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As “new cultural history” has become very much a trend in the ascendant in historical studies and new findings
and publications came out, the scope of history expanded, with developments such as the “linguistic turn” and the
“pictorial turn”. In 2004, I initiated the project “The Dianshizhai Pictorial and the Cultural History of Late Imperial

China” jointly with scholars in Hong Kong and the United States in the fields of literature, history, and philosophy.
It was a time when university professors were asked to actively apply for the General Research Fund (GRF) from
the Research Grants Council (RGC). Fortunately, the project was awarded the fund. In 2007, upon the completion
of the project, Indexes of the Dianshizhai Pictorial was published and the full set of the pictorial was digitised.
My own papers on the subject deal with the transformation of courtesans to common prostitutes as demonstrated
in the pictorial and the subtle difference between drawing and writing in the pictorial texts. In 2014, The Emended
and Punctuated Dianshizhai Pictorial was published, and more publications are expected to be forthcoming, though
RGC’s only concern is works published shortly after the funded period, while in international academia the
production of research outputs in the humanities often requires years of work. “It takes a decade to hone a sword,”

as the saying goes.

The content of the Dianshizhai Pictorial has been regarded by Chinese scholars and Sinologists as a microcosm
of Chinese society and culture in transition at the turn of the twentieth century. Its drawings and appended wordings
provide an impassioned representation of China at a turbulent time. Indexes of the Dianshizhai Pictorial makes
available a powerful system of indexes for the pictorial, whereas The Emended and Punctuated Dianshizhai Pictorial
emends and punctuates all paragraphs appended to the drawings. Our punctuations can facilitate future analyses of
the writings in the pictorial. Penned by the last generation of civil examination candidates, these writings have seldom

been studied in details thus far. Now with our new reference tools, the cultural history of the pictorial can be studied
more effectively via in-depth textual analysis, combined textual and graphic analysis, contextual analysis, or a mix
of all three, to gain insights into the state of Chinese society and culture prior to its transition into the modern era,
and how that has in turn influenced development in the latter ages.

Another GRF-funded research project of mine entitled “Networking Charity: The Tung Wah Coffin Home and
the North America-Hong Kong-Guangdong Connection” concerns China’s relations with the rest of the world,
particularly in terms of the role of Hong Kong. My previous study of the history of overseas Chinese is of great help
here, and my discoveries in the process of compiling the Tung Wah Group of Hospital’s documentary records convince

me that Hong Kong did play a seminal role in connecting overseas Chinese with their hometowns. The project thus
involved issues concerning the history of overseas Chinese, Chinese history, the history of Hong Kong, and the global
Chinese network and world history. The funded case study of mine focuses on Hong Kong’s intermediary role in the
charitable network between overseas Chinese in North America (particularly in the “Gold Mountain” area, i.e., the
United States and Canada) and their hometowns in China (mainly in Guangdong) from the 19th century to the 1950s
for the repatriation of the coffins and remains of Chinese emigrants who died abroad. Such a network was also

important in terms of migration, logistics, business and trade, information flow and cultural exchange. Hong Kong
has long been a hub linking overseas Chinese communities in the world. The research, centring on charity and
benevolent institutions, will hopefully promote further macro analyses of the almost uncharted area of overseas
Chinese and their global networks. To retrace the steps of the forefathers of Chinese emigrants, I have made field
trips to Chinese immigrant communities in California and Canada, and to their hometowns in south China, such as

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