[ { "id": 208882, "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": 44, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "16\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\noften picked out in green or left in their natural state, though very quickly they are covered with incense soot.\n\nTraditional temples in Hong Kong and Macau have two predominant styles of facade. The first has a verandah, which stretches from side to side across the front and is covered by the roof (Illustration 7). The second style, the more common, consists of a regular oblong plan with the entrance door and the section of the front facade which fronts the main hall, set back about two feet into the whole facade. The facade fronting the two side halls is usually windowless, though occasionally it is decorated with long murals at roof height (Illustration 8).\n\nThe verandah of the first style is occasionally enclosed in a low, open balustrade. Above it the roof is supported by a stone beam from each side wall, reaching to and resting on the vertical columns which flank the entrance. Stone animals occasionally grace the beams, and more often than not the wooden support beams which stretch from the facade to the vertical pillars are heavily carved or support carvings depicting Chinese social life. In some villages, the Deng Family clan temple at Ha Tsun for example, the carvings depict everyday life, such as fishermen wading ashore from their grounded boats. In other temples, under the eaves high above the long verandah, murals of scenes in three dimensions in Shekwan pottery decorate the facade.\n\nThe majority of temples in Macau are single-hall temples (a total of 19 out of 32). The main halls of the two largest traditional temples in Macau, the Lin Feng Miao and the Guan Yin Miao are much the same basic size as those in the large Hong Kong traditional temples. However, the side halls and annexes of the two Macau temples are considerably larger. The large main hall of the Lin Feng Temple in Almirante Lacerda, facing WNW and backing onto the hill Colina de Mong Ha, has a main altar with two secondary altars on either side and, in addition, a second main altar in the front of the court, facing the main entrance. The whole Lin Feng complex has four separate major altars. There are two in the main hall, one at the front and one at the back and one each in the two side halls (with the one to the east having a further altar in a separate room). The temple's two side halls, each with its own main altar, are more than likely looked upon as separate temples as they have their own Earth Gods beside their entrances.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209089, "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": 251, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "FEEFAT\n\nREFFEFFF\n\nPlate 9. The complex of four temples in Yaumati in the heart of Kowloon with the opening in the roof over the courtyard plainly visible. The entrance across the courtyard, is centre left of the photograph. Originally on the sea front, this temple is now well inland and surrounded by high rise blocks of flats and offices.\n\n芳流院税\n\n[\n\nPlate 10. Ancestral tablets of the senior members of the clan of each generation, standing in rows on the main altar in the Deng family Clan Hall at Ha Tsun, near Yuen Long.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209090, "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": 252, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "Plate 1. The entrance to the Deng family Cian Hai complex at Ha Tsun. Yuen Long.\n\nPlate 12. A very tiny house-hold shrine containing one image (in this case. of Qi Tian Da Sheng (Monkey)).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210348, "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-1984", "page_number": 319, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "298\n\nWONG TAK YAN\n\nSlaking\n\nThe shell powder from the kiln is heaped up into a pile and water is mixed with it. Smoke appears and the shell powder is converted to lime.\n\nSieving\n\nA further day after the addition of water, the by now already slaked lime is sieved with a copper mesh sieve. The lumps of waste residue after sieving are thrown into the sea to reclaim it.\n\nBagging\n\nThe finished lime is bagged in hemp or grass-cloth sacks of about 100 cattys weight, and is then shipped on small boats to the buyers.