[
    {
        "id": 204509,
        "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-1962",
        "page_number": 141,
        "title": "RAS-1962",
        "content_text": "126\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nTHE SUNG WONG TOI INSCRIPTION\n\nIn the year 1277 A.D. Mongol troops overran the Canton area and the one but last Sung emperor, Ti Cheng, who was still a boy, took refuge in the neighbourhood of the present Kowloon City. In this area there was a small hill with a flat top and on this the followers of the boy emperor constructed a lookout, which afterwards became known as Sung Wong T’oi ('terrace of the Sung emperor') while the hill was called the 'Sacred Mount'.\n\nIn 1807 the three characters 宋皇台 (Sung-wong t'oi) were carved on a very large boulder on the Sacred Mount, and remained there until 1943 when the Japanese partially demolished the hill during their occupation of Hong Kong in order to make room for an extension to the airport. Eventually the inscription from the great rock of Sung Wong Toi was placed in its present position in the Sung Wong Toi Park which is off Sung Wong Toi Road near Kai Tak airport.\n\nThus this stone inscription has been preserved and provides a permanent reminder of Kowloon's association with the end of the Sung Dynasty.\n\nThere is a detailed account of these events written in Chinese by Mr. Lo Hsiang-lin ✯ of the Department of Oriental Studies in the University of Hong Kong which can be found in his book Hong Kong and its External Communications before 1842 (Hong Kong, 1959).\n\nJ. L. C-B.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f",
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    },
    {
        "id": 205482,
        "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-1968",
        "page_number": 24,
        "title": "RAS-1968",
        "content_text": "CHINESE RELIGION AND RURAL COHESION\n\n19\n\nancestral hall association of the village, and since both temple and hall were run by the same people the two organizations were perhaps unlikely to compete for power. If however, a mono-lineage village had both an ancestral hall and a temple organization promoted and operated by different people, their competition in property accumulation and devices for controlling the community could mean much disharmony for the village.\n\nOne suspects that, generally speaking, ancestral hall and temple organizations must have been alternative forms for controlling village affairs, the one being based on mono-lineage villages and the other on multi-lineage villages. Although the literature does not always tell us the relationship of temple organization to the composition of villages in kinship terms, it is clear that the two forms of organization often performed identical functions. A temple organization in one area has been compared, in fact, to an ancestral hall association by Hsiao: it had extensive property and maintained a school.18 Births and deaths might be reported to the temple as they were to the ancestral hall and temples for popular gods sometimes drew up regulations for village control, including such economic arrangements as weights and measures and marketing days.\n\nThose promoting popular temples usually did so by forming an association, or using an existing association in a village or part of a village. It has been noted that some temple associations (she) had headmen \"from whom all villagers took orders\".19 It is said also that sometimes families with common ditches or paths, that is neighbouring groups, joined together to make up a she. One might find, perhaps, the she division by neighbourhood taking place in the larger villages, or perhaps in those sections of a village occupied by different kin-groups without an ancestral hall association. Arthur Smith notes that it was commonly said the local god at one end of a village had nothing to do with the affairs at the other.20 Larger villages, then, might have been divided into several communities organized round different temples.\n\nSometimes a she appears, however, to have crossed village boundaries with many villages supporting the \"incense and fire\" (term for temple contributions) of a temple: this would then foster inter-village solidarities. Fairs and festivals in temples situated in areas with many villages provided opportunities for inter-village trade and further associations.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206256,
        "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-1971",
        "page_number": 73,
        "title": "RAS-1971",
