EXPANSION AND EXTENSION IN HAKKA SOCIETY
member of the third minor lineage.
65
He returned from the United States in 1941. After the Japanese Occupation, he took a job as a foreman in the nearby Ma On Shan Mining Company, from which he is now obtaining a pension. He still spends most of his time on the Company grounds playing mahjong and gossiping with his friends there. On his arrival from America, he constructed a large and spacious house on two floors and with a balcony.35 Rumour had it that he had lost some 10,000 dollars in the Canton Trust Bank crash in February 1965, but when I left the valley, there was no visible sign that his economic position had been altered or that his social prestige was affected thereby. He has one son on the island of Aruba, who is doing well. His brother, 75 years old, is the man who returned from Canada. His house is also good but is somewhat smaller than that of his younger brother. He is expressly of a conservative disposition; he clings to old ways and believes firmly in Fêng-shui. His economy is apparently very good. The son of this man is working in England.
The other New York man is 70 years old and belongs to the second minor lineage in the village. He possesses the biggest house in the valley and the surrounding areas. It was built forty years ago. He returned from America in 1959, but preferred then to reside in town. Later on, he moved back to his native village, the main reason being that all his friends in town went back to America. He is a sceptic, distrusts geomancy, and is passively in favour of modernization. He is supposed to have a considerable fortune by village standards. One of his two sons, also a former American resident, is now staying with his family in Tai Po Market. The younger son is working in England, and his family stays in the father's house.36
Three other old men do not take part in the informal village council. One is the very old uncle of the Village Representative, whose affairs seem to be handled by the nephew. He is suspicious and successfully avoids anthropologists. Another is a man about 70 who is strikingly poor. He is an old emigrant too, but his country of destination was Singapore, and like many other sojourners in Singapore, he returned home as poor as when he went off. He is now trying to make a living by operating a traditional rowing ferry, taking villagers across Tide Cove in competition with the family who run the two mechanised boats.