[ { "id": 207966, "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-1977", "page_number": 5, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "174\n\nDAVID FAURE\n\nDistrict had over 100 people (see Table 2). Sai Kung Market had 512, of which 60 percent were males.36\n\nThe village in this area was organized primarily on two sets of principles, which may be described as lineage and territorial. Lineage relationships were founded on natural or adopted descent, and territorial relationships on membership of inter-village or inter-lineage groups. Lineage relationships were centred on the ancestral halls, the ancestral graves, the genealogies, and lineage trusts, and governed by regulations that laid down the rules of respect, adoption, and avoidance of inter-marriage to be observed. Territorial relationships were founded on arrangements made for the worship of territorial gods, at the earthgod shrines, or at the community temples, and were governed by regulations on subjects such as residence in the village, or the rules for participation in inter-lineage or inter-village activities. In large single surname villages, territorial relationships could often be subsumed under lineage relationships, but in Sai Kung, none of the larger villages was a single surname village.37\n\nThe arrangements for village organization in Ho Chung illustrate the merging of lineage and territorial relationships. The village consisted of fourteen surnames, of which the largest were the Wans and the Cheungs. Both surname groups considered themselves to be lineages, had ancestral property in the village, and their own ancestral halls and genealogies. Within the surname groups, lineage relationships dominated. The Cheungs, for instance, recognized that they were divided into four branches, but that the ancestral trust was held in common by all four. Ancestral land was rented out by annual rotation to each branch. The ancestral trust, naturally, was managed by a Cheung, but lent money to the entire village. The manager was responsible for organizing ancestral worship on the Double Ninth at the ancestral grave for which purpose contributions were collected from all members of the lineage. At Ts'ing Ming, however, the Cheungs worshipped individually, or in their family units, at their own kam t'aap. Some branches of the lineage had moved out of Ho Chung to Tso Wo Hang, Ping Tun, and Tai Po Tsai (near Tai Mong Tsai), and contact was not maintained. In closer contact with the Cheungs of Ho Chung were other surname groups in the village. The Cheungs managed the Ch'e Kung Temple, in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207971, "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-1977", "page_number": 10, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "179\n\nAmong smaller villages, arrangements for co-operation often extended beyond the village itself. Hang Hau and nearby Seung Sz Wan, for instance, were closely involved in each other's celebrations. When there were celebrations in one village, members of the other village could come without invitation.44 Inter-village co-operative arrangements of one sort or another were sufficiently strong for most of the smaller villages to identify themselves as being parts of permanent village alliances. Tai Mong Tsai, Tai Po Tsai, Shek Hang, Tit Kim Hang, Tam Wat, Wong Mo Ying, Ping Tun, and She Tau formed the Paat Heung (Eight Villages); Nam Shan included also Fu Yung Pit, Kak Hang Tun, Keng Pang Ha, and Lung Mei; Pak Tam Chung included Pak Tam, Tsak Yue Wu, Wong Keng Tei, Sheung Yiu, Wong Yi Chau, and Tsam Chuk Wan; and Ngong Wo, Wo Liu, Shan Liu, Tai Wan, Tso Wo Hang, Sha Ha, Nam A, Wong Chuk Yeung, Long Keng, and O Tau formed the Shap Heung (Ten Villages). The Paat Heung had a joint school in Tai Mong Tsai; the Pak Tam Chung villages jointly worshipped the Great King earthgod near Sheung Yiu; the Shap Heung had its joint school in Tai Wan, and used to maintain collectively the T'in Hau Temple at Wong Chuk Yeung (now ruined). The larger villages, e.g. Ho Chung, Mang Kung Uk, Sha Kok Mei, Nam Wai, Tseng Lan Shue, and Pak Kong, were apparently not parties to such alliances, but regarded themselves as forming complete units in themselves.45\n\nInter-village disputes were not common, but there were some long-standing ones. Sha Kok Mei disputed with Nam Shan over tree-cutting rights. Nam Wai and Ho Chung fought over a quarrel that had started when the cows of one village damaged the crops of the other.46\n\nFestivals and customs\n\nThe major festivals in the village were the New Year, and the T'in Kei (birthday of Nui Woh, the Earth Goddess), Ts'ing Ming (spring worship at the ancestral graves), Dragon Boat, Tsat Tse (Seven Sisters), Mid-Autumn, Double-Ninth (autumn worship at the ancestral graves), and Tung Chi (winter solstice) festivals, the temple festivals of the local temples (in this area