        "content_text": "VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATIONS AND KAIFONGS\n\n67\n\nthat associations have come to play an important role, as they do in the overseas Chinese communities. It seems that wherever there are Chinese people, there are typical Chinese social institutions, serving what we may call \"traditional\" social functions.\n\nIn Hong Kong, there is a network of social institutions very similar to that which obtains among the overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. There are chambers of commerce or merchants' associations, district and clan organizations, trade unions, religious and recreational associations, secret societies, etc. They provide roughly the same kinds of services as their counterparts overseas. In this part of the paper, I shall discuss a particular kind of local institution called the Kaifong Associations. Their roles in local community life are very similar to those performed by the district and dialect associations in the overseas Chinese communities. By comparing the Kaifongs and these overseas associations, we have a very good illustration of how traditional associations adjust to modern urban conditions, how they are carried along the currents of social change, and how they take part in the promotion of social change itself.\n\nThe word \"kaifong\" means a \"street neighbourhood\", and a Kaifong Association means the voluntary organization of the residents of a certain district. As local residents' associations, the Kaifongs have existed in Hong Kong since the mid 19th century. But strictly speaking, the modern Kaifongs are a post-war creation, adapted to the social situation in Hong Kong in the early 1950s. After the Japanese Occupation, there followed an intense period of reconstruction. The government's attention was claimed in many different directions. Thus it had to rely heavily on voluntary agencies for the organization of welfare. Under the direct encouragement of the Social Welfare Officer, the first modern Kaifong came into being in 1949.12 The number of Kaifongs grew rapidly to over 30 by the mid-1950s, and after a period of stability, jumped to over 50 after the mid-60s. Today, every urban district is served by a Kaifong association, and many of the new resettlement estates also have their own Kaifongs. The Kaifongs are voluntary organizations. The government does not directly supervise their affairs, although it keeps in close contact\n\n12 Hong Kong Annual Departmental Report by the Social Welfare Officer for the Period 1948-54.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 207831,
        "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-1976",
        "page_number": 219,
        "title": "RAS-1976",
        "content_text": "204\n\nMAURICE FREEDMAN\n\nConnected with the union there was an organisation which operated a kind of agricultural insurance scheme, making good losses by theft of crops and beasts. Again, the Luk Yeuk was composed of both Punti and Hakka.\n\n24. There are other 'numerical' yeuk-complexes: the Four (Sz) Yeuk of Tsuen Wan, the Six (Luk) Yeuk of Sai Kung, and the Nine (Kau) Yeuk of Sha Tin. In these three cases, however, we see the influence on rural organisation of an urban and administrative centre. The walled city of Kowloon was the only official seat in that part of San On to be converted into the New Territories. It held the yamen of a deputy magistrate and certain military officials, no doubt acquiring some of its importance as a centre of government in the second half of the nineteenth century from the proximity of the British Colony.\n\nThe Kau Yeuk of Sha Tin appears to have consisted of forty-eight villages, of which the five largest were Punti and the rest Hakka. The Ch'e Kung Temple (now the property of the Secretary for Chinese Affairs in his part as a corporation sole) belonged to the Kau Yeuk, according to one account, but was taken over by the S.C.A. when a dispute was precipitated by a claim put forward by one village to control it.\n\nOn the Sz Yeuk of Tsuen Wan I have discovered little more than that it existed. Sung Hok-p'ang once told a Chinese scholar, who has since committed the statement to writing, that the area now called Tsuen Wan was in late Ming or early Ch'ing times known as Tsuen Wan Yeuk and that formerly all the villages in the area from Ting Kau to Kowloon City belonged to it.\n\nThe Luk Yeuk of Sai Kung, however, has left clearer traces. I cannot define its composition exactly, but I have been told that Ho Chung, Pak Kong, Sha Kok Mei, Tseung Kwan O and two settlements in Shap Sz Heung were the six yeuk. Once again, both Hakka and Punti were involved.\n\nThe three yeuk-complexes of Tsuen Wan, Sha Tin, and Sai Kung were in some fashion tied in with a council, formal or informal, in Kowloon City; and it appears likely that the local deputy magistrate used this organisation to make contact with the villages in his neighbourhood. In 1879 (according to its own records) there came into existence in Kowloon a body known as the Lok Sin Tong; members of the three yeuk-complexes were represented on it. Its primary object seems to have been to promote charity, public works, and education, while in character it would appear to have been an association of local gentry. The Lok Sin Tong still exists; indeed, it has grown",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 208787,
