Activity Outcome
Publication of Professor Burton Pasternak's New Translated Works
- Source:客家文化發展中心
- Publication Date:2021/04/21
- Last updated:2022/02/16
- Count Views:878
In recent years, the Hakka Cultural Development Center launched a translation project of Hakka research works by international scholars. The first special work on foreign language translation is "Kinship and Community in Two Chinese Villages: newly attached with oral history of the author and current situation of the field investigation" that was published in cooperation with the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica. A new book publishing meeting and symposium was held at the Liudui Hakka Cultural Park - Liudui Conference Hall on April 21, and the recent video interview of American anthropologist Pf. Burton Pasternak (Professor Babot) was played during the meeting. Researcher Hu Taili of the Institute of Ethnology shared her experiences of learning from Professor Burton, and researcher Huang Xuanwei, the editor in chief, guided the reading and talked with many Hakka research scholars to introduce this important translated foreign Hakka research work to more readers. The atmosphere on-site was very lively.
This translated work was completed by a research team led by researcher, Huang Xuanwei, the chief editor, who translated the special book "Kinship and Community in Two Chinese Villages" - a result of surveys by American anthropologist PF. Burton Pasternak in two Fujian Hakka villages in southern Taiwan in the 1960s. He also returned to the field mentioned in the book - Liudui (Zuodui) for comparison of the current situation of the Datie village, Shinpi Township and Zhongshe village, Lioujia District, Tainan City. The researcher Derek Sheridan assisted the Institute of ethnology in conducting an oral interview with the original author of the book, Professor Burton, in 2020 to review the context of the field survey in Taiwan. He then returned to the sites for investigation and collected precious interview records which were all presented to the readers of the book.
At the symposium on the publication of the new book, Pf. Burton Pasternak shared through the video that "this book is the first field survey of ethnography in my life.” From being a stranger to becoming familiar with more than 250 families in the Datie village, he made the villagers there his mentors. The investigation and research time spent in the village is the “most substantial and meaningful day of his life..." In addition to the interactive communication between Professor Burton and the chief editor, researcher Huang Xuanwei, researcher Hu Taili and researcher Sheridan, Professor Zhuang Yingzhang, who has conducted comparative studies of two Fujian and Hakka villages in Northern Taiwan, Professor Hong Xinlan, who has had long-term exchanges with Professor Myron L. Cohen, and Hakka research experts and scholars such as Xu Zhengguang, Zhang Xiurong, Zhang Weian and Lin Zhenghui were also invited to carry out a diversified dialogue to expand the breadth and depth of comparative studies between Fujian and Hakka. PF. Burton Pasternak and his classmate PF. Myron Cohen engaged in anthropological research in the Hakka area in southern Taiwan in the 1960s, both of whom can be regarded as pioneers in the research of social and cultural anthropology of Han people in Taiwan and have who created precious records for the research of Hakka in Taiwan.
Director He said that since 2012, the Taiwan Hakka Culture Development Center has continuously promoted research on the theme of Hakka culture in Taiwan and other countries, actively promoted academic research exchanges and inter-library cooperation at home and abroad, and strengthened its function as a "Global Hakka museum and materials research center". In order to make the special books used in relevant field exchanges or research widely read and promoted, in recent years the translation and publication plans of Hakka research by overseas scholars have been launched and foreign Hakka research works have been translated and introduced to more readers. The book “Kinship and Community in Two Chinese Villages: newly attached with oral history of the author and current situation of the field investigation”, is the first foreign language translation published by the Taiwan Hakka Culture Development Center. It will continue to translate and publish Hakka research by scholars such as Yoshio Watanabe of Japan in the hopes of expanding the academic exchange and application of Hakka research works between Taiwan and the world through more translation and publication projects. This will gradually achieve the task of enriching diversified research literature entrusted to the Hakka Culture Development Center.
