[ { "id": 208158, "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": 197, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n181\n\nHe must have come by boat as the record states that \"he left his boat at Tuen Mun - the present-day Castle Peak Bay - and rambled through the woods of the New Territories and visited many mountains. He fell in love with the scenery, and found many excellent grave sites for he was an accomplished geomancer.\"\n\nAfter he finished his official tour of duty in Yeung Chun County, he returned to his native home at Kiangsi and brought down the exhumed remains of his great grandfather TANG Hon-fat (#) and his great grandmother and those of his grandfather TANG Kun () and his grandmother to this area for reburial, presently the New Territories of Hong Kong.\n\nHe buried his great grandfather and great grandmother in a grave at a site called Yuk Nui Pai Tong (#), meaning \"the newly married girl is presented to her in-laws\", at a small hill near Wang Chau (#), Yuen Long. He also buried his grandfather TANG Kun and his grandmother in a grave the site of which is called Kam Chung Fook Fo (4ƒƒX), “the golden bell covers the flame”, on a small hill behind the present Pok Oi Hospital on the main road from Kam Tin to Yuen Long. Both sites were considered auspicious.\n\nWe do not know whether TANG Fu-hip's father TANG Yuk (e) was brought here dead or alive. He and his two wives were buried in a grave on a small hill not far from the Tsuen Wan District Office. The name of the site is called Pun Yuet Chiu Tam (*AR), “a half moon is shining over the water pond”.\n\nOwing to the proximity to the urban area and its easy accessibility, the Tang clan led by their elders come here every year on the 19th day of the Tenth Moon (lunar calendar) to pay homage to this ancestor.\n\nThe record does not tell us how TANG Fu-hip brought the bones of his ancestors from Kiangsi, whether by boat or by the overland route.\n\nWhen TANG Fu-hip died, he was buried in a grave he had chosen himself. The name of the site is called Sin Yan Tai Tso (^) “the grand seat of the fairy\", and it is located not very far from where he buried his great grandfather and great grandmother.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208160, "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": 199, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\nThe five graves may be summed up chronologically as follows:\n\n(1) TANG Hon-fat\n\n(2) TANG Kun\n\n(3) TANG Yuk\n\n(4) TANG Fu-hip\n\n(5) TANG Wai-kap\n\nHong Kong, Nov. 1976\n\n183\n\n(Yuk Nui Pai Tong) near Wang Chau.\n\nYuen Long.\n\n(Kam Chung Fook Fo) on a small hill\n\nbehind Pok Oi Hospital.\n\n(Pun Yuet Chiu Tam) Tsuen Wan on\n\nCastle Peak Road.\n\n(Sin Yan Tai Tso) near Wang Chau,\n\nYuen Long.\n\n(Wu Lei Kuo Shui) near Au Tau cross-\n\nroads.\n\nDAVID LIU\n\nACCOUNT OF THE VISIT\n\nOn Saturday, 11th December, 1976 some thirty members of the Society visited the five main graves of the Tang family of Kam Tin and other old established villages in the New Territories (see the programme notes above).\n\nWe first visited grave No. 3 in Tsuen Wan which is located on a small hill that was bought by the family in 1927 to protect the grave in the face of various encroachments. In addition to the grave, there exist two round granite pillars (similar to those at graves 1 and 4 but without their lion-dog tops). These are situated each at a distance of 132 feet and angles of 125 and 217 degrees from the centre of the grave, as measured standing at the main table with the compass pointing north.* Lower down, a little off the main road there is also part of an entrance, built of inscribed rectangular granite pillars, erected in the 4 year which the Tang elders say is, in this case, 1894.\n\nMr. Peplow was Land Bailiff, Southern District at the time the Tangs purchased the land in 1927, and his account,† quoting from a silk scroll given to him by one of the Tangs, is as follows:\n\n† S. H. Peplow Hong Kong About and Around (Hong Kong Commercial Press 1930) pp. 148-149.\n\n* I have since learned from the Tangs that the two pillars stood further to the front of the grave, nearer the former shore line, and that they were moved to their present location when the first Castle Peak motor road was constructed about 1917-1919.