[ { "id": 208054, "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": 93, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "TWO ESSAYS ON THE CH'ING ECONOMY OF HSIN-AN\n\n77\n\nadministration\" was first implemented in the Sheung Yu Tung (**). The Land Court recognized the status of fourteen tax-lords, and granted them a total of 252.33 acres of unclaimed crown land. The taxlords, however, were in no hurry to select the land, and it was only after considerable prodding (over a period of several months) that they made their choices. The problems which arose over the plots selected were to plague district officers for years. Information regarding potentially profitable land was secured from bribed government clerks, with the result that speculation on railway land became rampant. Another problem arose when taxlords staked claims to \"fung shui\" groves and proceeded to extort and blackmail neighboring villages by threatening to chop down the trees for firewood. As a result, taxlord schedules for the tung were not completed till August, 1909; references to taxlord claims crop up in CSO reports well into the 1920's.20\n\nBy the time the Land Court got around to hearing the Un Long claims, little sympathy existed in the colonial service for the compensation plan. It is not surprising, then, that the Tang claims were dismissed as invalid, a decision which elders in the neighborhood still relate to the fact that the Tangs led the resistance. Official records regarding this decision have apparently been lost;29 thus, our only data on the nature of taxlordism refer to Sheung Yu Tung.*\n\nThe most complete account of the taxlord settlement is provided in CSO6269 of 1909. Of the fourteen taxlords compensated throughout the tung, nine are dealt with in this file, which was compiled over the period 1904-1910. The table below summarizes these nine settlements.\n\nTable II: Taxlord Settlements, Sheung Yu Tung\n\nTaxlord\nAmount granted\nLocated in:\n\nTang Yung Peng\n45.0 acres\nFan Ling\n\nLiu Yin Yu\n13.0 acres\nMan Lai Ngam\n\nMan Fung Chi\n9.5 acres\n\nTang Yui Shan\n16.0 acres\n\nPang Shin Han\n65.0 acres\nFan Ling, Hau Yeuk Fan Ling\n\n9.0 acres\n\n60.0 acres\nHo Sheung, Lam Tsun Luk Yeuk\n\n11.0 acres\nHau Chak Wing Hang Chung Hin\n\n4.8 acres\nMan Cham Tsum\n\n*The claims by Tangs over Tsing Yi Island were originally labelled.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209009, "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": 171, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUIRIES\n\n139\n\nFuk Tak Temple **\n\nTai O Market- No information.\n\nThe number of temples found in each area is as follows\n\n1. Mui Wo-2\n\n6. Tsin Yu Wan-1\n\n11. Sha Lo Wan-1\n\n2. Pui O-4\n\n7. Yi O-1\n\n12. Tung Chung 3\n\n3. Tong Fuk-2\n\n8. Tai O-7\n\n13. Tai Pak - 1\n\n4. Shek Pik-3\n\n9. Keung Shan- 1\n\n14. Nim Shue Wan-1\n\n5. Fan Lau-2 10. San Shek Wan-1\n\n15. Chak Lap Kok-1\n\nHong Kong, March 1980\n\nANTHONY K.K. SIU\n\nTHE KOWLOON WALLED CITY\n\nThe Kowloon Walled City was situated to the north of the present Kai Tak Airport. It had been the most important military base in Hong Kong during the later Ch'ing Dynasty (1644-1911).\n\nAt the beginning of the Ch'ing period, there was no walled city. In the 7th year of the K'ang Hsi reign (1668), there was only a watchpost, called the 6, recorded as having thirty guards. Fourteen years later, in the 21st year of Kang Hsi (1682), the number of guards was reduced to only ten, and the post was turned into the Kowloon guard-station. This Kowloon guard-station, with only ten soldiers, was still in existence up to the 16th year of the Chia Ch'ing reign (1811)\n\n1\n\nDuring the 15th year of the Chia Ch'ing reign (1810), the Fat Tong Mun Fort # was evacuated, and a new fort was built on the coast of Kowloon. This was the Kowloon Fort #. Its garrison was forty-eight men, under one pa-tsung and one ngai-wai.\n\nAfter the 22nd year of the Tao Kuang reign (1843), Hong Kong Island was under British rule. In order to strengthen the fortification of Kowloon, a walled city was built in the 27th year of Tao Kuang (1847). This was the Kowloon Walled City\n\n* See JHKBRAS 19 (1979)· 209-210.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209011, "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": 173, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n141\n\n(1810), General Chin Mun-fu ***** suggested that the Fat Tong Mun Fort be abandoned and be rebuilt near the Kowloon guard-station ✯ ✯ A Viceroy Pak Ling T✯ ordered the Magistrate of the San On County 觚 ***◊ to carry out the suggestion.