116
BARBARA E. WARD
50 Two of these men were already married and with several children; each was master of a second boat in a purse-seine pair. The third, aged only 20, was the very recently bereaved son of a man who had died in an accident. This boy later took a paid job ashore in Sai Kung. The father of the fourth (aged 24) was still living with him on his junk. This case is described further in the text below.
51 [The manuscript at this point allows almost three blank pages after this phrase: "The data for 1970, compiled for me by". The blank pages are followed by this paragraph: "One major difference between the figures for 1953 and 1970 is the disappearance from the latter of the two-boat firm of purse-seiners. Concomitant with this, there has been a general diminution in the number of purse-seiners and some raising of the age of boats' mastership. We have already seen how it is linked also with mechanisation and the move ashore."]
52 For example, the 20-year-old master and his mother mentioned above, and the blind man with a sick wife and one ten-year-old son were both hand liners.
53 Cp. above Table 1. The discrepancy between the figures there and in Table 3 is due to the fact that the ages of the crews of 2 small liners were not recorded. Both housed nuclear families with father as master.
54 Barnett's hypothesis (above p. 101) was formed on the basis of the Census in 1960. If improved living standards among the Boat People date (as I believe they do) from the acceptance of mechanisation, they would only begin to become generally apparent from about that date onwards.
55 The economic arguments for and against division in such circumstances could be very evenly balanced. With mechanisation, it might well pay a group of brothers to stay together and convert to medium long-lining. See Chapters 8 and 9. For family division in general, see Chapter below.
56 So much so, and so well authenticated by magical signs, that it was difficult to find him a bride. See below Chapter 9.
57 Cp. D. above. [A table, similar to Table 4, probably intended.]
58 See my forthcoming study of the Boat People of Hong Kong. [Not written.]
59 Above, pp. [105-6].
60 Above, pp. [96-7].
61 The most poignant incident during my stay in Kau Sai concerned a young Sai Kung-based fisherman who left his wife and two tiny children on board their small junk while he went off in a sampan to set fish traps. On his return about an hour later, the junk was empty. Presumably the toddler had fallen overboard, and the distraught mother trying to reach him had toppled in herself, taking the baby, who was slung upon her back, with her.
62 m gon ching: this term can be used with either ritual or secular connotations.
63 Women were said to suffer more often from sea-sickness.
64 To staunch the flow, they used sheets of locally made absorbent paper (iso chi, lit: coarse paper; the adjective can have the same double meaning as in English). This was tucked between the legs and held in place by the close-fitting underpants which were worn by both sexes and sometimes also by a waist cord. The paper was cheap, easily available, bulky, uncomfortable, and almost impossible to dispose of privately at sea. Once convinced that, contrary to their...
Page 135
Page 136