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afforded ample evidence that these forecasts are regularly listened to.
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The next problem was when to hold the census. It had to be in vacation time. But the only long vacation was in the summer, and in Hong Kong the summer is the rainy season, hot, wet and humid with frequent typhoons. Apart from the extra fatigue and loss of efficiency if enumerators had to tramp up long flights of stairs and slither along hillside paths in the typical summer weather, there was the major consideration that a census date once fixed could not be deferred, only cancelled with great waste of time and money. So the typhoon season had to be avoided; not only the months from June to September when typhoons are frequent, but also May and October when some of the Colony's most destructive storms have occurred. That left only two vacation periods to choose from, both short: Christmas and the western New Year, and Chinese New Year. The latter was chosen for several reasons. The most interesting reason was derived from a third major problem, the Problem of Chinese Ages.
'Of all the calculations that follow a census the most important are those derived from the tables of age and sex. From these, if sufficiently accurate and supported by adequate 'flow data' of births, deaths and migration, life tables and ratios for fertility and survival can be calculated which may even lift the adamant curtain of futurity and enable the Colony's planners to tell not only what the population is but what it will be next year and for some years after next. A census is very little use if it does not record age and sex, and record them pretty accurately.
Sex was no trouble, although one member of the public, subsequently diagnosed as female, did claim to be of both sexes. But age was quite a headache. The United Nations publica- tion Principles and Recommendations for National Population Censuses(1) recommended that age be tabulated by completed years at the last birthday before census day, but all previous censuses held in the Colony have encountered the difficulty that this is not the way the Chinese record their ages. A Chinese baby at birth is said to be one year old. A horoscope is usually prepared
(1) ST/STAT/SER.M/27, New York, 1958.
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