Ch'e Kung, T'in Hau, Koon Yam, and Hung Shing), the festivals of the local", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208841, "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": 3, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "202\n\nTo\n\nand\n\nsites were also rendered ineffective by the emperor's golden pen. My knowledge, the elders knew of four sites. One of them was on Tiu Chung Chau at Kau Sai in Saikung. The fungshui of this site was ‘a golden bell hanging on a silk thread'. Every year at the Double-ninth festival, nine buffaloes came to worship at the grave; there was also the sound of a bell being struck. A second site was at Yuen Chau Chai at Kei Leng Ha Village. The fungshui name was 'the general comes down from his horse to drink three cups of wine'. In the middle of the sea, there is Wu Chau (with the adjacent island of Sam Pui Tsau) that resembles a pig, three cups of wine and two cups of tea. Another site was at To Tau Tsui at Wu Kai Sha, which is opposite Nga Chau (usually nowadays called A Chau) in the Tai Po Hoi. The fungshui name was crows going into the ocean. Legend has it that in the old days a mud embankment connected Wu Kai Sha to Nga Chau which sank into the sea after the emperor put down the dragon. The embankment has not been seen again. One more site was on Ap Chau opposite Kat O. The fungshui name was 'precious duck going through the lotus'. The legend is that Ap Chau used to be able to swim between Sam Mun Kan and Mirs Bay. Later, it was blocked by a duck pole, that is, the place currently known as Hak Ngam Kok. After that, when paddy ripened in the Yim Tin Village area near Sha Tau Kok, there was no rice grain on the stalk, because it was all eaten by the duck. After the emperor put down the dragon with his golden pen, the head of the duck... and then there was grain again.\n\nI know about the fungshui of only these four grave sites.\n\nhe cut off\n\nPassage 2\n\nRecorded by Ho Kei Fook\n\n\"An extraordinary person saw that Huang Hsiao-yang [rebel in the Canton area in the early fifteenth century] had features fitting to make him emperor and gave him a bamboo shoot to plant at home. When the 'bamboo grew to the height of his brows', he was supposed to be able to make an arrow out of it which he could use to kill the emperor with and thereby take over the throne. Huang planted the bamboo shoot as he had been instructed and a bamboo stem grew", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210467, "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-1985", "page_number": 74, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "55 \n\nremoved in 1952 was coincidental). The 14th day of the 7th month was the day for remembering all those who at death had received no proper burial. Any seafaring community would be likely to know of many such, and like most Hong Kong Boat People, Kau Sai's fishermen marked the month of the 'Hungry Ghosts' with ceremonies of exorcism, both privately on the junks and publicly in the temple. The day of the Moon Festival (the 15th day of the 8th month) was the next occasion for making family offerings in the temple, and on the Double Ninth came the second of the annual dates for visiting the family graves.\n\nOn the 10th day of the 10th month a public offering of pork (and/or fish) was made to Shui Shing Ye, whose image stood next to that of Hung Shing Kung in the temple, and after that came the celebration of the winter solstice (fixed, of course, by the solar calendar, like Ch'ing Ming, but falling usually in the eleventh month). Finally, on the 15th day of the 12th month a pig was slaughtered and offered in the temple on behalf of the community as a whole in public thanksgiving for the successful completion of another year before the preparations for the New Year ceremonies once again got under way.\n\nOnly four of these ritual occasions were publicly observed in the sense that the offerings made and ceremonies performed were provided at joint expense and on behalf of the village as a whole. The rest were private, that is family celebrations, taking place on or about the same dates but quite independently. The four public occasions were the festivals of two gods of the local temple, Hung Shing Kung (13th of 2nd month) and Shui Shing Ye (10th of 10th month), the exorcism of the Hungry Ghosts (14th of 7th month) and the general thanksgiving at the end of the year (15th of 12th month). By far the most spectacular of these was the festival for Hung Shing Kung, for which a group of priests was always engaged to carry out the religious ceremonies and an opera troupe performed plays on five consecutive nights and four days. The organisation of this festival, which involved the collection and disbursement of well over 10,000 Hong Kong dollars each year, was much the most important single joint activity in Kau Sai.