[ { "id": 204645, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1963", "page_number": 126, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "NAVIGATION ON THE YANGTSE\n\n113\n\ntransport. It was so successful that by 1872 it had a fleet of 17 steamers, had established 9 depots on the river, and found it necessary to increase its capital from Tls. 1,000,000 to Tls. 2,000,000.\" During 1866 and 1867 the Shanghai Steam Navigation Company succeeded in obtaining almost a complete monopoly of the Yangtse river trade, at least in that part of it carried by foreign ships. In these two years the rival American company of Olyphant withdrew their two steamers, Jardine's transferred their two river steamers to the Hong Kong-Shanghai run, and the Shanghai Steam Navigation Company bought the steamers of Dent, Lindsay, and Heard. Their only remaining rivals were two steamers of the recently formed Union Steam Navigation Company, a Shanghai British company. These were not serious rivals to American supremacy, but in five years' time were to be sold to a new British company which was destined to challenge the American near monopoly on the river successfully.\n\nAlthough American steamers were supreme on the Yangtse at this time, and also prominent on some of the coast runs, British trading firms were still the most powerful foreign firms in the treaty ports as a whole, including the three newly opened ports on the Yangtse. British ships were also the most prominent in the foreign trade of China, including that from the Yangtse ports. In 1869, for instance, two British ocean steamers went up to Hankow at the height of the tea season and loaded direct for Europe, and were followed by six in 1870, and nine in 1871.* This, of course, was a serious challenge to the Shanghai Steam Navigation Company.\n\nCompany. Of the Shanghai Steam Navigation Company's 17 ships at this time only five had been built in America, six having been built in Britain, and six in Shanghai; while a good proportion of their captains and officers were British. This, together with the fact that Russell and Company always had a friendly alliance\n\n\"Of the original Tls. 1,000,000 capital about one third was contributed by members of Russell and Company, another third by foreign business men in Shanghai, of whom the majority were British, and the last third by Chinese business men, also in Shanghai.\n\n* Six of their steamers were on the Shanghai-Tientsin run, with calls at Chefoo, and two on the Shanghai-Ningpo run.\n\n? As the result of a triangular arrangement between the firms of Russell, Jardine and Dent, Jardine withdrew to the coast, and helped Dent financially, and Russell agreed not to increase their services on the coast.\n\n* One of these was Holt's Agamemnon and the other the Erl King. After this Holt's sent at least two ships to Hankow each season.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205123, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1966", "page_number": 79, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "74\n\nHOLMES WELCH\n\nIn 1873 the first Japanese missionary arrived in the Middle Kingdom. His name was Ogurusu Kocho and he had been sent to look over the situation in Shanghai by the Higashi Honganji sub-sect of Jodo Shinshu (the larger of the two main Pure Land sects). The following year he paid another visit to Shanghai and also went to Peking.\n\nIn 1876 the Higashi Honganji drew up a new creed that could be interpreted as a bid for collaboration with the state. Among other things, it emphasized that glorious death in military service would be rewarded by rebirth in the Western Paradise. It spoke of brotherhood with the Chinese in face of the unfilial barbarians. In May that year Count Otani, the hereditary patriarch of the subsect went to Tokyo accompanied by Ogurusu Kocho, and consulted Terashima Munenori in the Foreign Ministry on the problem of missionary work in China. We are not told the substance of their conversation, but in August a branch temple opened its doors in Shanghai, staffed by six priests, including Ogurusu. It was \"the first Japanese religious organization in China.\"2\n\nAfter China's defeat by Japan in 1895 a trade agreement was signed that gave the Japanese the right to construct temples in all the Treaty Ports. In 1896 Nanking had a Honganji temple.3 Shanghai got a Nichiren temple in 1899 and a second Honganji temple in 1906. According to one source special efforts were made to build temples in Fukien province, where the Japanese were trying to create a sphere of influence across the straits from their newly acquired colony of Formosa. Their missions were often able to attract parishioners because they could offer the same protection as their Christian counterparts, but did not require anyone to give up ancestor worship. The aim, however, was not merely parish-building, but use of the missions in the same way as the European powers. Thus in the autumn of 1900 a Japanese temple in Amoy was mysteriously destroyed by fire. A few hours later Japanese marines landed from a warship that had been waiting in the harbor and occupied the city. Only the strongest British representations induced Japan to withdraw her troops and bring her first \"missions case\" to a close.\n\nA more subtle approach was already on its way. In 1899 the East Asian Cultural Alliance had been established to create an", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205143, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1966", "page_number": 99, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "94\n\nHOLMES WELCH\n\nI have not heard of other monasteries in China that had such wide-spreading or deep-rooted connections overseas as Ku Shan. It may have been unique. But it was extremely common for monks and lay pilgrims to go back and forth between overseas Chinese communities and the \"famous mountains” at home. Even at Wu-t'ai Shan near the Inner Mongolian border, one could find pilgrims from Singapore. In 1936, when Tai Chi-t'ao was on his way back from Europe, he stopped in Manila to lay the cornerstone of a new Buddhist temple sponsored by a group of overseas Chinese who, since 1930, had been serving as Philippines distributor for a Buddhist publishing house in Soochow. Here as elsewhere in southeast Asia, Buddhism was a link with the motherland.