatized health care, and virtually abolished the minimal provision for old-age security, making the family once again the core unit of production and welfare’ (219). Shifting from collective farming to individual household production actually did very little to disrupt male privilege, as both systems utilized a compensation system based on manual labour. As White (2006) has pointed out in her study of Chinese birth control planning, the collective work-point system rewarded ‘labour-rich’ households, which were those with several sons who were able to earn more grain by contributing more manual labour. In the new household contracting system, incomes became directly reflective of individual family production, which also had the effect of spurring rural couples to increase household labour power through bearing sons. White (2006) notes that in the early years of decollectivization, having one or more healthy sons could make an enormous difference on rural household income. She found that a couple with two working sons could earn about 200 yuan more per year than a couple with two working daughters, and 400 yuan more than a couple with only one son. A couple with only one daughter earned merely 75% of the income earned by two-son families. ‘In short’, she argues, ‘the immediate effect of the contract system was to reinforce the preference for, and the value of, male offspring’ (116). Unlike other developing countries, lower fertility, swift economic development and rising standards of living in China have done little to erode son preference. This has much to do with a rampant sense of fiscal insecurity that has accompanied market transition. Total reliance on individual household production has particularly affected rural elderly who find themselves vulnerable if they lack sons to support them in old age, which provides another key example of how the intertwining of Chinese cultural traditions, policies and new economic pressures has resulted in exacerbated son preference. While the stipulation that children must care for their elderly parents was written into the 1983 Marriage Law, most rural parents continue

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to believe that sons, rather than daughters, are responsible for bearing this burden (Potter and Potter 1990). At the same time, traditions of filial piety have been destabilized as younger generations experience more mobility to cities and opportunities for off-farm employment (Yan 2003). While the parent-child ‘contract’ of children caring for elderly parents has diminished, the economic cost of raising children has skyrocketed, causing parents to be more selective and strategic in their child-bearing and child-rearing practices. As a result: Parents have intensified their interest in family-building strategies and the management of resource flows to their children in order to ensure and maximize long-term returns . . . The tension between maintaining the parent-child contract in the face of increased child costs and the bid for smaller families has been resolved by renewing efforts to ensure the birth of sons, for the inter-generational contract is primarily and almost exclusively a parent-son contract (Croll 2000: 112).

Despite rapidly decreasing filial piety, a survey (Pang, De Brauw, and Rozelle 2004) of Chinese elderly in six rural provinces revealed that parents nonetheless still experience more economic security if they have a son. They found that among elderly couples who only had daughters, 50% live alone, while if they had at least one son, the number dropped to only 30% (83). Fears about the future have inspired Chinese parents to turn their attention to bearing and rearing much smaller numbers of offspring who have the most economic earning potential to provide for them in old age, who overwhelmingly tend to be considered to be healthy males. Thus it is clear that new fiscal realities, combined with restricted fertility, have reinvigorated Chinese cultural assumptions that boys are necessary and certain girls are expendable. In the logic of the new economy, investing in female children is now often considered by many parents to be a costly detriment to their own future livelihoods. The ‘1.5 Child Policy’ and Official Legitimation of Daughter Discrimination Through its policies, the Chinese government itself has officially sanctioned son preference and the corresponding discrimination against daughters. At the time of its inception in 1979, the one child policy was intended to severely restrict the growth of China’s rural peasants, who still comprised 80% of residents. As a way to hasten the speed of

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modernization at the beginning of the 1980s, family planning regulations and the aforementioned economic reforms began to be rigorously enforced in rural areas. As noted earlier, this brought about a contradiction in which the switch to individual household responsibility inadvertently encouraged rural people to not only have more children but also more male children as a way to create more labour power (Handwerker 1993; White 2006). The intense desire for sons in rural China led to a great deal of peasant resistance, defiance of regulations and even violence enacted against birth planning officials (White 2000; Greenhalgh and Winckler 2005). As a result, beginning in 1984 the government began to relax the onechild policy in most parts of the countryside to allow couples to try for a second child if their first-born is a girl, commonly known as the ‘1.5 child policy’. This policy requires couples to stop bearing children if their first child is a boy, but allows them to have a second child after a period of several years if their first-born is a girl. Very quickly, the one-child policy evolved into a bifurcated system of enforcement for urban and rural areas. The policy has been strictly applied in large cities (although it has been loosened in recent years), particularly Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin Municipalities. For rural couples, 18 of 23 provinces have one-son-or-two-child policies, while the remaining five provinces allow two children regardless of their sex (Croll 2000: 22). According to the 2000 census, the majority of women in China live in rural areas with 1.5 child policies. In a study conducted by demographer Zeng Yi (2006), 35.9% of women live in areas with strict enforcement of one child per couple, while 52.9% live in 1.5 child policy areas, 9.6% are allowed to have two children, and 1.6% are even allowed to have three children. The Chinese government allows members of ethnic minority groups to bear two or more children without penalty. As a result, majority ethnic provinces such as Tibet and Xinjiang have sex ratios that adhere much more closely to normal levels (Guilmoto and Attane 2005). While relaxing the policy to allow rural couples to try for at least one son has appeased many rural residents, it has also officially legitimated gender discrimination at the level of the family and inadvertently encouraged the abortion or abandonment of female children (Johnson et al. 1998; Handwerker 1993). Tan (2008) contends that ‘[t]he exceptions to the population policy from the 1980s allowing couples to have a second child if the first was a girl are an example of the unwitting reinforcement of the belief that not only are sons preferable, but that daughters do not fully count as children at all’ (8).

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In terms of Chinese discussions of the relationship between birth control regulations and the abnormal SRB, in a 2005 article, Zhang Erli, former head of the statistics department of the National Family Planning Ministry (guojia jihua shengyu weiyuanhui), vehemently pins blame for the gender skew in children on the government’s 1.5 child policy. Greatly uncharacteristic for a highly-ranked government official to contest state policies, he uses quantitative analysis to demonstrate vastly higher SRB and rates of female infant mortality in areas living under the 1.5 child policy. Ultimately Zhang argues that population regulations as a whole must be loosened in order to resolve this dire situation (11). Zeng Yi (2005) concurs that areas with the 1.5 child policy contribute the most to the gender skew in children. He advocates for a ‘soft-landing’ to a two-child policy that encourages couples to wait until after the age of 23 to bear their first child, then allows them to bear a second child after an interval of five or six years as a way to lower the abnormal SRB (299).8 A switch to a two-child system would allow many parents to fulfil their childbearing ideals, which scholars have noted tend to include both a son and a daughter. Although girls tend to leave their households upon marriage and contribute their labour to their husbands’ families, they are valued for giving ‘crucial emotional support’ to their parents, particularly in old age (Greenhalgh 1993). However, sons are seen as imperative to future economic survival. Johnson (2004) has labeled this sentiment ‘wanting a daughter, but needing a son’. This suggests that a shift to a two-child policy could help bring about a more balanced sex ratio at birth. Table 3 below summarizes his demographic findings using figures from the 2000 census. As seen in the table below, although sex ratios are unnatural under all configurations of family planning regulation (pointing to pervasive gender bias across the country), areas under the 1.5 child policy bear most of the burden for this phenomenon.

8 In advocating for a ‘soft-landing’ to a two-child policy, Zeng Yi (2006) advocates for ‘late childbearing’, which would encourage women to begin bearing children after the age of 24. Women should also be forced to wait four to five years before bearing their second child. Adjusting the current fertility regulations, in his view, can help avoid or reduce the serious problems of high proportions of elderly people living alone, the rapid shrinking of the labour force, the imbalance of males versus females of marriageable age, and the ‘high economic and political expenditures for the government to implement the current fertility policy in the future’ (286).

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Table 3: Sex ratios of areas of China according to population regulations, based on the 2000 census Policy type % of population living under policy Regional SRB

1 Child

1.5 Children

35.9%

52.9%

111.6

124.7

2 Children 9.6% 109.0

3 Children 1.6% 108.2

Source: Zeng Yi. Zhongguo renkou yu laodong wenti de baogao. “Lun erhai wanyu zhengce zhuolu de biyaoxing yu kexingxing.” 2005 (298).

The data on the increase in sex selective abortions (Table 2) and regional variation in sex ratio at birth according to birth control policy (Table 3) provide converging evidence that the 1.5 child policy has, in concert with an existing cultural preference for sons, increased the sex ratio at birth in favour of boys. While this evidence is suggestive of the role of the 1.5 child policy in increasing the rate of missing girls, it is not complete. Ideally, longitudinal data showing that missing girl rates increase by region only after implementing the 1.5 child policy would provide stronger evidence. However, it is unclear whether such data have yet been made publicly available. It is also important to address the regional nature of the abnormal SRB, with the highest ratios of boys to girls occurring in certain central and southern coastal provinces. To date there has been no satisfactory explanation for regional differences. Scholars have hypothesized that a stronger focus on patrilineal descent and ancestral genealogy in southern provinces tends to maintain patriarchal norms that reinforce social pressures to bear a son. Murphy’s (2004) county-level study in Jiangxi Province found that the disbanding of collective farming in the 1980s allowed for a revival of descent groups across southern China that repaired ancestral shrines and began once again to compile genealogies that recorded only the names of male group members (601). In certain northern Chinese villages, by comparison, decollectivization and a commercializing economy have encouraged individualism, a rise in youth autonomy and independence from older generations. Yan (2003) argues that this has contributed to a ‘waning of the patriarchal order’ evident through a new trend of young couples who are choosing to bear only one daughter even though they are technically allowed a second birth (200). While useful for illuminating cultural revival and/or transformations in local-level societies, these studies cannot account for national

