PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
to ordinary domestic duties.
on one of the daughters of I the housework; but, even than in her parents' home,
I clothing, and the chances n a home where she is only rown up the custom is clear Anding a suitable husband. family in the usual custom,
by no means a dead letter,
including proper attention r treatment as a domestic to take more careful notice own child. The custom surprising that advantage premi malpractices and the ht to light can very easily ide background where the
Hi taai custom is forbidden
re—no puk—was abolished
• puk" to include “mui songé Europeans. The
from that of the other to know the grounds ta may be some forgotten
■ no effect on the custom, waeda the suppression of
of Chan King Wa, referred
It would be matter for
in strong support for his
of the position of the system, in some form is, in fact, an simost there. Though it may
Qay stage above, where be normally possible, civil war, piracy and in the family one of
lives in circum-
the duty of observing Žitná onos marks the Flammed with. Girls time of their marriage,
3
when they are absorbed into the husbands' families, and, among the poor, it is not a long step to anticipate the realisation of a girl's money value (including the payment which is a regular part of the marriage settlement) when circumstances make it necessary to part with her before she has reached marriageable ago.
And action of this nature by no means necessarily connotes any lack of parental affection. The life of poverty is a terrible one. An extra mouth (and extra mouths arrive in direct proportion to increased poverty) means so much less for the others, and it may be, and often is, the best that even fond parents can do for those who can be best spared to part with them by "deed of gift" into better circumstances, and by the same transaction to ameliorate their own condition for the time being.
Parente take as a rule such precautions as may be possible to secure proper treatment of the girls they have parted with. The question of protection for boys does not arise in the same degree. The proper custom is to keep in some kind of touch with the girls and to have a voice, or at least an interest, in their ultimate marriage, for which the new family becomes partly responsible; but the circum- stances distances, difficulties of travel, inability to write, want of postal facilities-have all combined to thin down the custom to vanishing point. In the widespread disasters and troubles of the last few years parents would commonly send their children-even boya-- away in the hope of better things. In the absence of someone from the district to take them and dispose of them, it was not difficult to find an outsider. In either case, there was little possibility of keeping in touch. The children had to be taken far away to districts which were rich enough to take them and support them; but even this was preferable to the certain death that awaited them at home. trend of the migration after the adjacent big cities and richer districta have been supplied is South, to the nearer countries where emigrant Chinese have done so well, and on this journey Hong Kong is almost bound to come into the picture as a port of call, if not as the home of many prosperous and charitable Chinese.
The
The charitable view of the whole question is of importance, and should not be forgotten. The actual payment of money in the trans- action of the deed of gift does not shook the conscience of Chinese, as the reasons that have led to the sale of a child are always borne in mind. Abuses of the whole system and ill-treatment of mui-taai are as much abominated by the better Chinese as by the better Buropeans; but the payment of a sum of money for the deed of gift has at least a favour of charity for its ultimate reason, and in itself and apart from its abuses is not viewed as in any way immoral or wrong. The custom covers all the best Chinese--the most European- jeed and the most thoughtful-in Hong Kong as elsewhere, and the system, generally speaking, is viewed as working for the good of the mai-taai themselves. Their total numbers would reach a very large figure, mash too big for any charitable institution or even for the
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Reference :-
882/10
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