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 James Troup, \"On the tenets of the Shinshiu or 'True Sect' of Buddhists,\" Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, 16 (June 1886), 14-16.\n\n2 Takada, Giko, Chusi shukyo daido renmei nenkan (Yearbook of the Great Harmony Religious Alliance of Central China), Shanghai, 1943, p. 10. I am obliged to Dr. Ho Kuan-chung for making this book available to me.\n\n3 Yang Jen-shan, Yang Jen-shang chü-shih i-chu (Works of upasaka Yang Jen-shang), Peking, 1923, 1:5. This temple appears to have gone out of existence at some later date, since the Nanking branch of Honganji mentioned by Takada (see preceding note) was set up in 1938. A Japanese temple in Changsha was noted by Hackmann in 1911 (German Scholar in the East, London, 1914, p. 108). This is also unlisted by Takada.\n\n4. Franke, “Die Propaganda des japanischen Buddhismus in China”, Ostasiatische Neubildungen, Hamburg, 1911, p. 159. This article by Franke is the source of most of the information given in the text, pp. 2-4.\n\n5 This episode is also referred to in Yin-shun, T'ai-hsü tashih nien-p'u, Hong Kong, 1950, p. 35-36, where thirteen monasteries in Hangchow alone were said to have become affiliated with the Honganji. More investigation is needed.\n\n6 Takada, p. 14.\n\n7 There were twenty-six Chinese delegates, according to Yin-shun, T'ai-hsü, p. 203. The official head of the Chinese delegation and Chinese vice-chairman of the conference was Tao-chieh, under whom T'ai-hsü had studied twenty years before (Yin-shun, T'ai-hsü, p. 26 ff). T'ai-hsü may be pardoned, perhaps, for giving people the impression that he was himself the chief of the delegation. (See, for example, Young East 1.6 (November 8, 1925), 177; T'ai-hsü Lectures on Buddhism, Paris, 1928, p. 14,\n\n8 Young East 1.6 (November 8, 1925), 179-180.\n\n9 This and other information given here on the East Asian Buddhist Conference comes largely from Young East 1.6 (November 8, 1925), 176-177.\n\n10 Tokiwa Daijo, Shina bukkyo shiseki kinen shu (Buddhist Monuments in China, Memorial Collection), Tokyo, 1931, p. 203.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205144, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1966", "page_number": 100, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "FOREIGN RELATIONS OF BUDDHISM\n\n11 Yin-shun, T'ai-hsü, p. 213.\n\n12 Eastern Buddhist 3.2 (July-September, 1924), 190.\n\n95\n\n13 Chinese lay devotees went to Japan to learn Tantric Buddhism from Shingon masters. Chinese monks went for academic study (two in 1936 and two more in early 1937; see Chinese Year Book 1937, Shanghai, 1937, p. 73.\n\n14 That is, the Chung-jih fo-chiao hui. At about the same time the Sino-Japanese Tantric Association (Ching-jih mi-chiao hui) was established. See Chinese Year Book 1937, p. 73.\n\n15 Takada, p. 14.\n\n16 Takada, p. 24-36, lists a total of eleven temples established between 1876 and 1937, but on p. 14 he speaks of ten temples having been set up before 1937 and of forty-nine (not forty-six) being in operation as of December, 1942. It seems clear that he does not include temples that have gone out of operation, like those in Nanking and Changsha (see note 2), and possibly those in Fukien. The only temple outside Shanghai that survived from the era before 1937 was the Honganji temple in Hankow, established 1906, which in 1942 had 1,200 Japanese and 150 Chinese parishioners.\n\n17 For example, in 1942 at the original Honganji temple in Shanghai the number of Japanese parishioners was 4,930 and the number of Chinese was zero. This temple was obviously not engaged in missionary work, but exclusively in serving the Japanese community.\n\n18 Two officers of the Ching-an Ssu in Shanghai are said to have been arrested and in Canton the abbot of the Liu-jung Ssu, T'ieh-ch'an, was executed.\n\n19 H. G. Quaritch Wales, \"Buddhism As an Instrument of Japanese Propaganda\" Free World 5.5 (May 1943), 428.\n\n20 Takada, p. 1, states that the alliance was set up in April 1937 in accordance with the policy formulated in October 1938. Perhaps the first date is a misprint.\n\n21 Takada, pp. 1, 4, 5. The changes in the bureaucratic status of the Great Harmony Religious Alliance appear to have been as follows. After being set up under the military authorities, it was transferred to the liaison office of the Central China Liaison Office of the Office for the Resurgence of Asia (Koain), which had been set up in December 1938 directly under the Cabinet in order to formulate policy on and handle relations with China. In April 1942 the Alliance was placed under the supervision of the Foreign Ministry through its representatives in Shanghai. In November 1942 it seems to have been returned to the Office for the Resurgence of Asia, when the latter was integrated into the Ministry for Great East Asian Co-Prosperity.\n\n22 Takada, pp. 24-36.\n\n23 The most significant absentee was Yüan-ying, the national head of the Chinese Buddhist Association (Shanghai, 1929).\n\n24 H. Hackmann, A German Scholar in the East, pp. 118-119. John Blofeld, who visited Wu-t'ai Shan in 1937, describes a monastery with several hundred monks where \"the main pavilion... was arranged in the Chinese way, but many services were held in a smaller building where purely Tibetan rites were performed\" (Jewel in the Lotus, London, 1948, p. 97).\n\n25 Fa-p'u, a disciple of Ta-yung, is stated to have reached Lhasa and earned a ko-hsi degree. Yin-shun, T'ai-hsü, p. 17.\n\n26 Chinese Year Book 1937 (Shanghai, 1937), p. 73.\n\n27 Shirob Jaltso, for example, was a member of the People's Political Council (1938-1949); an alternate member of the Kuomintang Sixth Super-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209020, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1980", "page_number": 182, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "150\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\ntional times, the social community tended to be isomorphic with the territorial unit, but times have changed, and territorial definition no longer counts. Outsiders in Fung Yuen, whether other New Territories villagers now resident in the valley or immigrants from across the border, never worship at these shrines or participate in any of the annual ceremonies performed to honor these gods.