HONG KONG BEFORE THE BRITISH
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the Tanka. Their boats are less well constructed than those of the Tanka and can always be picked out at a distance by their less elegant design. They are all built of pine and a feature of them, in distinction to the Tanka craft, is the pair of eyes embossed on the prow. The Hoklo build matsheds of bamboo frame covered with plantain leaves. They do not prop them on struts as the Tanka do, but set them side by side to form small fishing villages next to the beach.
In sharp distinction to this, the Punti and Hakka are architects and builders. They live in houses built of brick and mortar and roofed with tiles. Subsidiary roofing is made over a small courtyard just inside the main entrance which serves to light the rooms. This courtyard is exactly square and the space beneath the wall on the right as one enters is invariably the kitchen. The main room contains the ancestral tablets of the family and is used as a parlour, to the left and right of it are sleeping rooms. The design is as compact and comfortable as a house with neither windows nor chimneys can be.
There are no separate houses. The Punti always live in villages. The most elaborate are surrounded with walls and moats and entered over a bridge and through a main gate of wrought iron or wood. This main gate has generally two storeys and is built for armed defence, from it a main street flagged with granite leads to the farther end of the village. The dwellings are along the main street or along side streets exactly horizontal or parallel to it and there is generally a side gate with a similar portico and bridge. The more rustic villages do not have moats or main gates but are generally surrounded by a wall of loose boulders and there is the same arrangement of streets according to the size of the community. These villages are nearly always situated in front of triangular patches of dense wood which is never cut.
The Hakka villages are exactly similar to those of the Punti, but they do not tend to build walls so regularly. There are many cases of Punti and Hakka sharing villages, and a tendency for the Hakka to encroach on the land of the Punti which has often led to friction. This tendency is especially apparent in the North East corner of our region.
The evidence of dwelling therefore supports the theory that one section of the population is culturally different from the other.