310
VILLAGE SHOPS IN THE HONG KONG REGION
JAMES HAYES
Village shops are seldom written about: in the main, I suppose, because they were of such little consequence. Villagers had to go to market towns or market villages for necessities like oil and salt, and anything else that they did not produce or make themselves. The village shops were seemingly contemptible affairs, selling sweets and an assortment of joss papers, and were run as part-time ventures by village people.
Some examples from different places have cropped up in my accounts of discussions with old persons born in the last few decades of the 19th century. At Ma Wan Chung (pop. 51 at the 1911 Census of Hong Kong) a coastal village at Tung Chung on Lantau Island near an anchorage, there were a few little shops which, in addition to the basic stock-in-trade described above sold peanut oil for villagers' lamps. Their status and uncertain existence were graphically described as being "run by villagers who operated them when they had a little money to buy goods and stopped when they had none". Ma Wan Chung had some business with the resident boat population, so there was more incentive than in ordinary places. From my enquiries, it seems that many of the sixteen Tung Chung villages (total pop. 1198 in 1911) had a shop of this kind, because there were always villagers who hoped to make a little money in this way from providing a convenient service for the other residents. There were also visits from itinerant hawkers who brought with them a wider variety of goods including crockery, oil, sweets, cloth etc.
Elsewhere on Lantau Island, at the large village of Shek Pik on the south coast of the island, (pop. 363 in 1911), there were three or four little shops when my informants were boys, in the first decade of this century. They were kept by village men "as the women were illiterate and couldn't count or keep simple accounts". They sold groceries, kerosene, joss paper and ritual goods, cakes, sweets, fruit and the like. As at Tung Chung they stopped and started as capital was or ceased to be available, and their operators changed frequently.
310
VILLAGE SHOPS IN THE HONG KONG REGION
JAMES HAYES
Village shops are seldom written about: in the main, I suppose, because they were of such little consequence. Villagers had to go to market towns or market villages for necessities like oil and salt, and anything else that they did not produce or make themselves. The village shops were seemingly contemptible affairs, selling sweets and an assortment of joss papers, and were run as part-time ventures by village people.
Some examples from different places have cropped up in my accounts of discussions with old persons born in the last few de- cades of the 19th century. At Ma Wan Chung (pop. 51 at the 1911 Census of Hong Kong) a coastal village at Tung Chung on Lantau Island near an anchorage, there were a few little shops which, in addition to the basic stock-in-trade described above sold peanut oil for villagers' lamps. Their status and uncertain existence were graphically described as being "run by villagers who operated them when they had a little money to buy goods and stopped when they had none". Ma Wan Chung had some business with the resi- dent boat population, so there was more incentive than in ordi- nary places. From my enquiries, it seems that many of the sixteen Tung Chung villages (total pop. 1198 in 1911) had a shop of this kind, because there were always villagers who hoped to make a little money in this way from providing a convenient service for the other residents. There were also visits from itinerent hawkers who brought with them a wider variety of goods including crock- ery, oil, sweets, cloth etc.
Elsewhere on Lantau Island, at the large village of Shek Pik on the south coast of the island, (pop. 363 in 1911), there were three or four little shops when my informants were boys, in the first decade of this century. They were kept by village men "as the women were illiterate and couldn't count or keep simple accounts". They sold groceries, kerosene, joss paper and ritual goods, cakes, sweets, fruit and the like. As at Tung Chung they stopped and started as capital was or ceased to be available, and their operators changed frequently.
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