[ { "id": 208679, "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-1979", "page_number": 136, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46 \n\n109\n\n20- Another community meeting but no further developments on repatriation. At 11 o'clock this morning we were agreeably surprised to learn that Sister Paul and Sister Corazon were on \"The Hill\" and that we could go up and see them. Again Sister Paul moved the adamant hearts of the Japanese and secured permission to enter the Camp to say goodbye to her departing Sisters. We learn that our own names have been handed in to the Foreign Office in Hong Kong for release from the Camp, and our hopes are high. We also learn that Father Tennien is in Chungking, and that Father Briggs and Father Hater are both quite ill. Since Sister Paul and her Sisters have been in Hong Kong, we have been enabled to receive weekly parcels of foodstuffs, and this has helped a great deal. For some weeks a league of softball has been in progress, and today the last game of the season was played between the British and Americans, the score being 15 to 6 in favor of the latter. A Stanley Cup was fabricated by Camp artisans and presented to the winners.\n\n22-The first anniversary of our newly ordained Maryknollers, and they enjoy a Camp lunch at the Maryknoll Sisters' apartments at 7:00 p.m. The repatriation ship, the Asama Maru has been further delayed. Due to some circumstance or other, our rice ration on the 23rd and 24th was very meager, but Father Meyer came to the rescue with his toasted rice which he has been saving for such a rainy day.\n\n25-Rumor hath it that our papers or forms are now on “The Hill,” and that we may get final word any day now to pack up and leave for Hong Kong. Mr. Gunn, an American, and seven others, British and Portuguese, are advised they may leave Camp tomorrow.\n\n26-We were delighted today to receive a visit from His Excellency, Bishop Valtorta, who asked permission to come out and say goodbye to the repatriates. He could remain but a short time, and bade the rest of us to have hope, as he felt we would be released in due time. He is also trying to secure the release of the Canadian Sisters. The Asama Maru is now scheduled to leave on the 30th, the repatriates going on board the 29th. The British are still incredulous about repatriation of the Americans. There is now some talk about possible repatriation of British women and children and old men, but nothing definite.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209979, "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-1983", "page_number": 238, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "216\n\nThe popularity of the Kwun Yam temple must be seen in relation to the followings and reputations of the other village temples of the area from which the temple drew its patrons. There was a long-established Tin Hau temple (A) inside Nga Tsin Wai village, a mile or so to the west over towards Kowloon City and its suburb Kowloon Street. According to a late 19th century tablet in the temple, this had existed at least as early as 1727. It had long provided the normal place of worship for the residents of the seven villages of the League of Seven (1) centred on Nga Tsin Wai, and some of the elders of these villages described their villages to me as 'coming under the rule of the Tin Hau of Nga Tsin Wai'. Other old villages had their own temples, including another dedicated to Tin Hau in the large old village of Po Kong. Another well-known temple outside the north-west corner of Kowloon walled city, dedicated this time to Hau Wong (E), had its followers from Kowloon Street and the villages nearby. However, if my informants are to be believed and their natural bias discounted, in the early years of this century none of these commanded such wide support as the Tung Shan temple and its Kwun Yam image, and none enjoyed the wide territorial support shown by the existence of chik li chosen from, and the circulation of subscription books within all of the thirteen main villages of Kowloon. Herein lies the importance, and the interest, of the combined Tung Shan and Kwun Yam temple of east Kowloon.\n\nBy contrast, the post-war neglect of this temple, and the fact that it has not been rebuilt, is, at first glance, hard to reconcile with its relatively recent rise to fame and period of glory. Elders give various reasons, and there is no doubt that a number of factors were at work. Firstly, the privations of the Japanese Occupation were more felt in Kowloon than in most places, because the military authorities razed Po Kong and other old villages nearby to extend the airfield, and this is said to have shaken villagers' faith in the gods. Secondly the high cost of the necessary repairs in a period of general impoverishment after the war are given as another factor. Thirdly, the removal of the Kowloon villages one by one for redevelopment purposes, before and especially after the war, was clearly another factor. The degree of disruption and personal struggle involved for the village families in these removals", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210205, "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": 176, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "155\n\nof the policy of suppression which had been adopted in Singapore. He strongly opposed the sending of an investigatory commission from London, which the Colonial Office had been pressing upon him. Peel's views were supported by the Permanent Under-Secretary and officials in London, who advised against any immediate action. A League of Nations commission to enquire into the international traffic in women and children was about to visit the Far East and this gave a good reason for delay, since any sudden change of policy would appear to be either designed to impress the commission or else to be an admission of guilt. Lord Passfield accepted this advice.