[
    {
        "id": 213832,
        "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": 184,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "157\n\nlimited by the size of its villages and their economic status, Tung Chung did not adopt the tso-she ceremony in the earth god worship as Kwangtung's countryside did in the 1920s. Again, worship is mainly on a personal, rather than village, basis.\n\nThe most important supra-individual/lineage inter-village social activities in Tung Chung, as remembered by the older generation, were the chiao ceremony and the Houwang's Birthday Festival. Literally meaning sacrifice or offering, the chiao is a large-scale Taoist ceremony, performed to wipe away evil, forestall calamities, restore peace, and renew life in the way of cosmic harmony for the entire population of a community. It consists of a series of rituals, which are commonly called ta-chiao (arranging sacrifices or making offerings). In spite of its rich meaning, the chiao can be better understood as a festival with a dual purpose: giving thanks to the deities and offering sacrifices to the spirits of the dead. Basic items of activity include chanting by Taoist priests, called nun-mo-lao (chanting fellows), inviting local deities to the altar placed in a matshed, going to the puppet show and the communal meals, and joining a parade through the villages. Beginning in the late Ch'ing, the chiao ceremony was held in Tung Chung regularly in the 14th lunar month, and especially after plagues had taken many lives there. The Shek Mun Kap village, being the oldest village in the area, served as the locale. According to an old villager, the village became a local venue of social and economic activities after some shops were established there. Villagers liked to gather at the place to gamble and chat. It was, therefore, a suitable centre for popular festivals.\n\nAs an inter-village ceremony, the chiao required donations from all households at every village. From each village, a man was chosen as yuan-shou (leader of worship) by casting the divining blocks in front of the earth god at the entrance of Shek Mun Kap. He had to pass the divination three times in a row. These men took charge of money collection, the preparations for the occasion, and the hiring of matshed and stage builders, the puppet show troupe and the nun-mo chanters, etc. They also acted as the village representatives in assisting the ceremony. At the site of the chiao ceremony, in front of the earth god shrine at Shek Mun Kap, a matshed was set up temporarily to enshrine the Houwang image \"invited\" from the local temple. Oblations, joss sticks, and candles were put in front of the idol. Erected behind the earth god shrine was the gigantic bamboo and paper figure.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 213833,
        "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": 185,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "158\n\nof Ta-shih-wang E, the keeper of ghosts who maintained order, provided food and clothing to the hungry ghosts, and then took them back to the netherworld.\" Vegetarian fast was required during the chao period of three days and four nights. Puppet shows were also performed for several days to entertain both human and divine participants. Chanters hired from outside were responsible for the liturgy, which included scripture reciting, praying, and the burning of paper offerings. As for local villagers, they mainly came to enjoy the free vegetarian feasts and puppet shows. As pointed out by David Faure, the festival is an occasion for popular entertainment, as much as for worship.\"\n\nAn important ritual of the chiao ceremony was a gala parade called hsing-hsiang † (walking through a neighbourhood of villages) held on the third day. The image of Houwang was carried in the procession led by chanters and followed by male villagers. Firecrackers were set off to clear the road and when passing a village, joss sticks, candles, and paper offerings were burnt to expel all ghosts and leave the local population safe and flourishing with Houwang's blessings. \"As the principal local deity, Houwang obviously played a crucial role during the chiao festival. Deities from other districts, such as the Empress of Heaven from Ma Wan Island or Chak Lap Kok, were not invited to the ceremony.\" Thus, the parade embodied the strong territorial sense of the community, publicly affirming the hsiung as a neighbourhood of specific villages. Villages passed by paraders, including Shek Mun Kap, Mok Ka, Shek Lau Po, Ngau Au, Nim Yuen, San Tau, Ma Wan Chung, Ma Wan, Ling Pei, Wong Ka Wai, Lung Tseng Tau, and Ba Mei, were all considered members of the Tung Chung community. While village representatives took charge of preparations for the chao days, a body called the Chieh-fang-chu-hui (Neighbourhood Association) was assigned responsibility for the preparatory work for Houwang's Birthday Festival. From the mid-1920s, however, the Neighbourhood Association had to also assume responsibility for preparations for the chiao festival, replacing the village representatives. Concomitant with this change, Tung Chung Street, where the number of shops had increased with time, replaced Shek Mun Kap as the local social and economic centre. Various goods, including groceries, medicinal materials, cooked food, coffee and tea, coffins, and even opium, were now sold on Tung Chung Street. \"As the position of Shek Mun Kap and the role of village representatives in the chiao festival declined,\n\n36",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 213834,
