ABSTRACT
During the years when it was not possible to carry out sociological research within China, and while sociology vas a proscribed discipline in that country, a great deal of research was carried on from the outside, "at a distance." Another set of difficulties concerns problems of memory, although this problem to some extent is common to most, research based on interviewing. Until about 1972, legal refugees came into Hong Kong in only a trickle, so that interviewing projects had to rely primarily on illegal emigrants. Once researchers have become "hooked" by engaging in Hong Kong interviewing, they find it very hard to go back to studying China by reading between the lines in People's Daily, even in its modestly enlivened form. One of the potential advantages of research within China is professional collaboration. General reading about China and following the Chinese press may not provide the kind of detailed background desirable.
