An Anthropological Examination of Hong Kong's
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
INSTITUTIONAL!ZED ALTRUISM, INVISIBLE HANDS, AND GOOD SAMARITANS: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL EXAMINATION OF HONG KONG'S COMVKMLTY CHEST CHARITY ORGANIZATION WCJN-SHENG LAW Ph.D. THESIS DEPARTMENT OF AtWHROPOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF LONDON FEBRUARY 1997 ProQuest Number: 10672663 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10672663 Published by ProQuest LLC(2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 ABSTRACT The discipline of social anthropology has been remarkably inattentive to the phenomenon and organizational practices of 'charity', and, associatedly, has been non-discursive in its treatment of social welfare. In this thesis, I endeavour to indicate that this disciplinary ignorance of charity and social welfare is to be regretted. Through my case-study analysis of the role of a key charitable organization in Hong Kong I hope to convince my readers of the relatively untapped potential of 1 an anthropology of charity'. Cultural practices of charity and social welfare are sociologically significant and interesting in their own right, but can also illuminate wider social and political processes and structures frcm an unusual perspective. Attention to 'charity1 has much to offer anthropology, but the obverse also holds, understandably, not been properly mindful of anthropological - particularly ethnographic - approaches. The nucleus of my research is the Community Chest, the most influential nongovernmental charitable organization in the colony (soon to be post-colony) of Hong Kong. In my thesis I examine inter alia: the setting in which the Community Chest operates; its organizational structures and procedures; the cultural logic of donation; issues of entitlement; and the relationship between donors and recipients of charity. Throughout I am attentive to the linkages between charity provided by what is often called 1 the voluntary sector', and social welfare as dispensed by the Hong Kong state. A key theme is the extent to which the Community Chest, despite its epithet as a nongovernmental organization, should be viewed as having a definite brokerage role between the state and Hong Kong's people. The institutionalization of altruism, which the Community Chest represents, does not escape the reach of the Hong Kong state. In a deliberate manner I utilize the Community Chest as a prism by which to scrutinize the 'borrowed time and borrowed place' that is contemporary Hong Kong. Not only is Hong Kong a global (and arguably postmodern) city, which has changed dynamically in recent decades, but existentially and psychologically its population is affected by the ever lurking shadow of the PRC regime to which Hong Kong will be handed over in July 1997. The Community Chest was established in 1968 at a time when both the Hong Kong state and society were undergoing radical changes. From the vantage point of the Community Chest I have been able to calibrate the transformations and continuities of the last three decades, and the not insignificant role played by charity and social welfare over that period. In addition to illuminating Hong Kong's extraordinary contemporary situation, I hope also to have contributed to on-going theoretical debates in anthropology, sinology, and the social sciences generally. There is a burgeoning literature on gift exchange, entitlement, altruism, concepts of need and poverty, the role of NGOs in alleviating hardship, clientelism, and the role of mass media representations. I feel that my fieldwork research makes a contribution to discussion of each of these issues. My work contributes a further perspective from which to understand guanxi (personal networks) and renqing (moral norms and and human feelings) as axiomatic Chinese cultural constructions. I am also concerned with questions of citizenship, of community, of hybridity, of identity, of belonging, and of nationalism, all of which are especially fraught issues for people in contemporary Hong Kong. Finally, but deserving special mention - one of my chief ambitions has been to appraise the claims that the New Right makes for Hong Kong as the epitome of a 'laissez-faire' policy in which the state's interventions in terras of welfare provision are based on residualist principles. The New Right profess that Hong Kong is the free market economy, and that the voluntary sector and the market provide welfare effectively in the absence of state intervention. My research indicates that the Hong