        "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": 186,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "159\n\ntrans-village bodies, such as the Neighbourhood Association, emerged as sponsors of large-scale social and religious activities. Directors of the Association were owners of four shops, Te-ho, Yao-ho & Ali, Ching-ho li and Kuang-hsing, located on Tung Chung Street at lower Ling Pei, then the commercial core of the area.\n\nThe changes occurring in Tung Chung were accompanied by the decline of the chiao ceremony. After the mid-1920s, the festivities never achieved their previous scale and the related rituals were simplified. A 79-year-old villager at Lung Tseng Tau testified that in 1927, when he was a 15-year-old employee of the Te-ho Shop, then the head of the Neighbourhood Association, the chiao ritual was limited to the burning of paper offerings. There were no nan-mo chanting or puppet shows. The festival proved too costly for the villagers. While a Te-ho employee earned only HK$15 a month, for example, the hiring of the chiao priests could cost several hundreds. At the beginning of the 1930s, it is said, the chiao ceremony ceased in Tung Chung.\n\nThe Neighbourhood Association lacked the financial resources to support more than one festival, and the Houwang's Birthday celebration was kept at the expense of the chiao festival.\n\nAfter the chiao ceremony was discontinued, whenever pestilence struck, the Houwang's idol was paraded through the villages at midnight. The nan-mo chanting priests led the procession and firecrackers were used to clear the path. The rituals might be repeated in the following two nights. The route of the parade was decided by divination at the Houwang Temple. When Shek Mun Kap ceased to be the centre of the chiao festival, the Houwang Temple became the most important venue for various religious activities.\n\nIt is not difficult to detect the Houwang's influence on the daily life of Tung Chung's villagers. Charms reading \"under Master Houwang's command\" (侯王爷) can be seen everywhere, on trees, banisters, poles by the road, or on the doors or window frames of villagers' houses. These amulets were “sought\" at the Houwang Temple. At home, villagers may install the Houwang's shrine next to their ancestors' spirit tablets. A family named Feng at Ma Wan Chung had their family shrine of the Houwang elaborately surmounted with golden tassels and draped with red cloth. Everyday, the god, together",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 213836,
        "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": 188,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "161\n\nthe community from calamity.\" The temple is nothing more than a small room of about 50 sq ft with simple decoration. On the altar an idol representing the deity is enshrined. At the corner of the room, there is a place for the earth god. As observed, incense is occasionally offered at this unfrequented temple.\n\nEven smaller in size is the wooden Ta-wang Palace at Ma Wan Chung. Hung there is a 1989 canopy with the title \"the Pantheon of The Earth God in Southeast and the Empress of Heaven\" (天后地主大王). The temple thus seems to serve as a Ta-wang shrine for individual worshippers at the village, as well as a temple of the Empress of Heaven for the fishing community in the vicinity. Fishermen, or former fishermen, there all regard themselves as members of the Tung Chung community. They settled ashore at their shacks 40-50 years ago. They also have ancestral graves in the area. Now more than 400 people from 48 households are official residents of the Fishermen's Village. Some of them have even managed to acquire and expand homesteads. Intermarriage between them and settlers at other villages has become acceptable. While fishermen in other regions usually worship the Empress of Heaven as their patron goddess, Tung Chung's fishing population are mainly Houwang worshippers. They have donated money to support opera shows during the deity's birthday festival and formed an association called Sheng-li t’ang which has actively taken part in festivities in celebration of the Houwang's feast day.\n\n40\n\nNotwithstanding the establishment of the Ta-wang Palace, as pointed out by a settler at the fishermen's village, only a few of them have become frequent visitors to this temple. The Houwang, as Tung Chung's principal god occupying a higher position in the pantheon hierarchy than other deities, remains the most popular deity in the locale, and the Houwang Temple has all along drawn the biggest crowd of worshippers from the community.\n\nFacing the Tung Chung Bay, the Houwang Temple is located at Sha Tsui Tau (see the map of Tung Chung). There is an adjacent open space in front of the temple, now used mainly for the holding of the annual festival commemorating the deity's feast day. The earliest dated ritual item inside the temple, a bell cast with the date of the 30th year of the Ch'ien Lung reign, suggests that the temple might have",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213838,
