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generations. With the general increase of agricultural activity since 1949 (due to the influx of industrious refugees), tenancies are more frequently called in. Sometimes a mere pretext covers the real reason that a hardworking tenant has spent much capital in improving poor land which the landlord now wishes to lease again at a higher rent. It is always wise before intervening in tenancy cases to be sure that a good reason exists for recovery of the land. These reasons might be that the tenant is a poor one who makes little use of the land; the tenant has failed to pay rent or has otherwise committed a breach of conditions, e.g. illegal Temporary Structures; the landowner is short of land and has a large family. Where it is necessary on the facts to find in favour of the landlord, it is often easier to persuade the tenant to comply by offering to find him alternative Crown Land.
(i) It is a recurring feature in many cases that tenants tend to sink capital into land, particularly with chicken farms, without having any real lease to protect them. Rapacious landlords take advantage of this and often deliberately refuse to issue written leases. I have had no success whatsoever in trying to educate tenants in this respect.
10. Graves
(a) Bodies are normally buried in an earth grave (huet chong) for 5 years or so. At the end of that time, they are usually exhumed and the bones arranged in an earthenware funerary pot (kam tap). Richer families and clans will sometimes install the exhumed bones in a masonry grave (shan fan) instead of a funerary pot.5
(b) Huet chong (#) and kam taps () are always sited in groups on hillsides or ground where the fung shui is good. It is not usual to build or cultivate near these areas.
(c) The choice of site of a shan fan () is again dictated by fung shui (k). Considerable sums of money may be spent in fees for the fung shui sin shang (★★★4) and in construction, although workmanship is rarely first class. The site is usually high up, commanding a view of water in some form or