\n\nThe remaining, somewhat abbreviated ceremonies of the tun fu took place at important sites scattered throughout the valley. The sequence in which they were conducted seemed to follow the shortest path covering all sites, rather than any rank order of significance. The point of interest in these ceremonies is that certain pots (and their associated bamboo stalks and charms) protect residential units, while others protect units constituted socially, represented symbolically in a shrine or hall of some religious significance. Some pots embody both dimensions simultaneously, and every household requires protection of both sorts; inclusion in a social unit that is symbolically protected apparently must be supplemented by having a charm in close proximity to one's own home.\n\nWhen the 1905 Block Crown Leases were prepared, most villagers lived together in a nucleated cluster of six rows of terraced houses at the back of the valley. One of the lineages had already begun to splinter off into a single-surname hamlet in front of the old village, however, and in the early decades of this century that move was completed. A second lineage hived off at about the same time to form a separate hamlet along one edge of the valley. Since it was essential that protection be afforded equally to all Fung Yuen people, incense pots and bamboo fronds had been placed at strategic points in each of the three hamlets in previous tun fu ceremonies, and these now had to be reconsecrated. Though all hamlets received equal protection, however, the number and placement of the pots varied in each.\n\nIn the old village there is a community hall, the center for lunar new year rituals in which all of the four lineages share equally. One tun fu pot was placed in front of this house, signifying protection for all members of the multilineage alliance that is formalized in this building and in land held in trust to support its rituals. This single pot is, it seems, able to offer protection at two other levels as well, however. Next to the community hall stands the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210940, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1987", "page_number": 2, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "272\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nthat one of these is an earlier version, including the annual accounts for only 1911 to 1913. A photocopy of this one was given to James Hayes by the Chairman of the Sheung Shui Rural Committee in 1972, and Dr. Hayes kindly made it available to the Oral History Project at the Chinese University. It is now incorporated into the volumes on Sheung Shui in the Project's Historical Literature of the New Territories. The other copy is held by the British Library, and includes the annual accounts from 1923 to 1960. The British Library also holds the only copy of the accounts of the New Alliance, on the cover of which is written: Temple celebration of the New Alliance, opened on the 1st of the Sixth Month in the 1st year of Hsüan-t'ung, Lung Yeuk Tau copy (新約會神誕,宣統元年歲次己酉六月初一日✰✰✰). It includes the annual accounts from 1906. Both copies held by the British Library are originals, not photocopies.\n\nAccording to these account books, member villages held shares in these alliances, managed the communal property by annual rotation among the shares, and participated in the annual sacrifices that were paid for from income derived from the communal property. The Old Alliance was made up of four shares and the New Alliance of six. The four villages of the Hau (侯) lineage (Kam Tsin, Ping Kong, Ho Sheung Heung, Yin Kong) together held one share in the Old Alliance, and so did the Liu (廖) lineage of Sheung Shui, the Wan Shing T'ong (雲升堂) of Sheung Shui (a sub-lineage trust of the Liu lineage), and the Tang (鄧) lineage of Lung Shaan, i.e. Lung Yeuk Tau. According to oral tradition in Sheung Shui, the Wan Shing T'ong bought its share from the Man (文) lineage. This is corroborated by an undated document entitled, \"Eulogy of the four surnames of Hau, Liu, Tang and Man on the foundation of the Po Tak Temple”(侯、廖、鄧、文四姓立報德祠頌詞) published in a recent commemorative volume (Liu Yun-sham, Commemorative Volume on the History of the Venerable Chau and Wong 廖潤深,周王二公史蹟紀念專輯 Hong Kong, 1982, p. 13). We have not seen the original of this document, but its title suggests that it was written for the Old Alliance at a time before the Man lineage sold its share to the Wan Shing T'ong. In the New Alliance, the four Hau villages, Sheung Shui, Lung", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210946, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1987", "page_number": 8, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "278\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\njoined and added one share, making the total six shares as they are now. For each share 25 silver dollars were paid to establish the Sheung Ue tung ferry for the convenience of passengers. [The operation of] the ferry has been given to the highest bidder by auction each year. [Money received] is kept for interest so that sacrifices may be paid for. Sacrifices should be paid for in accordance with former regulations. [Sheung Ue tung was another name for the Sheung Shui area, and the ferry in question took villagers across the river to Sham Chun Market as we found out in interviews in Fan Ling and Lung Yeuk Tau. The passage is, of course, not as clear as it could be. It would seem that except for the half share held by Loi Tung, other shares held before 1908 counted for something in the reconstitution of the yeuk in that year. This something was not necessarily much more than a right to re-join, and Loi Tung was thus effectively barred from re-joining.]\n\n3. Management for the year should be rotated in the following order\n\nFirst, the Hau surname, Ping Kong, Ho Sheung Heung, Kam Tsin, Yin Kong;\n\nSecond, Lung Shaan heung;\n\nThird, Tai Hang, Tai Po Tau;\n\nFourth, Fan Ling heung;\n\nFifth, San Tin heung;\n\nSixth, Sheung Shui heung.\n\n4. Each share [in the alliance] is to keep a book, and in the year it is in charge, ten days before [the sacrifice], it should send invitations to the shan-sz in the villages. There must be no delay.