        "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": 190,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "163\n\nhave served as the focal point of village coalition organization as early as the 18th century. Pending verification is the identity of Houwang. As commonly held, he was the Chinese folk hero, Yang Liang-chieh, who had loyally protected the last emperor of the Sung, fleeing by sea from the victorious Mongols. The young emperor and his bodyguard, under Yang's leadership, finally landed near what is now Kowloon. Legend also holds that they spent some of their last days in the Tung Chung Valley. It is suggested that not only Yang's honourable behavior, but also the fact that he was a refugee far from home, deeply touched the hearts of early immigrants to this new land, especially the Hakka people.\n\nIn local people's minds, indeed, there is no doubt of the efficacy of this hero-turned-god. For their families and themselves, they come to procure divine assistance in connection with serious illness, financial problems, the picking of propitious days for marriage, long journeys, house construction, and so forth. By casting the divining blocks before the altar, the deity's instructions are revealed to them. Small-scale ritual transactions between the deity and individual worshippers are usually carried out with the assistance of the miao-chu, the temple's keeper and religious specialist. In the case of marriage, for instance, it is the Houwang who decides, through the temple keeper, whether the betrothed are well-matched.\n\nBesides day-to-day ritual transactions invoking the local god's help in meeting personal or family needs, annual religious activities also strengthen villagers' patronage of the temple. Examples are the occasion of tso-fu (make blessing), usually held in the second lunar month, during which the worshipper requests the god's favour in the coming year, and the observance of huan-shen (repay the spirits), held at the end of the year to repay the god for his blessings. While these relatively small-scale rituals are performed on behalf of individual worshippers, the Houwang's Birthday celebration is held on behalf of the community as a collectivity. Thus it best demonstrates the role of the local principal deity in maintaining a communal sense of identity among villages, which have formed a united body in the territory, and the function of the temple as a village-coalition temple.\n\nEven the date for the festival carries distinctive local characteristics. While the Houwang's Birthday is on the 6th of the sixth lunar month",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 213839,
        "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": 191,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "164\n\nin Tai O, following the practice of the Houwang Temple in Kowloon City, Tung Chung sets the date on the 15th of the eighth lunar month. As explained by local villagers, people in a farming community such as Tung Chung, in contrast to the fishing community of Tai O, are busy with farm work until mid-autumn. Setting the date for festival celebration in the slack season guarantees mass participation and enjoyment to the full,52\n\nDuring this festival of four days and five nights, representatives of Tung Chung's villages present the best sacrificial offerings to their local principal temple. All inhabitants from the area participate in the mass worship of their patron god. It is the climax of religious and social activities of the year as operas, Ch'iang-p'ao (rocket-snatching) contests, and other forms of entertainment are incorporated in the god's birthday observance. For the performance of the opera show, a bamboo stage is built in the open area in front of the main entrance of the Houwang Temple. On two sides of the stage, many stalls are set up in rows selling food, oblations, religious souvenirs, and even toys. Among these booths are some for the \"rocket associations\" which are formed mainly by competing villages and organizations in the names of 'ang, to vie with one another in the capture of lucky rockets. These rockets are considered relics of the temple god, or representations of the deity, which will bring good fortune and glory to the winning units. They must be returned to the temple with a thanksgiving observance on the god's birthday in the following year.\n\nBefore World War II, according to the natives, the \"rocket-snatching\" contest was held on the 18th of the eighth lunar month during which rockets were shot into the air by officers in charge of temple management. Representative members of the rocket associations, usually young men assembled in the square in front of the temple, would then scramble for the numbered wooden tablets inside the rockets just fired. Whoever got hold of the tablets could purchase the rocket numbered accordingly.\n\nAfter the War, owing to population increase, fighting over the possession of the rockets became a serious problem. In 1949, to reduce the chances of violent conflict, some rural areas decided that participants would draw lots for the rockets. In Tung Chung in recent years,",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213840,