\n\nChapter 175 of Kwangtung Tung Chi, Tao Kuang edition KKAR £&4-4*+ states, \"The Kowloon Fort Aate lies 290 # E west of the Tai Pang Battalion 4. It was guarded by one pa-tsung and one ngai-wai with 48 guards.\"\n\n5 After the Opium War, the Chinese were defeated, and Hong Kong was ceded to the British. In the 23rd year of the Tao Kuang Reign (1843) Ke Ying was Viceroy of the Kwangtung and Kwangsi Provinces **** and Wong Yan-tung & was Governor of the Liang Kwang-tung ✯✯✯. They proposed building the Kowloon Walled City. The work was completed in the 27th year of the Tao Kuang Reign (1847).\n\n* See Chapter 13 of the Kwangtung Tao Shuet, Tung Chih edition ŁATÁRUK+ which records. \"The Kowloon Walled City was under the command of a fu-cheung ## or brigadier of the Naval Forces of the Tai Pang Battalion. Under him was an extra ngar-wai who guarded the Walled City with 150 men. There were 75 men under one tsin-tsune for lieutenant guarding the Kowloon Fort; and one ngai-wai-tsin-tsung ††or sub-lieutenant leading 15 men guarding the Kowloon Coastal Guard Station ALDA.\n\n* See Chapter 73 of the Kwangchow Fu Chi, Kuang Hsü edition ANA££*TE and Kwong Tung Hoi Tao Shuet, Kuang Hsü edition 張之洞廣東海圆說.\n\n* See my article 'The Old Cannons found in Hong Kong' in Volume 8, Part 2 of Kwangtung Man Hin REÆ : RKARXUŁ^ËZI\n\n* The Old Yamen is now occupied by the CNEC Grace Light School.\n\nTUEN MUN FROM CHINESE HISTORICAL RECORDS\n\n2\n\nTuen Mun1 lies in the western part of the New Territories. The highest mountain in this area is the Tuen Mun Shan ₺F2 which reaches a height of 582.9 metres. To the east of the mountain is the Tuen Mun Bay, also called the Castle Peak Bay lying to its east, and the Lantau with Kau King Shan A Island lying to its south.\n\nTuen Mun Bay is surrounded by mountains on three sides, thus forming a good typhoon shelter from the strong easterlies. It is also the waterway for entering the Chu Kiang i or Pearl River estuary of the Kwangtung Province. The Bay had been an important harbour for the Persians, the Arabs and the people from India, Indo-china and the East Indies. Their trading fleets had to anchor and gather at Tuen Mun before entering the Chu Kiang.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209012, "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": 174, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "142\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nDuring the early Tang Dynasty, the importance of Tuen Mun increased. Thus a garrison of two thousand men was posted1, and Tuen Mun became known as the Tuen Mun Military Zone19 5. The garrison was led by a commander known as Sau-Chuk-Si 守捉使 belonging to the Annam Military Zone 安南都護府. Its headquarters were at Nam Tau, later the district city of San On. The area of present day Hong Kong, including the islands, the Kowloon Peninsula and the New Territories, was under the protection of this garrison.\n\nIn the Sung Dynasty, the Tuen Mun Military Zone was turned into the Tuen Mun Ngam19. However, the number of soldiers and the rank of the officer in charge are not certain.\n\nDuring the early Ming Dynasty, the Tuen Mun Ngam was turned into the Nam Tau Walled City, and the garrison was commanded by a Cham-Cheung or Brigadier. Later, in the 17th year of the Hung Wu Reign (1384), Fa Mau✯✯, Commander of the Nam Tau Walled City, asked the Imperial Court to strengthen the garrison of the coastal area. Tuen Mun lay between the areas protected by the Tung Kwun Battalion and the Tai Pang Battalion. Thus, a watch-post was built, and a guard-station under a Pa-Tsung(4) was established. In the 9th year of the Chia Ching reign (1514), the Portuguese entered the Tuen Mun Bay. They took over the adjacent lands and built forts. They even established a monument. However, in the 16th year of Chia Ching, Wong Wang, Commander-in-chief of the Kwangtung naval forces, defeated the Portuguese at Sai Tso Wan8.