\n\n5. On the occasion of the celebration on the 1st of the Sixth Month, each share is to send four shan-sz to worship the gods. There should also be sufficient masters-of-ceremony and managers. [We know for a fact that some of the member villages of the New Alliance did not have degree-holders: the term shan-sz in this clause, must therefore include people without a degree.]", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210947, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1987", "page_number": 9, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nVol. 22 (1982)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n279\n\n6. The manager is to pay for all sacrificial goods and other expenses, and the balance is to be handed over to the manager for the next year, in the presence of all, so that interest may be raised on it at 15 percent. This should be followed year after year.\n\nWorship continued separately to at least the time of the fire in 1955. In 1963, the two alliances were integrated and all the participating villages have been sacrificing together on the 1st of the Sixth Month since.\n\nDavid Faure, Lee Lai-Mur\n\nTHE ATTEMPT TO ASSASSINATE THE GOVERNOR IN 1912*\n\nIt is now seventy years since the last and, as far as is known, only attempt ever made to murder the governor of Hong Kong. Like 1982, 1912 saw a change of governors when Sir Frederick Lugard departed and Sir Henry May arrived, but Sir Edward Youde's inauguration in May 1982 was not marred by the violence which greeted Sir Henry May as he was on his way to take the oath of office on 4 July 1912.\n\nSir Henry was not the longest serving governor of Hong Kong: he ruled the colony for six and a half years, a record not surpassed until Sir Alexander Grantham's ten-year governorship. But of all our governors, he had by far the longest experience in Hong Kong. He first arrived as an administrative cadet in 1881 and rose to become Superintendent of Police in 1893 and then Colonial Secretary in 1902, before he departed in January 1911 to become Governor of Fiji and High Commissioner of the Western Pacific. His stay in Fiji lasted little more than a year. In October 1911, Lugard was offered and accepted the governorship of Nigeria. When Lugard's unexpected departure was announced, the unofficial members of the Executive and Legislative Councils petitioned London that May should return to the colony as his successor. The Colonial Office accepted this suggestion; the Chinese revolution had just broken out and the\n\nPlates 8-10,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211747, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 162, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "137\n\nCheung (張) lineage of Wong Pui Ling. The area, however, was fertile, rich, and, by the later eighteenth century, becoming relatively densely populated. Growth of stronger and less politically quiescent inter-village groupings could be expected, and the clearest evidence of this comes from the nunnery.\n\nThe nunnery was founded by the villages of the Ping Yuen Hap Heung on the one hand, and Loi Tung and Man Uk Pin on the other. Loi Tung was a tight lineage alliance of three large villages of the Punti Tang clan (Loi Tung Lo Wai, San Wai, and Tai Tong Wu), and Man Uk Pin was a single, large Hakka village, predominantly of the Chung clan. The nunnery lay in six shares: Ping Che, Ping Yeung, Wo Keng Shan, Loi Tung, Tai Tong Wu, and Man Uk Pin. Of these, the Wo Keng Shan and Tai Tong Wu shares were probably there to reflect the greater size and strength of the Chan and Tang lineages within the grouping. In practice, however, the nunnery was controlled by the four clans of the Mans, Chans, Tangs, and Chungs, and normally probably had one Manager drawn from each lineage.” This group of eight villages, most of them large and wealthy, clearly represents a new generation of inter-village grouping in the Ta Kwu Ling area.\n\nThe importance of the road through the Miu Keng pass has been discussed above. The position of the nunnery on the road was not only of value to travellers seeking shelter, it was also of major strategic and political significance. The road was the only passage through the hills, and could not be by-passed. Whoever controlled this pass controlled much of the Sha Tau Kok to Sham Tsun road. The foundation of the nunnery was the result of the grouping together of a few villages which were clearly seeking to capitalise on their strategic location, and thus to increase their local political leverage and district significance. The political significance of the foundation should not be downplayed. The religious impetus behind the foundation should not, of course, be ignored, but the strategic significance of the grouping is too strong to be overlooked. The nunnery-founding group of villages seems to be, in fact, an early example of a Yeuk (約) mutual defence and support inter-village alliance. The villages which had founded the nunnery seem to have worshipped there together at the Yu Lan Festival in the summer, when vegetarian food was served to the elders and faithful in front of the nunnery.\n\nIt is likely that the Ping Yuen Hap Heung people used their alliance with the groups east of the pass to strengthen their position as against", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211752, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 167, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "142\n\nsteady waves. This sensible and pragmatic defence plan lead to the villages near Kan Tau Wai being formed into five Yeuk, which radiate out from Kan Tau Wai like the spokes of a wheel. The villages to the north-east, furthest from Kan Tau Wai, formed a sixth Yeuk: its duties were to guard the other entrances to Ta Kwu Ling, the Fan Li Au and to keep an eye on the Cheung's allies in the area, especially Lin Ma Hang and Sai Ling Ha. The arrangement of the area into six Yeuk lead the area to be called the Ta Kwu Ling Luk Yeuk (\"Ta Kwu Ling Alliance of Six\"). The Yeuk seem to have been very united in their opposition to Wong Pui Ling — the deaths of villagers in the fighting were very evenly shared between them.