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trends or the major disparities occurring within the same provinces. As Guilmoto and Attane (2005) have shown, certain counties in Anhui and Hubei exhibit nearly normal sex ratios even though surrounding areas experience skews of up to 150 boys per 100 girls. Thus it is clear that there are a host of complicated economic, political as well as cultural factors that contribute to regional differentiation in birth planning and rates of missing girls. While outside the scope of this paper, they present important new avenues for future research and scholarship. Selective Daughter Discrimination: Stratification Between Girls Though girls are being discriminated against on an unequivocally large scale in China, it is also important to bear in mind that not all girls are equally affected. There are immense differences in life chances and opportunities faced by female children depending on geographic location and residence permit status (hukou). While population regulations have led to extreme discrimination against girls in the countryside, Vanessa Fong (2002) argues that the one-child policy has actually empowered ‘only’ daughters growing up in urban areas. She finds that in cities, women’s ability to seek out paid employment and express filial piety by providing financially for parents in old age has been able to erode certain patriarchal norms. Urban daughters benefit greatly from the strides made by their own mothers. Conversely, the vast majority of children at the heart of my study originate from rural areas, a fact which illuminates broader social, economic and political processes at work in China’s modernization project. Recent research on the interrelated issues of sex-selective abortion, female child mortality and female infant abandonment in China all concur that the child most likely to be cast out of a family is not only a rural daughter, but a second or third born daughter. Table 4 below gives the sex ratio of children based on birth order between the years of 1990–2000. While the ratio of first-born children adheres close to normal, the ratios for second and third children become severely skewed—pointing to differential survival of female fetuses depending on birth order. In addition to sex-selective abortion, discrimination against secondand third-born daughters occurs in other ways as well. A study by Li et al. (2003) of excess female child mortality in a rural county of Shaanxi Province also contends that discrimination is highly selective. Their

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Year

1st child

2nd child

3rd child

1990 1995 2000

105.2 106.4 107.1

121.0 141.1 151.9

127.0 154.3 159.4

Source: Guojia tongjiju bian, Zhongguo shehuizhong de nuhai he nanren 2005, 18.

survey finds that the child most likely to die from neglect is a girl of higher birth order who has a surviving sister, on average receiving very minimal medical care in times of illness—particularly in comparison with sons. Looking at female child abandonment, Johnson et al. (1998) argue that whether a daughter is abandoned tends to depend on whether there is a son in the family. In a study of 237 families in central China who had abandoned children, they found that the vast majority of abandoned girls were second- or third-born daughters in families without a son (493). Although 90% of the children abandoned by parents in this study were female, only eleven of the children were first-born daughters, demonstrating that girls are definitely not wholly abandoned at will. Suzhi Discourse: Market Logic and Investment in ‘High Quality’ Children Thus far, this paper has taken into account the effects of rural economic reforms and birth control policies on the increasing sex ratio at birth in China. These major social transitions have been influenced by a new logic of the market that correlates an individual’s level of economic productivity with their personal level of ‘quality’ (Greenhalgh and Winckler 2005). In this section I will consider how the new market logic that drives suzhi discourse not only creates categorizations of ‘modern’ or ‘unmodern’ persons (usually read: urbanites versus rural peasants), but also inadvertently encourages the overvaluation of sons and marginalization of daughters in the countryside. First invoked in the mid-1970s, suzhi discourse focuses on changeable human attributes of national populations and individuals, measured according to three major categories: bodily quality (shenti suzhi), educational/cultural quality (kexue wenhua suzhi) and moral quality (sixiang daode suzhi). As the nation began its transition to a market economy,

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Chinese intellectuals argued that if China was to be considered on par with the industrialized west and Japan, the overall quality of the population needed to be increased (Mu 1995; Tang 2005). This idea is reflected in former Chinese president Jiang Zemin’s 1989 statement: Socialism does not only aim to realize material prosperity, but also to achieve all-around social progress . . . The construction of spiritual civilization ultimately demands raising the quality of the entire nation, to develop the new socialist person with ideals, morality, education, and discipline. Do not imagine that a nation without strong spiritual pillars can stand on its own feet among the world’s nations (Judd 2002:20).

High-quality persons are defined to be cosmopolitan, highly educated, entrepreneurial, innovative, independent, physically fit and mentally equipped to compete on the global labour market (Bakken 2000). Moreover, they should be geared towards serving others as well as the Chinese nation despite their personal success. As Woronov (2003) explains, ‘high quality subjects are those who will implement the new economy, bring China into its position of global respect, and fulfill its historical destiny’ (18). In terms of reproduction, the state promotes the idea that rearing healthy, ‘high quality’ children is a collective project that will help China achieve its goals of economic and social modernization (Dikotter 1998). As the next generation of Chinese citizens and workers, children are integral to the state-driven process of raising the nation’s quality; the family has become an apparatus of domination through which children’s bodies and subjectivities are shaped and constructed. Chinese state control over families through stringent regulations and pressuring citizens to raise high quality, healthy children is extremely effective as a form of social engineering because it appears subtle and non-coercive (Jing 2000). Rather than people becoming more aware that they are being controlled by the state, quality discourse actually ‘bolsters the government’s attempt to cast itself as a modernistic and compassionate regime’ (4). The power of suzhi discourse lies in its variable and unfixed nature. Because levels of quality can continually be improved through external intervention, this helps to justify governmental influence over reproduction and child rearing, educational practices, and the promotion of economic competition in rural areas (Murphy 2004: 2). As Jacka (2006) has asserted, raising the nation’s quality through family planning, disciplining and training the workforce is seen to be necessary for

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national development. Simultaneously, the market logic that informs this discourse has been internalized by ordinary people, who feel pressure to regulate and develop their own quality above and beyond what is imposed by the state. Because suzhi focuses on the improvement of individual attributes, it ‘diverts attention away from deficiencies and inequities resulting from structures, institutions, and practices either created, or endorsed by, the state’ (Jacka 2006: 41). Though scholars to date have tended to focus on the cultivation of quality and human capital in middle-class urban ‘only’ children (Anagnost 1997; Fong 2007), the state has dedicated considerable resources toward raising the quality of rural areas through encouraging investment in fewer children. Chinese policy documents assert that ‘national modernization depends on accelerating quantity-quality transition in the countryside because a large low-quality rural populace hinders progression from tradition, poverty and agrarianism’ (Murphy 2004: 3). Hong (2007: 875) also notes that ‘unfair burdens [have been] placed on peasant families to produce “high-quality” children for the nation’s modernization project’. However, the choice to invest more resources in fewer children in the countryside is complicated by aforementioned cultural and economic structures that favour boys over girls. Just as the original one-child policy was gender-neutral in theory but became gendered in implementation, I contend that suzhi also becomes gendered as it is enacted in rural areas. As Li Yongping and Peng Xizhe. 2000, have argued: [a]s modernization, social policy and other socio-economic constraints reduce the number of children a couple wish to have, the demand for children of higher quality increases. To put it another way, the emphasis in reproductive strategy shifts from quantity to quality in the process of rapid fertility decline. In a society with strong son preference, boys are naturally regarded as better than girls in terms of ‘quality’ (73).

The economic rationale that drives suzhi discourse, in conjunction with restricted fertility, fiscal livelihood based on individual productivity as well as cultural preferences for sons, provides a logic that helps to justify the choice to bear a boy rather than a girl in the current era. Because China’s future economic success depends on the cultivation of modern, cosmopolitan children, those who are considered to be the most economically viable are more likely to survive. As Anagnost (2004: 194) asserts: ‘[the] politics of suzhi become a struggle for recognition

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as a body of value, in which some bodies are recognized as having more value than others and therefore more deserving of the rights of citizenship’. By extension, I assert that in rural patriarchal systems that privilege male interests, sons are considered to be more deserving not only of citizenship, but of life itself as a disturbingly high number of girls have been deemed incapable of providing for parents’ future stability or contributing to national development. Conclusion This article has described the scope of the ‘missing girls’ phenomenon and attempted to link it to Chinese modernization processes. I have argued that this new and pervasive form of discrimination against rural daughters and the corresponding abnormal sex ratio in children links directly to rural economic reforms and implicitly gendered Chinese governmental population policies. Moreover, I have considered the power of the suzhi discourse to influence reproductive attitudes in favour of bearing boys. Since China began its switch from a planned to a market economy, the realm of reproduction, families and children has become a contested site inflected with national hope and fear: hope of attaining a dominant position in the global economic order, accompanied by fear of falling behind other nations in the capitalist competition. Through parental reliance on smaller numbers of children and the corresponding deepening obsession with cultivating the mental and physical quality of offspring, the child becomes a repository of stored value against the uncertainties of rapid economic development. Even as China appears to be approaching its long-awaited ‘historical destiny’ as a modern world power, it also brings great uncertainties about family security and political stability that become focused on the child (Anagnost 1997: 197).

In this fraught context, population regulations and their accompanying discourses are having manifold effects upon Chinese society. As parents are encouraged by the state to focus their resources and energy on rearing ‘high quality’ offspring, children are being sorted into advantaged and disadvantaged sectors of society according to sex and birth order. The transformation to individual household responsibility has increasingly caused children to be considered invaluable economic

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resources in a time of waning filial piety and increased fiscal instability. As governmental provision of social welfare benefits has disappeared and Chinese societal structures of household and labour continue to favour males, having at least one son is considered by parents to be integral for survival in old age. While this preference for sons is viewed by certain scholars to be a result of Chinese ‘tradition’, I have argued that seemingly traditional preferences have been revived and reshaped by transforming political and economic conditions. This paper has also explored the gendered nature of birth control regulations as an example of state privileging of male interests. The 1.5 child policy officially acknowledges differences in value placed by parents on children—discrimination that has its roots both in legacies of Chinese tradition as well as more recent fiscal demands villagers are facing in this new market economy. Inequalities between males and females that begin at birth also carry on throughout the life course. Yet, rather than attacking the issue of gender bias by systematically providing more opportunities for female self-empowerment through education and work opportunities, the state has prioritized restricting population growth. As Chinese demographers have argued, instituting a ‘soft-landing’ to a two-child policy is integral to bringing the gender skew at birth back to normal levels. Not only will it help protect the lives, rights and interests of girls, but a relaxation in policy will also ease the impending male marriage squeeze, maintain the work force and ensure better care for the rapidly ageing population (Zeng 2006; Zhang 2005). However, in March of 2008, Zhang Weiqing, minister of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, announced that China would not make any major changes to family planning policies until roughly a decade from now (NY Times March 11, 2008), officially dashing hopes for major policy reform. Lastly, I have argued that the discourse of quality has been integral to China’s project of modernization. While stringent, sometimes coercive, family planning regulations have changed child-bearing practices and behavior, the economic logic that drives suzhi discourse helps to create the justifications for their acceptance. In combination with other social factors increasing the economic value of males, millions of female children of higher birth order have been relegated to ‘low quality’ status and are never born. I have suggested that the abnormal sex ratio at birth does not merely represent the leftover remnants of ancient Confucian gender roles, but

