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contact between Hakka landsmen and Tanka (Cantonese) fishermen in Kau Sai was very slight. In the normal circumstances of daily life and occupation, in matters of kinship and the vast majority of ritual and social occasions as much before the exodus in 1952 as after the fishermen simply ignored the local land people. The immediately following chapters, which treat of occupational, economic and family organization on the junks can safely do the same.
5. THE BOATS
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In this chapter I describe the three main types of boat operating from Kau Sai in terms of the accommodation they provide for the tasks that have to be performed on them. These include caring for children and old people, doing the family cooking and much of its washing, copulation, birth and death, as well as fishing operations and most things connected with them.
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All Chinese junks have certain features in common. Among them the best known is probably the system of sub-division into watertight compartments. This was a Chinese invention of the early T'ang dynasty, only much later introduced into Europe. Bulkheads run both transversely and longitudinally, forming a kind of chequer-board pattern of watertight holds extremely convenient for storing fish, water, salt and ice, as well, of course, as items of gear and personal possessions. In some junks one or more outside compartments may be used for housing fresh fish alive, holes in the hull admitting a constant flow of clean sea water. The standard of sub-division on a Chinese junk is said to be far above that required by international regulations for the safety of passenger ships, and a junk is almost unsinkable by bilging alone.
Nearly all junks have a high stern and poop deck and are relatively low in the bows. Together with the usual forward rake of the masts (particularly marked in the larger vessels) this gives them a characteristically leaning, rather urgent, look. Except on the big long-liners, whose crews may include as many as sixty persons each trip, the forward part of the junk is used for carrying gear, fish and so on, not for accommodation. In general