        "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": 192,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "165\n\n55\n\nrepresentatives of the rocket associations bid for the rockets Physical violence is avoided, but competition remains keen among bidders who strive to show superiority over each other in terms of wealth and power' To decide who in the winning group can take the representation of the god home, another ceremony should be held whereby the temple keeper, after placing on the temple altar a list of members of the rocket association and reciting a “song to invite the god\" (#), casts the divining blocks thrice for each member The winner is he who passes the divination three times in a row.\n\n1\n\n50\n\nIn addition to the representative associations from villages such as Mok Ka's Yu-ch'ing tang W, upper Ling Per's Ch'un-ying t'ang #*, Ngau Au's Ch`un-lu t’ang San Tau's Ch'un-ch'ing tang # , and so on, other units such as social clubs and recreational societies also form their own rocket associations. According to Hayes's observation in the 1960s of the concomitant celebration of the Houwang feast day and the reopening of the Houwang Temple after the first major repair in 1909, among the rocket associations, two were fishermen's groups, (one from Tung Chung and the other from Tai O) and one was formed by the Seamen's Union from Hong Kong which came to Tung Chung for the festival for many years.\" Many native Tung Chung seamen had joined the union. By forming the associations and attending the festival, members of the same profession can also exchange information and news of their trade. In this sense, the festival functions tend to promote solidarity not only among villagers, but also among colleagues.\n\nFor local residents of different surnames and various social backgrounds, the Houwang worship and its all-pervasive influence provide them with the social bond of union and the ideology of territory identity, through which the Tung Chung community seems to have become a culturally self-sufficient entity Even the fishermen settled in the district seldom visit the Empress of Heaven Temple at Chak Lap Kok or Ma Wan. Like other Tung Chung villagers, they pay homage mainly to the Houwang, the principal deity of the locale, and participate quite actively in the “bid-for-rockets” contest during the annual feast day festival.\n\nThe Houwang's Birthday celebration also provides the local community with an opportunity for contact with the outside world.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213842,
        "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": 194,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "167\n\nonly once in three years, the annual festival to commemorate the Houwang's birthday serves better, in terms of higher frequency, to boost the sense of community identity through mass worship of the principal local deity and large-scale general activities of celebration and entertainment. When the community finally had to suspend the chao ceremony out of financial consideration, the Houwang's Birthday Festival remained. The latter has become even more extensive in scale as demonstrated by the development in the post-War period.\n\nReligion and the Evolution of Local Power Structure\n\nTo prepare for the annual god's feast day celebration has never been an easy job. It requires financial as well as organizational support from the local élites. In a multiple-clan community, as observed by many scholars, its principal temple is always the focal point of village coalition organization and the seat of territorial social leadership. Tung Chung's Houwang Temple as a focus of religious activities has also been a locus of sociopolitical action. It is known to have kept a legal code, dated 1893, on a wooden board hung in one of the side rooms. Put there as a permanent record for all to note was also a list of the procedures to be followed in trying crop-stealers or other trouble-makers caught in the valley and their penalties in fines to be paid.61 In addition, on the temple wall, there is an inscription detailing the history and final settlement of a long dispute in the 18th century between Tung Chung's tenants and their landlord. That local rules and dispute-settlements were publicized at the village coalition temple signifies the role of the temple god as judge governing a well-defined territory63 and the place as the centre of community organization both symbolically and practically.\n\n62\n\nLike most local shrines, Tung Chung's Houwang Temple has been maintained by community members and shopkeepers. Because of substantial financial needs in temple management and maintenance, support from richer residents has proved indispensable. By sponsoring festival activities as well as temple renovation projects, local élites can in turn increase their social influence, for in a society where religion has ubiquitous influence, economic power often needs religious sanction. In Tung Chung, as in many other rural areas, the richest people have usually been the most zealous patrons of local religious activities. According to a 1910 inscription on the wall of the Houwang Temple",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213843,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1996",