\n\nFor the next six months the question was allowed to rest. Then in June 1931 Peel again wrote to the Colonial Office, enclosing a long memorandum on the legal position of brothels in Hong Kong written by the Chief Justice, Sir Joseph Kemp. This legal exposition concluded by warning that, though the suppression of all registered brothels might possibly lead to less illicit intercourse, it would probably arouse great resentment if the Chinese brothels patronized by the Chinese were to be suppressed. He continued: ‘I fear the danger of shaking the loyalty of the Chinese community as a whole and their confidence that the government will respect Chinese customs generally. The risk may have to be run, but I think it is a real one. It must be remembered that the Chinese do not view prostitution as we do. They look upon it with a more lenient eye, though excess is reprobated just as excess in other forms of self-indulgence is reprobated. Prostitutes are not social outcasts to the same extent as in 'Western' countries. A prostitute often becomes a highly respectable concubine . . . I realise that this is a very difficult defence to make, especially as the English public do not always realise the delicacy required in ruling an alien civilisation.' Peel offered up a small sacrifice to appease the Secretary of State: he suggested that the seven brothels containing European prostitutes should be closed down. This was not a sign that Peel had been converted to the moralists' point of view; European prostitutes were customarily deported from Hong Kong from time to time, since their presence was considered demeaning to European prestige in the East. This decision to close the brothels employing European, Australian and American women was endorsed by the Executive Council in July 1931.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214642, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1999", "page_number": 57, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "21\n\nDespite the busy nature of these paths over the mountains to Sha Tin, they could be dangerous. Sha Tin village elders remember that tigers were to be found in the woods below Lion Rock in the late nineteenth century during every breeding season. The path to Tai Wai was less heavily used than that over Sha Tin Pass, and tigers sometimes closed it. The Tai Wai and Tin Sam villagers, when there were tigers on the mountain, would gather at dawn at the Che Kung Temple, where they would worship the deity and seek his protection (the wild places on the Sha Tin side of the mountain were under his protection, as those on the Kowloon side were under the protection of the Nga Tsin Wai Tin Hau), and then go over the mountain to their market at Kowloon City in a group, with men armed with spears at front and back, and with others blowing conch shells and banging gongs to frighten the tigers off (these conch shells and gongs were kept in the temple for the purpose).\n\nOne young lady of Tai Wai in Sha Tin, about 1906, crossing the mountains to market on her own, was suddenly menaced by a tiger that came out of the undergrowth near the path. She scrambled onto the roof of a bamboo rain-shelter which stood there, but the tiger leapt after her. His weight caused the shelter to collapse, and girl, tiger, and hut all fell to the ground together. The weight of the tiger caused the bamboos to shatter, and many stuck the tiger like so many small spears. The tiger was so enraged at this that he started to attack the ruins of the hut, roaring and flinging himself at the sticks of bamboo, thus allowing the girl to crawl off, unharmed, and so to run home down the mountain, with a story she was still telling in the year of her death more than 60 years later: this story was told me by the son of the lady concerned.\n\nThe slopes of Lion Rock were, as noted above, under the protection and control of Che Kung on the Sha Tin side, but under the protection of the Nga Tsin Wai Tin Hau on the other. Many cautious travellers would come into the village to worship before setting out over the slopes of the mountain. Again, this brought business and prosperity to the village.\n\nNga Tsin Wai and the League of Seven\n\nNga Tsin Wai is the head village of an inter-village union called the Kowloon Tsat Yeuk (七約), or Tsat Po (七堡), the \"Kowloon", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214643, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1999", "page_number": 58, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "22\n\n\"League of Seven\". This was a sworn alliance of villages for mutual defence against outside attack, and a vehicle to allow the elders of the several villages involved to meet to discuss matters of inter-village interest. This inter-village alliance is very similar to many others within the New Territories, and can be compared, for instance, with the Alliance of Nine in Sha Tin, or the Alliance of Six at Sai Kung.