\n\nAfter that, no Portuguese was found in the Tuen Mun area.9 At that time, there were villages like Lung Kwu Tsuen, Lang Shui Tsuen✯k††, Tuen Mun Tsuen19#, So Kwun Wat Tsuen 掃桿笏村, and Siu Lam Chung Tsuen 小欖涌村.10\n\nDuring the early Ch'ing Dynasty, the Coastal Evacuation✯✯ caused the abandonment of the area close to the sea. Tuen Mun thus lay barren until, in the 7th year of the K'ang Hsi reign (1668), people were permitted to return to the coastal strip. The Tuen Mun Watch-post was re-established with a garrison of fifty men under a Tsin-Tsung. In the 21st year of K'ang Hsi (1682), the Tuen Mun Watch-post was turned into the Tuen Mun Walled City19 with a garrison of thirty men under a Tsin-tsung11. During", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210314, "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": 285, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "264\n\nNotes and Queries\n\nTRADITIONAL TEA GROWING IN THE NEW TERRITORIES\n\nP.H. HASE, J.W. HAYES, K.C. Iu*\n\nFollowing the establishment of the Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware interest was expressed in the indigenous tea growing and preparation customs in the New Territories. A visit was paid to one of the villages where traditional tea growing is still practised to ensure that a photographic record of the process was taken. A written record was also taken, which appears below as section 1 of this Note. Section 2 is a selection of notes on traditional tea growing elsewhere in the southern part of the New Territories, and section 3 is a note on the Mountain Begonia, which was also used to make tea, at least on Lantau.\n\n(1) Traditional Tea Growing in Mau Tso Ngam (PHH)\n\nMau Tso Ngam Village is a Hakka village inhabited by members of the Cheng and Lau clans situated high up on the slopes of Kowloon Peak in the upper reaches of a stream that eventually reaches the sea at Siu Lek Yuen in Sha Tin. This village is one of the few left in the New Territories which still grows and prepares its own tea in the traditional way. This note briefly describes the tea preparation processes in use at Mau Tso Ngam as seen by the author on a visit to the village on 26th April 1986 and as described further to him by the Village Representative, Mr. Cheng Kau-hung.'\n\nTea trees2 are planted here and there on the edge of the hills near the village: most families own a few trees, while others are owned by the Ancestral Trusts of the village. Tea from the trees owned by the Ancestral Trusts is used for offerings to the gods and spirits. There are no tea plantations as such, since each family keeps its trees scattered at traditional sites on the hills near its\n\nSee Plates 33-41\n\nPage 265\n\nPage 285\n\nPage 286", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210317, "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": 288, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "267\n\ntend to sink to the bottom of the containers, thus leading to a poorer quality of tea in the early spring, when the end of the previous year's harvest is being drunk, than in the summer. For this reason some good quality tea is usually reserved for the New Year festivities when good tea would otherwise be difficult to find.\n\nThe tea trees owned and used by the villagers are not given much attention apart from the annual stripping away of creepers. The trees are allowed to grow naturally for ten years or so until they are fifteen feet or more tall and no longer easy to strip the leaves off. By this stage, too, the regular stripping off of the leaves tends to make the tree spindly and unproductive. Old, tall trees of this sort are then cut down and replaced with newly planted trees. Usually the new trees are just branches cut off old trees and placed in the ground: careful families plant half-a-dozen such branches each year to ensure that at least one or two new trees are successfully established each season.\n\nWhile most tea trees are owned by individual families or village trusts, a few stands are not privately owned, but available to anyone who wishes to use them. These clumps of “wild” trees are often of very tall old trees, with thick trunks and much larger, coarser leaves than the young trees in active use by the villagers. These stands of wild trees are used by the villagers as sources of branches for transplanting, as the wild trees are considered to be particularly strong and vigorous, and the leaves of young trees grown in this way from wild stocks are believed to give a particularly fine tea.\n\nTea prepared by New Territories villagers in the traditional way described above has a delicate, light taste and a slightly astringent quality, and is easy to drink and pleasing to the palate. It is locally known as “Hill Tea” (山茶), and tea of this type is still purchasable in the New Territories Market Towns, although most now available in Hong Kong is produced from villages just across the border.