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is actually caused by an underlying logic of male superiority that links Chinese tradition with recent processes of economic modernization in an unstable period. Thus, the values embodied by suzhi discourse can be viewed as comprising a form of social engineering that is articulating new categories of personhood: literally, the right to become a living person in many cases. It is important to note, however, that while this paper, due to its broad framing, makes societal-wide claims regarding gender inequality and suzhi discourse, more focused case studies such as that conducted by Murphy (2004) in rural Jiangxi Province are integral to understanding how population quality is actually understood, enacted and contested at the local level. China’s ‘missing girls’ dilemma is reflective of recent, rapid social change that has led to a new form of discrimination against females. As ‘sites of national salvation’ (Anagnost 1997), children embody China’s future. Yet, how they are differentially affected and stratified by economic reforms, birth control regulations and state-driven discourses of population remains a vastly understudied area. Because children live at the intersection of shifting value systems and cultural norms, this trend helps illuminate the complexities located at the axes of gender, population, class and changing governmental power in an era of rapid modernization. References Anagnost, Ann. 1995. “A Surfeit of Bodies: Population and the Rationality of the State in Post-Mao China.” Pp. 22–41 in Conceiving the New World Order: The Global Politics of Reproduction, edited by Faye D. Ginsburg and Rayna Rapp. Berkeley: University of California Press. ——. 1997. “Children and National Transcendence in China.” Pp. 195–222 in Constructing China: The Interaction of Culture and Economics, edited by Kenneth G. Lieberthal, Shuen-fu Lin and Ernest P. Young. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan. ——. 2004. “The Corporeal Politics of Quality (Suzhi).” Public Culture 16(2): 189– 208. Bakken, Borge. 2000. The Exemplary Society: Human Improvement, Social Control and the Dangers of Modernity in China. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Banister, Judith. 1987. China’s Changing Population. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. ——. 2004. “Shortage of Girls in China Today.” Journal of Population Research 21(1): 19–45. Coale, Ansley J. 1991. “Excess Female Mortality and the Balance of the Sexes in the Population: An Estimation of the Number of Missing Females.” Population and Development Review 17(3): 517–523. ——. and Judith Banister. 1994. “Five Decades of Missing Females in China.” Demography 31(3): 459–479.

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Chu, Junhong. 2001. “Prenatal Sex Determination and Sex-Selective Abortion in Rural Central China.” Population and Development Review 27(2): 259–281. Croll, Elisabeth. 2000. Endangered Daughters: Discrimination and Development in Asia. London: Routledge. Das Gupta, Monica, Zhenghua Jiang, Zhenming Xie, Bohua Li, Hwa-ok Bae and Woojin Chung. 2003. “Why Is Son Preference So Persistent in East and South Asia? A Cross-Country Study of China, India and the Republic of Korea.” The Journal of Development Studies 40(2): 153–187. Dikotter, Frank. 1998. Imperfect Conceptions: Medical Knowledge, Birth Defects and Eugenics in China. New York: Columbia University Press. Fong, Vanessa. 2002. “China’s One Child Policy and the Empowerment of Urban Daughters.” American Anthropologist 104(4): 1098–1109. ——. 2004. Only Hope: Coming of Age Under China’s One-Child Policy. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. ——. 2007. “Morality, Cosmopolitanism or Academic Achievement: Discourses on ‘Quality’ and Urban Chinese-Only-Children Claims to Ideal Personhood.” City and Society 19(1): 86–113. Greenhalgh, Susan. 1993. “The Peasantization of the One-Child Policy in Shaanxi.” Pp. 219–250 in Chinese Families in the Post-Mao Era, edited by Deborah Davis and Stevan Harrell. Berkeley: University of California Press. ——. 1994. “Controlling Births and Bodies in Village China.” American Ethnologist 21(1): 3–30. ——. 2003. “Planned Births, Unplanned Persons: ‘Population’ in the Making of Chinese Modernity.” American Ethnologist 30(2): 196–215. ——. and Edwin Winckler. 2005. Governing China’s Population: From Leninist to Neoliberal Biopolitics. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Guilmoto, Cristophe Z. and Isabelle Attané. 2005. “The Geography of Deteriorating Child Sex Ratio in China and India.” Working paper for the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population. From www.iussp2005.princeton.edu/download. aspx? submissionId=51524. Handwerker, Lisa. 1993. The Hen That Can’t Lay An Egg: The Stigmatization of Female Infertility in Late Twentieth Century China. Unpublished dissertation. Berkeley: University of California. Hong, Zhang. 2007. “From Resisting to ‘Embracing’ the One-Child Rule: Understanding New Fertility Trends in a Central China Village.” The China Quarterly 192: 855–875. Hsu, Carolyn. 2007. Creating Market Socialism: How Ordinary People are Shaping Class and Status in China. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Jacka, Tamara. 2006. Rural Women in Urban China: Gender, Migration, and Social Change. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. Jing Jun. 2000. Feeding China’s Little Emperors: Food, Children, and Social Change. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Johannson, Sten and Ola Nygren. 1991. “The Missing Girls of China: A New Demographic Account.” Population and Development Review 17(1): 35–51. Johnson, Kay Ann. 2004. Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son: Abandonment, Adoption, and Orphanage Care in China. St. Paul, MN: Yeong and Yeong Books. ——., Bang-han Huang, and Li-yaoWang. 1998. “Infant Abandonment and Adoption in China.” Population and Development Review 24(3): 469–85. Judd, Ellen. 2002. The Chinese Women’s Movement Between State and Market. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Li, Shuz-huo, Chu-zhu Zhu and Marcus W. Feldman. 2003. “Gender Differences in Child Survival in Contemporary Rural China: A County Study.” Population Studies 57(1): 95–108.

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Li Yongping and Peng Xizhe. 2000. “Age and Sex Structures.” In The Changing Population of China, Peng Xizhe and Guo Zhigang (eds). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Murphy, Rachel. 2003. “Fertility and Distorted Sex Ratios in a Rural Chinese County: Culture, State, and Policy.” Population and Development Review 29(4): 595–632. ——. 2004. “Turning Peasants Into Modern Chinese Citizens: ‘Population Quality’ Discourse, Demographic Transition and Primary Education.” The China Quarterly 177: 1–20. Pang, Li-hua, Alan De Brauw and Scott Rozelle. 2004. “Working Until You Drop: The Elderly of Rural China.” The China Journal 52: 73–94. Poston, Dudley L. Jr. 2002. “Son Preference and Fertility in China.” Journal of Biosocial Science 34: 333–347. Potter, Sulamith and Jack Potter. 1990. China’s Peasants: The Anthropology of a Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sen, Amartya. 1992. “Missing Women: Social Inequality Outweighs Women’s Survival Advantage in Asia and North Africa.” British Medical Journal 304(6827): 587–88. ——. 1998. “Mortality as an Indicator of Economic Success and Failure.” The Economic Journal 108(446): 1–25. Shang, Xiaoyuan, Xiaoming Wu and Yue Wu. 2005. “Welfare Provision for Vulnerable Children: The Missing Role of the State.” The China Quarterly 181: 122–136. Smith, Christopher J. 2000. China in the Post-Utopian Age. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Tan, Liang-ying. 2008. “Changing Mindsets: How China’s Abnormal Sex Ratio is Turning Its Government into a Champion of Gender Equality.” Asian Journal of Comparative Law 3(1): 1–31. Tang, Zhaoyun. 2005. Research on Modern Chinese Population Policy. Beijing: Knowledge Property Right Publishing Company. White, Tyrene. 2000. “Domination, Resistance and Accommodation in China’s OneChild Campaign.” Pp. 183–2003 in Chinese Society: Change, Conflict and Resistance, edited by Elizabeth Perry and Mark Selden. London: Routledge. ——. 2006. China’s Longest Campaign: Birth Planning in the People’s Republic, 1949– 2005. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Woronov, Terry Ellen. 2003. Transforming the Future: “Quality” Children and the Chinese Nation. Unpublished dissertation. Chicago: University of Chicago. Xi Xiaoping, Sheng-li Chen and Hong-ping Gu (eds.). 2005. Shengyu wenming. (Civilized Reproduction). Beijing: Guojia renkou he jihua shengyu weiyuanhui xuanchuan jiaoyu sibian (China Population Publishing House). Yan, Yun-xiang. 2003. Private Life Under Socialism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Yardley, Jim. 2008 (March 11). “China Sticking with the One-Child Policy.” New York Times. From: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/11/world/asia/11china.html. Zeng, Yi. 2006. “Necessity and Feasibility of the Two-Children Plus Late Childbearing Policy in China.” Reports on China’s Population and Labor: Demographic Transition and Its Social and Economic Consequences 7: 286–310. Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press. (in Chinese) ——., Tu Ping, Baochang Gu and Xu Yi. 1993. “Causes and Implications of the Recent Increase in the Reported Sex Ratio at Birth in China.” Population and Development Review 19(2): 283–302. Zheng Li. 2004 (August 21). “China Faces Elderly Dilemma.” The China Daily. From http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004–08/21/content–367466.htm. Zhang, Erli. 2005. “Cong ‘wupu’ dishi shuju kan shengyu zhengce dui chusheng xingbie bi he ying you’er siwang lu xingbie bie de yingxiang” (“Using the 5th Census to Analyze the Influence of Birth Control Policies on the Sex Ratio at Birth and Infant Mortality Rate”). Population Research 29: 11–18. (in Chinese)

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Zhang, Kun and Song-lin Zhang. 2005. “Wo guo xuanze xing rengong yinchan zaocheng de yinchan nuying shu guji” (“Estimates of Sex-Selective Abortion of Female Fetuses in China”). Statistical Research 11: 48–51. (in Chinese) Zheng, Zhenzhen. 2006. “Imbalanced Sex Ratio at Birth and Social Consequences.” Reports on China’s Population and Labor: Demographic Transition and Its Social and Economic Consequences 7: 124–137. Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press. (in Chinese)