Kong state, despite its laissez-faire rhetoric, has been decisively interventionist. The Community Chest, set up ostensibly to generate and dispense charity from the voluntary sector, is ambivalently entangled with the hidden hands of both big business and the state. ACKNOWLEDGMENT Writing a thesis is like running a Marathon, it needs determination, perseverance and patience to finish. In the past fifteen months, I have dedicated myself to produce this thesis. But I was not alone. Mr. Stuart Thompson and Dr. Elizabeth Croll, who are my PhD supervisors, showed me the way and gave me valuable comments and inspiration on my earlier drafts, for which I am most grateful. The completion of this thesis owes a great deal of gratitude to many individuals. I wish to acknowledge with thanks the invaluable help given by Mr. Denis Bray (JP), Mr. Darwin Chen (JP), Rev. William C. Tung, Mr. Edinson H. P. So (JP), Mr. Chan Po Chiu, Mr. Leung Wo Ping (JP), Mr. Ng Wai Ming, Mr. Lai Chi Tong, Dr. Chien Chiao, Mr. Chan Kok Kui, the staff of the Community Chest of Hong Kong, and a grant from the School of Oriental and African Studies for my fieldwork. Last but not least, I extend my sincere thanks to my wife - Men- sei. Without her encouragement and support, I would not have taken up the PhD project and this thesis will never have been written. 1 EXPLANATORY NOTE The systems of romanisation that I have employed in this thesis are pinyin (for Mandarin) and Cantonese transliterations wherever they are felt appropriate. Pinyin is used in order to bring romanisation into line with current practices instead of using the traditional Wade- Giles system devised by Sir Thomas Wade in the nineteenth century and modified by Herbert A. Giles. However, tone marks and other linguistic devices have been omitted. Personal and place names in Hong Kong are written in Cantonese transliteration. This is because Cantonese is the language spoken by about 96% of the population in Hong Kong. With regards to Cantonese, I follow the Eitel (1877) system which is more or less officially used in the colony. Interviews in my fieldwork were conducted either in Cantonese or English. Nonetheless, in this thesis, those conducted in Cantonese have been translated into English with the best effort to maintain its original meaning. The monetary figures appearing in this thesis refer to Hong Kong dollars unless otherwise specified. At the time of my fieldwork the Hong Kong dollar was pegged to US dollar and was calculated at HK$7.78 = USD1, or HK$11.6 = £1. Contents Chapter Page Acknowledgment i Explanatory Note 11 1 Introduction 1 The Community Chest of Hong Kong (p.2); The Setting (p.3); Historical Significance (p.5); Problems and Hypotheses (p.8); Relevant Literature and Previous Work (p.12); Methods and Fieldwork (p.15); Themes of Chapters (p.20) 2 Definitions and Backdrop 24 Definitions of Charity (p.24); Charity as a Relationship (p.28); Entitlement and Needs (p.29); Definitions of Poverty (p.32); Causes of Poverty (p.34); Role of Charity in Chinese History (p.36); Charity in British Colonialism (p.43); Role of Charity in Hong Kong Government (p. 4 7); Concluding Remarks (p.56) 3 Organization of the Community Chest 62 Establishment of the Chest (p.62); Social Background of the Chest's Establishment (p.66); The Working Committees (p.70); Membership of the Chest (p.75); Utilization of Mass Media (p.78); Achievement of the Chest (p.80); Image Construction (p.82); Concluding Remarks (p.83) 4 The Donors 88 Elites of Hong Kong (p.89); The 'Mystique' of Hong Kong's Elites (p.92); The Big-Givers (p.95); Collective and Com munity Participants (p.97); Walks for Millions (p.101); Voluntary and Involuntary Motives (p.106); Normative and Altruistic Motives (p.109); Exchange and Instrumental Motives (p.117); Symbolic and Economic Capital (p.122); Maneuver of Symbolic Capital (p.125); Merchants and Government (p.127); Legitimation of Wealth (p.130); Concluding Remarks (p.135) Chapter Page 5 The Recipients 139 A Chest's Member Agency (p.140); Geriatric Home Care Service Team (p.142); A Fatalistic Attitude (p.146); Charity as Accumulation of Virtues (p.149); Charity as the Cost of Prestige (p.153); Charity as Indispensable {p.158); Recipients' Perception of the Chest (p.164); Concluding Remarks (p.16 6) 6 Charity and Social Welfare 173 The New-Right Welfare Assumptions (p.173); Hong Kong as a Case-Study (p.174); The Voluntary Sector (p.175); The Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club (p.179); Public Housing Es tates Scheme (p.181); The Government's Role (p.184); Hong Kong Family