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208161, "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": 200, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "184\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\n\"The burial ground is situated near Chai Wan Kok, Tsun Wan. Some time ago, about ten years after the Territory was leased to Great Britain, some natives of Tsun Wan village applied to the H.K. Govt. for a piece of land near the grave to erect some houses, but the proposed area affected the Fung Shui of the said grave. The village Elders of the various branches of the Tang family assembled, and a joint petition was submitted to the District Officer in the names of the descendants. Thanks to this Official the proposed sale was withdrawn. It was afterwards put on record that the site of the grave was to be preserved for ever. Subsequently new roads were constructed by the P.W.D. and the line of one proposed road was across the grave site. The Elders of the Tang family, fearing that this might affect the \"force of the movement of the green dragon,” again assembled and petitioned H.E. the Governor, praying that the line be moved to the foreshore of the site. This was done. In the 6th moon of the 12th year of the Chinese Republic, (1923) a villager of Tsun Wan dug earth on the right side of the ancestral grave, that is, in Chai Wan Kok village, thereby affecting the \"force of the movement of the coming dragon.\" Another petition was sent to the District Officer, who inspected the grave personally. After that earth cutting was prohibited, and the ancestral grave preserved.\"\n\nWe then proceeded to Kam Tin itself where, in front of the Kam Tin Rural Committee Office, we were greeted by an impressive body of lineage elders, treated to a dim sum (*) repast and shown a number of interesting relics handed down through the centuries. These included a painting with imperial calligraphy stated to date from Sung times, and a number of other paintings.*\n\nOur next stop was at Au Tau cross roads to see grave No. 5, that of TANG Wai-kap, the husband of the Sung refugee princess referred to in the Notes.\n\nFrom Au Tau cross roads we went on to the Pok Oi Hospital near Yuen Long and walked into an area of low hills, across a stream, where we inspected grave No. 2. This is located in what is obviously considered to be a very favourable fung shui area because the adjoining ground is thickly covered with graves.\n\nAfter returning to Pok Oi Hospital, we went by bus to Wang Chau behind Yuen Long where we walked through the village and across the fields to the foothills of an adjacent hill area. We went first to grave No. 1 and from there along a winding path to grave No. 4 which is located some 500 yards to the south. Both graves are in excellent positions, and like No. 3 have granite pillars with lion\n\n* These have been reproduced at pp. 112-115 of the Inauguration Publication of the Tang Clansmen Association (Inc. 1965), in Chinese, of which there is a copy in the Chinese Library, University of Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213697, "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": 50, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "Tables 7 and 8 assume that mortality rates in 1911 and 1921 were basically the same, or at least that any changes were too small to be discerned in statistics as approximate as those in Tables 7 and 8. In fact, major improvements in the health of the New Territories only began to be seen in the 1930s. The government had begun to provide for the health of the New Territories immediately after the take-over. A dispensary with a resident doctor was established at Tai Po in 1900, and a programme of vaccination was initiated. However, most of this clinic's time was taken up with treating the police and other government servants in the New Territories; few local villagers were affected. The annual number of vaccinations (including re-vaccinations) was under 100 before 1909, when the Tung Wah Hospital began to assist every summer. Between 1910 and 1920 the annual vaccination rate in the New Territories rose to several hundred. Nonetheless, the area affected by this vaccination campaign seems to have been limited to the market towns of Tai Po, Sheung Shui and Tsuen Wan. The doctor posted to the New Territories in 1900 was withdrawn in 1909, after which the only trained medical staff resident in the area was a “dresser”, who was supervised by intermittent visits by a doctor from Kowloon.\n\nThe very high rates of neo-natal casualties in the New Territories began to be addressed by the government from 1914, when a government midwife was stationed at Yuen Long. Midwives were posted to Tai Po, Tsuen Wan, and Cheung Chau in 1915, 1916, and 1917 respectively. The Pok Oi Hospital at Yuen Long was reorganised in 1920, and was backed by a government dispensary from 1925. However, the critical decision to post midwives to cover the villages in addition to the market towns was only taken in the 1930s. From the 1930s, the district midwives disinfected all drinking water wells, and vaccinated against smallpox, as well as attending births. Oral evidence suggests that the results on infant mortality were massive. By 1921, however, these great improvements had only begun to affect the market towns, and the overall mortality rates for the New Territories as a whole must have been much as they had been in 1911 and earlier. Between 1911 and 1921, changes in mortality rates were probably, therefore, marginal, and averaging the two sets of statistics, as in Tables 7 and 8, is not unreasonable.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 } ]