        "page_number": 195,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "168\n\nrecording a list of money donors who sponsored a reconstruction project then, those who served as Directors of the renovating work or donated the largest sums of money were the K'ungs from the Tung-yuan t'ang and shopowners from the Hsi-yuan t’ang\n\nThey were apparently Tung Chung's social leaders.\n\nElderly people testified that the K'ungs from lower Ling Pei and the Hsiaos from Ngau Au were the largest landowners in the area, renting out their plots to tenants at neighbouring villages. They also ran commercial businesses on Tung Chung Street. The Ta-sheng t'ang Store, owned by the K'ungs, and the Yao-ho Store, by the Hsiaos. As the most influential people in the community, they naturally became the managers of the temple reconstruction project. With their economic power, they were able to act as sponsors of large-scale religious functions, which in turn legitimized their status as cultural and sociopolitical élites of local society.\n\nTheir role in the annual festival commemorating the Houwang's feast day made their social position even more conspicuous. Before the War, it was the Neighbourhood Association which took charge of the preparation for the Houwang's Birthday Festival. The association was formed by shopkeepers who were elected by all shops on Tung Chung Street. Members would take turns in leading the association for a term of three years. Making arrangements for the annual festival stood out as the most important job for the association and its leader who, after taking up the post of Chief Director, would serve as the head leader of the festival. A red paper with this title would be put on his shop's signboard. The festival was thus an opportunity to show off one's wealth and power and to increase one's influence within the community. This function is especially significant to multi-surname villages where no single lineage dominates the situation.\n\nCommon practice requires that every household member makes a donation to support the festival activities. The amounts of their donations are publicly detailed on a wall bulletin called \"the long paper in red\". In the pre-War period, when Tung Chung Street became a local commercial centre, the list was posted on the exterior wall of the Yao-ho Store, one of the largest shops on the street. A few outside donors, from Tai O and Bak Mong, for example, would also volunteer to support the function. Because of substantial expenses involved,\n\nPage 195\n\nPage 196",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213844,
        "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": 196,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "169\n\nhowever, donations from ordinary villagers (about HK$0.3-0.5 per person) always fell short of the demand. It was almost inevitable that the head leader of the festival would be called upon to contribute a large amount. For instance, he would donate HK$500, whereas each of the other members of the Neighbourhood Association would contribute only HK$100. In addition, the head leader would pay HK$600-700 in advance, for matshed construction and opera troupe hiring. He was also responsible for miscellaneous expenses of the temple “To assume this heavy responsibility required substantial wealth.\n\nStores on Tung Chung Street, such as the Yao-ho, Te-ho, Ching-ho, and Kuang-hsing, etc., were among the chief members of the Neighbourhood Association in charge of festival preparations. In this sense, Tung Chung Street, the local business centre, also became the centre of social power in the territory. The most influential power holders were, of course, the storeowners who became chief directors of the Neighbourhood Association. As they had to shoulder the heavy financial burden of sponsoring the festival, only the richest could afford the positions. In the 1920s, it is remembered, first Mr. Kuan from lower Ling Pei, owner of the Te-ho Store, and then Mr. Hsiao from Ngau Au, owner of the Yao-ho Store, served as head leaders of the Festival 70\n\nMr. Kuan, who had a little knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine, sold medicinal herbs and sundry goods at his store.\" Mr. Hsiao, as the largest landowner in Tung Chung, was especially qualified for the post. The Hsiaos derived their wealth from landholding, mostly at Ngau Au and some at Ling Pi, and from business. On the one hand, they rented out land to tenants, who were easy to find as not many non-farm jobs were available then. On the other hand, the Hsiaos' grocery store on Tung Chung Street also engaged in moneylending on security.\" With their business diversified into rent collecting, shopkeeping and moneylending, the Hsiaos managed to establish their social power, based on wealth, and played a significant role in patronizing local religious activities. Under his leadership, both the Houwang's feast day celebration and the chiao ceremony in the 1920s were conducted.\n\nSince the War, the Houwang's Birthday Festival has been extended in scale and its rituals have become more elaborate and ceremonious.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213845,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1996",