\n\nAccording to the Nga Tsin Wai villagers, the League of Seven in fact comprises some nine villages, not seven. The reason for this may be that originally the League was not of seven villages, but of seven Pao-chia (保甲), or Tithing-Groups. The alternative name of the League, Tsat Po (七保), certainly suggests this. Several of the villages included in the League are very tiny, and would certainly have been combined for Pao-chia purposes with other, larger, villages nearby.\n\nThe villages of the League of Seven were: Nga Tsin Wai itself, Kak Hang, Tai Hom (also known as Tai Tan), Shek Kwu Lung, Ta Kwu Leng, Sha Po, Nga Tsin Long, Ma Tau Wai, and Ma Tau Chung. (see Map 1). Of these, Ma Tau Chung was so closely connected genealogically and socially with Ma Tau Wai that they were usually considered just one village. Ma Tau Chung is, in fact, a classic example of the local dialect term “Mau Tsuen” (茅村), or “Detached Village\" - an independent group of houses, but considered a detached part of a village a short distance away.\n\nThe traditional political position with regard to Hau Pui Long, Yi Wong Tin, Ma Tau Kok and Kau Pui Shek is unclear. These villages were all cleared well before the War, and little is known of their local political affiliations in the years before the clearance. At least Kau Pui Shek was probably within the League of Seven - it was certainly surrounded by land belonging to other villages that were members of the League. Ma Tau Kok, Hau Pui Long, and Yi Wong Tin were probably outside the League.\n\nOf the villages of the League, Kak Hang, Sha Po, Nga Tsin Long, Shek Kwu Lung, and Ta Kwu Ling are closely connected genealogically with Nga Tsin Wai, and the Chans of Nga Tsin Wai had a branch resident in Ma Tau Wai and Ma Tau Chung, among the many clans of that double village. Other groups of Chans claiming a relationship with Nga Tsin Wai, but not descendants of Chan Chiu-yin or his brother", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214644, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1999", "page_number": 59, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "were also to be found in Ta Kwu Leng and Ma Tau Wai.\n\n23\n\nIt will be seen that Kowloon City, Kowloon Market, and the suburban villages around them, apart from Sha Po, (that is, Tung Tau, Sai Tau, Hau Wong, and Hoklo Villages) had no part in the League of Seven. These areas were considered to fall immediately under the control of the Sub-Magistrate in Kowloon City, or under the control of the Kowloon Market Kaifong. Apart from these places, the League of Seven covered all the area around Kowloon City.\n\nThe Kowloon City and Kowloon Market areas worshipped at the Hau Wong Temple outside the Walled City, and did not worship at the Nga Tsin Wai Tin Hau Temple. There was a Tin Hau Temple at Sha Po where the residents in the Market also worshipped. Ma Tau Wai had a temple of its own: this was to Pak Tai, worshipped under the title Sheung Tai (7). Only the gate pillars of this temple survive today, in the Lomond Road Garden.\n\nTo the east of the area of the League of Seven was the large and ancient village of Po Kong, belonging to the Lam (*) clan. Po Kong never joined the League of Seven. Po Kong had its own temple (it was dedicated to Tin Hau), and the Po Kong people did not go to the Tin Hau Temple at Nga Tsin Wai. Chuk Yuen and Sha Tei Yuen were genealogically connected with Po Kong. According to the Nga Tsin Wai elders, the villages of Po Kong, Chuk Yuen, Sha Tei Yuen, Nga Yiu Tau, Ngau Chi Wan (including its \"Mau Tsuen” of Pak Uk Tsai, or Ping Shek), and Yuen Ling (both the Upper and Lower Villages) formed an inter-village alliance of their own, the Six Villages Alliance (AM). Ngau Chi Wan had its own temple, to the Sam Shan Kwok Wong - this temple still survives. According to Ngau Chi Wan village elders, there was no Six Villages' Ta Tsiu, but Ngau Chi Wan conducted these rituals on its own every ten years. Ngau Chi Wan also held the She (£) feast before their higher earth god, every year, when every family made an offering of food, which later formed the basis of the communal feast. Ngau Chi Wan was, clearly, rather independent where the worship of the deities was concerned, and may well have been rather less well-integrated into the Six Villages than the villages closer to Po Kong. Ngau Chi Wan was a Hakka village, founded in the very early eighteenth century. It was founded by the Lau (1) clan, but the To (†), Yeung (), Tsang (4), and Yip () clans joined the Laus during the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214645, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1999", "page_number": 60, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "24\n\neighteenth century. The Fungs () came there much later, at the end of the nineteenth century: they had fled from the Tai Ping rebels to Shek Lung Tsai in Sha Tin, and from there moved to Ngau Chi Wan. Very little is known of the Six Villages Alliance, and it is likely that it was more loosely structured than the League of Seven.