BOOK REVIEWS Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the Twenty-First Century, by Giovanni Arrighi. London: Verso, 2007. 420 pp. US$35 (hardcover), US$25.95 (paperback). ISBN 1–8446–7104–6. Giovanni Arrighi’s Adam Smith In Beijing is a sequel and elaboration of his two earlier acclaimed works, The Long Twentieth Century and Chaos and Governance in the Modern World. In this magisterial new work, Arrighi focuses on two crucial developments that are shaping world politics, economy and society: one is the rise and the demise of the neo-conservative Project for a New American Century; the other is the so-called rise of China in the late twentieth century in light of Adam Smith’s theory of economic development. Arrighi’s overall thesis is that the failure of the Project of a New American Century and the success of Chinese economic development, taken jointly, have made the realization of Adam Smith’s vision of a world-market society based on greater equality among the world’s civilizations more likely than it ever was in the almost two and a half centuries since the publication of his The Wealth of Nations. The book is divided into four parts, one primarily theoretical and the other three primarily empirical. Part I lays down the theoretical underpinnings of the investigation. Arrighi begins by surveying the recent discovery of the significance of Adam Smith’s theory of economic development for an understanding of Pomeranz’s ‘Great Divergence’ between China and Europe’s historical development since the sixteenth century. Arrighi then reconstructs Smith’s theory and compares it with Marx’s and Schumpeter’s theories of capitalist development. Arrighi’s main contentions are, first, that Smith was neither an advocate nor a theorist of capitalist development and, second, that Smith’s theory of markets as instruments of rule is especially relevant to an understanding of non-capitalist market economies in pre-modern China as well as in post-communist China. Part II uses the expanded Smithian perspective developed in Part I to track the global turbulence that preceded and set the stage for the US embrace of the Project for a New American Century and China’s economic ascent. The origins of the turbulence, according to Arrighi,

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can be traced to an over-accumulation of capital in a global context shaped by the revolt against the West and other revolutionary upheavals of the first half of the twentieth century. The result was a deep crisis of US hegemony in the late 1960s and 1970s—what Arrighi calls the “signal crisis” of US hegemony. The United States responded to this crisis in the 1980s by aggressively competing for capital in global financial markets and with a major escalation of the armament race with the USSR. Although this response succeeded in reviving the fortunes of the US, it had also aggravated the turbulence of the global political economy, making the national wealth and power of the United States ever more dependent on the savings, capital and credit from foreign investors and governments. Part III analyzes the Bush administration’s adoption of the Project for a New American Century as a response to these unintended consequences of previous US policies. Arrighi argues that the Iraqi adventure definitely confirmed the earlier verdict of the Vietnam War—that is, the Western superiority of force has reached its limits and shows strong tendencies towards implosion. While defeat in Vietnam induced the United States to bring China back into world politics to contain the political damages of military defeat, the outcome of the Iraqi debacle may well be the emergence of China as the true winner of the US war on terror. Part IV deals specifically with the dynamics of China’s ascent. After pointing out the difficulties that the United States faces in its attempts to put the genie of Chinese economic expansion back in the bottle of US domination, Arrighi emphasizes how attempts to foresee China’s future behaviour vis-à-vis the United States, its neighbours, and the world at large on the basis of the past experience of the Western system of states are fundamentally flawed. More importantly, Arrighi argues that, as the relevance of the historical legacy of the Western system of states has decreased, the relevance of the earlier China-centred system has increased. Insofar as we can tell, the new Asian age, if there is going to be one, will be the bearer of a fundamental hybridization of the two legacies. The concluding epilogue sums up the reasons why US attempts to roll back the empowerment of the global south have backfired. They have precipitated what Arrighi calls the “terminal crisis” of US hegemony, and have created the conditions for the establishment of the kind of commonwealth of civilization that Adam Smith envisaged more favour-

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able than ever before. However, Arrighi cautions that the emergence of such a commonwealth is far from certain. Western domination may be reproduced in more subtle ways than in the past and, above all, a long period of escalating violence and endless worldwide chaos remains a possibility. Therefore, what world order (or disorder) will eventually materialize largely depends on the capacity of the more populous Southern states, first and foremost China and India, to open up for themselves and the world a socially more equitable and ecologically more sustainable developmental path than the one that has made the fortunes of the West. As a student who is interested in examining the social, economic, political transformations in Chinese societies, I find Arrighi’s book highly illuminating. First, Arrighi offers a ‘longer perspective’ to understand the ‘Great Divergence’ between the historical development of Europe and East Asia. In Part III, Arrighi argues that extroversion of the European power struggle was a major determinant of the peculiar combination of capitalism, militarism, and territorialism that propelled the globalization of the European system, whereas the introversion of the power struggle in East Asia generated a combination of political and economic forces that had no tendency towards endless territorial expansion. Second, Arrighi’s historical perspective also leads him to point out that the success of the reforms in China in the 1980s/1990s has been based on prior achievements of the Chinese revolution in the 1950s/1960s: “It was the combination of the productive base built during the Mao era along with the incentives provided by the household responsibility system that created the boom in agricultural production” (p. 370). Third, Arrighi corrects the misleading interpretation from the West which equates the Chinese economic reforms in the 1980s/1990s (such as introducing market competition, dependency on foreign investment and accumulation by dispossession) as the triumph of neo-liberal capitalism in China. Instead, Arrighi agrees with J. K. Galbraith that China is closer to ‘reformed socialism’ than neo-liberal capitalism because the success of Chinese reforms can be traced to not following the neoliberal policy of shock therapy. The Chinese government has retained the upper hand and has accepted assistance on terms and conditions that suit China’s national interests. “By no stretch of the imagination can it be characterized as the servant of foreign and China Diaspora capitalist interests” (p. 359). Arrighi argues that China’s economic

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reforms are closer to Adam Smith’s theory of economic development than to Marx’s capitalism because they have the following features: the state’s active role in expanding and upgrading the social division of labour, huge expansion of education, the leading role assigned to the formation of the domestic market, the improvement of living conditions in the rural areas and the subordination of capitalist interests to national interests. Finally, Arrighi’s book shows us that ‘the Rise of China’ is a phenomenon that not only affects China proper, but has implications for the world as well. The ‘Rise of China’ could be interpreted not only as an East Asian economic renaissance, but also as an ongoing shift of the epicentre of the global political economy from Western Europe and America to East Asia. Offering a breathtaking tour of the history of the world capitalism over the past three hundred years, this is by far the best book to date in the rapidly growing literature on the rise of China. Alvin Y. So

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

The Chinese Model of Modern Development, edited by Tian-yu Cao. London and New York: Routledge, 2005. 323 pp. US$179 (hardcover). ISBN 0–4153–4518–9. This book grew out of a symposium held in Hangzhou in July 2002 by a group of scholars to probe the Chinese model of modern development. The editor, Tian-yu Cao, sets out in the introduction the aim of the symposium and of the book, namely, to explore the goals of China’s reforms and the ways to achieve them. In this regard, the editor himself advocates a model aiming at humanist socialism, which affirms the developmental path towards market socialism but also takes into account the issue of social justice. The understanding of socialism is further dealt with in Part I of the book, where it is argued that market socialism could be seen as what China should aspire to. It should entail a market economy that can be adjusted and controlled, and it should, at the same time, have democracy on its agenda. Part II consists of five chapters reviewing the historical experience of China’s reform. The chapter by Yu Guang-yuan delineates the stages of reform based on his personal commitment to the process and his own knowledge of the complexities and controversies involved in each stage.

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He also maintains that it was only the “non-essential social system” that could be affected by the Chinese reform but that the “essential social system” should not be allowed to be affected (p. 40). Unfortunately, he falls short of elaborating on this and it leaves unexplained what he actually means by the two. The three essays by Wen Tiejun, Wang Hui and Qin Hui, respectively, look at the background of the reforms. In particular, Wang Hui reviews the economic reform between 1978 and 1989 and the social contradictions that have arisen as a result of the market economy, and in so doing examines in details the underlying causes of the 1989 upheaval. Qin Hui discusses the reform between 1992 and 1997, focusing particularly on the process of privatization in state enterprise reform and the problems associated with it. The last chapter by Samir Amin gives a review of the Chinese ‘market socialism’ project in practice. While conclusive statements on the reforms are yet to be drawn, he warns against a move “toward a pure and simple capitalism” (p. 145). Part III contains four chapters discussing the theoretical deliberations about China’s reforms. Reforms, according to Zhu Houze, represent a withdrawal of state domination, and therefore society has moved back to a situation of normal social functioning; but he also notes that conflicts among various forces in the society have become serious. Cui Zhiyuan in contrast argues that reform initiatives like the household contract responsibility system, the modern enterprise system, the shareholding-cooperative system, and the establishment of township and village enterprises etc. are all indicative of the practices of petty bourgeoisie socialism in China, which has a central economic programme to establish a ‘socialist market economy’ and a central political programme to promote ‘economic and political democracy’. The chapter by Robin Blackburn discusses a more substantive issue, pension funds, wherein he proposes an approach of responsible accumulation for China to model on. David Schweickart’s chapter advances a theory of economic democracy, i.e., market socialism with workplace democracy and social control of investment, which the author believes is where the future of China lies. Part IV is concerned with China’s position in the age of globalization. Yu Keping argues that China’s reform process is at the same time a process of participating actively in globalization, and that economic globalization has brought about important changes in Chinese political culture and hence Chinese politics. Ch’u Wan-wen’s chapter analyzes the impact of globalization on economic development. In particular,

