The Hong Kong Anthropological Society was founded in 1978 in response to a
growing interest in Hong Kong in the culture and ethnography of the region.
It now has some 120 members in Hong Kong, including professional
anthropologists and other academics from Hong Kong's universities, postgraduate
and undergraduate students, and interested laypeople from all walks of life.
The Society works in close association with the Hong Kong Museum of History
and with the Department of Anthropology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
We organize regular monthly talks by scholars, professionals, and local experts
on all aspects of anthropology - from cross-dressing in Chinese culture to the struggles of Hong Kong Disneyland, from shamans in Indonesia to traditional boat-building in Macau to Hong Kong identity after the handover,
from the birth of agriculture in China to Tibet's new middle class to ecotourism in Malaysia, statues in
Laos, and music in the Philippines. These talks are followed by informal dinners
at a local restaurant, to which all are invited.
We also organize anthropological outings every
two or three months: a field trip to Hakka walled villages in Shenzen; a tour
of Macau by day and by night; and visit to various Hong Kong mosques, churches, museums, and prisons. The purpose of the Society is to bring anthropology beyond the doors of academe,
to a larger public of interested people in Hong Kong and beyond. We seek to
bring academics and laypeople together in a common forum, in order to broaden
academic anthropology, and in order to broaden the understanding of anthropology
by people beyond the academy. This is our aim: we hope that you who read this
will join us in this aim.
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