\n\nAt present the Mau Tso Ngam villagers, as also those other New Territories villagers still preparing their own tea, prepare only enough for their own family use. Four or five days' work by a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210318, "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": 289, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "268\n\nP.H. HASE, J.W. HAYES AND K.C. IU\n\nfamily will produce enough tea from one stripping to last that family a year. Before the War, villager families would put in more time, stripping the trees up to four times in a year, to produce in addition a few baskets of tea for sale in the market towns, to supply those villages, mostly the large, lowland villages, who had no tea trees of their own. The villagers have no recollection of their tea ever being traded more widely than in the local market town.\" As well as at Mau Tso Ngam, several other hill villages in Shatin still prepare tea in this way (including Wong Chuk Yeung, and Kwun Yam Shan) and several others did until recently. Probably most hill villages of the New Territories used to prepare tea in this way.\n\nTraditionally, villagers drank tea out of their rice bowls at the end of the meal after the rice was finished. Special tea bowls were used in ritual contexts (e.g., when offering tea to gods or spirits or during weddings when tea is offered by the bride to her husband's mother) or when tea was offered to important visitors. The rice bowls were kept very carefully, and the owners would often scratch their names into the glaze inside the bowl to guard against loss.\"\n\nA set of rice bowls used for tea drinking in Mau Tso Ngam from about 1920 is now preserved in the Hong Kong Museum of Teaware, together with tealeaves produced at Mau Tso Ngam, and a full photographic record of the preparation processes.\n\n(2) Traditional Tea Growing in the Southern New Territories\n\n(JWH)\n\nMy recollections of local tea go back to 1957-58 when, newly appointed as District Officer, South, I visited all villages and hamlets in the district within a six months' period and much of it on foot! My recollection was that I drank hill tea in a number of places as well as ordinary tea or hot water in others. Referral to my notebooks has provided some information on tea growing in the villages of the Southern District but not as much as I had either thought or hoped.\n\nHill tea came to my attention when I was offered it to drink, and this was conspicuously the case in the Clear Water Bay villages.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210322, "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": 293, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "272\n\nP.H. HASE, J.W. HAYES AND K.C. IU\n\nNgam village is situated and that tea growing there had come to the attention of the Botanical Department soon after the lease of the New Territories in 1898. It is, however, of interest to note that contemporary villagers in the areas of these terraces state that their ancestors, as far as they know, had no interest in these terraces, and no-one claims any ownership of them today.\n\nTea was also being cultivated in some localities in San On County in the 1850s. Writing on the county in 1858, Revd. R. Krone stated \"Tea is also cultivated in several places and is generally called \"Shan-cha” (mountain tea). It has a rather strong astringent taste, but is much liked by the natives, and particularly by those who are of advanced age, who consider that it promotes digestion and cools the system. Many drink only this indigenous tea\" 16\n\nTo summarize, it is possible that tea cultivation was at one time flourishing in the region. If the terraces I have mentioned were truly tea terraces, it must have been a commercial venture on a large scale. However, since no memory of commercial tea cultivation remains in village tradition, at least in those places where I have made enquiry, final proof is unlikely to be available. On the other hand, the cultivation of tea for local consumption appears to have been practised in many villages in the 19th century and after, and perhaps earlier. The Mau Tso Ngam experience is simply one of many, though it is one of the few in which the practice is still carried out.\n\nFinally, may I enter a plea for research on another aspect of village activity, the collection and preparation of medical herbs? Coincidentally, my information also comes mainly from Mau Tso Ngam. When interviewing an old village lady born there in 1884, but married to Hok Tsui village at Cape D'Aguilar on Hong Kong island, I was told about the tea bushes but did not follow it up and, instead, heard more about medicinal herbs. Her information was that her family and those of the main clan in the village, the Chengs, collected and prepared herbs on the hillside for sale in Kowloon City market. They did this all year round when they were not busy in the fields. The herbs had to be washed, dried and chopped or sliced. They were taken for sale four or five times a year.