Chinese Local History

During the past few years, some 200 stone inscriptions have been copied by the Chinese historian Lin Renchuan ,.,tt {::.. II\ in different places in South Fukien. In 1987, in the course of a study of the history of land reclamation, I had the occasion to roam through the mountains and coastal plains of South Fukien with Professor Lin, and read his collection. Most of the texts have never been published in any form. A f~w, usually by famous authors such as, for instance, Ts'ai Hsiang~ J._ , have already been included in one or more of the few Fukienese collections of ancient stone and bronze inscriptions known to me1. Some can be traced, in complete or excerpted form, in the municipal or county gazetteers of the area from which they come. A few texts have also been published in modem collections, and one or two have even been translated into Engljsb and been commented upon (not accidentally, the latter concern religion and overseas voyages, traditional subjects of European interest). N"mety percent of these texts, however, have never been collected or quoted before. Lin Renchuan hopes to publish them in Chinese in the near future. Only eight such collections (of original texts, without translations or commentary), with materials drawn from Kiangsu, Soochow, Peking, Shangba;, Yunnan, Canton, Kwangsi and Taiwan, have been published since 19492.