VILLAGE GOVERNMENT IN CHINA, 1933
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venue. As with the ancestral halls, described above, the village temple usually owns some farm land which is rented out at a profit. Village markets, held in the temple courtyard, form a source of revenue, since all outsiders must rent stalls. Revenue comes into the temple also from small contributions of the superstitious folk, who visit it to seek some benefit from the presiding deity. Much of the village budget is made up, however, of self-imposed taxes (Hui Ch'ien), and voluntary contributions solicited from the wealthy members, usually for some specific civic betterment. In theory, under the Manchu dynasty, certain sums were supposed to be returned to the village from their general government taxes for the purposes of education, as set down in the Ta Ch'ing Hui Tien (...), but these seldom, if ever, did find their way back.
An annual festival in honor of the patron of the temple is the chief social event in most villages in China. The responsibility for the management of this normally falls upon the temple council. Theatricals, side shows, and feasting mark these occasions. The religious side of the carnival has largely disappeared; usually, it is merely a grand social period, a time of relaxation and merry-making for young and old. Interrupting the normally dull routine of village life, it is of some psychological importance as a social safety valve.
The duty of properly policing the village is also the charge of the temple council (when it is not handled by the Ti-pao). Every household is expected to supply a man for a certain number of nights a year, but more usually, a contribution of money is given to pay for the service by regularly employed individuals. Civic duties such as lighting dangerous corners and repairing walls, roads, canals, and boat landings, when these are ever done, are the responsibility of the village temple. The main task in this connection may be the solicitation of funds from door to door.
Such charitable duties as supplying free medicine, burial, food, and clothing, when not taken care of by the clan, are the concern of the temple council, as is the supplying of educational facilities when these are lacking.
In short, all financial and administrative matters which concern the village as a whole, rather than any individual group, are handled by the village temple. As Kulp reports for Phenix village, "Gene-
1 Ibid., p. 65.