EXPANSION AND EXTENSION IN HAKKA SOCIETY
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he himself has remitted money back to his family in Plum Grove Village for their support. During his stays in Kowloon he made frequent visits home. The masons in Grass Field Village, who periodically engage in agriculture at home, form another example of oscillation, but with less depth in the movement.
The Pacific War and the Japanese Occupation of Hong Kong meant an abrupt interruption to the process of extension. Those who were in the Colony gathered in the villages, which offered social security during a difficult time. They tried to survive by means of traditional production but, as before, the agricultural output was entirely insufficient. For a period of five days a large contingent of Japanese soldiers ravaged the valley destroying the fields, cutting down the supply of wood, and carrying away whatever chickens, pigs, and cows the peasants had. The meat that was not consumed they left to rot in the fields or along the hill sides. Many men and women suffered torture, others perished through starvation and forced labour. Emigrants and sailors lost contact with their home communities; those who were working in occupied areas or ports often ended up in labour camps.
V
The experiences of the war situation seem to have reinforced the necessity of access to external sources of income over large tracts in the New Territories. But conditions after the end of the war were not too favourable. Peace had still not come to the China mainland, and there was a steadily increasing influx of refugees into the British Crown Colony. These people competed heavily on the labour market in the urban areas in Hong Kong and Kowloon. Extension now had to go beyond the nearby cities, but emigration abroad at this time was not always so easily arranged. All countries that traditionally had offered scope for Chinese immigration, now imposed strict control on the entry of Chinese, thus drastically limiting the chances for overseas employment. Since 1945 contract labour has been offered mainly in Sabah, Brunei, and Sarawak, where construction and oil industries have a certain demand for workers; and also on Nauru and Ocean Island, tiny islands in the Central Pacific, where the British Phosphate Commissioners since the start of mining have relied mainly on Chinese labour supply.