        "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": 244,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "4\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nWork of the Association in its early years\n\n217\n\nSoon after the port of Hong Kong was opened [again] in the last year of the reign of Hsien Feng in the Ch'ing dynasty (1860-61), there used to be a Nam Pak Hong Street (later renamed Bonham Strand West). At this favourable location our predecessors set up firms dealing in native products from south and north China. The following firms were among those then established one after another: the Kwong Mau Tai Hong and the Woo Kee Hong of Mr. Chiu Yue-tin, a celebrity of Kwangtung origin, the Hau Fung Hong of Mr. Lo Chor-san, the Hop Hing Hong of Mr. Lau Lo-tak, the Siu Fung Hong of Messrs. Fung Ping-shan and Kwong Tsz-ming, the Kwan Mau Hong (in Wing Lok Street West) of Mr. Li Sau-hin, the Wah On Hong of Mr. Chan Yue-fan, the Yue Wo Loong of Mr. Chan Sik-nin, the Yuen Fat Hong of Messrs. Ko Mun-wah and Chan Chun-chuen, celebrities of Chiu Chau origin, the Yuen Sing Fat Hong, the Kam Yue Fung Hong and the Kam Sing Lee Hong of Mr. Choi Si-kit, the Yue Tak Sing Hong and the Kwong Tak Fat Hong of Mr. Chan Tin-san, the Kin Tye Lung of Messrs. Chan Wun-wing and Chan Tsz-tan, the Ng Yuen Hing Hong of Mr. Ng Lei-hing, a celebrity of Fukien origin, the Chui Tak Loong Hong of Messrs. Wu Ting-sam and Wong Ting-ming, the Hau Tak Hong of Mr. Kwok Yim-sing and his brother(s), the Yi Tai Hong and the Lee Yuen Cheung Hong of a business group of Shantung origin. With the exception of Messrs. Chan Yue-fan, Chan Sik-nin and Kwok Yin-sing, all the aforesaid gentlemen have now deceased.\n\nIn 1868, with the concerted initiative and efforts of the said Messrs. Chiu Yue-tin, Chan Chun-chuen, Fung Ping-shan, Choi Kit-si, Chan Tin-sau and Wu Ting-sam, the Nam Pak Hong Association was founded in Bonham Strand West near its junctions with Wing Lok Street and Queen's Road. Then the objectives of the Association were to promote members' welfare and market prosperity, to assist the police in the maintenance of law and order in the neighbourhood and to formulate plans for the prevention of fires and alleviation of disasters. On the first floor of the Association building was the office, where regulations and business rules of the Association were decided, Directors and Managers of the Association mutually elected, and monthly meetings held. For the first term, the Chairman of the Board of Directors was Mr. Chiu Yue-tin and the Manager was Mr. Lau Lo-tak. The latter mana-",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 209849,
        "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": 108,
        "title": "RAS-1983",
        "content_text": "86\n\nLoan Word\n\nChinese Characters\n\nMeaning\n\nGung ho\n\nI A\n\n*Gweilo\n\n鬼\n\nLiterally 'ghost' or 'devil man', used to refer to Westerners. Widely current in Hong Kong.\n\nHan\n\n漢\n\nOf, relating to, or having the characteristic of, the period of the Han dynasty; of, relating to, or being a nationality group of Chinese descended from the original Chinese constituting an overwhelming majority of the population and the dominant cultural group: belonging to the Chinese proper as distinguished from other nationality groups.\n\nHakka\n\n客家\n\nOne of a tribe or race of Chinese dwelling in parts of southern China, particularly in the province of Canton, descendants of immigrants from northern China in the middle ages; also their dialect,\n\nHoey (wui)\n\n會\n\nA society of Chinese; especially a secret society. In Hong Kong a savings club.\n\nHong\n\n行\n\nA foreign trading establishment in China or Japan.\n\nHyson\n\n熙春\n\nA species of green tea from China.\n\nI-ching\n\n易經\n\nAn ancient Chinese book of divination and a source of Confucian and Taoist philosophy.\n\n*Kaito\n\n街渡\n\nLiterally 'street ferry', used to refer to boats plying between various points in Hong Kong.\n\n*Kaifong\n\n街力(坊)\n\nLiterally 'street square', used to refer to a neighbourhood, especially to community organizations.\n\nKaolin\n\n高嶺\n\nA fine white clay produced by the decomposition of feldspar, used in the manufacture of porcelain; first employed by the Chinese, but subsequently found in many places.\n\nKetchup\n\n茄汁\n\nA sauce made from the juice of mushrooms, walnuts, tomatoes, etc.\n\nKowtow\n\n叩頭\n\nThe Chinese custom of touching the ground with the forehead, as an expression of respect, submission, or worship.\n\n*Kuk\n\n局\n\nLiterally 'association', 'society', 'committee'.\n\n*Kung hei fat choy\n\n恭喜發財\n\nLiterally 'wish you grow prosperous'. A Chinese New Year greeting.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 210863,
        "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-1986",
        "page_number": 214,
        "title": "RAS-1986",