\n\nMy family involvement in lime making\n\nThe San Shing Lei (新盛利) lime kiln factory operated by the Wong (黃) family has enjoyed a relatively lengthy history and occupied a distinguished place in the local lime kiln industry. Five generations of the family were involved in it, for more than one hundred years. The Wong family came originally from Chung Shan (中山) county, and our ancestor first came to Hong Kong shortly after Hong Kong was established, to operate a lime kiln in the Western part of the city (西區). Later, at various times, the kiln moved. This was because, as the area became prosperous and developed, so the kiln had to move away to quiet and undeveloped areas near the sea to carry on business. Lime burning is an offensive trade because of the large quantity of lime dust emitted, and also because of the heavy pall of smoke blown about in the first hour after the kiln is lit, while the dry grass is burning. In fact, during lime-burning, local residents and passers-by would all run away to try to avoid this smoke. However, the kiln is not dangerous to health — in fact, kiln workers all enjoy excellent health. The Wong family factory moved to several places: from Western District to Tsimshatsui (near the present railway station area), then to Tai Kok Tsui (near Fuk Wing Street), then to Shamshuipo.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211913, "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": 328, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "303\n\nTHE DANGS AS A LINEAGE\n\nAlthough a survey on occupations and land ownership was not part of the brief project on which this report is based, some of my interviews bear on the economic aspects of life in Kam Tin.\n\nWhile the Dangs of Kam Tin are well known as a wealthy lineage that has produced many imperial degree holders, in fact very few of the lineage were landlords/scholars. The vast majority of the Dangs earned their living as farmers, and most of them did not own much farm land. There seems to have been a large gap between the rich and the poor amongst the Dangs. Replying to my questions about ha-fu, or hereditary servants to the Dangs, a Mrs. Dang added her observations on the inequality among the Dangs themselves. The majority, the poor Dangs, were at the beck and call of the minority of the wealthy Dangs. She cited the example of her father-in-law, who worked on rice fields rented from a rich Dang as well as his own. He also took risks to hide the valuables of the rich man during the Japanese war. When asked why he did all this, she explained that obviously this was done in case he needed to borrow rice from the rich man in the future, which he actually did.\n\nThe family of another Mrs. Dang I interviewed had rented farm land from the same rich man, Dang Baak-Kau. She took care to lower her voice when saying this, and added: “Villagers of Tsi Tong Tsuen, Kat Hing Wai, and Tai Hong Wai — actually, all over Kam Tin people had rented his farm land”. Dang Baak-Kau had been a major leader of the Dangs of Kam Tin during his time. He represented the Dangs of Kam Tin in 1925 to petition the Hong Kong government to return the iron gates of one of the main Kam Tin villages taken away in 1899 when the British took over the New Territories. He was also one of the two Dangs named after the formal head of the lineage in a 1941 petition to the New Territories administration against the division and sale of an ancestral trust property. The dominance of the segment descended from him in lineage affairs is evident in the Ching Lok Ancestral Hall ritual manual, to which has been added, after entries giving two or one and a half catties of ritual pork to descendants of the six Dangs responsible for the initial building and rebuilding of the hall, an entry giving two catties of roast pork to his descendants in the Spring and Autumn rites. Before this Dang died some 30 years ago, he was awarded a \"higher medal\" in about 1933 by the British administration, according to a genealogy he commissioned. One can see at the same ancestral hall a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211924, "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": 339, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "314 \n\n10 \n\nthe Dangs of Kam-Tin in the dispute with the Dangs of Ping Shan over the grave of the gwan-ma several decades before 1737. The descendants of Man Wai and his brothers (i.e. the members of the Gwong Yu Tong and the Lei Ging Tong) are all also members of the Sung-Kok jou segment which derives its name from the \"pen name\" of Man Wai's father.