\n\nIt will be noted that Tai Hom, of the League of Seven, is completely surrounded by land that formed part of the Six Villages Alliance. Tai Hom, which is a single-surname village of the Chu (*) clan, is the only village of the League of Seven with no genealogical connections with Nga Tsin Wai. That it formed part of the League of Seven, rather than the Po Kong Six Villages Alliance is probably due to the circumstances of Tai Hom's foundation. The Founding Ancestor of the Chus, Chu kui-yuen, was a Hakka from Ng Wah District far to the northeast of Hong Kong22. He was a stone-cutter. He came to Hong Kong in 1762, to look for work in the quarries which were at that date starting up in the eastern part of what is today Victoria Harbour. He prospered, and established a quarry at Shek Tong Tsui in 1771. Later, he found Shek Tong Tsui rather remote, and exposed to pirate attack, and moved to Sha Po near Kowloon City. Later still, he bought quarry-land at the tip of Cape d'Aguilar Peninsula, and founded nearby the village of Hok Tsui. He had eight sons. His eldest son died unmarried, and Hok Tsui is today lived in by the descendants of his second, third and fourth sons. The fifth and sixth sons died unmarried or disappeared later. Chu kui-yuen bought more land, at Tai Hom, for his seventh son, Yan-fung, leaving his youngest son, Cheung-fung,\n\n, the land at Sha Po. After Kui-yuen's death, his widow lived at Tai Hom with her seventh son, who acquired a minor official post at Kowloon City, presumably after the re-establishment of the yamen there in 1841. Yan-fung was born in 1781, and died in 1857. Tai Hom was, therefore, a late settlement. It is unlikely to have been founded earlier than 1800. The land at Tai Hom was not fertile, and was steep and rocky (the Chus ran a quarry there, which supplied poor quality stone used for laying foundations in the Kowloon City area). Until 1992 a few remnants of Tai Hom, including the Chu clan Ancestral Hall, remained, buried within the Diamond Hill Squatter Area. It is likely that Po Kong refused to guarantee the good behaviour of these incoming Hakka (some already settled family was always required to guarantee incomers under the Pao-chia rules), while Nga Tsin Wai was willing, and that it was this which brought Tai Hom into the League of\n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214646, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1999", "page_number": 61, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "25\n\nSeven, rather than into any relationship with Po Kong. Tai Hom was the only Hakka village in the League of Seven. It was probably this Hakka ethnicity, their rejection by Po Kong, and their relative isolation from Nga Tsin Wai that led the Tai Hom villagers to establish a temple of their own outside their village, somewhere in the period 1821-1850, probably late in the period: it was greatly expanded in 1904. This temple, the Tung Shan Temple (it was dedicated to Kwun Yam) became, for a short period during the 1920s and 1930s, the main religious focus of the \"thirteen villages of Kowloon\", that is, the villages of both the League of Seven and of the Six Villages Alliance, but it was left ruined in the War.\n\nThe land south of Ma Tau Kok formed part of the Alliance of Three (三聯盟) of Hung Hom (Hung Hom including Tai Wan, Hok Yuen including Shek Shan, and To Kwa Wan, probably including Ma Tau Kok). The land east of Ngau Chi Wan and Pak Uk Tsai formed the inter-village alliance called \"The Four Stone Hills\" (四石嶺). This was a sworn alliance of the quarry-villages of this mountainous and infertile area (Ngau Tau Kok, Sai Cho Wan, Cha Kwo Ling, and Lei Yue Mun).\n\nInter-village alliances normally centre on joint worship by the elders, either at the higher earth god of the area, or at the local temple. Nothing is now remembered in Nga Tsin Wai of any inter-village worship by the elders of the League of Seven as a group at any higher earth god shrine, nor of any She, * , Feast of the elders in front of the shrine. However, the Nga Tsin Wai villagers do not now even remember where their earth gods used to stand - they were all removed by the Japanese, except for the earth god of the Village Gate - so too much should not be made of this. The elders of the villages of the League of Seven did and do worship the Nga Tsin Wai Tin Hau, however, on her Birthday each year (the Tai Hom elders consider the villages of the League of Seven as \"belonging to the Tin Hau of Nga Tsin Wai\"): it is likely that this was the ritual focus of the League, and that the meetings of the elders of the district took place after the worship. The elders hold a feast today after the worship of Tin Hau, and this is probably a very ancient tradition. The Temple, however, was the property of Nga Tsin Wai alone (it is owned by all three of the Nga Tsin Wai clans, and the Manager of the Temple, chosen by the elders of the three clans, is the Village Headman): it was probably for this reason that, on her Birthday, the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214647, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1999", "page_number": 62, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "26\n\nelders of the League of Seven worship her at a temporary altar set up outside the village, facing her altar through the open village gate.