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hands on board. The total number was 31, of whom 5 were women. The returns I have for 1970 list no paid employees at all.
As might be expected, most hired hands were young, 25 of the 31 being under 30 years of age, and only 3 over 40. Interestingly enough 2 of these 3 were females, both of them women with sons also employed on the same boats. The other 3 women were wives of hired men.
Only 13 fokis were genealogically related to their employers, 8 being affines, 4 agnates and 1 a matrilateral kinsman. About half-a-dozen were described to me as sons of well-known neighbours. For the rest I have no information. Recruitment, which took place at Chinese New Year and around the Dragon Boat Festival (the 5th day of the 5th lunar month) was normally through the local "grapevine", or, much less commonly, by written advertisement posted at one or other of the shops in Shaukiwan or Sai Kung which specialised in this kind of thing. Applicants answered the advertisements by approaching the shopkeepers who, already known to the prospective employers, then acted as “introducers" (gaay siew yan, introduce man recommended). At New Year 1952 Chung Fuk Hei recruited two new fokis in this way, one of his previous employees having left to join a more congenial boat family in Kau Sai, the other (a poor relation) having been sacked for laziness (and gluttony: Fuk Hei was continually grumbling about the number of bowls of rice his employees managed to put away in a day).
Hired men received full board and lodging on the boats on which they worked, and a money wage which in most cases worked out at about 4% of the value of the catch. Women received board and lodging, too, and a sum of about $H.K.15 a month. On some boats the 4% share was paid at irregular intervals as money came in and convenience dictated; on others, more regularly. Usually payments were handed over about once a week or twice a month. The share was always calculated on the gross total takings before the deduction of any other expenses. It was several times explained to me that it would not be fair (mm gung doe, lit: not right reach, or mm gung ping, lit: not right level) for fokis to have to share in the expenses. Thus while