\n\n29\n+\n\nThese arrangements required the Ping Yuen Hap Heung to be split, Ping Che joining Tong Fong and Kan Tau Wai in one Yeuk, centred on the Ping Che Road, and Ping Yeung with Nga Yiu Ha and Wo Keng Shan forming another centred on the Miu Keng road. The Loi Tung villagers had no interest in the Law Fong bridge, and did not join the Ta Kwu Ling alliance; their political interests lay elsewhere. Similarly, the old grouping of Kan Tau Wai, Lei Uk and Tai Po Tin had to be split, with Lei Uk and Tai Po Tin being joined with Shan Kai Wat further along their common access path. These arrangements seem to have been introduced no earlier than about 1850, and were limited to defence and mutual assistance matters; ritual and other arrangements continued to operate according to the older groupings. Hence the management of the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz was unaffected, and even though Loi Tung and Man Uk Pin were probably friendly with Wong Pui Ling, the political contacts of the villages near the pass did not end, and probably helped to stop the dispute escalating too far.\n\nAlthough it is something of an irrelevance to this article, it is, perhaps, worth saying something further about the Luk Yeuk. The alliance was successful in its war with Wong Pui Ling: the bridge was built (it was a very fine, three-span granite structure), with an inscription set up at the bridge foot detailing the donors. Wong Pui Ling had to accept defeat, and see its influence disappear throughout Ta Kwu Ling and beyond. The Ta Kwu Ling villagers, after peace had been secured, set up an organisation to ensure that the area could go back onto a “war footing” at short notice if required. This was the Shing Ping She (\"Peace Secured Society\"). This organisation ensured that all the young men were trained in martial arts, and that patrols \"to keep the peace\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211756, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 171, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "146\n\nthe client relationship Lung Yeuk Tau wanted them in. Loi Tung, despite its genealogical connection with Lung Yeuk Tau, was always regarded by Lung Yeuk Tau as a \"poor relation\", and classed with the \"small villages\". Lung Yeuk Tau was, in addition, a member of the Po Tak Temple (#) Old Alliance: this alliance was of the \"major lineages” of the area (Lung Yeuk Tau, Sheung Shui, Ho Sheung Heung, and Tai Hang), and was a specifically gentry body, whose influence was certainly antagonistic to the “small villages\". The Sze Yeuk, therefore, divided into Lung Yeuk Tau to the west, interested mostly in its enmity to Fan Ling, and an eastern group, which had interests to the north.\n\nIn the Shap Yeuk area, Man Uk Pin, the westernmost of the ten or eleven Yeuk of the Shap Yeuk, was also part of the Sze Yeuk, in which organisation it did not form a Yeuk by itself, but was merely a subordinate part of the Loi Tung Yeuk. Man Uk Pin was a long way from Sha Tau Kok market, and, again, looked in a different direction from most of the rest of the Shap Yeuk. To Man Uk Pin the road through the Miu Keng pass was essential, and the villages on the other side of the pass were, therefore, of more interest to it than would have been the case with the other Shap Yeuk villages.\n\nareas\n\n―\n\nPeripheral areas, on the boundaries of the Yeuk inter-village alliance areas, were always more conscious of interests outside the Yeuk areas than villages closer to the centre of local political activity. The Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz is built where the Luk Yeuk, Shap Yeuk, and Sze Yeuk meet. The area is peripheral to the centre of interest of all three Yeuk - the Law Fong bridge, the Sha Tau Kok market, and the river crossing between Lung Yeuk Tau and Fan Ling. The continuing existence of the nunnery committee, and the continuing inter-relationship of the villages holding the six shares of the nunnery, was a standing brake to any attempt by hot-heads to provoke enmity between the three Yeuk alliances as units; if such a thing had happened, the three groups of \"front-line\" villages would have been unlikely to have been very enthusiastic participants. It is probably this factor which led to there never being any outright fighting between these three alliance areas as a whole, despite the Sze Yeuk and Shap Yeuk friendliness with Wong Pui Ling. Equally, the capacity to look for support from outside the Yeuk area must have strengthened the position of Loi Tung, Man Uk Pin, and the Ping Yuen people within their respective Yeuk areas.\n\nThe influence of the Magistrate and the gentry in the area was minimal.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211994, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 409, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "384\n\n亞哥剪辮\n\n亞哥又興弟又興 新買銅鐘莫冇聲 新買銅鐘莫有聲 不怕滿州使劍刀\n\n革命打贏哥剪辮 餓死滿州冇肚腸 餓死滿州有肚子 炸彈一去就冇毛\n\nP.H. HASE\n\nNOTES\n\nThese are the papers of a local village scholar (1874-1944) from Hoi Ha Village in North Sai Kung, and are now on deposit in the Sha Tin Public Library. Regional Council. The pamphlet is entitled \"A New Three Character Classic\", and has the classification number R802.81 0132.\n\nI am obliged to Mr. M.Y. Lee for assistance in transcription and translation.\n\nPapers laid before the Legislative Council of Hongkong, 1912, (Sessional Papers), No. 11, \"Report on the New Territories, 1899-1912”, para. 88, page 56 (G.N. Orme, District Officer, 9th June, 1912), and Hong Kong Administrative Reports for the Year 1911, Appendix I, \"Report on the New Territories for the Year 1911, A. - Northern District”, page I, 5. (G.N. Orme, District Officer, 20th June, 1912).\n\nTHE MUTUAL DEFENCE ALLIANCE (YEUK) OF THE NEW TERRITORIES\n\nIt is well-known that the traditional society of the eastern New Territories was dominated by inter-village mutual defence alliances, or Yeuk, and that the political structure of the area was dominated by further, higher-level alliances, or \"unions\", of Yeuk. The Sai Kung area, for instance, comprised six Yeuk, which formed a single, higher-level \"union\" centred on Sai Kung market; the Sha Tin area was similarly a \"union\" of nine Yeuk; the Sha Tau Kok area one of ten Yeuk; and the Ta Kwu Ling area one of six Yeuk. These areas were, in consequence, known in the late nineteenth century as the Luk Yeuk (\"Union of Six Yeuk\"), Kau Yeuk (\"Union of Nine Yeuk”), etc.\n\nRecently I discovered two copies of a document in the Yung Sze-chiu collection from Hoi Ha village in North Sai Kung by which a group of villages constituted themselves into a Yeuk. Because of the interest of this document, I append a copy and translation.