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210324, "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": 295, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "274\n\nP.H. HASE, J.W. HAYES AND K.C. IU\n\naround Lantau Peak. Because of its properties, it has traditionally been collected by local villagers to make \"tea\". Normally, the fresh or dried leaves are boiled in water, and sugar added if necessary. Apart from local consumption, the leaves are dried for sale in the herbalists' shops at Tai O. Over the years, the plant has been established as a local product of Lantau Island. Hawkers doing business in front of the Po Lin Monastery on Ngong Ping Plateau are also \"cashing in\" on the trade by bottling the drink for sale to visitors. Because of the thirst-quenching properties and good \"cooling effect\", the drinks are particularly welcomed by hikers. However, most of the dried leaves for sale there nowadays are in fact imported from Ting Wu and Lo Fu Mountains (#LI, #) in Guangdong Province. The price ranges from $5 to $12 per packet according to weight.\n\nThe popularity of the drink seems to be declining in recent years, particularly among young people who prefer ready-made soft drinks. This change has in fact helped to conserve the declining population of this plant species on Lantau Peak.\n\nNOTES\n\nMy (PHH) thanks to Mr. K.C. Ho, Assistant Curator, the Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware for his assistance in preparing this Note, and to Mr. M. Cheung of the Visual Aids Section of the Hong Kong Museum of Art for taking the photographs.\n\nTea trees used for the production of \"Hill Tea\" in Mau Tso Ngam and elsewhere in the New Territories are plants of Camellia sinensis in common with tea bushes used elsewhere in China in the commercial production of tea. See Plate 33. (Note by K.C. Iu).\n\nPlate 34.\n\nPlate 35.\n\n5\n\nPlate 36.\n\n6 Plate 37.\n\n7 Plate 38.\n\n&\n\nThis method of preparing green tea is similar to that used in many other parts of China, and involves three steps, viz (a) pan firing, (b) rolling, and (c) roasting. The main purpose of pan firing is to inactivate the enzymes inside the tea leaves (these enzymes must remain active if fermented, rather than green tea, is being made). Rolling releases the tea juices which are considered to be the essence of the tea. The constituents of the juices will stick to the surface of the tea leaves after the final roasting process. Roasting aims to stabilise the process, by baking the leaves to dryness to facilitate storage (Note by K.C. Ho).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210325, "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": 296, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "275\n\nA large clump of such \"public\" trees (HAB) exists, for instance, on the north-east slope of Kowloon Peak.\n\n10 See, however, section 2 of this Note. The late Mr. T. S. Woo, MBE (formerly of the Agriculture and Fisheries Department and the Kadoorie Agricultural Aid Association) stated that local “Hill Tea” was once dealt in by Gibb, Livingston, but that this later died away, probably as a consequence of the great growth in Indian and Ceylonese tea exports in the late nineteenth century (Note by K. C. Iu).\n\nPlate 39.\n\n12 Elsewhere in this journal, D. Faure in \"Notes on the History of Tsuen Wan\" mentions tea growing on Tsing Yi and at Chuen Lung in the earlier part of this century.\n\n11 Section 3 of this Note discusses this \"tea\" more fully.\n\n14\n\nPlate 40.\n\n15\n\nSessional Papers 1907, p. 221.\n\n16 \"A Notice of the Sanon District\" reprinted JHKRRAS, Vol. 7, 1967, p. 122.\n\n17 The Mau Tso Ngam Village Representative, Mr. Cheng Kau-hung, has also spoken to me (PHH) about herb collection. He stressed that knowledge of herb collection was kept as a secret and handed down from father to son, the father going to remote spots on the hillside to point out herbs to his son where prying eyes could not see what was done. Only some of the Mau Tso Ngam village families knew how to collect herbs, and this information was kept even more carefully from villagers from other villages. The prepared herbs were sold to shops in Kowloon City, a few cents being paid before the War for a well-prepared catty of the less frequently found herbs. The herbs were usually not those found in the Standard Pharmacoepia but \"Mountain Drugs\" (山藥), representing local folk remedies. Sellers of “Mountain Drugs\" can still be found in the New Territories Market towns. Mr. Cheng stressed the difference between medicinal herbs the identification and preparation of which was kept secret, and those herbs usable as food in famines, which it was the duty of the elders to ensure every villager could recognise, and know how to prepare, in case the need ever arose (Note PHH).