\n\nE. Loi-Sing Tong \n\nTo avoid confusion with Gwong-Yu Tong (i.e. the descendants of Man-wai) I shall call the Gwong-Yu jou segment (Le, the descendants of Gwong-Yu) by the name of their ancestral hall, the Loi-Sing Tong. The first datable event relating to this segment was the building of the ancestral hall in 1701 by Jeung-Luk, a sixth generation descendant of Gwong-Yu. Probably the best known of the Loi-Sing Tong ancestors was Si-Daan. The details of Si-Daan's descent are obscure. He was probably a descendant, perhaps a grandson, of Jeung-Luk. Sung (1973:63-65) records a story that upon his birth there was an unmistakable sign that he was destined to be a rich man. According to Sung (1974:164) he “built himself a very big house called Naam Teng, the remains of which can still be seen on the South side of Kat Hing Wai\". In 1755 when Si-Daan's uncle presented a bell to Ling-Wan Ji his name was included as one of the donors. The family probably had become rich before his father's generation. That uncle of his, Dang Yu-Jung, had purchased a minor official title. The donation list for the rebuilding of a temple in 1744 recorded a single sum donated by four Yus that included Yu-Jung and Si-Daan's father Yu-Man. Among the four, Yu-Ji had purchased a gung-sang degree in the Yongzheng period (1723-1735), and two others had degrees of gaam-sang. Si-Daan himself had purchased an official title of jau-tung.\n\nOf the ancestors whose tablets were housed in the hall Puk-Chai, gung-sang degree holder, is remembered by his descendants, who still keep an embroidery presented to the father of this degree holder on the occasion of a birthday.\" He was probably one of Jeung-Luk's brothers.\n\nF. Mau Ging Tong \n\nThe period of the late Ming and the early Qing was an eventful period for the people of the Xin'an county. The Kam Tin jiu festival itself had started as a response to experiences in this period, especially the serious", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211926, "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": 341, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "316\n\nG. Gwok-Yin jou\n\nA segment of the Ching Lok Tong worth mentioning is the Gwok-Yin jou, which has a small ancestral hall in Wing Lung Wai. It has ancestral tablets for Lam-Mau (one of the great grandsons of Fong in the 20th generation), two of his sons, neither of whom had had any descendants, and Gwok-Yin his third son (with a title of mou-leuk-ke-wai), and Lam-Mau's grandsons Chiu-Yip, Chiu-Yung, Gwan-Leung (also with a title of mou-leuk-ke-wai) and Gwan-Haak. Dang Ying-Yun, a grandson of Gwan-Leung, is represented by a horizontal inscribed board to congratulate his mou-geui-yan degree award in 1789. In all likelihood, the titles of Gwok-Yin and Gwan-Leung were conferred in consideration of the imperial degree of this descendant of theirs.\n\n13\n\nSung (1974:173-174) provides some information about Dang Ying-Yun. He wrote the calligraphy for many inscriptions, including those for the repair of the Jau and Wong Temple in 1824 and the rebuilding of the Ling-Wan Monastery in 1821. His involvement in public affairs was not limited to calligraphy. Sung recorded the oral tradition that he was instrumental in the construction of a fortress in the present Kowloon City and a county school in its capital town.\n\nH. Ji-Ga Tong\n\n14\n\nAccording to his descendants and other informants, Ji-Ga Tong prospered after the marriage of Dang Kyun-Hin (1755-1822), its founder. He was a member of the Fourth Branch, the descendants of Gyun, and was originally poor. He had worked when he was young for a Gwok-Yin jou person known as Haan sau-choi who had a peanut oil factory. His wife was a servant girl of the sau-choi's. The family prospered afterwards. The good fortune was partly attributed to the wife. The family was very large and wealthy. According to oral tradition recorded by Sung (1974:175-176), Dang Kyun-Hin \"had four sons and twenty-four grandsons and the number of his family and servants together are said to have totalled two hundred.” He built a hall called Sou-Lau Yun, better known to local villages as Ji-Ga Tong, which term is also used for the lineage segment consisting of his descendants. Chung-Shaan, one of his sons, built a hall called Cheung-Cheun Yun which had two side rooms, one for a school and one for martial arts. When he died, a banquet was held in Ji-Ga Tong for seven days. The guests included some people from Yuen Long and Pat Heung. The youngest of Kyun-Hin's sons, Yu-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211930, "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": 345, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "320\n\nYeuk and Shap Pat Heung the Ha Tsuen Yeuk. Kam Tin never joined a yeuk, because its collective strength was great enough on its own.\n\nOne of the causes of conflict was disputes over land ownership. Anecdotes are still remembered of an early case that involved the Lais of Sheung Che or Ha Che. The site of one of the earlier temples of the Dangs of Kam Tin is the Hung Sing Temple, the site of which is also known as Lai Ga Dei (“Lai family land” or “Lai family grave”). There used to be a grave of the Lais there but the Dangs had moved it away to build the temple. The Lais sued the Dangs. The Dangs won the lawsuit by citing the following: hung-jeuk (peacock the Hung bird) was not a bird owned by the Hungs.