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211995, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 410, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "385\n\nOne of the books concerned was copied out in 1897, and the other somewhen during the Kuang Hsü reign (1874-1908), but the original date of composition is probably significantly earlier the copies were in collections of exemplars, and were, therefore, by definition taken from some earlier writer. The words Shing Ping, 昇平, “Rises in Peace”, in the last sentence may suggest the Shing Ping She, 約, the formal name of the Ta Kwu Ling Luk Yeuk: if so, the document presumably dates from about 1850, when that inter-village alliance was set up.\n\nAssociated with this document is another, an exemplar of a notification by a village that it had apprehended a robber and had punished him themselves on his confession, rather than send him to the Magistrate for interrogation. I attach a copy and translation of this document, also, since it would seem that the notification was posted on the village walls as a warning to other robbers that the Yeuk was in existence, and active.\n\nIt will be seen that the document constituting the Yeuk stresses very fully the mutual defence aspect of the Yeuk, but does not mention the communal religious aspect which was also of importance in the Yeuk as it developed. It will also be noted that, in both documents, it seems that, to the writer, “Yeuk”(約, \"Village Mutual Defence Alliance\"), and“Heung”(鄉, “Rural District”), had the same meaning, and that that meaning was more or less the same as 'Tsung” (衆, “Community'').\n\nThe first document is written in a very formal style, in phrases mostly of six or four characters, with phrases of five or seven or three characters only in the part of the document supposedly recording direct speech, or where particular emphasis was wanted. In the transcription, punctuation has been added.\n\n合約捉贼\n\n從來崇正黜邪, 朝廷既明賞罰, 除凶剪暴, 鄉黨亦設章程。蓋世道之盛也, 治休隆, 禮讓行乎草野。而世風之下也, 僥偶刻薄,盜竊遍及鄉里。賊風自熾, 擾攘何如, 鳳擊心傷, 何堪忍比。緬想自我^約, 安居百有餘年, 出入相友, 守望相助。王道平平,門絕盜路之跡, 民懷皐皐, 巷無犬吠之聲。何至於今時, 食可慨矣。嘆世風之不古。人心懷變, 竊盜多端。日則或登山牽牛, 夕則或刮穿牆。甚則將來明失夜却, 種種情弊, 難以勝箕。如非種之不鋤, 安知後專, 禍歸胡底乎。於是我約人等, 齊集會議,協同心, 立貼長紅, 並設練丁, 以禦盜寇, 以肅規條。倘或有", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212120, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 62, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "39\n\nKat Hing Wai and Wing Lung Wai terminated their own independent Jiao but continue to participate actively in the Jiao of the whole Kam Tin community. Still others, like Tai Wai and Tin Sam, celebrate their own Jiao festivals on the one hand but also participate as members in the Jiao celebrated by the Sha Tin Kau Yeuk (Sha Tin Village alliance). Reasons such as the Japanese occupation or economic recession given by villagers themselves cannot explain the diversities found in the New Territories. All villages experienced the Japanese occupation. With regard to economic constraints, a community like Ping Shan, though as prosperous and powerful as Kam Tin and Ha Tsuen, stopped the celebration for some unknown reason. Therefore, the continuity or discontinuity of the Jiao festival depends on the effectiveness of the festival's communal structure and organization. In Lam Tsuen, the Jiao festival is a means to reconfirm the roles of its alliances (the Luk Hap Tong [Lui He Tang] “Hall of the Six [Sc. Village Clusters] United\"). In Kam Tin and other single lineage communities, the Jiao plays an essential role in re-establishing the structure of the segmented lineage as well as in re-confirming membership in the branches. The question of whether Jiao festivals will survive after the 1997 take-over is in fact a question of whether or not there is a need to preserve such a tradition in the community.\n\nNOTES\n\nLiu Zhi-wan, \"Taiwan Taibeixian Zhonghexiang Jianjiao Jidian\" Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica 33 (1972): 135-64.\n\nTanaka, Issei, Chugoku Kyoshon Saishi Kenkyu: Chihogeki no Kankyo [Village Festival in China: Background of Local Theatres] (Tokyo: Tokyo Univ. Press, 1989), 799. Some fishing villages in Hong Kong like Kau Lau Wan, Tap Mun and Kat O name their Jiao festivals \"An Long Qing Jiao\" meaning the Jiao celebrated to pacify the earth dragon.\n\nTanaka claimed that originally \"Qi An Jiao\" was celebrated only when there was need to pray for peace (Ibid., 799). However, evidence in Hong Kong, at least, shows that the festival is celebrated in a regular cycle. The shortest cycle is the Jiao of Cheung Chau where it is celebrated yearly. The longest is Sheung Shui and Shuen Wan where the Jiao is said to be celebrated once every 60 years. In some fishing villages in the New Territories, it is celebrated once every two or seven years. A five-year cycle is also practised in some agrarian communities like Tai Hang. However, a ten year cycle is the most popular in agrarian communities. Nonetheless, the method of counting also differs from one community to another. For instance, Lam Tsuen claims to celebrate the Jiao once every ten years but they actually celebrate it once in nine years. Their Jiao festival was celebrated in the following years: 1963, 1972, 1981, 1990.\n\nMr. Cheung Chi-fan (Zhang Zhi-fan), JP, and Mr. Chung Chi-leung (Zhong Ji-liang), interviewed by author, Lam Tsuen, Dec. 1, 1990. According to Dean, about 80,000 Chinese yuan was spent on the Jiao in a village in Zhangzhou, Fujian in 1986. See", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213835, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1996", "page_number": 187, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "160\n\nwith the ancestors is piously worshipped.