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JOHN T. MYERS
in personal expenditures. Cult members assert that he is the Tai Wong Ye of their temple. The manner of his becoming their patron deity is outlined on a scroll prominently displayed in the temple office.
According to the scroll a General Lei fled south with the Southern Sung Court in the late 13th century taking with him the tablet of his illustrious ancestor Lei Man Chung Kung. After the defeat of the Sungs at Ling Ting Island near contemporary Hong Kong the general established residence in the Lo Fu Ngam region of Kowloon. Within the area now occupied by the Lok Fu Housing Estate he is reported to have constructed a shrine in honor of his illustrious ancestor. It is further reported that the residents of the region soon recognized the Tang statesman as a powerful supernatural advocate and developed a popular devotion in his honor.
We know little about the fate of the shrine and its deity during the ensuing 600 years other than that it persisted as a small structure tended in later years by Hakka villagers. After the Second World War the Lo Fu region changed dramatically as it became the site for squatter huts housing migrants from China. The immediate vicinity of the shrine was staked out almost exclusively by squatters from the Chiu-chow speaking region of Kwangtung Province. To the best of our present information it was with the arrival of the Chiu-chow that the shrine and its patron deity became the focus of spirit-medium activity.
Former residents of the squatter settlement indicate that they found the shrine in disrepair and untended when they established their squatter huts. A small group of the Chiu-chow migrants soon undertook its repair and began active worship of the deity. After several months one of their number, a dockyard coolie, began to act strangely. An elderly kei tung judged that he had become possessed by the shrine's patron, Tai Wong Ye, and had been chosen to serve as that deity's medium. The new kei tung soon became the central focus of religious rituals sponsored by the shrine.
A new phase in the temple's existence began in 1957 when the government announced plans for the removal of the squatter area preparatory to constructing on its site the Lo Fu Housing Estate. Most of the Chiu-chow squatters were allocated quarters in the soon to be completed Kwun Tong/Tsui Ping Road Resettlement Estate. The spirit-medium and 18 male devotees of Tai Wong Ye
20
JOHN T. MYERS
in personal expenditures. Cult members assert that he is the Tai Wong Ye of their temple. The manner of his becoming their patron deity is outlined on a scroll prominently displayed in the temple office.
According to the scroll a General Lei fled south with the Sou- thern Sung Court in the late 13th century taking with him the tablet of his illustrious ancestor Lei Man Chung Kung. After the defeat of the Sungs at Ling Ting Island near contemporary Hong Kong the general established residence in the Lo Fu Ngam region of Kowloon. Within the area now occupied by the Lok Fu Housing Estate he is reported to have constructed a shrine in honor of his illustrious ancestor. It is further reported that the residents of the region soon recognized the Tang statesman as a powerful super- natural advocate and developed a popular devotion in his honor.
We know little about the fate of the shrine and its deity during the ensuing 600 years other than that it persisted as a small structure tended in later years by Hakka villagers. After the Second World War the Lo Fu region changed dramatically as it became the site for squatter huts housing migrants from China. The immediate vicinity of the shrine was staked out almost exclusively by squatters from the Chiu-chow speaking region of Kwangtung Province. To the best of our present information it was with the arrival of the Chiu- chow that the shrine and its patron deity became the focus of spirit- medium activity.
Former residents of the squatter settlement indicate that they found the shrine in disrepair and untended when they established their squatter huts. A small group of the Chiu-chow migrants soon undertook its repair and began active worship of the deity. After several months one of their number, a dockyard coolie, began to act strangely. An elderly kei tung judged that he had become possessed by the shrine's patron, Tai Wong Ye, and had been chosen to serve as that deity's medium. The new kei tung soon became the central focus of religious rituals sponsored by the shrine.
A new phase in the temple's existence began in 1957 when the government announced plans for the removal of the squatter area preparatory to constructing on its site the Lo Fu Housing Estate. Most of the Chiu-chow squatters were allocated quarters in the soon to be completed Kwun Tong/Tsui Ping Road Resettlement Estate. The spirit-medium and 18 male devotees of Tai Wong Ye
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