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kon ɔk. Before the tram service was opened in 1904, her family members used to walk there to buy goods, going also to the shops in the Western District of the Island. (She called it by its old name of Ham Yue Lan, or "Salted Fish Dealers”). Before the trams, it was common for little wooden carts pulled by men (and probably women also) to carry goods along the north shore of the Island.
The Shau Kei Wan shops catered mostly for boat people, owing to the large number of craft using the anchorage. They included both local and visiting craft. The old lady's purchases were largely of fishing supplies. She particularly recalled buying the traditional dye stuff called shue leung. This was used for dyeing nets, and she remembered the large wooden vats set up beside the shore that were used to immerse the hempen nets in order to restore their strength.
Shue leung was also used for dyeing cloth, she said. At this point her son and daughter interposed, saying that their mother had been very competent at making clothes and had made all the family's garments for a long time, after first dyeing the cloth purchased from the shops.
In response to questions about the local temples, and her visits there, she said that when young and through her life, she had gone regularly once a year to the Tin Hau Temple at Causeway Bay during the annual festival, adding that there was a Kuan Yin or Goddess of Mercy image there as well. She did not seem much interested in the other temples of the adjacent areas, but did mention that she kept the traditional observances at the little shrine on board the family boat on the 2nd and 16th days of each lunar month (tso-nga #4).
Unfortunately, I paid only the one visit.
JAMES HAYES
ADDENDUM: For a detailed account of Tanka fishermen in a permanent local anchorage, see Section I, “Chinese Fishermen:
282
kon ɔk. Before the tram service was opened in 1904, her family members used to walk there to buy goods, going also to the shops in the Western District of the Island. (She called it by its old name of Ham Yue Lan, or "Salted Fish Dealers”). Before the trams, it was common for little wooden carts pulled by men (and probably women also) to carry goods along the north shore of the Island.
The Shau Kei Wan shops catered mostly for boat people, owing to the large number of craft using the anchorage. They included both local and visiting craft. The old lady's purchases were largely of fishing supplies. She particularly recalled buying the traditional dye stuff called shue leung. This was used for dyeing nets, and she remembered the large wooden vats set up beside the shore that were used to immerse the hempen nets in order to restore their strength.
Shue leung was also used for dyeing cloth, she said. At this point her son and daughter interposed, saying that their mother had been very competent at making clothes and had made all the family's garments for a long time, after first dyeing the cloth purchased from the shops.
In response to questions about the local temples, and her visits there, she said that when young and through her life, she had gone regularly once a year to the Tin Hau Temple at Causeway Bay during the annual festival, adding that there was a Kuan Yin or Goddess of Mercy image there as well. She did not seem much interested in the other temples of the adjacent areas, but did men- tion that she kept the traditional observances at the little shrine on board the family boat on the 2nd and 16th days of each lunar month (tso-nga #4).
Unfortunately, I paid only the one visit.
JAMES HAYES
ADDENDUM: For a detailed account of Tanka fishermen in a permanent local anchorage, see Section I, “Chinese Fishermen:
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