\n\nThe deity is thus not taken from her altar for these annual Birthday celebrations: the elders worship her from outside the village, through the open village gate and the open temple door. Once in every ten years, however, the League of Seven holds a Ta Tsiu ritual. On this occasion, the statue of the deity is repainted and dressed in new robes by the Nga Tsin Wai village matrons, behind closed doors, and the matrons then carry her statue out of the temple to a temporary altar in front of the village gate, where the entire League of Seven conducts the Ta Tsiu rituals. The Ta Tsiu is the most important ritual event of the League of Seven. Indeed, since all but Nga Tsin Wai of the League's member villages have been cleared for development - many of them sixty or seventy years ago - it is the Ta Tsiu which alone keeps the League of Seven in being today, and, indeed, it is only the Ta Tsiu which keeps any memory of their ancient village community alive for the displaced descendants of places like Ma Tau Wai and Ta Kwu Ling.\n\nThe Nga Tsin Wai villagers believe the League of Seven was established in 1726, when the Ta Tsiu was held for the first time (at least since the Coastal Evacuation), and this is very likely, although the alliance may well, at that date, have used another name. The 1726 celebration was held after the 1724 rehabilitation of the village was completed. The 1996 celebration was the 28th to be held. Before the other villages were cleared for development, the villages conducted an elaborate procession through all the villages of the League, carrying in procession not only their own Tin Hau, but other statues of Tin Hau as well, from other temples in the area, before the rituals conducted in front of the gateway at Nga Tsin Wai. A photograph of a religious procession, which is likely to be the League of Seven Ta Tsiu procession for 1906, has been published on several occasions.\n\nAlthough they have no part in the League of Seven, Nga Tsin Wai always invites the Ngs, Chans, and Lis who have moved away from Nga Tsin Wai to return for these annual and decennial rituals, since these displaced descent lines are \"still our brothers\".\n\nInter-village alliances were, first and foremost, defence alliances against bandits. The League of Seven was probably established in 1726, when there was no yamen at Kowloon City, and at best only a very", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214648, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1999", "page_number": 63, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "27\n\nsmall group of soldiers there, so the risk of attack was then real. This was particularly so since pirates were a notorious risk in the waters between Kowloon City and the Lei Yue Mun Passage throughout the period from the middle eighteenth century to the late 1840s, and Nga Tsin Wai was both relatively wealthy, and only a few hundred yards from the coast. After 1841, when the Sub-Magistracy, and the local garrison command were moved back to Kowloon City, the number of soldiers posted near Nga Tsin Wai should have been enough to frighten off bandits in most circumstances. However, the League of Seven faced one major attack, in 1854.\n\nIn 1854 a group of Taiping rebels approached Kowloon City25. The villagers of Nga Tsin Wai believe that the garrison at Kowloon City all fled, with the officials, and the traders in the Market. The League of Seven was thus left with no defence against the bandits except what they could muster themselves. The villagers of Nga Tsin Wai say that the elders of the League of Seven besought Tin Hau to help them with advice. They cast the divining-blocks (FF) - should they stay and fight, or flee? The Goddess told them to stay, and, in a spirit of devotion, they decided to follow her advice. The villagers of the undefended League of Seven villages fled inside the walls of Nga Tsin Wai, and the gate was heavily barred. Nga Tsin Wai had, as noted above, two iron cannon above the gate, and a brass jingal at each corner tower. These guns were all readied, and stocks of gunpowder gathered. When the Taiping bandits appeared before the village, the League villagers fought them off valiantly, and the bandits eventually left, leaving the League of Seven untouched. The villagers consider this success to be a miraculous intervention by the Goddess: great drops of sweat were seen on the Goddess' brow, showing what a huge effort she was making to throw back the bandits. The leader of the villagers in this defence was Shue-tong (A), from the tenth descent line of the clan. He was later commended by the Ch'ing Government, and granted the honour of a peacock's feather for his role in this defence. The official records generally agree with the villagers' memory of this event. There can be little doubt that the merchants in the totally undefended Market at Kowloon would have fled on the approach of the rebels, but it seems likely from the official records that the garrison did as well, since the rebels, led by Loh A-tim (E), were able to capture the Walled City, seemingly without any fighting, on the 26th day of the 7th Moon, 1854. Seven days later, a relieving force of soldiers under the command\n\nNo", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214649, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1999", "page_number": 64, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "28\n\nof Cheung Yuk-tong (E) arrived (presumably this relieving force came from the garrison at the County City of Nam Tau), and retook the Walled City after a day of very heavy fighting, in which two of the Government soldiers died, and \"over 30\" bandits. Presumably, the successful defence of Nga Tsin Wai took place during this same seven-day period, in September - October 1854.