54
(h) Ancestral graves are not necessarily in the same vicinity as the village where the descendants live. Sometimes they are far apart. For instance, the large Man () clan of San Tin () has graves at Tsuen Wan () and Castle Peak which are visited at the two festivals by a lengthy motorcade of lorries containing worshippers, a band, and enormous quantities of food and drink. This separation of distance represents only the dictates of good fung shui () and does not mean that the clan has shifted its village at some past stage in history.
11. House Building
(a) It often occurs that an owner of building land or of agricultural land to be converted applies for leave to start building at once without waiting for the completion of formalities, e.g. scrutiny of plans, signature of papers etc. His grounds for wishing to cut procedure short are that a lucky day for building is approaching and that he cannot afford to miss the opportunity. Attempts of this sort, however importunate, can usually be resisted by persuading the applicant to continue with house-building ceremonies without actually doing any building itself.
(b) The ceremonies themselves are of three separate types and need not necessarily take place in any particular order on the same day. There may be a different lucky day for each. They are equally practised amongst Cantonese and Hakka (). Their expenses, particularly of entertainment, are such that they form a large part of building costs and to some extent must be reckoned as a deterrent to permanent buildings, at any rate amongst the poorer villagers.
(c) The lucky day is chosen by the geomancer comparing the applicant's time and date of birth against the Chinese almanac which records which days are luckiest for performing certain things. As this method of selection is employed in various other domestic circumstances, e.g. marriage, opening a business etc., a record of a child's time and date of birth is of particular importance for its future prosperity.
(d) "On mun" () consists of setting up the front door on the building site itself. Three lengths of bamboo, to
54
(h) Ancestral graves are not necessarily in the same vicinity as the village where the descendants live. Sometimes they are far apart. For instance, the large Man () clan of San Tin () has graves at Tsuen Wan () and Castle Peak which are visited at the two festivals by a lengthy motorcade of lorries containing worshippers, a band, and enormous quantities of food and drink. This separation of distance represents only the dictates of good fung shui (Ak) and does not mean that the clan has shifted its village at some past stage in history.
11. House Building
(a) It often occurs that an owner of building land or of agricultural land to be converted applies for leave to start building at once without waiting for the completion of formalities, e.g. scrutiny of plans, signature of papers etc. His grounds for wishing to cut procedure short are that a lucky day for building is approaching and that he cannot afford to miss the opportunity. Attempts of this sort, however importunate, can usually be resisted by persuading the applicant to continue with house- building ceremonies without actually doing any building itself.
(b) The ceremonies themselves are of three separate types and need not necessarily take place in any particular order on the same day. There may be a different lucky day for each. They are equally practised amongst Cantonese and Hakka (R). Their expenses, particularly of entertainment, are such that they form a large part of building costs and to some extent must be reckoned as a deterrent to permanent buildings, at any rate amongst the poorer villagers.
(c) The lucky day is chosen by the geomancer comparing the applicant's time and date of birth against the Chinese almanac which records which days are luckiest for performing certain things. As this method of selection is employed in various other domestic circumstances, e.g. marriage, opening a business etc., a record of a child's time and date of birth is of particular importance for its future prosperity.
(d) "On mun" (1) consists of setting up the front door on the building site itself. Three lengths of bamboo, to
!
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.