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outbreak of bubonic plague in 1894.22 The reason given by old members for establishing a Fuk Tak Kung(4) is that in his lifetime the god was a noted Chinese medical practitioner, and therefore well suited to become the guardian god of a crowded city district. The shrine may, however, be even older than this. The district was already well established by the 1850s,28 and probably had guardian shrines from the outset.
The god looked after a specific area of the city. The old 'chops' and wood-block charms that survive from pre-war days carry the name Sai Ying Pun in the title. The boundaries, as given by the leaders active in the mid 1960s, some of whom had been associated with the committee from their earliest years through their fathers and grandfathers' service as managers, centred on the shrine's location at Sheung Fung Lane. However, it is said that, in pre-war years, among the many persons who came regularly to worship at the shrine on the god's birthday on the 18th day of the first lunar month, were people from outside the boundaries and even from Kowloon, so great was the reputation of the shrine. Many of the outside worshippers came in groups known as pao wui.(4)25 It was stressed, too, that this shrine had no connection with the Tai Ping Shan Fuk Tak Kung described below, for that earth god shrine lay in, and the god looked after, a completely separate locality.
The shrine was tended by a keeper appointed by the managers. When my informants were young, the keeper was an old woman who lived on the premises and died there about 1930, aged over 80. There is a splendid photograph of her still kept in the shrine.
The body of managers comprises a minimum of 34 persons each year, but has often been around the 40-50 mark. Its duties are solely to do with arranging for chanting by nam mo lo(1) (Taoist priests) at the god's birthday in the first moon and at the Yue Lan or Hungry Ghosts festival in the seventh moon. At the god's birthday, but not at Yue Lan, the religious rituals have always been accompanied by a puppet show (never opera) for the traditional three days and four nights.20 The managers also have the responsibility of arranging for the procession of the god through the district under his protection