        "content_text": "197\n\ndisturbance. Tong A-chick was in charge. Some of the combatants of the previous night were present. They were from the E Shing Society which was a bitter enemy of the Yeung Wo Association, of which Tong A-chick was one of the directors.\n\nThey questioned his impartiality. Tempers flew, threats were made, and blows exchanged. The climax came when a group of armed men rushed into the meeting from the street attempting to break it up. A-chick sought the nearest exit, a window. Flying through it, he landed on a sheet iron awning which collapsed with a terrible clatter.\n\nHis unceremonious exit and consequent clatter stopped the turmoil inside the building, but it roused the neighbourhood.\n\nIn due time the police arrived. The whole lot were hauled into court for disturbing the peace and riotous behaviour.\n\nThe E Shing group tried to claim that it was all due to the presence of Tong A-chick, who had tried to act as mediator. He, as usual, ably defended himself, “reciting every circumstance of the occurrence in a clear and impartial manner, in the English language, with which he was perfectly conversant.”\n\nOccasionally the associations were given a favourable notice in the press. In 1853 a band of desperadoes had been harassing the countryside. A Company of Rangers had captured the leader of the gang, a man named Joaquim, and thus brought an end to the terrorising.\n\nTong A-chick, as representative of the Chinese district associations, presented a cash gift to the Rangers in appreciation. The San Francisco Herald commented: “The Chinese here, although in no manner bound, have with commendable liberality come forward with this contribution of $1,000 in token of their appreciation of the Rangers' services. They have proved themselves in this city on many occasions a liberal and public-spirited people.”\n\nTong A-chick as leader in the Chinese community during its first decade in California guided it through a difficult period. His",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063",
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    },
    {
        "id": 210996,
        "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-1987",
        "page_number": 58,
        "title": "RAS-1987",
        "content_text": "33\n\nsave it from defilement, they often built incinerators to burn paper with words written on it. In 1859, the Commodore, Chang Yu-tang ski, erected a fine pavilion over an incinerator and old men were hired to gather abandoned paper for burning. On the plaque over the entrance were engraved the characters “Ching-hsi tzu-chih-ch'u”**(A pavilion for revering word-bearing paper) in Chang's calligraphy. Though a military man, Chang had pretensions to being a scholar and calligrapher, and his inscriptions found in the pavilion were reportedly much copied in the region.'\n\n16\n\nUp to 1898 there were no shops of any kind within the City.1 In fact, the word \"ch’eng” is rather arbitrarily translated as \"city\", which to a modern person, immediately conjures up visions of shops and other commercial facilities. This is misleading since traditionally, a Chinese ch'eng was simply an area enclosed for defence, and where officials resided. However, a cluster of shops lined the street Kowloon Street — which stretched for about a quarter of a mile from the East Gate to the water front. This became an increasingly prosperous market town, serving not only the Walled City but more distant areas such as Saikung and Shatin. From a fairly early date, a kaifong (chieh-fang i.e. neighbourhood) association, which organized such public functions as health, safety and good order, had existed.ii By 1880, the Lok Sin Tong (Luo-shan-t'ang; lit. Hall of Willing Charity) was founded. Like many Chinese \"charitable societies”, it exercised great social and economic influence, and its contribution was most strongly manifested in providing free education and free medicine in the area.\n\n18\n\nAs trade grew in the area, a Kwangtung Provincial Customs station was set up in 1871 to prevent smuggling, especially opium from Hong Kong. In 1886, it was replaced by a Chinese Maritime Customs station.iii A pier, the Lung-chin jetty, completed in 1875 after two years of construction, extended some 700 ft. into the sea. As the beach silted up and the jetty became worse for wear, it was repaired in 1892 and extended for another 260 ft. with a subscription of $1,700 raised by more than a hundred shops and individuals,\n\n20",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 212575,
        "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-1991",
        "page_number": 129,
        "title": "RAS-1991",
        "content_text": "109\n\nbasket-like container. A pail of water sprinkled with fresh pomelo leaves is sometimes left on the spot where death occurred and a pair of new trousers (these pun with ‘rich' in Chinese) with a blue sash may be draped over the pail. As a more down-to-earth disinfectant, sulphur is burned.\n\nIn 1840s Hong Kong, the dying were often abandoned on hillsides, in open spaces or matsheds, although the Government tried to track down offenders.\"2 Later an I ts'z (#), a public ‘ancestral hall', was constructed. In places like Cheung Chau Island a 'death house' (something like the hospice of today), established in 1878, still stands where the very ill were taken.\" There was another at Tai O. A similar building now in ruins, built by the Kai Fong (neighbourhood welfare association), existed on Peng Chau Island where the destitute could die in peace.