\n\n18\n\nAnother major cause of conflict was farm rents. The relationship between the Kam Tin Dangs and many other communities in the area, especially those of Pat Heung, was one of landlords and tenants. Many elders mention the village of Tsiu Keng as an example: the name originally meant “recruit to cultivate”. These tenant villages were not on a par with the Kam Tin Dangs. This distinction found its expression in marriages. A Dang in his 60s made an observation about marriage partners. The Dangs of Kam Tin never married Pat Heung people until his generation, nor did they marry members of other \"minor\" (tenant) villages such as Pok Wai. Many Dangs elders have similar ideas.\n\nThe relationship between the Dangs and the other tenant communities in Pat Heung and Shap Pat Heung was difficult. The problems involved included rents as well as irrigation rights.\n\nA. Pat Heung\n\nThe Dang elders I talked to generally knew about some serious fighting with Pat Heung, but none of them remembered any detail. What they could describe at some length were lawsuits rather than fighting. One of the elders remembered the case of a Lam Ngau-Jai who was illiterate but very good at verbal skills. He took a case to court. He accused the Kam Tin Dangs of being barbarous and despotic. Some parts of the accusation were still remembered. “In daytime they wanted chicken, goose and duck, at night they wanted pretty women in their bed”. “They used extra-large grain sorters, measures that were 80% larger than the designated volume, and for pushing the excess grain off the heap in the measure they used a crooked stick so that the surplus would remain”.\n\nPage 345\n\nPage 346", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211942, "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": 357, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "332\n\nLung Wai.\n\nWe know that Dang Man-Wai's period was 1627-1693. The move of his people to Tai Hong Wai, then, must have taken place in the 17th century. Various information suggests that the merger of Gau Ga Chyun into Wing Lung Wai took place in the same period. The only Dang genealogy (a Ha Tsuen one) that I found to have included Sa Bui Leng among the settlements of Hung-Yi's descendants named Gau Ga Chyun as well. The elder I talked to said that the residents moved to Wing Lung Wai more than ten generations ago, which was Gwok-Yin's time. Sung named Gwok-Yin as one of the two who walled Wing Lung Wai at the time when Man-Wai walled Tai Hong Wai. Probably it was Gwok-Yin himself who moved to Wing Lung Wai.\n\n37\n\n16\n\nIt is interesting that, if my guess is right, then the two mergers both took place during the period of the Coastal Evacuation, in which the Dangs of Kam Tin established their central temple as well as an ancestral hall for the three junior branches. Although the reasons given for the merger were in one case very vague and in the other supernatural (“fung-sheui\"), they would, in effect, have been part of the Dang response to the disorders of the times.\n\nC. The development of Tai Hong Wai\n\n38\n\nAt present, only the descendants of Dang Man-Wai and his brothers (known as Sung-Gok jou, after Dang Man-Wai's father) live in Tai Hong Wai. They all live in the village and its extension. But people from other segments used to live there. From the stone inscription for a bridge built by a filial son Dang Jeun-Yun we know that some descendants of Chung-Yut lived there around the end of the 17th century. It was Dang Jeun-Yun's grandfather Gaai-Yut who, together with Dang Man-Wai, walled Tai Hong Wai. Jeun-Yun named Shui Tau as his home. So probably the family had moved from Tai Hong Wai to Shui Tau in the time of his father.\n\nTai Hong Wai became settled solely by the descendants of Dang Man-Wai and his brothers only from about 100 years ago. The head of the only household that is descended from the senior segment of the descendants of Gyun is remembered to have recalled moving when he was very small from Tai Hong Wai to Tsi Tong Tsuen, where his family now lives.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211944, "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": 359, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "334\n\nBui Leng village was established in very early days, “even earlier than Kam Tin\". But the building of Yau-Leun Tong had destructive effects on its fung-sheui. After the rise of the Dangs the Sa Bui Ling villagers became their ha-fu.