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the author notes that while globalization is an irresistible trend, the developmental states in East Asia have set good examples in promoting their own interests and at the same time participating in the international division of labour. The chapter by Lin Chun repudiates the thesis of cheap labour as China’s comparative advantage in the contested processes of economic globalization. Instead, he argues that the labour price being too low impacts negatively upon the national economy and people’s livelihood and he therefore calls for a strong income policy. Lastly, the chapter by Amiya Kumar Bagchi discusses the policy of economic liberalization in India with largely negative results. This might serve as a negative reference for China’s development. The concluding chapter by Cao hails Deng Xiaoping’s modernization plan as bringing China onto an alternative path of modernity, and hence a Chinese model of modern development. He then goes on to outline the theory and practice of this Chinese model. In theory, the model is built on market logic, socialism and nationalism. In practice, Cao argues that the development of a socialist market economy since 1992 has already brought record results. While not blinded by the fact that there is evidence of the “restoration of capitalism”, he still wishfully believes that “by changing the external environment it is possible to render the market a place for equal and fair competition” (p. 312), that crony privatization could be cut off, and that socialist spiritual civilization could be mobilized to confront the trend of profit-making and consumerism, etc. At this point, one cannot help wondering whether the editor himself is being too optimistic about the realization of this so-called ‘Chinese model’ in China. Reforms, modernization, China’s future development and China’s position in the world have long been hot topics, especially among Chinese intellectuals. This book represents yet another effort to probe into the future of China. But the ‘Chinese model’ advanced here—humanist socialism which takes to its heart socialist democracy—remains to be highly theoretical, abstract, and idealistic. One is not sure if the advocates have indeed looked into the empirical foundations of this model in the actually existing socialism-with-Chinese-characteristics in China. The few chapters by Western scholars make little or no reference to the actual situation in China, and thus lend support to possible charges of empty talk. At the same time, the chapters written by scholars in China tend to be long and winding, with the themes and arguments not always clearly delineated. A stronger introductory chapter outlin-

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ing the organization of the book and a more realistic evaluation of the model in the concluding chapter would surely have made the book a lot more enjoyable to read. Eva P. W. Hung

University of Macau

Exploring ‘Unseen’ Social Capital in Community Participation: Everyday Lives of Poor Mainland Chinese Migrants in Hong Kong, by Sam Wong. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2007. 220 pp. US$34.50 (paperback). ISBN 9–0535–6034–3. In this volume, Wong critiques the application of what he calls the neoinstitutional approach to eradicate poverty. This approach to development is the contemporary state of the art in policies of international bodies (the World Bank), governments (Hong Kong SAR) and many NGOs (social worker-led). He is critical of top-down initiatives to build institutions in the communities of the poor, in order to mobilize them, give the poor clear roles that are tied to the institutional order, and develop leadership. These approaches to eradicate poverty, Wong argues, are based on the idea that what the poor lacks is social capital. He distinguishes two forms of social capital: seen and unseen. Policy makers only legislate or introduce formal or ‘seen’ social capital. For instance, they construct anti-poverty associations that the poor join and even lead, expecting through these the poor can develop weak network ties to mainstream institutions that will give them new opportunities to find jobs, get child care help in order to work and other forms of social support outside the market. Wong maintains that this accepted approach is unlikely to succeed because it mistakenly assumes that building institutions necessarily benefits poor people. Instead, this volume calls for an exploration of ‘unseen’ social capital. Unseen social capital refers to what the poor actually do to get help and who they rely on naturally. To support the poor in their real efforts to get help, it is necessary to understand how their community is structured, by which he means looking for real evidence of their ties and building on these. Through realist ethnographic and participatory methods, Wong closely studies Hong Kong’s new migrants from mainland China. Using the case study method, for a year he researched policies and actions,

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and interviewed leaders and followers in three clan associations and three NGO migrants’ associations in Hong Kong that were designed to help recent arrivals from China. Wong begins with a lengthy and critical literature review, and introduces his realist ethnographic methods, followed by an historical survey of Hong Kong government policies on mainland migrants. He builds his argument in Chapters 4–6, which focus on aspects of institution building: agency structures and institutions. These chapters critique the dominant concepts introduced in Chapter 1, and interweave observations and vignettes from Wong’s field notes to support his critique. Although his data are not presented in a formal manner, his observations are more than anecdotal. They are reality-based and have a truth factor that convinces this reader. His study shows that the poor construct many forms of cooperation in their daily lives. These forms of social support are shaped by social norms, influenced by conscious and unconscious motivations, and subject to changes in priority based on livelihood. These cannot be well understood by social workers and policy makers without study and observation. The specific projects of the community associations reveal that the top-down, well meant attempts by committed and generous social workers to co-opt the poor members often fall flat, and worse, have the effect of polarizing, even destroying, the organizations. The clan organizations are unschooled in modern theories of institution building and they enter his study to illustrate how traditional organizations cannot provide social capital to the poor. They ignore or defy real empowerment of the poor in order to maintain the status-quo and the leaders’ power. Against the inadequacy of that dominant institutional development assumption, Sam Wong calls for a reassessment of institutional dynamics, paying close attention to the complexity of structures in social capital building. He proposes a ‘pro-poor’ perspective which builds on the existing ‘unseen’ social capital, the relationships, needs, priorities, and human motivations of the poor. The bonds they form to get help in the family and neighbourhood fill a need and should be worked with, not thrown aside. These relations are gender specific, vary by family structure and other characteristics of the local community. These relationships are further made more complex by the dual lives of the migrant women studied: living in Hong Kong and having village roles as well. In other words, conducting a pro-poor agenda entails exploring how the poor really live.

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Award winning as a thesis, this study clearly appealed to those in the academy who challenge the dominant mainstream community development motifs. But a word of caution is in order for those not well versed in the rhetoric of community and international development, because he is using terms (neo-institutionalism, social capital) in ways particular to his discipline, and not universally understood by those with other paradigms. I write as one who is deeply committed to what sociologists refer to as neo-institutional theory, one who applauded the fresh breath of the historically rooted, comparative based neo-institutional writings which has finally pushed offstage the functionalist based institutional theory of Smelser and others. As such, I admit to being a bit puzzled at first at Wong’s blanket condemnation of what he called the neoinstitutional/social capital school and his choice of literature to criticize. Continuing my reading, I came to understand that what Wong refers to are followers of Williamson and other rational choice theorists, proponents of economic-individualistic based concepts. So, readers who are outsiders to the community/international development disciplines may be as surprised as I was. Missing in his bibliography are Richard Scott, Paul DiMaggio, Walter Powell and others who apply neo-institutional precepts to organizations and organizational culture. Also absent are our colleagues and sociology scholars of East Asia, neo-institutionalists Mary Brinton and Victor Nee (past president of the ASA). Of course there is no reason to include these scholars, as they do not propose to intervene in the communities of the poor. Indeed, they surely would be quick to state that such artificial institution building programmes would not work. Nevertheless, there are people other than those he cites who carry the labels he criticizes roundly. Still, once I put aside my own paradigm of the neo-institutional literature, I can more clearly see what Sam Wong is referring to. His observations and examples of the everyday actions of the poor as they interface with the development programmes that he interweaves with his pointed theoretical attacks make the picture clear. In thinking about social networks and social ties as many of us do these days, he is right to emphasize going past only the form (what he calls ‘seen’ social capital). In this vein, I mention a meeting of city officials with new PRC immigrants to Canada who could not get jobs in which a scholar remarked that what the immigrants needed was social capital. Of course, the well educated new immigrants were not mute and angrily fought back. What these foreign trained newcomers really needed was for the institutions of governance to be revamped to limit

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the power of the professions. The specific reform needed is legislation that curtails the ability of the professions to keep themselves in power by making the rules about what credentials can be recognized. Those in power need more control exerted over their actions. I suggest we need more clarity in describing the structure of social ties. The poor are on the margins of mainstream structures. I find the concept of social fields useful in analyzing where people’s ties reach, how the full range of their networks connect to structures. Thus, Wong criticizes Granovetter’s concept of the effectiveness of weak ties because weak ties do not help the poor; this may be a sideline argument. What the poor lack is any reach to the mainstream institutional structures. They don’t have in their networks people who are not poor: there are no school or collegial ties to people with solid jobs. And here Wong’s reference to Bourdieu is apt: the new mainland migrant poor resonate distrust among the better off, to whom they have no bridges. Because the poor are embedded in structures that cannot help them to become socially mobile, building institutions for the poor alone will not solve this problem. Exploring ‘Unseen’ Social Capital in Community Participation will be a useful volume for policy makers and practitioners, and sociologists interested in the new migrants in Hong Kong. Janet Salaff, Professor Emerita

University of Toronto

The Shek Kip Mei Myth: Squatters, Fires and Colonial Rule in Hong Kong, 1950–1963, by Alan Smart. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2006. 252 pp. US$65 (hardcover). ISBN 9–6220–9793–6. Public housing is always an important topic in Hong Kong studies. The massive public housing programme launched by the colonial administration from the 1950s was seen by some (e.g., Castells, Goh and Kwok 1990) to be one of the most crucial factors (the reproduction of labour power) contributing to Hong Kong’s economic success. Others saw it as an outstanding achievement by the colonial government in the face of a rapidly growing population because of the influx of Chinese refugees after WWII and waves of illegal immigration in the 1960s and 1970s. So, almost inevitably, the birth and the impacts of the public housing programme always appear in research on Hong Kong. And the Shek Kip Mei fire of December 1953, a fire that made some 58,000

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squatters homeless and was widely perceived as the major incident that marked the beginning of the public housing programme by the colonial government, occupies a very special status in the discourse on Hong Kong. Over the years, the Shek Kip Mei fire has grown into a myth (even the critics of the public housing programme would uncritically see it as the beginning of the colonial government’s intervention in resettlement and housing provisions). But Smart, based upon thorough archival research, suggests otherwise. This is a valuable contribution to Hong Kong studies, particularly in the areas of Hong Kong history, housing studies, urban sociology, the role of the state and colonial urban development. Smart confronts the so-called Shek Kip Mei myth not so much by denying its significance (which after all was an important incident) but rather by arguing that “a crucial element of an adequate explanation for this pivotal change has been neglected in previous accounts: the geopolitical vulnerability of a British colony on the edge of communist China during the early stages of the Cold War” (p. 3). Given the importance of public housing in Hong Kong’s social development, several explanations for its origins have been suggested. In addition to the labour power reproduction thesis stated above, there are the market failure explanation, the property development thesis (land would be released for private property development by clearing the squatters), the explanation emphasizing pressures from Britain, and the state control and regulation (particularly driven by sanitation concerns) thesis. Smart took a critical look at the archival materials in Hong Kong’s Public Records Office and tries to argue that none of these explanations can satisfactorily explain why the colonial government took the initiatives in clearing the squatters and offering resettlement by providing the fire victims with accommodation in government built housing blocks. Furthermore, by examining government actions prior to the Shek Kip Mei fire and contextualizing that major fire in a series of fire disasters in other squatter areas around that time, Smart raises doubt about whether that particular event was the turning point in Hong Kong’s housing history. One reason for misplacing the Shek Kip Mei fire as the turning point of government housing policy is that “research is concentrated on those decisions and events that, after the fact, are seen as leading in the direction taken. By contrast, issues and topics that are assumed to have been dead ends and backwaters are generally neglected” (p. 182). Indeed, one of the major contributions of this book lies in the fact that the author has successfully re-opened the

