[ { "id": 207673, "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": 61, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "46\n\nDOUGLAS W. SPARKS\n\na Rural Committee, and over attendant influence with the government and in local affairs.\n\nWith regard to the first factor, there is no such direct, intense competition over economic resources in those resettlement estates with which I am familiar. There is of course ethnic based triad competition over control of territory. Factory jobs, however, are easily obtained by anyone, regardless of ethnic affiliation, although there is a tendency for Teochiu to work in factories where many Teochiu work (this is a result of the fact that such jobs are usually obtained through kinsmen, friends or friends of friends). Employment and business opportunities in the urban areas are largely not restricted to members of particular ethnic groups, and economic competition is generally not operating along ethnic lines. There are exceptions of course; for example, the often violent competition between Teochiu and non-Teochiu coolies in Hong Kong's port areas. There are some areas where commercial networks are largely co-terminous with ethnic networks. Teochiu dominance in rice importation, wholesale and retail trade is well known. Many import/export firms involved in international trade between Hong Kong and Southeast Asia are owned and managed by Teochiu. Within economic institutions there are ethnic blocs; for example, Teochiu stock brokers form a bloc in contrast with Cantonese and Shanghai blocs. In each of these areas, however, there are also competing firms owned by members of other ethnic groups. Ethnic occupational specialization appears to have considerably weakened in the several decades following World War II, primarily due to Hong Kong's rapid industrial growth. Traditional areas of ethnic specialization seem to be of decreasing importance in the overall economic structure of Hong Kong.\n\nWith regard to the second factor, control over formal political positions and organizations within the local area, there also appear to be significant differences between \"rural\" areas and the urban housing estates where I carried out research. These differences are largely due to governmental policy. The government has created formal political organizations, the Rural Committees, and officially recognized positions of village representatives in the New Territories, with direct input into the local governing process. These positions are filled by indigenous local residents and have become one focus of interethnic competition.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207674, "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": 62, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "The Teochiu ethnicity in urban Hong Kong\n\n47\n\nThere are no comparable local level organizations in the urban areas,* though the government has encouraged the development of local-level urban neighborhood associations (Kaifongs), which are presumed to reflect local opinion and to be effective in influencing government decisions affecting the local area. The Kaifongs in resettlement estates with which I am familiar currently fulfill neither of these functions and are hardly considered organizations worthy of much effort to control. Teochiu have primarily been \"isolationist\" in devoting attention and effort to developing their own associations into what are clearly the most active and representative organizations in the local area. The local Kaifongs have thus not become an important focus of interethnic competition. Kaifong associations in other areas of Hong Kong are at times more active in local affairs. They appear to be particularly active when organizing local protest against new governmental policy which would adversely affect local residents. Hong Kong's newspapers periodically carry stories telling of the efforts of particular Kaifongs to mobilize support of local residents against new policy.\n\nThe primary functions of Kaifongs have been to provide social welfare services, serve as a communication channel to government, and to provide prestigious positions for ambitious local leaders (Kan, 1970:95). Kan describes the general image of Kaifongs in the following manner:\n\nthe more 'generalistic' orientation of the Kaifongs is more amenable to the government than is the 'particularistic' orientation of the clan, district, and dialect associations. For this reason, the majority of the population as well as the government itself have believed that the Kaifongs may become the most effective intermediaries between government and people. (Kan, 1970:94).\n\n*The City District Office scheme, initiated in 1968, is intended to bridge the communication gulf between the masses of people in urban areas and government. City District Officers are charged with assessing the overall impact of government policy, and with maintaining contact with all local organizations. In effect, the purpose of the scheme is to \"provide the public with a local manifestation of the Government... (The City District Officer Scheme, 1969: title page).\n\nFor brief discussions of divergent government policy in the New Territories and urban area, see Report by the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, The City District Officer Scheme, 1969; Wong, 1975; and Miners, 1975.\n\nSee Annual Departmental Reports of the District Commissioner, New Territories, for brief descriptions of the Rural Committees.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207841, "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": 229, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "214\n\nMAURICE FREEDMAN\n\ning, for they are now cut off from the intensive study of a period in which British administration and Chinese law and society were mutually adjusting themselves). Many disputes must have been dealt with in the communities within which they arose, and the remoter villages may in fact have had little to do with the Administration directly; but over a large area of the New Territories it came to be accepted that the administrator was a sure and final arbiter of major differences. In his report on the Northern District for 1913 Ross wrote: 'Some years ago by tacit consent parties did not bring forward cases relating to the \"tso\" and the settlement of ancestral property. Now a large number of cases heard are applications for a declaration as to the parties entitled to share in the property of a common ancestor...\n\n39. The powerful role of the pre-war administrator in social control has left a legacy which weakens the effectiveness of modern attempts to divert the settlement of disputes to other channels. The Rural Committees are now expected to take over a large share of the burden of mediation. In fact, the tendency still seems to be that differences which cannot be composed within a village (where the Village Representative and the other elders are often incapable of exerting the authority to settle the matter) pass first to the District Officer whence they may be referred to the Rural Committee, sometimes returning to the District Officer when the Rural Committee finds itself unable to produce a settlement. And in some cases a settlement is never reached, because as matters have stood in the last couple of years, the District Officers no longer exercise many of the judicial functions with which they were formerly endowed. Land and small debts cases now fall within the competence of the new District Court.