\n\nI have talked with a 64-year-old Mr. Chan, who was the oldest person in this village. The villagers were originally of three surnames: Chan, Yeung and Yun. The Yuns have left no descendants. The villagers had established Sa Bui Leng at the same time as the Dangs established their settlement. The Dangs had taken measures to prevent the prosperity of this village. They built three ancestral halls (chi tong-jai), i.e. Yau-Leun Tong, and two others, which used to be at the site of the present playground, and dug a pond which had only been filled up to build the cinema some ten years ago. The combination had bad impacts on the fung-sheui of Sa Bui Leng and the Chans suffered a serious decline. Therefore some of them had moved to Tai Kiu, a small village in Yuen Long.\n\nBefore the war, the Chan family had grown rice on fields rented from a wealthy Dang and one of the jous of the Kam Tin Dangs. Mr. Chan stressed that the family farmed land rented from the Dangs, they did not work for them. There are indications that at least for the last hundred years, the Sa Bui Leng people were accepted as equals by some of the poorer Dangs. The Chan family was a member of the Yi-Chung Wui, a ritual association which drew its members mostly from the poorer Dang villagers of Kim Tin, since at least the time of his great grandfather. I also discovered that Mr. Chan's wife was a daughter of a Tai Hong Wai Dang.\n\nV. WORSHIP\n\nThe supernatural world was very real to the villagers. It is still so to many of the elders. A Mr. Dang who had spent his youth in a trading firm on Hong Kong Island told me that in the old days when the area was less densely populated, one often encountered ghosts. Now that there were more people one rarely saw ghosts. I have heard something similar from a younger Mrs. Dang. The belief in the reality and power of the gods is strong too. It is, above all, manifested in the villagers' behaviour in the jiu festival.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211945, "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": 360, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "335\n\nA. Places of worship\n\nThe gods worshipped in Kam Tin can be divided into four categories. They are gods housed in temples, localized gods in outdoor space, gods on family altars, and the general gods of Heaven. The gods of heaven (Tin-San) are worshipped outside the house door, often with a tablet saying \"Blessings from the Gods of Heaven\" (Tin-Gwun Chi-Fuk).\n\nMore important for the community as a whole are temple gods and localized gods. Firstly there are the Ling-Wan Monastery and the Jau and Wong temple, which were important to the Dangs of Kam Tin as a whole. Stone inscriptions show that villagers of Kam Tin as a whole contributed money for rebuilding or repair, doing so on the basis of villages and higher order lineage estates, notably Ching-Lok Jou and Naam-Kai Jou.\n\nAccording to Sung (1973 and 1974) and the Si Kim Tong genealogy the Ling-Wan Ji was established by the Dangs of Kam Tin for the second wife of their founding ancestor Hung-Yi. But it is probable that Sung's source for this information was the author of the Si Gim Tong genealogy himself, and other villages seemed less aware of the connection of the monastery with their ancestor. Perhaps even more important is the idea that Ling-Wan Ji was the jyu-lou, or “head” of Kam Tin. That is why, a Mr. Dang explained to me, all the village gates should face Kwun Yam Shan, where Ling-Wan Ji is, and there is no need for a tall san-teng. Ko Po and Wing Lung Wai are exceptions to this rule. He knew that the position of the gate in Wing Lung Wai had been altered. He thought that the direction of the Ko Po one had been altered too.\n\nInterestingly the Xin'an gazetteer has no entry for the Ling-Wan Monastery under that name, but records the existence of a Gwun-Yam Temple on Kwun Yam Shan at the foot of Tai Po Shan, which matches the location of the monastery. The Xin'an gazetteer of 1688 is probably the earliest document mentioning the temple. Under the entry for the temple it mentioned a man of Dongguan county in the Ming dynasty who had lived there. It is not completely clear if this man was a Daoist. When Dang Si-daan's uncle donated the bell now at the monastery in 1755, the inscription referred to the place as the nunnery at Kwun Yam Shan. No one had heard about the temple named in the gazetteer, but Gwun-Yam is worshipped in the monastery, with various other gods such as Gwaan-Dai, and it is the goddess who has a central position, with\n\nPage 360\n\nPage 361", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211950, "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": 365, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "340\n\nrespected person in a family. I found in Wing Lung Wai that the households take their turn to take care of the incense and lamps of their san-teng. It probably plays an important part in major celebrations: in Tai Hong Wai I noticed that wedding deui-lyuns couplets had been put on both the san-teng doors and the village gate.