        "page_number": 197,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "170\n\nIn the area surrounding the Houwang Temple, colourful embroidered banners and decorated archways are erected. Before the formal feast day, i.e., the 16th of the eighth lunar month, nuns from Tei Tong Tsai are invited to pray for a successful festival by reciting Buddhist scriptures and burning paper cloth. To raise funds for the ever-expanding scale of the celebration, a party is held on the 17th, where rocket association representatives come to bid for sacred relics, i.e., items such as idols, vases, ornaments, etc. blessed by the deity. This is another opportunity, in addition to the bidding for rockets, for better-off villagers to boast of their wealth.\n\n74\n\nIn recent years, expenses for the festival have increased to around HK$500,000, including $100,000 or more for building the matshed and $200,000 or more for hiring opera troupes. Participating rocket associations increased from about five in the 1960s to more than fifteen in recent years. Showing off their financial capacity, some nouveaux riches since the War have become festival sponsors. They are settlers in Ma Wan Chung, which replaced Tung Chung Street as the local business centre, after a pier was built in the village vicinity in 1958 and a road leading to the pier was constructed in the 1960s. With improvements in water and electricity supply, medical services, etc., two-storey new houses were built in the pier area of Ma Wan Chung, changing the physical and social landscape of Tung Chung.5\n\nWhen Tung Chung Street's economic status was taken over by Ma Wan Chung, the Neighbourhood Association became obsolete and a new body emerged, under the name of the Preparatory Committee for the Houwang's Birthday Festival. The Committee consists of more than ten members, including village representatives and volunteers.76 With chairman, vice-chairman, and treasurer, this organization seems to be a modernized one, though people with economic power—shopowners in the area of Ma Wan Chung this time—continue to hold important positions. Even the location of the bulletin, recording the list of money donors in support of the god's feast day celebration, has changed from the exterior wall of the Yao-ho Store on Tung Chung Street to that of the Shun-ch'ang Store at Ma Wan Chung.\n\nWorth noticing is the effect of demographic change in Tung Chung since the 1950s. A great number of new immigrants moved in and settled in the district, filling the gap left by the male population, who",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213846,
        "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": 198,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "171\n\nhad become sailors, and those who had emigrated overseas. Some men also moved away to work in the city or foreign countries during the depression in the 1950s, which hit farmers particularly hard as the price of produce, especially rice, fell. As a result, female villagers gradually came to outnumber their male counterparts during the period from the early 20th century to the 1950s. In the meantime, emigrants from Hai-lu-feng and Ch'ing-yuan in south China flocked to Tung Chung's Sha Tsui Tau and Ma Wan Chung. Some of them became managerial farmers, specializing in vegetable growing and animal husbandry, keeping chicken runs and piggeries, etc., thus changing the area's traditional farming pattern. Later, when Ma Wan Chung rose to be Tung Chung's business centre, after the construction of the pier there, these new immigrants started to diversify their investments, going into the grocery business and becoming shopowners in the vicinity of the pier. The owner of the Shun-ch'ang Store, for example, is a San-shui native.\n\nIn need of financial and human resources, Tung Chung seems to be especially tolerant of “outsiders” who invest in the community and eventually settle in one of the villages. Normal practice requires that a newcomer first makes application for permanent residency to the village head, who will then solicit opinions from the villagers. Should there be no objection, permission signed by the village head is issued. Finally, the new settler will host a banquet to entertain villagers, who come to show their goodwill and welcome the newcomer. Since the 1950s, most of the latecoming settlers in Tung Chung have resided and made a living in Ma Wan Chung. Thus, this area has the highest male-to-female ratio among all villages in the entire district. According to a statistical source, the gender structure of Ma Wan Chung's population as compared to that of Shek Mun Kap, for example, in the early 1960s was as follows:\n\n| Village | Male | Female | Children |\n\n| --- | --- | --- | --- |\n\n| Ma Wan Chung | 27.1% | 27.1% | 45.8% |\n\n| Shek Mun Kap | 11.5% | 42.4% | 46.1% |\n\nLike Shek Mun Kap, other villages also had far fewer male residents than did Ma Wan Chung. In terms of manpower resources, therefore, Ma Wan Chung undoubtedly enjoys favourable conditions for sponsoring the Houwang's Birthday Festival. For these more recent settlers in Tung Chung, supporting the festivities becomes an important",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 213848,