\" This was temple-like in appearance with three rooms, one for the sick, one for the dying and one for the caretaker. It also contained an image of the Lord of Purgatory, a Buddha who saves souls. Avoidance of death was not necessarily because of callousness.\" Many Chinese fear spirits of the dying or the dead will possess the living. This was why, of those that took their own lives, many preferred violent, bloody suicides, involving pain on the doorstep of their tormentors, so the unfortunate had the right to haunt the oppressors.\n\n16\n\nThe Tung Wah Hospital was established in 1870, ostensibly to replace the above I Ts'z. It also provided free burials for paupers. Originally sited at Kennedy Town, it moved in 1899 to Sandy Bay where the present 'coffin home', on a 100,000 square foot site, provides transshipment sometimes from overseas to China and storage of bones, bodies in coffins or ashes in urns. The remains of the Tung Wah Director, who was instrumental in building the present home, have rested there since 1906. There is capacity for the bones of about 900 persons. Only about 200 remain at present. Some relatives spread bones of relatives out on sheets of paper to air. Some remains await an auspicious day to be interred. Many emigrants now take ashes of loved ones with them overseas so they can be properly tended.\n\nUp to the 1950s, when people did pass away at home in urban Hong Kong, bamboo ramps were frequently erected so coffins could be brought direct, head first ('head should face heaven, feet should face earth': in England it is feet first), from upper floor balconies or windows to the ground.\" With narrow stairways and corridors, and coffins larger than in the West, knocking and scraping walls were considered harbingers of 'death tapping at doors'. With the construction of multi-storey",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j",
        "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": 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",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "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",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "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",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "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",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "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",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215846,
        "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-2002",
        "page_number": 145,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "78\n\nthe theatrical matsheds and much else, were borne by association leaders and their members, and by donations from, and levies on, the local communities. The services of the schoolmasters and local scholars were normally rendered without charge, since they were probably pleased to be asked, and their work kept their names and reputation before the public.\n\nLion or unicorn dances\n\nIn Hong Kong, lion and unicorn dancers were, and still are, an important adjunct to ceremonial occasions. They are much in evidence at festival times, and in the opening ceremonies for any important event. No resited villagers would occupy their new settlement without the obligatory lion or unicorn dance to help guarantee a safe and prosperous environment, and no self-respecting new bank branch or restaurant would open for business without these harbingers of their future business success. Newly renovated historic buildings were also re-opened in style, with lion dancers well to the fore (Plate 19)\n\nBefore development overtook Hong Kong's former rural area, practically all the six or seven hundred old villages of the New Territories had their lion or unicorn dance teams. In Cantonese-speaking villages, it was always a lion; and in the Hakka villages, a unicorn. However, observation and enquiry indicate that their purpose and motivation are much the same. These dance troupes are also to be found in urban areas, past as well as present.\n\n3\n\nBesides the lion and unicorn troupes, there was a third, much less common and only to be seen among immigrant communities of persons from the Hoklo areas of Northeastern Guangdong. This was the pei yau troupe. Described to me as 'younger brother to the dragon,' the pei yau was rather a joyous, amiable creature. Plate 20 shows a typical example, photographed in a New Territories village in recent years.\n\n* The dance teams were at the heart of traditional village life. Besides what might be styled their internal duties at family celebrations by fellow villagers or at the opening of temples, ancestral halls, schools and village offices, they were turned out to meet and send off important visitors. If plague menaced, the lion or unicorn dancers accompanied Taoist priests in procession round the neighbourhood in order to dispel it. And should any village be under attack, the troupes under their respected instructors would form the first-line defence. They were, besides, a principal means for maintaining and extending a village's status and prestige.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
    }
]