\n\nOf a similar status were the places for the Gods of Earth and Grain, where communal worship (jou-se) is held once or twice a year. In addition, there is the hoi-dang ceremony for the new born children of the village. In the case of Tai Hong Wai, Kat Hing Wai, and Wing Lung Wai village-level collective worship includes a jiu. It is held once in seven years at Tai Hong Wai, once in five years, at Kat Hing Wai, and once in ten years at Wing Lung Wai. The Tai Hong Wai case is probably representative. The rituals are simpler than the one for Kam Tin as a whole, and lasted only two days and one evening. The main feature is the offering of paper clothing to hungry ghosts.\n\n49\n\nIn some cases the social unit involved in the rites for the new born and other collective rites is a lineage segment in a village and in one case a main village and its associated smaller settlements. Some villages have more than one place for the God of Earth and Grain. Shui Tau has two. The one belongs to the whole village of Shui Tau while the other one belongs only to the descendants of Gam-Tin jou, who have their hoi-dang there. Similarly, there is more than one place for the God of Earth and Grain in Shui Mei. One of them is worshipped by the Git-Sau jou people alone, who make offerings of paper clothing there at the Yu-Laan Festival. In the case of Tai Hong Wai, its jiu, and the rite for the newly born include as participants the villagers of Tsi Tong Tsuen and Tai Hong Tsuen. The hoi-dang at the Ching-Lok ancestral hall is not precisely a lineage event: only his descendants living in Shui Tau and Shui Mei take part.\n\nBesides worship associated with membership in residential and sometimes partially lineage segment units, there is worship organized by ritual associations. There are quite a few ritual associations (san-wui) in Kam Tin. Each has its landed property, which ranges from one daam-jung (about 65 thousand square feet) to about 500 thousand square feet of farm land. A share was inherited by all the descendants of the original shareholders. In some cases, one share was actually shared by a few dozen people. Some of the shares were acquired by the present holder by purchase. Worship by these associations takes place once a year, and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211952, "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": 367, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "342\n\nThe festival was estimated to cost a total of more than one million dollars. The opera cost $357,000, paper images $150,000, temporary structures $150,000, and the puppet theatre $110,000. The opera was paid for, as is the tradition, from the funds of two lineage trusts, those of the Naam-Kai jou and Ching-Lok jou. Each contributes $180,000. For the other expenses, each of the villagers paid a subscription of $300, with the no. 1 to no. 15 ritual representatives each paying an extra $500,\n\n50\n\nThe main participants were the Dang villagers of Kam Tin. For the purpose of organizing the jiu the villagers were divided into five gu sections. Each section corresponded to a village, except that the Tai Hong gu included, besides Tai Hong Wai, Ko Po, Kam Hing Wai, Tsi Tong Tsuen and Tai Hong Tsuen. Also taking part were the villagers of Ying Lung Wai, the settlement of the second branch of Hung-Yi's lineage outside the heung of Kam Tin. They paid half subscriptions and got the last three places among the 60 ritual representatives. Some of the non-Dang residents in the heung also participated. Those include the Sa Bui Leng villagers and post-War and later immigrants from China who operated farms and shops in Kam Tin. These \"outsiders\", however, could not become ritual representatives. The ritual representatives were to stand for all the villagers in the Taoist rites and in some of the rites the villagers performed on their own. There were also religious activities conducted by every household. At three points of the festival, i.e. the opening day, the main day, and the concluding day, every household came, family by family, to worship at the various ritual sites, and a priest visited each house on the last day to purify the family altar. In addition, each and every person was named in the ritual memorials which were read aloud and sent by fire to heaven, with a copy posted in the ritual area for all to read and check.