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research agenda on state and society of contemporary Hong Kong. By de-mystifying the Shek Kip Mei myth, and questioning the inevitability of the outcome of government resettlement programme, Smart has forcefully shown us how a rethinking of Hong Kong history can help us reconsider other established ‘wisdoms’ (e.g., the ideology and practice of positive non-interventionism) about Hong Kong society as well. Despite his emphasis on the political side of the issue (particularly the geopolitics of the early Cold War era), Smart’s explanation of the birth of public housing in Hong Kong is not monocausal. He argues that “[t]he adoption of multi-storey Resettlement is better understood as the eventual result of a learning process punctuated by a continuing series of crises” (p. 189). To understand why the colonial administration provided fire victims with public housing, one has to be sensitive to those issues arising from Hong Kong’s political situation in the early post-War years. Smart’s point on the significance of political factors is perceptive and important. But I am a bit surprised to find that he has not really taken up the question and spelled out more thoroughly how the geopolitics of the Cold War era impacted on Hong Kong and its colonial rule. This is most evident in his treatment of the case of Tung Tau. Smart presents that case in Chapter 5 and is well aware of the political implications of the relief mission organized by the Communists after the fire. Yet, his discussion of that case is brief (partly, I believe, because it did not bring about a major change in the colonial government’s approach to squatter clearance and resettlement). In fact, that fire and its aftermath became a major incident of political contention between the colonial government on the one side and the Chinese Government as well as the local communists in Hong Kong on the other. Not only had the abrupt ending of the visit of the relief mission from the mainland resulted in a riot in Kowloon, the incident also became an issue of diplomatic confrontation between China and Hong Kong (for details, see Zhou 2002). The point I want to make here is not that Smart has neglected the wider implications of the Tung Tau fire but rather that his argument in that chapter deserves further elaboration. Such further elaboration should help reinforce his argument and underline the strength of his political explanation.

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References Castells, Manuel, Lee Goh and R. Yin-wang Kwok. 1990. The Shekkipmei Syndrome: Economic Development and Public Housing in Hong Kong and Singapore. London: Pion. Zhou, Yi. 2002. Xinanggang Zuopai Douzhengshi [A History of the Leftists’ Struggles]. Hong Kong: Liwen Chuban. (in Chinese)

Tai-lok Lui

Chinese University of Hong Kong

Gender and Community under British Colonialism: Emotion, Struggle and Politics in a Chinese Village, by Siu Keung Cheung. London: Routledge, 2006. 216 pp. US$110 (hardcover). ISBN 0–8248–3099–7. This fine book is the Ph.D. project of Siu Keung Cheung, a dynamic writer with multiple scholarly interests. This volume is a critical rethinking of the evolution and effects of colonial rule in Hong Kong’s New Territories. The title lays out its subject matter, an engaging with the patrilineal laws and policies, and their working out in practice in the New Territories village of Da Shu (pseudonym), home of the Deng lineage (Tang, 鄧), located in the vicinity of Fanling. Like many other Hong Kong social scientists of his generation, Siu Keung Cheung is well trained in the classic anthropology-sinology texts, as well as contemporary social concepts. He is able to reframe older issues in a new paradigm, distancing himself from the inherited classics. His youth helps. Having matured in the waning years of the British colonial project, Cheung does not frame his scholarship in its voice. Further he had personal ties to his mother’s village, where he is both an insider and outsider. The accepted colonial view is that the British followed patrilineal tradition and continued Qing family custom so as to appease the mainland Chinese. Cheung argues that, in fact, the British took part in evolving the current patrilineal legal code and the administrative forms of local New Territories rule, which differed from outside this area. They did so in order to placate the villagers, who took arms against the imposition of colonial rule. Villagers were co-opted in the construction of indirect rule. Further, we learned from sinological classics of Freedman, Potter, and others, that these villages reflect classic village China. Cheung argues that Chinese villages have been dynamic entities with polyphonic

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voices. Not all pay obeisance to strict patrilineal control of the lineage men who inherit the ancestral land and houses. Cheung contributes to our understanding of political action, family, gender and social class in Hong Kong in six main chapters (plus the Introduction and Conclusion). These inform us that the history of Hong Kong colonial settlement saw the British restructure a living dynamic way of life. In contrast to the much cited view that Hong Kong was a barren rock which the British civilized, in fact human activity in Hong Kong dates back over 5000 years, centred in the New Territories and Lamma and other islands. Needing the agriculture and fishing resources of this hinterland, although it was relatively poor, the British forced cession of the New Territories in the third lease from China (the Second Convention of Beijing), on July 1, 1898, for 99 years. One of the five great clans in the New Territories, the Dengs were among the earliest recorded settlers. British colonial rule evolved over time, developing laws and policies, of which patrilineality was a key stone to indirect rule. The leadership’s claim to protect Chinese customary law, Cheung argues, was a fiction. The institutional edifice that we know of as rural New Territories patrilineal society was socially constructed. Th e socalled Chinese customary law was observed in pieces, as it suited the colonial authorities’ indirect rule. Most crucial, women found their own way around the coercive legal codes, which impoverished them economically and spiritually. In Chapter Three, we learn that families did not successfully establish the patrilineal way of life. For generations, couples did not bear sons, and families had to adopt males from those kin with more than one, to conduct ancestral rites. Many men did not provide for their families. Corrupted by their excessive authority, they gambled, drank, frittered away their time and their ancestral property. Emigrating to earn a living in Europe, sons established new families abroad, and saw little advantage in maintaining the ancestral tradition. Others, with little interest in farming, rented their land to mainland migrants. The sale of increasingly valuable land to developers also undercut the traditional way of life. Village women took actual control of many aspects of village life, because of the failure of patrilineal support. In Chapter Four, we learn how women worked hard to earn enough for their family survival. They informally gathered and exchanged information and developed liaisons, often able to bar what they uniformly saw as an injustice. Chapter Five links the women’s daily practices,

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network formation and forms of social activism with the actual means of getting influence. An example is that of a woman whose sole son, a drug addict, was slated to inherit the family property, land and leased houses, on which his mother relied for income. The villagers feared that upon his release from jail, the errant son would sell everything to get money for drugs. Neighbours pressured the mother to comply with the canny plan that they formulated so that she could hold onto the property practically, if not legally. (You will need to read the book to learn how they succeeded in manipulating the law to accomplish this end.) The Deng women went beyond their village confines as well. Although they lacked formal political status, they were political actors. There is the story of Deng Amei’s inheritance struggle. In the spring of 1994, village women grouped to demand legal change. Dressed in the village garb, they sang folk laments with new lyrics about injustice and inequality. Demonstrators from women’s groups joined in with speeches about gender equality; across Statue Square, a conservative group representing rural elite interests, the Heung Yee Kuk, gathered to protest female inheritance on the grounds that it would undermine tradition. Through non-village alliances formed with Cristine Loh, and other new voices in Patten’s legislature, they strove to bring about the legal changes necessary to obtain equality in inheritance (Chapter 6). Patten manoeuvred his position to appear on the side of equality, presenting himself as keen on implementing just laws, if it were not for the opposition of the Heung Yee Kuk, the conservative male leaders, who opposed reform. Also joining in were the representatives of the PRC, which opposed any legislative change, and sided with the Heung Yee Kuk. Small events merged with larger movements; alliances were made and broken. Eventually, using human rights rhetoric, local understandings were transformed. Others have referred to this event in terms of globalism, which allows locals to transform laws using global understandings; for example, an “odd juxtaposition of rural women wearing farm hats and the transnational rhetoric of rights and gender equality that they employed to lobby for legal change” (Merry and Stern 2005). Cheung’s account weaves in local women’s kinship grievances to deepen our understanding of how the women used their practical methods to rectify injustice and get what they needed for daily life. The inheritance laws were changed. Yet Amei, one of the women who sparked the fight, settled back for a crumb of the pie, her mother’s land.

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She was satisfied with working within cultural limits and did not push for fuller rights to ancestral property now possible (albeit with a fight) under the new legislation. This is a story of the internally stratified villagers in dynamic confrontation with governmental powers and privileged figures. Both villagers and government come across as non-unified, with multiple agendas. It is a good story. One would have liked to hear more in the volume about the role of the PRC. As the colonial period drew to a close, mainland cadres and those sympathetic with retrocession stepped up activities in all areas of social life. The women’s movement in the New Territories was not exempt from their united front activities. This reader would have liked to learn even more about how the PRC manifested their presence politically in this small part of the world as Hong Kong moved towards the handover. This densely detailed case study of one village uses participant observation, conversations and histories of families (Cheung calls them life stories), triangulated with his own village census and government demographic and other documentation. The import of this tale goes beyond the village gates (which anyway were removed as a punishment for villagers’ anti-colonial uprisings). It speaks in colourful yet analytic terms to the interplay between formal procedures and how people create their own life fabric in, by means of, and underneath the structures. References Freedman, Maurice. 1958. Lineage Organization in Southeast China. London: Athlone Press. Merry, Sally Engle, and Rachel E. Stern. 2005. “The Female Inheritance Movement in Hong Kong: The Local/Global Interface.” Current Anthropology 46(3): 387–409. Potter, Jack. 1968. Capitalism and the Chinese Peasant. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Janet Salaff, Professor Emerita

University of Toronto

The Great Difference: Hong Kong’s New Territories and its People 1898–2004, by James Hayes. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2006. 289 pp. US$49.50 (hardcover). ISBN 9–6220–9794–4. Like many cities around the world, Hong Kong has had its fair share of urban development since the end of the Second World War. Pre-war