\n\ni", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213829, "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": 181, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "154\n\nlimited surplus funds.\n\nThe Local Principal Deity Cult and the Making of Communal Culture\n\nLarge-scale local festival activities can best demonstrate a community's communal culture. Unlike single-clan communities, where ancestral halls serve as the venues for collective functions, Tung Chung's ceremonies of ancestor worship generally occur within individual families. Most villages are multi-surnamed and do not have ancestral halls. Only a few single-lineage villages, such as Mok Ka 家 Wong Ka Wai 黄家圍 Lam Che 藍峰 Nim Yuen 稔園, and Ba Mei te, and some larger lineages such as the Hsiehs, the Hos, and the Chous at the multi-surname village San Tau, have, or used to have, ancestral halls for worship ceremonies in spring and autumn. For villages with ancestral halls, ancestor worship may be conducted on both a family basis and a lineage basis. At the houses of most villagers, spirit tablets of their ancestors are enshrined on the family altars in the main halls. Joss sticks are burnt daily in front of the tablets. During festival days, animal sacrifices, food, wine, and other offerings are prepared. Kowtow and the burning of incense and ritual paper form part of the simple ceremony.\n\nFor a minority of single-surname villages with ancestral halls, collective ancestral worship on a lineage basis is held at the halls during the Ch'ing-ming Festival and the Double Ninth Festival. Among ancestral halls built before World War II at villages such as Mok Ka, Wong Ka Wai, Ba Mei, and San Tau, the Mo-yu-sheng tang at Mok Ka, and the Yung-ho t'ang at Wong Ka Wei are best maintained. Some of these halls also served as village schools to which boys were sent for three to four years, before a modern school was established near the Tung Chung Fort in the 1940s. At these halls, pupils were taught with the traditional primers, i.e., the San-tzu-ching (Trimetrical Classic), Ch'ien-tzu-wen (Thousand Character Classic), the Confucian classics, and the collection of Chinese idioms. After some halls had deteriorated, village offices would sometimes be used to accommodate the schools. As a case in point, the public office of the upper Ling Pei village was turned into a classroom after Ho's Study, the ancestral hall of the Hos and a village school at upper Ling Pei, had fallen into ruin.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213995, "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-1997", "page_number": 64, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "30 \n\non the 18th day of the Ninth Moon. \n\nBamboo scaffolders seldom use a rule. They set the spacing of the bamboo members by their eye, without the use of blueprints or plans. To do this, so many believe, they are assisted by Wah Kwong's third eye. Scaffolders, however, will usually submit a sketch to a client if they are going to erect, say, a matshed to house opera performances. \n\nIn the past, incense, fruit and pork were offered up to both Wah Kwong and Lu Pan on an altar at the time of starting work (hoi kung) on a building project. Such rituals are frequently still carried out today. When the author asked the mature scaffolder mentioned earlier, who said scaffolders had three masters, whether he would be going to the Lu Pan Temple in Kennedy Town on the Sage's birthday (the 13th day of the Sixth Moon), which was due to be held the following day, he replied that he would not. But his employer would be going. The old scaffolder said, however, that he would be attending a dinner to honour Lu Pan, when everyone would pay their respects. The author recalls attending these annual dinners, from 1955 to 1972, on a regular basis.37 \n\nConclusions \n\n36 \n\nSome people prophesied, in the 1950s, that the end had come for scaffolding and that western style metal scaffolding would take over. Although there has been a move in that direction metal has by no means taken over. In fact, the switch to metal scaffolding has been faster in places like China and Singapore than in Hong Kong. Bamboo is light and flexible and has many advantages, especially for smaller jobs. These include 'Cantilevering out', from high up on a building, to erect, say, a signboard. \n\nIn addition to the trade having its ups and downs, and being on the slow decline, bamboo is significantly cheaper. At mid-1997 prices single-layer bamboo scaffolding costs about HK$20 per square metre, double-layer bamboo scaffolding HK$36 per square metre and metal scaffolding HK$80 per square metre. Such figures are given only as a rough comparison. Prices vary, to some degree, depending on the job in question. For example, especially with metal scaffolding, the taller the scaffold the more expensive it will be.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 } ]