\n\nThere were probably other occasions when bandits were forced away. For instance, the villagers of the Siu Lek Yuen inter-village alliance in Sha Tin have a story of a heroic fight by their combined manpower against a gang of bandits in the 1860s or 1870s. The Siu Lek Yuen villagers, having killed a number of the bandits, forced the rest to flee over the mountains to Nga Tsin Wai, where the Siu Lek Yuen villagers left them to the further attentions of the men of the League of Seven27.\n\nThe Nga Tsin Wai villagers also remember an attempt by the Tang clan (probably of Kam Tin) to impose Tang clan political control on this area. They relate that the elders of the League of Seven met the Tangs, and showed them the bags in which the silver which had been gathered by the League as a defence fund was kept, and the guns and gunpowder at their gate. \"Every tsin of silver, and every grain of gunpowder will be spent to fight you off\", the elders said, and the Tangs eventually left, with their tails between their legs2.\n\nThe last time the Nga Tsin Wai villagers closed and barred their gates against attack was in 1967, during the Riots. When the Riots broke out in San Po Kong, the villagers closed their gate, and put themselves into a position of defence, although their valour was not then put to the test.\n\nNga Tsin Wai's position at the head of the League of Seven put it into a very important position in the traditional politics of the Kowloon area. The Chief Elder of the League of Seven - usually the Chief Elder of Nga Tsin Wai - was one of the two or three most important figures in the district. The Sub-Magistrate would certainly have included him whenever he needed to consult the gentry of the district. As noted further below, Nga Tsin Wai village trusts were the subsoil land-owners of a good deal of the land in the area, especially in the Market, and at Sha Po, thus reinforcing their predominant local political position.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214663, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1999", "page_number": 78, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "42\n\narea faced in consequence a sellers' market, and doubtless the result was a steady increase in the number of fields under vegetables, and in the number of village households rearing pigs and other livestock for the market. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, buyers from Hong Kong could only buy from villages on the mainland sea-coast opposite the City, since there then were no roads to bring in produce from further afield, and no vehicles to carry anything either. However, even though market gardening must have increased in importance throughout the later nineteenth century, it is likely that demand from Kowloon City and the ships calling there was enough to make market gardening a significant feature of local life even before 1841.\n\nThe Nga Tsin Wai villagers say that rice cultivation stopped in the village well before the last War. Most of the elders cannot remember seeing any rice cultivation there in their youth in the 1930s. By then, the area was entirely devoted to producing food for the market. One contact said his mother and grandmother ran a pig-farm in the 1930s with 40 head of pigs - a very large farm for the New Territories at that date. That farm operated out of sheds built on the family fields, but a lot of villagers kept pigs and cattle actually within the walls of the village. The elders say that a lot of houses within the walls were empty in the 1930s. Many of the villagers had moved to the larger and airier homes outside the walls leaving empty premises behind (twelve villagers in 1902 owned houses both within the walls and outside, and a further nine had houses only outside the walls then). These empty houses within the walls were mostly used as pigsties and cattle sheds in this period: indeed, it is doubtful if there had ever been enough resident population at Nga Tsin Wai to fill all the village houses within the walls.\n\nA Sha Tin villager, Hui Wing-hing, F, of Shek Kwu Lung Village, wrote a series of poems about villages in Sha Tin and adjacent areas, mostly in the period 1890-1905, i.e. at approximately the same time as the Block Crown Lease Survey. For each village, he wrote about what caught his eye as important and special in that village. Market gardening was what he found most significant about the Kowloon City villages, and, in particular, the growing of fruit for the market. He has this to say of the League of Seven and Six Villages areas in his poem on the villages of Hong Kong, Kowloon, and Tsuen Wan:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214669, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1999", "page_number": 84, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "48\n\nbeen training in martial arts within the village before 1854 (Ng Shue-tong must have received such training). In the early twentieth century, according to the village elders of today, some of whom had studied with him, one of the Ngs was skilled in martial arts, and trained the village youths himself: at an earlier date it is possible that the village employed an outsider to teach these arts, as was done at Tai Wai in Sha Tin.