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Still other movements for ritual, recreational, sociable or other purposes were fairly frequent. Some Kau Sai fishermen patronised festivals at other places in addition to the two already mentioned, or called at other temples for purposes of divination or healing; some might decide to visit kinsmen, affines or friends in neighbouring anchorages, or stop over from market one day for a cinema show or other entertainment in Hong Kong. It might become necessary to build a new boat, install an engine or even go to hospital, any one of which things could take a man, his junk and whole household away from Kau Sai for several weeks at a time. All these were matters for personal decision and depended upon one's tastes and above all upon whether one would gain, or at least not lose, in the economic sense, a notion which involved an evaluation not only of probable monetary return but also of the importance of time.
Economic considerations governed the choice of transport too. For matters of the kind mentioned in the preceding paragraph a man did not always take his own boat. There was a great deal of mutual lift-giving and friendly transportation of each other's goods on the water, and once ashore the public bus services were cheap and reliable; often, however, it was more convenient to up-anchor and just go. Which one decided to do would depend mainly upon whether or not one thought the movement of one's own junk and household to be worthwhile. Was their journey really necessary for this instance, or would it be more profitable to let the women and crew get on with shore jobs in Kau Sai? What about saving fuel? Or time? Would a long stay of the whole family in, say, Shaukiwan be more or less expensive than leaving them behind at their home anchorage? And so on. The point here is that these were everyday considerations. Mobility was an accepted fact of life. The shift to shore living on the part of the elderly, the mothers and the children made little difference to the general rhythms of the movement of boats, but did mean that fewer people were involved.
The Hakka landsmen who were present at the beginning of the period under review had quite different patterns of mobility. With the exception of one shopkeeper and his elder brother (the then 'headman') all the able-bodied men worked in the city and
61
Still other movements for ritual, recreational, sociable or other purposes were fairly frequent. Some Kau Sai fishermen patronised festivals at other places in addition to the two already mentioned, or called at other temples for purposes of divination or healing; some might decide to visit kinsmen, affines or friends. in neighbouring anchorages, or stop over from market one day for a cinema show or other entertainment in Hong Kong. It might become necessary to build a new boat, install an engine or even go to hospital any one of which things could take a man, his junk and whole household away from Kau Sai for several weeks at a time. All these were matters for personal decision and depended upon one's tastes and above all upon whether one would gain, or at least not lose, in the economic sense, a notion which involved an evaluation not only of probable monetary return but also of the importance of time.
Economic considerations governed the choice of transport too. For matters of the kind mentioned in the preceding paragraph a man did not always take his own boat. There was a great deal of mutual lift-giving and friendly transportation of each other's goods on the water, and once ashore the public bus services were cheap and reliable; often, however, it was more convenient to up-anchor and just go. Which one decided to do would depend mainly upon whether or not one thought the movement of one's own junk and household to be worthwhile. Was their journey really necessary for this instance, or would it be more profitable to let the women and crew get on with shore jobs in Kau Sai? What about saving fuel? Or time? Would a long stay of the whole family in, say, Shaukiwan be more or less expensive than leaving them behind at their home anchorage? And so on. The point here is that these were everyday considera- tions. Mobility was an accepted fact of life. The shift to shore living on the part of the elderly, the mothers and the children made little difference to the general rhythms of the movement of boats, but did mean that fewer people were involved.
The Hakka landsmen who were present at the beginning of the period under review had quite different patterns of mobility. With the exception of one shopkeeper and his elder brother (the then 'headman') all the able-bodied men worked in the city and
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