\n\nMany other villagers in the area were also peripherally involved. They offered their congratulations by having fa-paai banners set up in the festival site, and by paying a formal visit to the site on the main day with their lion/unicorn dances. To wait to receive them the elders of Kam Tin lined up in cheung-saam,\n\nB. Ritual Area\n\nThe festival site was beside the Jau and Wong Temple. A large paang temporary structure was erected. Outside the main structure were three small linked temporary structures for first-aid, the fire services, and the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211956, "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": 371, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "346\n\nthe 71st birthday of Dang Nga-Chyun, a member of a rich family descended from the mou-geui-yan Dang Ying-Yun. Also on display in the same room were other scrolls of calligraphy and painting. Put on display for a couple of hours were relics of the wong-gu. As many of the Dangs were proud of telling, there were two of them (1) a set of twelve small paintings known as Gwai-Fei Tip, believed to be the work of Fu Qing, a lady-in-waiting in the Song court; and (2) a painting of an eagle, reputed to be the work of the Emperor Song Huizhong; both given to the wong-gu as souvenirs.54 Although they were put on display during a visit by about 200 members of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, to put those two antiques on display had always been part of the tradition.55\n\nEach of the villages was decked out with fa-paai banners too. In most cases there was a fa-paai presented by all the members of the village in celebration of the ten-yearly jiu. In the case of Tai Hong Wai there was one from all the descendants of Sung-Gok jou (father of Dang Man-Wai and his brothers) as well as one from the \"youngsters\" of Tai Hong Wai. The village gate had red slips of paper saying Fast (tsai-gai) and Clean (git-jing).\n\nC. Ritual Representatives\n\nIt was explained to me that the people in each gu divided into family groups (chu). In some cases, the nearest common ancestor such a \"family\" group could trace was more than ten generations distant. For example, under Mr. Dang Tim-Kau's entry were his blood brothers, the sons of his father's brothers, as well as others who were more remotely related to him. The nearest common ancestor of the chu as a whole was Git-Sau jou, who was, from the standpoint of Dang Tim-Kau's grandsons, 12 generations up the lineage tree. The selection of ritual representatives was done by divination with bui.56 The theory of an elder is that each chu chooses its own candidate for ritual representative. But, according to a younger ritual representative, if a man failed in the divination, then his son would try his luck in the same selection process. The candidate who got the longest series of sing-bui would be the no. 1 ritual representative. The others were chosen and ranked in the same manner. But there were additional rules. Each gu section must have one man among the no. 1 to no. 5 ritual representatives, and each had to have three men among the no. 1 to no. 15 ritual representatives. The last three places (58-60) were, as a rule, alloted to the Ying Lung Wai people,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211961, "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": 376, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "351\n\nwould send a horse to carry the document to heaven so as to ask blessings for the people whose names appeared in the list. Other women villagers to whom I talked had the same kind of understanding.\n\n+1\n\nThe Memorial listed the participants under six categories, which were, in the original order, ritual representatives, “faithful elder”, \"faithful scholar”, “jiu representatives”, \"faithful farmers”, and \"faithful outsiders”. The first three titles were used for the Dangs of Kam Tin and their families. Which one among the three was used was determined by whether the person was a ritual representative or over 60 years old. The **jiu representatives** were the Ying Lung Wai villagers. The fact and the position of the category among the others was probably more important than the literal meaning of the term. At the end were the \"faithful farmers\" and \"faithful outsiders\". The former included the indigenous non-Dangs of the heung as well as immigrant farmers. The latter referred to immigrants who operated businesses in Kam Tin.\n\nThe importance and meaning of these entries was made clearer to me by a \"mistake\".