\n\nThere was always a Village Office in the village. In 1902 it seems to have occupied the house immediately to the north of the Tin Hau Temple (the Tai Wai Village Office in Sha Tin also occupied the same site in that village). The Village Office was owned by the three clans of the village jointly, i.e. by the three trusts named from the three Founding Ancestors. The three clans chose one of the elders as Manager of the Temple and Village Office, and this Manager was the Village Headman, and the Chairman of the elders when they met together. In 1902, as noted above, this position was held by Ng Kam-tong.\n\nThe Village Headman had many duties, but ensuring the village was strong and could not be over-awed by any other village was one of the most important. The ancient and wealthy village of Po Kong, barely a quarter of a mile from Nga Tsin Wai, just the other side of the river, was always a potential threat to Nga Tsin Wai's pre-eminence, and, according to the Nga Tsin Wai elders, relations between the two, while usually reasonably cordial, were never close. There were the occasional brawls between groups of youths from the two villages, when their Unicorn Dances met at weddings and festivals, but the elders cannot remember any actual inter-village war between Nga Tsin Wai and Po Kong, or between the larger groupings of the League of Seven and the Six Villages. It is noticeable, however, as detailed below, that marriages between the two villages were not as common as might be expected.\n\nNga Tsin Wai families seem often to have looked for wives for their sons from within the village. Of the four widows who appear in the 1902 Lease and are discussed above, for instance, three probably came from Nga Tsin Wai itself. The present-day elders are unanimous that this was a preferred marriage strategy. Clearly, it helped the three clans to regard themselves as \"brothers\", given that everyone in the village must have been related to almost everyone else. In the Ng clan", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214675, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1999", "page_number": 90, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "54\n\nCity itself began at about the same time. The land south of the City Wall was cleared, and the land between today's Carpenter Road and Prince Edward Road, Grampian Road and Sa Po Road was developed. All this area was developed before the mid 1930s. Nga Tsin Long village disappeared at this date (it lay close to today's Nga Tsin Long Road). The old Market disappeared, too: it was cleared along with the villages nearby. By the middle 1930s, nothing at all was left of the old villages south of Kowloon City, with the exception of a few houses of Sai Tau near the Hau Wong Temple, and about a third of Sha Po, which remained, rather forlornly, on the eastern edge of this development area until the 1960s.\n\nFor the Nga Tsin Wai villagers, the problems this development caused were very great. For half-a-dozen years there was no Market at Kowloon City, effectively, at all. Half the League of Seven had disappeared within a couple of years. The economy and society of the area had thus been very seriously damaged. The shops and workshops owned by the villagers had to close: rental income was cut off.\n\nIn the later 1930s there was no further development in this area, because of fears caused by the steady growth of Japanese influence across the Border. However, these years saw a huge number of refugees fleeing from the Japanese into Hong Kong. Squatter huts were thrown up in the area around Kowloon City, both over the strip of land between the Walled City and Carpenter Road (this had been cleared for development in the mid 1930s, but left empty when development slowed down), and to the east of the City, around Tung Tau, and Nga Tsin Wai. The area north of Nga Tsin Wai village became full of squatter huts in this period. Squatters occupied many of the village fields, and the villagers were not usually able to get rent for them.\n\nAll these problems were shared with Po Kong. The Po Kong people, unable to understand why their comfortable life had suddenly shattered, put the blame on their Goddess. They took their Tin Hau and cast the image into a great fire. This sacrilege shocked the Nga Tsin Wai villagers greatly: not only was the Goddess thus dishonoured, but also the Po Kong people were the Goddess' own relatives (the Po Kong Lams come from the same village and clan as the Lady Lam who was later deified as the Goddess Tin Hau). The Nga Tsin Wai people retained their faith in the Goddess. The disasters which befell Po Kong over the next few\n\nPage 90\n\nPage 91", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 } ]