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farmlands and barren hills were suddenly replaced by highways, mass transit systems and suburban communities. These new infrastructures were designed to keep suburban areas away from the downtown core. Unlike the other world cities where people were moving into the suburbs immediately after the war ended, Hong Kong did not experience its meaningful suburbanization until well into the 1970s. A major factor of this had to do with its geopolitical circumstances. What was the real status of the New Territories in the British Colony? How would the Chinese Communist have reacted had the New Territories been developed? These are the major questions that are systematically reviewed and answered in this book. While there were a vast number of publications devoted to Hong Kong studies leading up to the crucial year of 1997, a book written in English specifically dealing with the social and political history of the New Territories could not be found. Despite its obvious geopolitical importance to the British colonial authorities and Beijing, the region was seen as only a gigantic Hong Kong suburb located on the north side of Kowloon’s Lion Rock. It is unlikely a university student today would recognize that people living in Tseung Kwan O, Tsuen Wan and Sha Tin were ruled differently from those living in Wan Chai or Mongkok, or even know that the Chek Lap Kok International Airport is part of the New Territories. James Hayes’ The Great Difference will certainly make a ‘great difference’ for anyone who wishes to learn more about this unique part of Hong Kong. Without a doubt, the New Territories was a political headache for the colonial British. The region was not ceded by the Imperial Qing Government to Britain during the two respective Opium Wars but was leased to it in 1898 for a 99-year period. A large number of its inhabitants had always maintained their distance and animosity to colonial rule. In the early-1980s, furthermore, that 99-year lease became the base for the Chinese Communist Government to demand the ‘re-establishment’ of its rule over the entire colony (not just the New Territories) on July 1st, 1997. Drawing from his personal experience as a Hong Kong government official who rose through the ranks as a young cadet officer in the late1950s to Regional Secretary of the New Territories in the 1980s, Hayes uncovers the mystique of the New Territories through the perspective of a British colonial administrator. With the arrival of the British, Hayes praises the administrative service for first conducting an impartial land survey under the authority of Colonial Secretary Stewart Lockhart. The

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survey replaced the ‘unsophisticated and ineffective’ Imperial Qing registry system. Hayes also argues that the British made substantial economic and infrastructural contribution to the New Territories. Who would have imagined that the armed services and the Fan Ling Golf Club would have such an economic impact on the region? Who would have known that the British would have built the reservoirs and the railway system which, in turn, improved the overall living standard in the New Territories? The British, as Hayes argues, brought the New Territories to contemporary civilization. Hayes also places substantial emphasis on the animosity of the New Territories villagers towards the British Colonial rule especially among the traditional gentry class. This anti-British sentiment persisted well into the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong and into the postwar period when many villagers joined the pro-communist guerrillas and supported the leftwing activists during the 1967 Disturbance. The 1949 Revolution further made tremendous transformations for New Territories. This came along with the sudden decline of rice farming in the New Territories, which led to the massive exodus of villagers to Britain, Western Europe and the rest of Hong Kong. Empty dwellings are a common sight in the region today. The year 1949, moreover, brought the substantial increase of British military presence in the New Territories. At its height, there were 40,000 soldiers in the region. In light of the population boom throughout the 1950s and 1960s, plans to develop suburbs beyond Hong Kong Island and Kowloon were proposed. Soon, rice paddies were replaced with buildings and roads. These schemes were unprecedented in the region’s history. With the growth of the New Territories population and the addition of non-local inhabitants ever since, the tradition of ‘mutual good relations’ (or Kam Ching) was lost forever. People had more opportunities to improve their lifestyles. Evidently, local inhabitants improved upon their appearance and the way they dressed. As Hayes argues, the traditional differences of the New Territories from the rest of Hong Kong were lost forever. Hayes’s book is definitely an eye opener for many researchers of Hong Kong history. However, there are some aspects that he could have dealt with more adequately. First, he portrays the New Territories as a region where there was no history prior to British colonial rule. He extensively compared the differences between the New Territories and the rest of Hong Kong. The region, as he argues, had nothing other than rice paddies where villagers would rather speak the Hakka dialect than Cantonese. He also raises the idea that these inhabitants lived the same way they had for generations. Hayes constantly reminds his readers of

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the primitive life of the ordinary New Territories people which was gradually improved after the lease began in 1898. This interpretation is basically from an Anglo-centred point of view. Readers would prefer a more balanced portrait of the history of New Territories through adopting view points from a local perspective as well. Second, with so much discussion on the benefits of British presence such as reservoirs, railway and military barracks, why has the author failed to mention the impact of the universities? The Chinese University of Hong Kong was gradually relocated to Sha Tin in the late-1960s. What impact did it have on the development of the New Territories? What about the establishment of the main campus of Lingnan University in Tuen Muen in the 1990s? Besides educational benefits, what further impacts did it have on the Northwest part of the New Territories? Hayes furthermore does not mention the opening of the Sha Tin Racecourse in 1978. The racecourse also brought the existence of a separate KCR railway service to the ‘Racetrack’ station every weekend. It is hard to believe that the 2008 Beijing Olympics Committee would have chosen its equestrian venue in Beas River in Sha Tin had there been no Sha Tin Racecourse. These colossal infrastructural projects dated since the late-1960s and 1970s should be included in order to give a well-rounded picture of the New Territories’ link with the rest of Hong Kong. Even so, James Hayes should be congratulated for making a significant contribution to the study of Hong Kong (not just the New Territories). His book should be a preparatory reading for researchers who wish to conduct further studies on the New Territories and rural Hong Kong. As a person who was born and raised in Hong Kong and has studied many aspects of Hong Kong history and politics since entering graduate school in late-1990s, I should admit that I have overlooked the fact that the New Territories had always been regarded as a separate entity. I should also admit that the region had its unique culture and governance, which a common Hong Kong Chinese today generally ignores. Unlike Hayes’s nephews and nieces who were born in the 1960s—a decade before me, I cannot recall visiting the New Territories for Sunday picnics and having the opportunity to distinguish the New Territories from other parts of Hong Kong. I would never have thought that most New Territories inhabitants were deprived of essential services such as electricity and piped water until well into the 1960s. Hayes, in essence, has opened my eyes. Kenneth Lan

United International College, Zhuhai, China

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The Politics of Buddhist Organizations in Taiwan: 1989–2003: Safeguard the Faith, Build a Pure Land, Help the Poor, by André Laliberté. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004. 224 pp. US$190 (hardcover). ISBN 0–4153–2235–9. A few of the largest Buddhist organizations in Taiwan are famously rich and socially influential. They offer an extraordinary range of community and social services, but differ greatly in their engagements with politics and the state since the end of martial law in the late 1980s. In some societies in Asia, the main Buddhist organizations have been notable collaborators or equally notable opponents of particular regimes. In Taiwan, the picture is not so clear. Why should we study the varieties of political activism or quietism among Taiwan Buddhists? One reason this deserves close attention is because of the increased political engagement of religious organizations and activists in many societies during the past two decades, and the need to understand the reasons for the great variations in political engagement. Recent cross-national studies have attempted to classify the many variations in state interactions with religions (e.g., Fox 2008). Although this can be a useful exercise, cross-national studies cannot incorporate enough local context and local history. We particularly need more research on religion and politics in Chinese societies. A few good studies of Buddhism in predominantly Chinese societies have recently been published (e.g., Kuah-Pearce 2003, on Singapore). Taiwan is also an important context in which to study interactions between religions and politics, because all of the major religions currently or previously active in mainland China are active in Taiwan, and the Taiwanese political system is relatively open and pluralistic. Since the end of martial law in 1987, Taiwanese politics and elections have engaged Taiwanese citizens, parties, and media in intense debates and fervent political campaigns. But a few large Buddhist organizations, while sharing a great deal of religious ideology and culture with each other, have taken very different approaches to these political developments, and to their relations with the state and the ruling party. This book focuses on three of these large and wealthy Buddhist organizations: the Buddha Light Mountain monastic order (Foguangshan Si), the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Association (Ciji Gongdehui, or Ciji) and the Buddhist Association of the Republic of China or BAROC (Zhongguo Fojiaohui). The author characterizes their

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politics during the 1990s (and up to 2003) under three broad types: avoidance, the strategy famously pursued by Ciji, in which the founder and leader does not take partisan positions, nor comment pointedly on political affairs; remonstrance, commonly practised by Foguangshan, in which religious leaders may openly support some alternative politicians and policies, and comment pointedly on state affairs, but do not get closely involved with the state or the regime; and lobbying, the strategy notably associated with BAROC, in which religious leaders actively try to lobby, cajole and manipulate regime leaders and regime policies privately and publicly, especially for the benefit of the religious organization and its allies. Laliberté asks a simple question: why have these large and influential Buddhist organizations taken such different approaches to the world of politics? He considers three hypotheses: (1) the organizations which are the largest and richest in members and resources are likely to be the most politically active; (2) the organizations which have the best convergence between the leadership and the lay followers, by gender or by ‘ethnicity’ (mainland-born or Taiwan-born as both the leaders and the lay members) will be better able to mobilize followers for political activity; and (3) the characteristics and aims of the particular leaders, independent of other factors, are the only way to understand the politics of these organizations as they address or cajole or avoid political regimes and parties. Comparing the three organizations, only the ‘leadership’ explanation seems to work. In the comparison between Foguangshan and BAROC, it does seem to be the case that ‘ethnic’ and gender congruence between leaders and followers, and greater organizational resources, help us to understand differences in the preferred political strategies of those two organizations. But Ciji does not fit that pattern. As the case of Ciji illustrates so well, charismatic and authoritarian leaders seem able to draw their organizations into their own particular strategies and aims in dealing with politics and the state, independently of other factors. Laliberté helpfully notes that religious leaders in other societies have similarly shown the ability to mobilize followers according to their own political preferences. Indeed, the importance of this ‘personal-leadership’ variable is a periodically unfortunate feature of religious leadership. This point can be extensively documented for many other religious groups in Asia (compare, for example, Soka Gakkai and Aum Shinrikyo in Japan) and overseas (compare, for example, the Father Divine Peace Mission and the People’s Temple in the U.S.,

