LAND AND LEADERSHIP IN THE H.K. REGION OF KWANGTUNG 95
He also had land interests on Lantau outside his own village and entered into a business speculation with two other persons, who were probably his fellow merchants in Tai O. Land was purchased wherever it could be obtained by sale, or mortgage leading to possession, from needy farmers some of whom were very likely their customers - and registered in the name of a Tong (). In 1899, this Tong owned over twelve acres of farmland in various parts of the island and still exists today. An account book for the years just before the Japanese war is extant and shows that the Chans' share of the rents was forty per cent of the whole. Their shares were sold by degrees during the Japanese Occupation after being in the family for about a hundred years.
In due course Chan Fu-shing's growing wealth enabled him to devote himself to public duties such as the management of village affairs, the arbitration of local disputes and the organisation of small public works. One of these was the repair of the village temple in 1852. A tablet commemorating the work shows that he donated a considerable sum to its repair, in addition to being the leading spirit in the work. This self-made man set the seal on his position by purchasing the title of chien sang () or "Student of the Imperial Academy" for which he would have paid the Provincial Treasury upwards of 100 ounces of silver. This title would have given him standing among the gentry of the San On District, and enabled him, if so inclined, to mix on favourable terms with the civil and military officers of the local administration. This bears out Professor Ping-ti Ho's estimate that "in late Ming and the entire Ching period it may be said that men of above average economic means almost invariably purchased at least an Imperial Academy studentship... by which they could acquire the right of wearing students' gowns and caps and exemption from corvée, thus differentiating themselves from ordinary commoners". If, however, chien sang were two a penny elsewhere it was not so on Lantau. The island was a poor place and there were very few other chien sang to steal Fu-shing's thunder there.
CHEUNG KWONG-CHUEN ()
The second of these local notables, Cheung Kwong-chuen (c.1850-1916) was a Hakka from one of the smaller villages of