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quite frequent. Other families are said to have spoken Hoklo at home as well as Hakka which presupposes previous settlement in Hoklo areas and some intermarriage with Hoklo people. Ho Man Tin village also had settlers who were described to me as 'Wai Chow Punti'*, that is Puntis who, living in what had become the predominantly Hakka area of Wai Chow, had been accepted by the Hakkas as their own people (§ CA). In short there was quite an intermixture of dialect groups in these Kowloon villages. This bears out what the missionary James Johnston writes of the Swatow area of Kwangtung in his China and Formosa (1897):18
44
Whilst these three divisions (Punti, Hakka, Hoklo) of the population are distinctly marked, and kept up from generation to generation, there are frequent intermarriages between them and intermixture of the people in their different localities".
Though settling down in the same villages these Hakka settlers did not all come from the same areas. Some of them came to Kowloon from inland districts of the East River, others from Hoklo-speaking districts further up the coast. Thus Hakkas of different geographical origin settled down together in the Kowloon villages; and not all at the same time, but by degrees. Mong Kok was already an established village by 1862: the available evidence points to an 18th century or early 19th century origin. Ho Man Tin, on the other hand, was not mentioned as a village in the Commissioners' Report in 1862, although family backgrounds indicate that it was probably already a hamlet by then.19
Hakkas have always had a reputation for industry, and perseverance.20 These settlers would have needed those qualities to settle in the Kowloon peninsula, where the majority of good agricultural land had already been taken up by the time most of them came to the Hong Kong region and only areas fit for marginal farming were left for them to develop. In consequence, only a few of the families in these two villages owned rice fields and most of them had to be content with vegetable land in the less well-watered upper slopes of the many small valleys which threaded the peninsula. Farming land was scarce. When the father of one of my informants lost his own vegetable land as the result of a confidence trick he had to cease farming and turned
124
JAMES HAYES
quite frequent. Other families are said to have spoken Hoklo at home as well as Hakka which presupposes previous settlement in Hoklo areas and some intermarriage with Hoklo people. Ho Man Tin village also had settlers who were described to me as 'Wai Chow Punti* (*#$j), that is Puntis who, living in what had become the predominantly Hakka area of Wai Chow, had been accepted by the Hakkas as their own people ( § CA). In short there was quite an intermixture of dialect groups in these Kowloon villages. This bears out what the missionary James Johnston writes of the Swatow area of Kwangtung in his China and Formosa (1897):18
44
Whilst these three divisions (Punti, Hakka, Hoklo) of the population are distinctly marked, and kept up from genera- tion to generation, there are frequent intermarriages between them and intermixture of the people in their different localities ".
Though settling down in the same villages these Hakka settlers did not all come from the same areas. Some of them came to Kowloon from inland districts of the East River, others from Hoklo-speaking districts further up the coast. Thus Hakkas of different geographical origin settled down together in the Kowloon villages; and not all at the same time, but by degrees. Mong Kok was already an established village by 1862: the available evidence points to an 18th century or early 19th century origin. Ho Man Tin, on the other hand, was not mentioned as a village in the Commissioners' Report in 1862, although family backgrounds indicate that it was probably already a hamlet by then.19
Hakkas have always had a reputation for industry, and per- severence.20 These settlers would have needed those qualities to settle in the Kowloon peninsula, where the majority of good agricultural land had already been taken up by the time most of them came to the Hong Kong region and only areas fit for marginal farming were left for them to develop. In consequence, only a few of the families in these two villages owned rice fields and most of them had to be content with vegetable land in the less well-watered upper slopes of the many small valleys which threaded the peninsula. Farming land was scarce. When the father of one of my informants lost his own vegetable land as the result of a confidence trick he had to cease farming and turned
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