\n\nIndividual worshippers also visit the Houwang Temple regularly to offer oblations on the 1st and the 15th of the lunar month and during important festivals. The temple is obviously owned and controlled by the Tung Chung community and has thus been regarded as a “village alliance temple,” as defined by Brim.1 In such a mix-surname community as Tung Chung, folk religion and the temple of the principal local deity often stand out as a crucial cohesive force in the forming of an inter-village coalition. Researchers such as James Hayes have considered Tung Chung an example of multi-clan communities on Lantau Island, where temples provide the vital link and become the venue of inter-village groupings.2 Emphasizing the concept of territory, Faure suggests that local temples, as centres of collective worship and communal ritual performance, serve as symbols of territorial unity. In villagers' perceptions, as observed by him, their territorial organization is expressed in terms of gods, shrines, and temples, which form one of the most important conceptual systems in the village world. A local temple might be built as a result of the formation of a neighbourhood of villages. The shared management of a temple would, in turn, strengthen a village neighbourhood's territorial dominance. In Tung Chung's Houwang Temple, a tablet recording a 1910 reconstruction project with a list of money donors supporting the work clearly evidences the existence of a community of joint villages worshipping Houwang as its patron god and managing the temple as its village coalition temple.J\n\nt\n\nAlthough two more temples, the Old Temple of Hsuan-t'an (at Shek Mun Kap) and the Ta-wang Palace (E) at Ma Wan Chung, were set up in Tung Chung after the War, they are far inferior to the Houwang Temple in terms of size, style, and architectural structure. In sharp contrast to the mass worship which takes place at the principal deity's temple, personal rituals are performed at these minor temples only by a few residents at individual respective villages. The Old Temple of Hsuan-t'an is situated in front of the big rock that marks the village entrance of Shek Mun Kap. Local legend holds that there used to be a Hsuan-t'an Temple at the village but it collapsed. In the 1970s, Shek Mun Kap's villagers rebuilt the temple for geomantic purposes. They hoped that Hsuan-t'an, the Tiger Conqueror, could vanquish the white tiger, a rock on the hill facing the village, and protect", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214643, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1999", "page_number": 58, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "22\n\n\"League of Seven\". This was a sworn alliance of villages for mutual defence against outside attack, and a vehicle to allow the elders of the several villages involved to meet to discuss matters of inter-village interest. This inter-village alliance is very similar to many others within the New Territories, and can be compared, for instance, with the Alliance of Nine in Sha Tin, or the Alliance of Six at Sai Kung.\n\nAccording to the Nga Tsin Wai villagers, the League of Seven in fact comprises some nine villages, not seven. The reason for this may be that originally the League was not of seven villages, but of seven Pao-chia (保甲), or Tithing-Groups. The alternative name of the League, Tsat Po (七保), certainly suggests this. Several of the villages included in the League are very tiny, and would certainly have been combined for Pao-chia purposes with other, larger, villages nearby.\n\nThe villages of the League of Seven were: Nga Tsin Wai itself, Kak Hang, Tai Hom (also known as Tai Tan), Shek Kwu Lung, Ta Kwu Leng, Sha Po, Nga Tsin Long, Ma Tau Wai, and Ma Tau Chung. (see Map 1). Of these, Ma Tau Chung was so closely connected genealogically and socially with Ma Tau Wai that they were usually considered just one village. Ma Tau Chung is, in fact, a classic example of the local dialect term “Mau Tsuen” (茅村), or “Detached Village\" - an independent group of houses, but considered a detached part of a village a short distance away.\n\nThe traditional political position with regard to Hau Pui Long, Yi Wong Tin, Ma Tau Kok and Kau Pui Shek is unclear. These villages were all cleared well before the War, and little is known of their local political affiliations in the years before the clearance. At least Kau Pui Shek was probably within the League of Seven - it was certainly surrounded by land belonging to other villages that were members of the League. Ma Tau Kok, Hau Pui Long, and Yi Wong Tin were probably outside the League.\n\nOf the villages of the League, Kak Hang, Sha Po, Nga Tsin Long, Shek Kwu Lung, and Ta Kwu Ling are closely connected genealogically with Nga Tsin Wai, and the Chans of Nga Tsin Wai had a branch resident in Ma Tau Wai and Ma Tau Chung, among the many clans of that double village. Other groups of Chans claiming a relationship with Nga Tsin Wai, but not descendants of Chan Chiu-yin or his brother", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214644, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1999", "page_number": 59, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "were also to be found in Ta Kwu Leng and Ma Tau Wai.\n\n23\n\nIt will be seen that Kowloon City, Kowloon Market, and the suburban villages around them, apart from Sha Po, (that is, Tung Tau, Sai Tau, Hau Wong, and Hoklo Villages) had no part in the League of Seven. These areas were considered to fall immediately under the control of the Sub-Magistrate in Kowloon City, or under the control of the Kowloon Market Kaifong. Apart from these places, the League of Seven covered all the area around Kowloon City.\n\nThe Kowloon City and Kowloon Market areas worshipped at the Hau Wong Temple outside the Walled City, and did not worship at the Nga Tsin Wai Tin Hau Temple. There was a Tin Hau Temple at Sha Po where the residents in the Market also worshipped. Ma Tau Wai had a temple of its own: this was to Pak Tai, worshipped under the title Sheung Tai (7). Only the gate pillars of this temple survive today, in the Lomond Road Garden.