On November 27, 2021, Professor David of the Department of History, Chinese University of Hong Kong, gave an online lecture entitled "From Sketches of Life to Social and Economic History" at the 5th Advanced Seminar on Local Literature and History at East China Normal University. The lecture was presided over by Professor Feng Xiaocai of the Department of History of East China Normal University.
What David Ko calls "sketches of life" is a translation of the English word "ephemera," a term that many libraries use to denote a certain type of collection that is something that is used briefly in life. For example, movie tickets, people do not keep such items for a long time, often used up and discarded. Oxford University has a large collection of such items from Britain, such as 18th-century cinema tickets, matchstick advertisements, blacksmith paper, and so on. Folk documents are also "sketches of life", and David Ke mentioned that he became interested in such objects in the 1980s, so he collected some piecemeal pieces and pieces, taking the opportunity to show them and share them with everyone.
Field paperwork
The parcel of land documents presented by David Ke originally belonged to a graduate of the History Department of the University of Chinese, Hong Kong, and has now been donated to the University of Chinese in Hong Kong. He reminds researchers to pay attention to the original appearance of the materials like archaeology. Wrapping the same batch of material together was how people handled archives at that time.
According to David, there was a big problem with some of the ways in which folk documents were handled, that is, from the time the material left its original owner to the time it reached the collector, the outer packaging was opened and registered separately. This treatment will cause many consequences, one is easy to lose a lot of information about this batch of materials, and the other is to destroy the coherence of the same batch of materials, and it is very difficult for future researchers to comprehensively collect materials and re-establish the coherence of materials. There is a similar situation in Huizhou documents, and the Huizhou documents seen now are collected in different institutions, and even some documents that belong to the same family are scattered in different institutions. In view of this, on the one hand, literary and historical workers need to collect these local materials, on the other hand, when preserving these materials, they must also try to maintain their original appearance.
"Rebuilding the Jade Emperor Temple"
Inscription is also a common folk document, and attention should also be paid to preserving the original appearance when collecting and sorting out inscription documents. David Ke mentioned that he encountered difficulties when using the "Zezhou Inscription Encyclopedia". Among them, the "Record of Rebuilding the Jade Emperor Temple" was engraved in the seventh year of Jin Taihe and is very precious. It is just that the book only contains the stele yang, but not the stele yin. However, the stele records the management structure of the place and is very important information. After David saw this stele on the ground, he realized that these important information of the stele had not been included, and he was very sorry for this. The way in which local literary and historical materials are sorted out has greatly affected the value of these materials.
"Goose Lake Township Affairs Return to the Ruler"
The Foshan Museum has preserved a collection of handwritten letters, "Goose Lake Township Affairs Past And Returns to the Ruler", which is a correspondence about the nomination of the patriarch in the three years of the Republic of China's implementation of the regulations of the county government. From these letters, it can be seen that the nominees have long been enthusiastic about the public affairs of Foshan Town, set up a good hall through the guilds of their own trades, and were appointed by foshan Dakui Hall as the value of Foshan granary. He had a relatively high status in the local area, and had been elected by the gentry and elders of his constituency, namely the "shop", as a foshan member of the Consultative Council, and became the chairman of the committee of the shop. This material allows us to see the situation of local society in the early years of the Republic of China from a microscopic perspective.
"Tangang Township Association Board Of Directors Proposal Book"
Another example can be found in the "Proposal Book of the Board of Directors of the Tangang Township Association", which was found by Mr. Hui Shu in a second-hand bookstore in Hong Kong and purchased by David Ke and Xu Shu. In addition to the minutes of the meetings, the material includes records of lawsuits, title deeds and a booklet of funds raised in 1919. Copies of the minutes of most years are available in the South China Research Center of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and the original is now at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Using these documents, as well as the regulations of the "Clan Revival Savings Association" and the map of Tangang Township, David Ke wrote the article "Clan Socialism and Public Control: Tangang Township in the 1920s and 1930s".
This batch of materials restores the story of the reconstruction of Tangang Township in Xinhui, Guangdong Province, which was destroyed in the village fight, and in 1919 the Nguyen clan of the village, under the patronage of the township council, raised funds to rebuild the village by way of loans. One of the characteristics of this work is that the land is returned to the public. All ancestral property must be placed under the administration of the communes indefinitely, and personal property is regularly for about ten years, which is clearly stipulated. The proceeds are used for debt servicing and village welfare. The directors of the commune association meet regularly in Hong Kong, and the township affairs are entrusted to an employed manager, who reports in writing to the directors on the matters of all sizes. The same report may be detailed or omitted, in addition to the response of the Board, which can be found in the minutes of the Board meeting.
David Ko lamented that previous researchers were worried about not having enough information, and now there are too many data to read. In such a situation, it is necessary to discover new problems and raise new questions, and if you are still asking old questions of the era without data, it is too backward. He mentioned that Zhao Siyuan's "Land Registration in the Rural Social Order of Huizhou in the Early Qing Dynasty" used newly discovered information to take a step forward.
In particular, David Ke pointed out that scholars should not stop at their interest in local literature, but should start from such feelings and write their own understanding of the material into articles. This allows for dialogue with other scholars to correct and refine possible errors. Scholars in colleges and universities do not understand the local situation and are prone to misread local literature, so they need the help of local workers in this regard.
Finally, during the exchange session of the participants, David Ke stressed the importance of field notes, if there is no field notes and rely solely on memory, it is equivalent to creating historical materials by yourself, which is a very dangerous thing. He said that when we study Chinese society, we must be a society in a certain place and a certain time, but we cannot stay here; because it is also crucial to understand the whole environment of China. Without understanding the general environment, it is impossible to understand local society.
(This article has been reviewed by Professor David Ke)