\n\nDr. Chong Siu-cheung, with a group of local herbalists, has prepared a 5 volume book in English and Chinese “Chinese Medicinal Herbs of Hong Kong\" (Commercial Press, Hong Kong, 1978-84) describing and discussing the uses of about 1,100 species of plant with medicinal properties found in Hong Kong. This book, however, does not cover the place collection or preparation played in the village society or economy (Note KCI).\n\nPlate 41.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210326, "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": 297, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "276\n\nP.H. HASE, J.W. HAYES AND K.C. IU\n\n33. Tea Tree (Camellia sinensis) (Photograph courtesy of AFD)\n\n34. Tea being picked near Mau Tso Ngam Village", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210329, "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": 300, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "39. Two ricebowls of about 1920, one showing the owner's name scratched on, used for drinking tea at Mau Tso Ngam.\n\n279\n\nPage 300\n\nPage 301", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212920, "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-1992", "page_number": 229, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "214\n\nBANDITS IN THE SIU LEK YUEN YEUK\n\nP. H. HASE\n\nThe operation and functioning of the New Territories Yeuk (Village Mutual Defence Alliance) is a particularly fascinating subject, since the Yeuk seem to have been the dominant political feature of the eastern New Territories area in the nineteenth century. For this reason, I felt it might be of interest to provide a translation here of a note received from the village headman of Tsap Wai Kon village, Mr Tsim Fo-sang (?) on an incident in the Siu Lek Yuen area, probably from the mid or late nineteenth century, as he remembers being told it by the elders of his village in his youth. The note illustrates a number of interesting points about the Yeuk. The incident is likely to be factual, since the heroes of the incident were Tsap Wai Kon men, and so the incident is likely to have been frequently spoken about there.\n\nAt that time there were bandits in the area. Most of these bandits came from Kiangsi. They came in bands of ten or twenty or more. Some were extremely skilled in martial arts, but, in addition to their strength, they had weapons and weighted chains (?). Wherever they went they caused great sorrow to the residents. They forced the residents to give them food or money, and so forth. Of these bandit incursions, the worst was at Siu Lek Yuen.\n\nThe Siu Lek Yuen Yeuk was formed by uniting together many villages, such as Tsap Wai Kon, Kin Tsui, Ngau Pei Sha, Siu Lek Yuen, Nam Shan, Shek Kwu Lung, Tai Lam Liu, Wong Nai Tau, Fa Sam Hang, Tai Che, Kwun Yam Shan, Mau Tso Ngam, Fu Yung Pit, Lo Shue Tin, and other villages.\n\nSince they had to oppose the vexations and attacks of the bandits, the villagers of the Yeuk agreed to meet once a year in a meeting called the 'Everyone Together' meeting (?). This arrangement was instituted solely because of the bandits. At the meeting everyone brought food piled up on wooden dishes. The dishes from every village were taken to a matshed, where everyone sat", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213580, "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-1995", "page_number": 176, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "146\n\nto get it planted. Another great difficulty was to find forest guards who would do their job: a former A.D.O, North once minuted 'Where forest guards abound, there do abuses much more abound!'.\n\nAlso according to Schofield (1983), pineapples were grown on the hillsides, \"nearly always under pine trees; these help to shade the plants and hold the soil together, otherwise the heavy summer rains would wash it all off and make the hillside a desert. The plants last seven to nine years.