\n\nTo the east of the area of the League of Seven was the large and ancient village of Po Kong, belonging to the Lam (*) clan. Po Kong never joined the League of Seven. Po Kong had its own temple (it was dedicated to Tin Hau), and the Po Kong people did not go to the Tin Hau Temple at Nga Tsin Wai. Chuk Yuen and Sha Tei Yuen were genealogically connected with Po Kong. According to the Nga Tsin Wai elders, the villages of Po Kong, Chuk Yuen, Sha Tei Yuen, Nga Yiu Tau, Ngau Chi Wan (including its \"Mau Tsuen” of Pak Uk Tsai, or Ping Shek), and Yuen Ling (both the Upper and Lower Villages) formed an inter-village alliance of their own, the Six Villages Alliance (AM). Ngau Chi Wan had its own temple, to the Sam Shan Kwok Wong - this temple still survives. According to Ngau Chi Wan village elders, there was no Six Villages' Ta Tsiu, but Ngau Chi Wan conducted these rituals on its own every ten years. Ngau Chi Wan also held the She (£) feast before their higher earth god, every year, when every family made an offering of food, which later formed the basis of the communal feast. Ngau Chi Wan was, clearly, rather independent where the worship of the deities was concerned, and may well have been rather less well-integrated into the Six Villages than the villages closer to Po Kong. Ngau Chi Wan was a Hakka village, founded in the very early eighteenth century. It was founded by the Lau (1) clan, but the To (†), Yeung (), Tsang (4), and Yip () clans joined the Laus during the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214645, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1999", "page_number": 60, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "24\n\neighteenth century. The Fungs () came there much later, at the end of the nineteenth century: they had fled from the Tai Ping rebels to Shek Lung Tsai in Sha Tin, and from there moved to Ngau Chi Wan. Very little is known of the Six Villages Alliance, and it is likely that it was more loosely structured than the League of Seven.\n\nIt will be noted that Tai Hom, of the League of Seven, is completely surrounded by land that formed part of the Six Villages Alliance. Tai Hom, which is a single-surname village of the Chu (*) clan, is the only village of the League of Seven with no genealogical connections with Nga Tsin Wai. That it formed part of the League of Seven, rather than the Po Kong Six Villages Alliance is probably due to the circumstances of Tai Hom's foundation. The Founding Ancestor of the Chus, Chu kui-yuen, was a Hakka from Ng Wah District far to the northeast of Hong Kong22. He was a stone-cutter. He came to Hong Kong in 1762, to look for work in the quarries which were at that date starting up in the eastern part of what is today Victoria Harbour. He prospered, and established a quarry at Shek Tong Tsui in 1771. Later, he found Shek Tong Tsui rather remote, and exposed to pirate attack, and moved to Sha Po near Kowloon City. Later still, he bought quarry-land at the tip of Cape d'Aguilar Peninsula, and founded nearby the village of Hok Tsui. He had eight sons. His eldest son died unmarried, and Hok Tsui is today lived in by the descendants of his second, third and fourth sons. The fifth and sixth sons died unmarried or disappeared later. Chu kui-yuen bought more land, at Tai Hom, for his seventh son, Yan-fung, leaving his youngest son, Cheung-fung,\n\n, the land at Sha Po. After Kui-yuen's death, his widow lived at Tai Hom with her seventh son, who acquired a minor official post at Kowloon City, presumably after the re-establishment of the yamen there in 1841. Yan-fung was born in 1781, and died in 1857. Tai Hom was, therefore, a late settlement. It is unlikely to have been founded earlier than 1800. The land at Tai Hom was not fertile, and was steep and rocky (the Chus ran a quarry there, which supplied poor quality stone used for laying foundations in the Kowloon City area). Until 1992 a few remnants of Tai Hom, including the Chu clan Ancestral Hall, remained, buried within the Diamond Hill Squatter Area. It is likely that Po Kong refused to guarantee the good behaviour of these incoming Hakka (some already settled family was always required to guarantee incomers under the Pao-chia rules), while Nga Tsin Wai was willing, and that it was this which brought Tai Hom into the League of\n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214646, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1999", "page_number": 61, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "25\n\nSeven, rather than into any relationship with Po Kong. Tai Hom was the only Hakka village in the League of Seven. It was probably this Hakka ethnicity, their rejection by Po Kong, and their relative isolation from Nga Tsin Wai that led the Tai Hom villagers to establish a temple of their own outside their village, somewhere in the period 1821-1850, probably late in the period: it was greatly expanded in 1904. This temple, the Tung Shan Temple (it was dedicated to Kwun Yam) became, for a short period during the 1920s and 1930s, the main religious focus of the \"thirteen villages of Kowloon\", that is, the villages of both the League of Seven and of the Six Villages Alliance, but it was left ruined in the War.\n\nThe land south of Ma Tau Kok formed part of the Alliance of Three (三聯盟) of Hung Hom (Hung Hom including Tai Wan, Hok Yuen including Shek Shan, and To Kwa Wan, probably including Ma Tau Kok). The land east of Ngau Chi Wan and Pak Uk Tsai formed the inter-village alliance called \"The Four Stone Hills\" (四石嶺). This was a sworn alliance of the quarry-villages of this mountainous and infertile area (Ngau Tau Kok, Sai Cho Wan, Cha Kwo Ling, and Lei Yue Mun).\n\nInter-village alliances normally centre on joint worship by the elders, either at the higher earth god of the area, or at the local temple. Nothing is now remembered in Nga Tsin Wai of any inter-village worship by the elders of the League of Seven as a group at any higher earth god shrine, nor of any She, * , Feast of the elders in front of the shrine. However, the Nga Tsin Wai villagers do not now even remember where their earth gods used to stand - they were all removed by the Japanese, except for the earth god of the Village Gate - so too much should not be made of this. The elders of the villages of the League of Seven did and do worship the Nga Tsin Wai Tin Hau, however, on her Birthday each year (the Tai Hom elders consider the villages of the League of Seven as \"belonging to the Tin Hau of Nga Tsin Wai\"): it is likely that this was the ritual focus of the League, and that the meetings of the elders of the district took place after the worship. The elders hold a feast today after the worship of Tin Hau, and this is probably a very ancient tradition. The Temple, however, was the property of Nga Tsin Wai alone (it is owned by all three of the Nga Tsin Wai clans, and the Manager of the Temple, chosen by the elders of the three clans, is the Village Headman): it was probably for this reason that, on her Birthday, the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 } ]