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right, government officials and village representatives have powers to grant or block the application In this essay, my study of the Pang villagers in Hong Kong's Fanling shows how their building rights have been re-defined to have their applications granted Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities Reflection on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (Revised Edition), London: Verso 1991

It is called small house in government's terms under the 1972 Small House Policy

See Hugh Baker, A Chinese Lineage Village, p. 154, Stanford: Stanford University Press 1968, Allen Chun, Land is to Live: A Study of the Tsu in a Hakka Chinese Village, New Territories, Hong Kong (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Chicago 1985), pp. 249-250, H. Nelson, "The Chinese Descent System and the Occupancy Level of Village Houses", p. 117, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 9 (1969) pp. 113-121, James Watson, Emigration and the Chinese Lineage: The Mans in Hong Kong and London, p. 160, Berkeley: University of California Press 1975, and Rubie Watson, Inequality among Brothers: Class and Kinship in South China, pp. 106-110, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1985

The data presented in this essay was collected during my fieldwork in Fanling Wai from the end of 1993 to early 1995

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Pang Beng Fu (Ed.), Bao An Xing Fen Ling Xiang Peng Shi Zu Pu (The Genealogy of Surname of the Pang in Bao An Province), 1989

Ibid, p. 59.

At the end of the summer of 1950, approximately 700,000 Chinese arrived at Hong Kong as a result of the political unrest in China in 1949 Szczepanik estimates that the population of Hong Kong in 1954 was about two millions But there was yet another influx of an estimated 140,000 immigrants from China during 1955-56 See Edward Szczepanik, The Economic Growth of Hong Kong, pp. 25-27 London: Oxford University Press 1958

As Jones reveals, by 1981, more than one quarter of Hong Kong's near five million population are living in the new towns such as Tsuen Wan, Shatin and Tuen Mun See Catherine Jones, Promoting Prosperity: The Hong Kong Way of Social Policy, p. 242 Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press 1990

See Catherine Jones, op cit, Fong, Peter, K.W., "Housing for Millions: The Challenge Ahead", in Joseph Y.S. Cheng and Sonny S.H. Lo (Eds), From Colony to SAR: The Hong Kong's Challenge Ahead Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press 1996

10 There are two lineage-based religious activities held in Fanling Wai They are Hong chao rite and Da jiao festival Hong chao rite is held annually by the Pangs in the name of the Fanling Pang lineage to placate deities in exchange for their protection of villagers' well-being (see Au Tat-yan and Cheung Sui-wai, "The Hung Chin Ceremony in Fanling" [Chinese], in South China Studies Vol. 1 (1994) pp. 24-39). Da jiao festival basically fulfills the same function of the Hong chao rite, but is held at ten-year intervals Through this elaborated and expensive five-day-four-night exorcising rite, the Pangs believe that their

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