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village scholar once described to me by Tsuen Wan elders as "having no degree, but scholarly (man hok ka), liking books and study"; persons who might themselves be schoolmasters or could otherwise maintain a reputation for being educated men. The influence of such persons in the village was correspondingly great.25
5. Augmented by Other Means of Ethical Education
(a) Story-telling
One other means of educating children in the standard and expected norms was through story-telling and related pastimes. In response to questions put to elders in the Tsuen Wan villages about books and story-telling in their youth, various titles were mentioned, some of them surviving in hand-copied editions. It had mostly been the elderly villagers of their day who had owned such books and, in their leisure hours, had transmitted their contents to the younger members of their families. Judging from the titles listed, the moral content of many of these stories was high, emphasizing such qualities as loyalty, charity and filial piety, denouncing oppression and injustice, and showing the old principle of retributive justice in operation.26 Though intended mainly for amusement, their contents had the effect of reinforcing the ethical indoctrination received from other sources. These customary extensions to formal education were the more influential because there had been no newspapers or periodicals on sale in the Tsuen Wan shops in their youth, i.e. in the period 1910-1925. Thus the field of information had then been restricted to traditional reading material and its various means of transmission.27
(b) The Man and Puppet Opera Stories
We can now pass from books and stories to the opera. Even in the 1970s, it was possible to glimpse the hold which the old entertainment still exerted upon the people. In Tsuen Wan, they still flocked to see the traditional opera performances held in the temporary matsheds erected on waste or temporarily vacant ground at festival times, on the temple deities' birthdays, and at important events in the calendar such as the Hungry Ghosts' Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival and the Lunar New Year.
In describing the staging of plays to celebrate the birthdays of the
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village scholar once described to me by Tsuen Wan elders as "having no degree, but scholarly (man hok ka), liking books and study"; persons who might themselves be schoolmasters or could otherwise maintain a reputation for being educated men. The influence of such persons in the village was correspondingly great.25
5. Augmented by Other Means of Ethical Education
(a) Story-telling
One other means of educating children in the standard and expected norms was through story-telling and related pastimes. In response to questions put to elders in the Tsuen Wan villages about books and story-telling in their youth, various titles were mentioned, some of them surviving in hand-copied editions. It had mostly been the elderly villagers of their day who had owned such books and, in their leisure hours, had transmitted their contents to the younger members of their families. Judging from the titles listed, the moral content of many of these stories was high, emphasizing such qualities as loyalty, charity and filial piety, denouncing oppression and injustice, and showing the old principle of retributive justice in operation.26 Though intended mainly for amusement, their contents had the effect of reinforcing the ethical indoctrination received from other sources. These customary extensions to formal education were the more influential because there had been no newspapers or periodicals on sale in the Tsuen Wan shops in their youth, i.e. in the period 1910-1925. Thus the field of information had then been restricted to traditional reading material and its various means of transmission.27
(b) The Man and Puppet Opera Stories
We can now pass from books and stories to the opera. Even in the 1970s, it was possible to glimpse the hold which the old entertainment still exerted upon the people. In Tsuen Wan, they still flocked to see the traditional opera performances held in the temporary matsheds erected on waste or temporarily vacant ground at festival times, on the temple deities' birthdays, and at important events in the calendar such as the Hungry Ghosts' Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival and the Lunar New Year.
In describing the staging of plays to celebrate the birthdays of the
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