\n\nAt one point a leader of a lineage segment was copying an entry in the posted memorial for use in the distribution of ancestral ritual pork. I took the opportunity to ask him about a strange entry. The person named in the entry (and his family) was a Dang, but he was classified as “faithful farmer”. I also noticed that there had been an alteration, and the original classification, \"faithful scholar\", was also visible. The elder could not explain this. Later I saw him and another elder talking near the posted memorial, and went to see if they had the answer. The other elder knew the case very well. The person concerned had been taken to Naam Tau by his widowed mother when he was small. It was quite recently that he had returned and found his kinsmen. There were several houses in the village under his father's name. But in his absence someone else had assumed ownership. The elders of Kam Tin had been helping him at the District Office to recover his rights. The case was not settled yet. The elder had no doubt that it was the other party who altered **faithful scholar** to “faithful farmer”. He took this act very seriously, “What if someone did that to you!” He suggested that this was more than an insult. It was part of the other fellow's trick: to deny that his recently returned kinsman was a Kam Tin Dang. But he also thought this alteration to the name list was not useful, because the document would be burnt at the end of the festival.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211985, "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": 400, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "375\n\nOfuchi (1983).\n\n5.1 These two kinds of embroidery were always found in major festivities and at temple altars.\n\n54\n\nBoth are reproduced in the Dang Clan Association handbook in Huge Baker's collection of genealogies, with commentary. One of the Dangs I talked to had some doubt about the authenticity of the alleged painting of Song Wuizong. He observed that the calligraphy was not of the typical style of the emperor, the shou-zhen ti.\n\n55 Although the wong-gu was a common ancestress, her relics were not public property. The painting of the eagle belonged to a wealthy leader of the Dangs of Kam Tin, and the other pieces to the Wan-Gaan jire segment or one of its members.\n\n57 On this divination instrument, see Ahern (1981:45-47).\n\nDiscussed in the next part of this report.\n\nSV For more information on Lam Pui and his family, see Tsui (1985).\n\n60\n\nThe rite is locally found probably only in the Kam Tin jiu festival. The priests explain it by alluding to the legendary Baiguai Zhen battle formation of Zhuge Liang, a stateman and strategist in the period of the Three Kingdoms (220-265). I think it is probably more directly related to the gimen dunjia style of magic.\n\n42\n\nA handheld small metal idiophone with a handle.\n\nSee Schipper (1974) for a thorough discussion of the Memorials in the Taiwan case, which is very close to the one I am describing.\n\nThe Oral History Project collection and Osuchi (1983) include most of the manuals used in this festival.\n\n64 The actual seating no longer observed the segregation of the sexes, although this used to be the practice.\n\n65 The difficulty was due partly to the fact that there were more Naam Bin people than their Bik Bin counterparts, even when the Ying Lung Wai villagers were added to the latter. As I have mentioned already, the seating area was divided into two halves, one for Naam Bin and one for Bak Bin. This gave the Bak Bin chu more seats each.\n\nI learned from a different source that the elder left early on the day because he felt that some younger villagers were being hostile to him.\n\n67 The informant explained that it was usual for the Village Representatives to keep their position until they die. Therefore, those who are interested in becoming one always fail, except in Shui Tau, where the villagers generally have more exposure to the outside world and re-elect their V.R. once every two years.\n\n68 I saw another lady doing waan-san at Ying Lung Wai. In addition to the san-seng, she made offerings at the village gate as well, which I guess is the normal practice.\n\nThe two men were elders/ritual representatives, neither was the head of the lineage, probably due to the lineage head's age.\n\n70\n\nExcept in the case of Tin-Chyun San-Gwan, I have relied on the Daojiao Yuenliu, the priests' manual to which they often refer when asked to explain their tradition, for interpretation.\n\nThere were some young ladies in the procession this time, which represented a recent development.\n\n72 Ancestral tablets could be seen inside, but Mr. Dang Jik-Waai said that the place used to be a sun-teng, and was worshipped by the procession because of this.\n\n73\n\nIn which case only the woman herself would suffer.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 } ]