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which appealed to similar constituencies for similar reasons, but had very different fates as a result of the radically different personalities and preoccupations of their leaders). To pursue this important factor of ‘the leader’ further, we would also need to look at the recruitment and socialization of successive generations of leaders. Laliberté notes, for example, that while Ciji is still strongly influenced by the personality and aims of its founder and leader, Zhengyan, and has not yet institutionalized or bureaucratized the training and succession of new leaders (since the founder was still very much in control at the time of his research), BAROC and Foguangshan are both training the next generation of leaders to continue with current policies (dissenters generally depart for other organizations). Some comparisons with the similar leadership and leadership-succession issues in other types of Taiwanese religious organizations, such as the various divisions of the Yiguan Dao sects, would have been interesting, but perhaps that task would be too ambitious for this book. The author devotes some attention to claims that Confucian culture has influenced the political activities of Buddhist organizations in Taiwan and other allegedly ‘Confucian’ societies in Asia, but he decides that the variations in the types and extent of political activism of Buddhist organizations among these societies are too great for any simple ‘culture’ variable to be very useful. He does not really consider the effect of local political context and local political struggles on the activism of religious organizations in his periodic attempts at comparative analysis. Nevertheless, his historical analysis does helpfully consider local political developments in Taiwan (martial law, KMT dominance until 1989, democratization, etc.), even if the various Buddhist leaders have each chosen different responses to those developments. The strategy of BAROC in attempting to use the Taiwanese state to retain its own control over Buddhism in Taiwan, and its loss of credibility partly as a result of the failure of that strategy, is a particularly interesting study in one type of state-religion alliance. More attention to the issue of gender in religious leadership would have been interesting for some readers of this book, especially since the male leader of Foguangshan had very deliberately promoted and supported female leaders within the organization, leading to a notably egalitarian internal organizational culture, while BAROC is still dominated by an inner cadre of male leaders even while most of the followers are female. But that will be a task for other scholars.

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This book is a well-researched and interesting study of these Buddhist organizations in Taiwan, and is a valuable resource for sociologists, anthropologists and political scientists interested in the political strategies of Buddhist organizations in Chinese societies. It is also very stimulating for scholars interested in comparative analysis of religious activism. References Fox, Jonathan. 2008. A World Survey of Religion and the State. New York: Cambridge University Press. Kuah-Pearce, Khun Eng. 2003. State, Society, and Religious Engineering: Towards a Reformist Buddhism in Singapore. Singapore: Eastern Universities Press.

Graeme Lang

City University of Hong Kong

Chinese Transnational Networks, edited by Tan Chee-Beng. London and New York: Routledge, 2007. 214 pp. US$150 (hardcover). ISBN 0–4153–9583–6. This edited volume is the result of a collective effort by a team of international scholars to re-examine the diversity and nature of transnational networks that have evolved between China and Chinese overseas as well as among ethnic Chinese in different national locations. Most chapters are the revised papers presented at the International Conference on Qiaoxiang (the ancestral homeland of Chinese overseas), which was held in Quanzhou, China in 2004. Tan Chee-Beng organized the conference and edited this volume, which is published by Routledge as the latest volume under its Chinese Worlds Series. This volume, consisting of nine chapters in addition to the Introduction, is divided into three parts. Part One focuses on transformations of the ancestral homes of Chinese overseas, particularly those in the Pearl River Delta area; Part Two deals with the development of transnational links between China and Chinese overseas in local and global contexts; Part Three explores the diversity of settlements of Chinese overseas and the reproduction of their home identities. The topic of Chinese networks is nothing new. However, this volume distinguishes itself from previous research by its forceful and coherent analysis of the socio-cultural dimension of the transnational

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networks and by its wide-ranging and rich empirical evidence. The authors of this book, most of whom are experienced anthropologists, sociologists and historians, have their analysis grounded in long-time fieldwork in different overseas Chinese communities, such as those in Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, the US, and Trinidad and Tobago. This makes it possible for them to present a broad picture of Chinese transnationalism and make original arguments. For example, it is often assumed that the rapid modernization and industrialization of the Pearl River Delta, the ancestral homeland for many Chinese overseas, is caused by the huge investment from Chinese overseas, who are motivated by their emotional attachment and ethnic affinity to their homeland. However, in their chapters, Graham Johnson and Yow Cheun Hoe show convincingly that the transformation of this area is mainly due to the development of the market economy, the area’s increasing connection to the outside world and to the investment from Hong Kong. If there is an economic link between Chinese overseas and qiaoxiang, they argue, it is mostly in the form of donations for social welfare rather than investment in factories and trade. Based on his study of Ye-surnamed people in Malaysia, who are originally from Shishan Township of Nan’an County in Fujian, Tan Chee-Beng discovers that links between Chinese in Malaysia and their ancestral home in China are much more social and ritual than of a business nature. He persuasively argues that, as kin ties become unavoidably less important and irrelevant after generations, it is religious attachment and worship to ancestors that play key roles in linking Chinese overseas to China. While politics constitutes an important topic in the historical study of overseas Chinese communities in the first half of the 20th century, it has been ignored by most recent research on Chinese transnational networks. This book fills this gap by including two chapters on the political dimension of Chinese transnational networks. The Chapter by Pei-te Lien discusses the influences of Taiwanese in the US on the democratization of Taiwan, and in his chapter, Gregor Benton describes the participation of Chinese overseas in the Comintern and early political involvement in leftist movements in different countries. These two chapters will inspire more research on the political aspects of transnationalism; for example, research on social and political changes in the PRC, which are associated with the involvement of haigui (Chinese returnees), or on the making of the new Chinese nationalism by the global dispersion of new Chinese migrants.

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This volume not only broadens the thinking on Chinese transnationalism, but also sheds new light on many current theoretical debates in this field. First, although the notion of ‘transnational network’ is used in this book in a liberal manner, the editor makes it very clear in the Introduction that the term ‘transnationalism’ is defined by individuals’ experience of social living in a particular place and their identification with it, and the study of Chinese transnational networks should not be seen as only a part of China-centred globalization research, as is the case in many recent works on Chinese globalization. As the editor argues, Chinese overseas have “acquired new perceptions of themselves in relation to their countries of residence and to China . . . generally have more spaces to negotiate their ethnicity and identities, and they can have different layers of identities without any contradiction” (p. 2). This position is best reflected in the term CDN, an abbreviation for “Chinese of different nationalities”, which is coined by the editor and used throughout this volume. In contrast to the old terms such as huaqiao (Chinese citizens residing abroad) and huaren (foreign citizens with Chinese ethnicity), both of which define overseas Chinese from China’s point of view, CDN, which “emphasizes the reference to Chinese of different nationalities” (p. 17), clearly underscores the multiple dimensionality of Chinese networks and the complexity and fluidity of Chinese identities. A core issue explored in this book is the multiplicity of homelands, through which the factual localization of Chinese overseas is well demonstrated. Tan Chee-Beng reflects on his personal experience of having changing identification of homes. Being a Malaysia-born Chinese of Fujian origin and having worked in Hong Kong for more than ten years, he now has a feeling of home towards three places: Malaysia, Hong Kong and China, but in different meanings. Huang Shu-min provides a stimulating account of how the Yunnanese have established a new homeland in Thailand through localization process, while maintaining their links with mainland China and Taiwan. Walton Look Lai, in contrast, succeeds in making a systematic historical study of the Chinese immigration to Trinidad and Tobago, describing the process of how the Chinese immigrants established transnational links between various homelands outside China. The editor contends that “[h]ome is where one lives, and they may be multiple homelands. In fact we can speak of homeland of residence, homeland of emigration and ancestral homeland . . . due to re-migration, one can even have multiple ancestral

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homelands . . . this is a major ideological breakthrough in the modern globalized world, and this distinguishes it from earlier globalization and transnationalism” (pp. 7–9). Second, and closely related to the point summarized above, the authors of this volume do not believe that the various forms of Chinese transnationalism have all ‘deterritorialized’. In contrast to many other works that define Chinese transnationalism by global capitalism and modernity and emphasize the dislocation and deterritorialization of Chinese overseas, this volume highlights the social and cultural attachment that transnational migrants have maintained to their places of residence, and, in particular, the social and cultural relevance of qiaoxiang to the historical formation of overseas Chinese communities. The chapter by Min-hsi Chan explains how the diversity of emigrant localities in southern China has shaped the distinctive features of Chinese overseas. For example, many people from Zengcheng have brought their wives and families to New Zealand, and their links with home villages in China have thinned out. This fact partially explains their smoother localization and success in running family businesses in New Zealand; in comparison, people from Zhongshan have continued to maintain intense and frequent linkages with their home villages in China, which facilitates them in establishing business networks between Australia and China (particularly in running chain department stores). In the chapter by Jiemin Bao, we see how the lukchin, descendants of pre-1949 Chinese immigrants to Thailand, have changed to emphasize their Chinese identity, because the increasing economic significance of China in the region can give them an advantageous edge on the job market. The editor concludes that “Chinese international networks are influenced by local, international, and global events, and the transnationalism between CDN and China are also influenced by the changing identities of CDN and by China as a growing world power . . . many of them (the CDNs) would welcome an economically strong China that is at peace with the rest of the world, since their Chinese identities are unlikely to be totally independent of their ancestral root in China” (p. 16). Notwithstanding the many merits of this book, there are a couple of issues that deserve further discussion. First, ‘network’ is among the most debatable notions in the glossaries of social sciences and thus needs careful definition when used. For instance, ‘network’ can be used either as a descriptive concept or as an analytical concept; it may appear in various forms and has different layers. The reader would like to see more discussion that clarifies to what extent a particular study

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relates to or differs from the formulations of networks in other studies. Second, while transnationalism is a useful model for analyzing Chinese networks, it also has limitations in that it often highlights rather than dissolves the polarization between concepts like origin and destination and continues to frame migration within a journey of two ends. This book would have been enhanced by a more adequate discussion on the in-betweenness of Chinese migrants or the roles of global cities, such as Singapore and Hong Kong, in network (re)configuration and identity (re)construction. In sum, this volume provides us with original and comprehensive analyses of the most recent development of social and cultural links between China and Chinese overseas. It is an important contribution to existing studies of the Chinese Diaspora, global migration and Chinese societies. Researchers, students and anyone interested in these fields will find it essential reading. Wang Cangbai

University of Westminster

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