\" Other users of hillsides were noted by Hayes (1977), “On Tai Mo Shan as on other hillsides, there are the collectors of the plants and herbs that form so essential a part of Chinese medicine; and those who trap birds, snakes and wild creatures, or comb the mountain streams and pools for items that serve the same medicinal purposes. These they sell to shops or individuals, or consume at home. These persons are usually outsiders in a skilled line rather than local villagers, although these can also be found carrying home plants and leafy branches for use at home in the bath, to soothe or invigorate the body. The collectors include the springtime pluckers of wild tea bushes, high up on the mountain, for, as mentioned briefly in the gazetteer it is famous for tea, producing a favoured type of green tea. Besides the cultivators of distant upland padi fields, village users of the mountain include boys tending draught cattle which rove across its slopes when not at work: and, most distinctive of all, the village grass-cutters, women as a rule, looking from a distance, as Heywood described them just before the war, 'like miniature haystacks wandering on the mountainside'.”\n\nTea cultivation took place on even the highest hills. The Xin An Gazetteer of 1688 refers to tea cultivation on Tai Mo Shan, which was terraced to near the summit to produce the famous green \"cloud and mist tea\", and on Castle Peak and Lantau Peak. Former tea terraces can be seen on other mountain sides in the New Territories and on Lantau, so that human impact on the native vegetation was not confined to the lowlands. The age of the terraces is not known but they probably predate the Hakka settlements. An account of traditional tea growing in 1986 around the village of Mau Tso Ngam on Kowloon Peak, where tea trees, Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Ktze, are planted here and there on the edge of the hills near the village, is given by Hase et al. (1988).\n\nHill slopes were formerly used to grow heung trees, Aquilaria sinensis (Lour.) Gilg., the wood from which was ground to make", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214667, "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": 82, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "46\n\ntrust in his father's name (the Chan Hok Yin Tso) which owned 2.7 acres (Chan Tak-hing and his brother Chan Tsan-hing,\n\n(\n\n, were the only beneficiaries - it is likely that much of the property of this trust was amassed by Chan Tak-hing). His son, Chan Kwok-yan, 1872-1937) succeeded him on the Lok Sin Tong Board, the Kowloon City Kaifong, and as trustee for the Chan Hok Yin Tso, but he took to smoking opium, and the family business was closed down in 1930, when the family shop in Kowloon City was cleared for re-development.\n\nAs for the Lis, Li Ping-ngam, an \"honest farmer, who, on coming back from a meeting in Kowloon City, would take off his shoes and go back to work in the fields\", and resident in Sha Po, was an early Director as well312. He was probably dead by 1902. Li Ping-shang, who does appear in the 1902 Block Crown Lease, may have been his brother; if so, the lady Li Ip Shi mentioned above was very possibly Li Ping-ngam's widow, since Li Ping-shang owned a small piece of land jointly with the widow Ip. It is entirely likely that Li Ping-ngam was not quite the simple farmer he was remembered as. He may have been the dominant leader of the Li clan before Li Lai-ting (who could also have been called \"an honest farmer\").\n\nNg Shue-fan was also one of the Directors of the Lung Chun School within the Walled City () at the end of the nineteenth century33. This had been founded in the 1840s when the Sub-Magistracy was moved to Kowloon City, as a mark of the importance the Ch'ing Government placed on education and scholarship. Five trustees, who probably represented the local groups who had paid for the erection of the school in the 1840s, managed it: it is likely, therefore, that Nga Tsin Wai had been significantly involved in the foundation. By the end of the nineteenth century this school was being used as a Meeting Hall when meetings of the district elders and gentry were called. That Nga Tsin Wai provided one of the trustees is eloquent evidence of its local prestige and importance.\n\nNg Shue-tong was similarly important in local charitable affairs outside the Lok Sin Tong. Thus, when the Hau Wong temple was restored in 1879, he was the Chief Manager for the project (at least seven other Nga Tsin Wai villagers can be identified from the Donation Tablet)34. When the Hau Wong Temple had been restored in 1822,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 } ]