        "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": 200,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "173\n\nfinancial resources in support of the god's feast day celebration, after the chiao ceremony had finally ceased to take place.\n\nOther religions such as Buddhism and Christianity did present themselves in Tung Chung in the post-War period and were not excluded by the local community, though they were not very popularly received. In the 1950s, a village called Tei Tong Tsai was established on the southern border of Tung Chung when a group of monasteries, nunneries, and Buddhist halls were built to provide monks and nuns with a self-sufficient retreat resort. Although monasteries are customarily institutions outside the village community, and the monks and nuns at Tei Tong Tsai seldom mingle with other villagers, the place is considered, officially and formally, part of the Tung Chung district. To fulfill the obligations of a community member, Tei Tong Tsai has to send its head monk to attend meetings of Tung Chung's Rural Committee. Monks and nuns also make voluntary donations to support the annual celebration of the Houwang's feast day. Before the festival begins, representative monks and nuns are sent from Tei Tong Tsai to chant Buddhist prayers and burn paper offerings at the Houwang Temple. In return for their service, they might receive courtesy recompense from the Preparatory Committee for the Houwang's Birthday Festival. Tei Tong Tsai's participation in the festival activities commemorating the principal local deity, however limited, manifests how essential the Houwang worship is for members of the Tung Chung community.\n\nAnother Buddhist monastery, the Lo-han Monastery (4), was built on the hillside at Shek Pik Au [!] in the 1970s. Outsiders, instead of local villagers, sponsored the construction and participated in worshipping activities there. The influence of the monastery on the religious belief of Tung Chung's residents is negligible. On the other hand, it is one of the regular donors supporting the annual celebration of the Houwang's feast day, as a means of demonstrating its membership in the Tung Chung community.\n\nAs for Christianity, both Catholic and Protestant missionaries tried to establish bases in Tung Chung. For example, the Chous, of the San Tau village on the western border of the district, were converted to Catholicism under the influence of priests dispatched from Tai O. Nevertheless, missionary work has ceased since the beginning of the",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 213850,
        "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": 202,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "175\n\nThe number of Tung Chung's population, especially the young, have moved to the city since the 1960s in search of better jobs and education. Consequently, fields are left uncultivated and the community suffers from depopulation. Yet the local communal culture and religious tradition, passed down from generation to generation, has not simply died down overnight under the pressure of urbanization and emigration. Fellow villagers and family members, including some of those who have emigrated overseas, return home every year to celebrate the Houwang's birthday as attested by the last festival.\n\nIn fact, emigrants are always on the list of money donors in support of the annual celebration. While the actual number of village occupants in 1991, for instance, was only around 300, mostly old people and children, the donors' list that year indicated that Tung Chung consisted of 430 households amounting to a population of almost 2700. Apparently, this figure denoted the total membership of the Tung Chung community, including emigrants. It is in the territorial cult and community rituals that homecomers look for their cultural roots, ties with their ancestors, refreshers of customary beliefs and the socio-religious milieu in which they were brought up. They also return to appreciate the joys and excitement of communal entertainment, and to perform traditional homage to their native god in return for his renewed blessings.\n\nThe temple will remain at its present site even after the demolition of Tung Chung's old villages to make way for the building of a new airport at Chek Lap Kok. This age-old principal local deity is going to witness a new era of drastic man-made transformation with unprecedented impact. This time, not only will some old community members leave forever and new residents arrive, but totally different surroundings will emerge with strong metropolitan characteristics of urbanization and commercialization.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641",
        "rank": 0
    }
]