CHINESE DESCENT SYSTEM
115
living unit; and yet the surveyors gave each structure a separate number.
Chinese village houses are not strongly built: once left unoccupied and untended, they rapidly succumb to the ravages of typhoons without, white ants and weeds within. They may be used for a while for storage, but without care they soon lose even this function. How is one to decide at what stage of decrepitude a structure ceases to qualify as a house and becomes an insignificant ruin? More importantly, what criterion did the 1905 surveyors use? There seems little doubt that they failed to number structures that were ruined then (gaps in the sequence of numbers in a row have since been filled with "New Grant Lots"), and gave numbers to structures that were destined to crumble away altogether by 1968 (many lot numbers correspond to nothing discernible on the ground at present). Therefore, just as it would be wrong to suppose that the habitable structures now visible represent the sum of houses listed in Government Land Records, so it would be a mistake to regard the entries in the Block Crown Lease as an exact reflection of the number of habitable structures on the ground in 1905.6
A further problem is raised by the fact that the use to which village structures are put changes over time: relatively few are built as cowsheds, but a great many do service as such (or as pigsties) at some stage, and are restored for human habitation when necessary. They may even serve a dual purpose. My own attempt at defining "house" ran aground when I discovered two households which had insufficient space to accommodate each husband's aged mother: one mother slept in one of the separate kitchens mentioned above, while the other shared a house with the family's pigs.
For the purposes of this article, it is not necessary to make a hard and fast definition of “village house”, but simply to point out that the present-day observer cannot be certain that his understanding of the term coincides with that of the 1905 surveyors: so that the apparent total of "houses" recorded in the Block Crown Lease may include a good many structures that were unfit for human habitation, or used for other purposes, at that time. What follows is an attempt to explain why at any one time many of the houses that are fit for human habitation are likely not to be in use.
CHINESE DESCENT SYSTEM
115
living unit; and yet the surveyors gave each structure a separate number.$
Chinese village houses are not strongly built: once left un- occupied and untended, they rapidly succumb to the ravages of typhoons without, white ants and weeds within. They may be used for a while for storage, but without care they soon lose even this function. How is one to decide at what stage of decrepitude a structure ceases to qualify as a house and becomes an insignificant ruin? More importantly, what criterion did the 1905 surveyors use? There seems little doubt that they failed to number struc- tures that were ruined then (gaps in the sequence of numbers in a row have since been filled with "New Grant Lots"), and gave numbers to structures that were destined to crumble away al- together by 1968 (many lot numbers correspond to nothing dis- cernible on the ground at present). Therefore, just as it would be wrong to suppose that the habitable structures now visible represent the sum of houses listed in Government Land Records, so it would be a mistake to regard the entries in the Block Crown Lease as an exact reflection of the number of habitable structures on the ground in 1905.6
A further problem is raised by the fact that the use to which village structures are put changes over time: relatively few are built as cowsheds, but a great many do service as such (or as pigsties) at some stage, and are restored for human habitation when necessary. They may even serve a dual purpose. My own attempt at defining "house" ran aground when I discovered two households which had insufficient space to accommodate each husband's aged mother: one mother slept in one of the separate kitchens mentioned above, while the other shared a house with the family's pigs.
For the purposes of this article, it is not necessary to make a hard and fast definition of “village house”, but simply to point out that the present-day observer cannot be certain that his under- standing of the term coincides with that of the 1905 surveyors: so that the apparent total of "houses" recorded in the Block Crown Lease may include a good many structures that were unfit for human habitation, or used for other purposes, at that time. What follows is an attempt to explain why at any one time many of the houses that are fit for human habitation are likely not to be in use.
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