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To carry out intensive study of the life of the people, it is necessary to confine oneself to the investigation of a small social unit. This is due to practical considerations. The people under investigation must be within easy reach of the investigator in order that the latter can observe personally and intimately. The unit of study, on the other hand, should not be too small. It should provide a fair cross-section of the social life of the people.
This general problem has been discussed by Professor A. Radcliffe-Brown, Dr. Wu Wen-tsao, and Dr. Raymond Firth.It is agreed that in the first stage of such a study, a village would be the most appropriate unit. "To start with a single village as a centre," says Dr. Firth, "investigate the relationships of the persons composing it, in terms of kinship, the distribution of authority, economic organization, religious affiliations, and other social ties, and try to see how these relationships affect one another and determine the co-operative life of the small community. From this centre the investigation will radiate out following the personal relationships into other units in adjacent villages, economic linkage and social co-operation."
A village is a community characterized by its being an aggregate of households on a compact residential area, separated from other similar units by a considerable distance (this may not hold good in some parts of China where households are scattered), organized in various social activities as a group, and possessing a special name of its own. It is a de facto social unit recognized by the people themselves.
A village as such does not enter formally into the new administrative system in China—Pao Chea
—which is artificially created for certain specific purposes (VI–5). Since this system was introduced to Kaihsienkung only in 1935, it is very difficult to say when these
de jure
units, through increasing administrative function, will cause a shift in the existing
de facto
groupings. But at present, in actual practice, the Pao Chea system is still largely a formality. Thus the unit of our study, the aim of which is to understand the life of the people, must follow the real existing functioning unit—the village.
为了对人们的生活进行深入细致的研究，研究人员有必要把自己的调查限定在一个小的社会单位内来进行。这是出于实际的考虑。调查者必须容易接近被调查者，以便能够亲自进行密切地观察。另一方面，被研究的社会单位也不宜太小，它应能提供人们社会生活的较完整的切片。
A.拉德克利夫-布朗教授、吴文藻博士和雷蒙德·弗思博士
曾经讨论过这个基本问题。他们一致认为，在这种研究的最初阶段，把一个村子作为单位最为合适。弗思博士说：“应当以一个村子作研究中心来考察村民们相互间的关系，就亲属关系而言，考察权力的分配、经济的组织、宗教的皈依以及其他种种社会联系，并进而观察这种种社会关系如何相互影响，如何综合以决定这社区的合作生活。从这研究中心循着亲属系统、经济往来、社会合作等路线，推广我们的研究范围到邻近村落以及市镇。”
村庄是一个社区，其特征是：农户聚集在一个紧凑的居住区内，与其他相似的单位隔开相当一段距离（在中国有些地区，农户散居，情况并非如此），作为一个群体组织各种社会活动，具有其特定的名称，而且是一个为人们所公认的事实上的社会单位。
这样一个村庄并没有正式进入保甲制。保甲制是中国的一种新的行政体制，是为了某种特殊目的而人为地设置的（第六章第五节）。开弦弓村在1935年才有这种制度，因此很难说得清，这种法律上的保甲单位，究竟到什么时候才能以其不断增长的行政职能取代现存的事实上的群体。但目前，在实施过程中，保甲制仍然大多流于形式。因此，我们所研究的单位必须是实际存在的职能单位——村庄。我们研究的目的在于了解人民的生活。
To take the village as the unit of study at the present stage of investigation, does not mean that it is a self-contained unit. The inter-dependence of territorial groups, especially in economic life, is very close in China. It can even be said that the Chinese people have during the last half century entered into the world community. Western goods as well as ideas have reached very remote villages. The economic and political pressure of the Western powers is the prime factor in the present change of Chinese culture. In this connection, one can ask what understanding of these changes and of the external forces causing them can be gained by a field investigation in a small area, such as a village.
It is obvious that the investigator in the village cannot analyse the outside forces in their wide perspective. For instance, the decline of the price of native silk in the world market as a result of the world economic depression and of the technical improvement of the silk industry in general, has produced such effects in the village as deficiency in the family budget, shortage of food, postponement of marriage and the partial break-down of the domestic industry. The field investigator in this case must record as fully as possible the forces that affect village life but he will of course leave the further analysis of these forces themselves to other sicences. He will take these facts for granted and limit himself to tracing the effects which can be directly observed in the life of the village.
Generalizations made from such an intensive study of a small social unit may not be applicable to other units. But they can be used as hypotheses and as comparative material for further investigation in other fields. This is the soundest way to obtain really scientific generalizations.
The village chosen for my investigation is called Kaihsienkung, locally pronounced kejiug'on . It is situated on the south-east bank of Lake Tai, in the lower course of the Yangtze River and about eighty miles west of Shanghai. It is in the geographical region of the Yangtze Plain. The geographical foundation of this region has been described by G. B. Cressey: "The Yangtze Plain is a land of rivers and canals. Probably nowhere else in the world is there an area with so many navigable waterways. The Yangtze Kiang, the Hwai Ho, and their tributaries provide a splendid highway through the length of the region. In addition to the many rivers there are a series of great lakes, chief among which are Tungting, Poyang, Tai, and Hungtse Hu. It is the canals, however, which give the most characteristic note to the landscape. These canals are the very arteries of life. In the region of Yangtze Delta they form an intricate network and serve as an artificial drainage system which takes the place of rivers. Their length in the south delta alone is estimated by F. H. King, at twenty-five thousand miles.
在目前阶段的调查中，把村庄作为一个研究单位，这并不是说村庄就是一个自给自足的单位。在中国，地方群体之间的相互依存，是非常密切的，在经济生活中尤为如此。甚至可以说，在上半个世纪中，中国人民已经进入了世界的共同体中。西方的货物和思想已经到达了非常边远的村庄。西方列强的政治、经济压力是目前中国文化变迁的重要因素。在这一点上有人可能会问，既然如此，那么在这样一个小的地区，在一个村庄里搞实地调查，对于这种外来力量及其所引起的变迁会取得什么进一步的了解呢？
显然，身处村庄的调查者不可能用宏观的眼光来观察和分析外来势力的各种影响。例如，由于世界经济萧条及丝绸工业中广泛的技术改革引起了国际市场上土产生丝价格的下跌，进而引起农村家庭收入不足、口粮短缺、婚期推迟以及家庭工业的部分破产。在这种情况下，实地调查者必须尽可能全面地记录外来势力对村庄生活的影响，但他当然应该把对这些势力本身的进一步分析留给其他学科去完成。调查者应承认这些事实，并只专注于跟踪那些可以从村庄生活中直接观察到的影响。
对这样一个小的社会单位进行深入研究而得出的结论并不一定适用于其他单位。但是，这样的结论却可以用作假设，也可以作为在其他地方进行调查时的比较材料。这就是获得真正科学结论的最可靠方法。