\n\n40. Two questions are raised about the operation of the new court. First, is it so court-like in comparison with the informality of the old system practised by administrators that it attracts to itself the unfavourable attitudes which Chinese traditionally displayed towards the yamen? As well enter the jaws of hell as pass through the gates of the yamen.\n\nSecond, are the subtleties of Chinese custom likely to be taken account of in the new court as they were in the days when justice was administered by officers trained to study and respect these niceties? It is of course too soon to say anything definite about the first question; the reactions of people to the court will need to be watched over a period of years; but as\n\n+ + + + +", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207843, "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": 231, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "216\n\nMAURICE FREEDMAN\n\nFor the time being disputes in the New Territories continue to be essentially a matter for mediation by the District Officers, the Rural Committees, and the ‘elders', and if in default of settlement a case drags on, no effective and generally accepted machinery can at the moment be brought into action to force it to a conclusion. (A number of important aspects of the legal situation have necessarily been ignored in this brief discussion. Some civil cases involving large sums of money fall within the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. The kinds of cases dealt with by the New Territories Magistrate would be an interesting matter to look into. The whole realm of family law—marriage, divorce, maintenance of wives and children, adoption, and inheritance—requires to be treated in detail).\n\n43. I come now to a point made by this discussion of some aspects of the political and legal situation in the New Territories. An approach to the study of leadership could conveniently be made by collecting some basic information on the Village Representatives. This task, it seems to me, might be discharged by the District Officers if they have the time to undertake it. A sample of Village Representatives could be drawn by a simple statistical procedure and the following data collected in respect of each of the men selected: his age; his birthplace; where he lives; where he lived before he became a Village Representative; whether he has ever lived outside the New Territories, and if so where and for how long; the length of time he has been in office; whether he was elected, and if so on what franchise; his occupations, main and subsidiary, past and present; his education (kinds and where acquired); the number of people living in the area he represents; the number of households in this area; the numbers of 'new population' in these last two figures; details (surnames and numbers of members) of the clans in the area represented; the number of men in the most senior surviving generation in his own clan; the age of the oldest man in this generation; the ages of the ten oldest men in the clan; the names of the previous Village Representatives, including the man appointed under the Japanese and any men acknowledged to be 'headmen' before the war; his precise kinship relation to these men; the number of his brothers; his birth order among them; their occupation; the ages of his sons and daughters; the education they are receiving or have received; their occupations, if any. The answers to these questions (some of which must already be known to the District Officers) would provide an indication of the position", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207844, "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": 232, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963\n\n217\n\nof the Village Representatives in their communities, and, taken together with other available information, would furnish a basis for assessing the kind of men who have come forward as leaders.\n\n44. But leadership cannot be studied simply by enumerating characteristics. The Village Representative operates within economic, legal, religious, political, and 'social' fields all of which need to be examined; and he is enmeshed in complex relationships with people both inside and outside his community. These are matters for detailed field studies and they can most conveniently be examined in the course of investigations concerned very broadly with the life of particular communities. And it is to be hoped that a large enough variety of communities will be studied for all major variations in leadership patterns to emerge.\n\n45. In the old days, as we have seen, there was much scope for the exercise of leadership in intervillage relations; the central government being remote, the responsibility for local affairs fell on gentry and elders. The field for the deployment of local governmental talents has now contracted, but it becomes all the more important to discover just what it is that extra-village politics entails. In the study of this theme the Rural Committees (and perhaps ultimately the Heung Yee Kuk) must take first place, but these are not the only wide associations to be looked into. Chambers of commerce, the associations for particular businesses, co-operative societies, sports clubs, and so on, are bodies within which certain men take the initiative, rally support, and—since we are dealing with a society in the full flood of change—direct group activities along new paths.\n\n46. I have touched on the role of the Village Representative in settling disputes. To understand the present legal situation in the New Territories it would be desirable to begin with an analysis of the relevant work of the District Officers and Rural Committees, and I suggest that it might be of interest to the District Officers to undertake a survey of the cases that have come before them in recent years, classifying them by their nature and describing the typical courses they have taken. This work could then be brought into relation with material on the cases heard in the various law courts to which New Territories people have recourse. Again, such field studies of communities as may be made by anthropologists would show how differences are settled at the local level or passed to outsiders for mediation or judgment. If a field study were made", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207870, "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": 258, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963\n\n243\n\n£5 orders; these will presumably have been sent into town by the bank to be cashed through a city post office and, along with orders actually presented at city post offices, fail to appear in New Territories figures. The indications from the travel agencies in the last month or so of my stay in Hong Kong were of few men going to Britain; the main agency has almost stopped any new business; and it seems unlikely therefore that remittances will increase further. On the contrary, the probability is that after a while they will fall as men remain away longer, their ties with the New Territories being reduced and their commitments abroad increased. And the question will arise whether hardship will result for the New Territories. It is not simply a matter of people being deprived of extra money; if there is any resemblance between the New Territories and the emigrant areas of Fukien and Kwangtung in respect of their economic response to overseas migration, then we should be prepared to find that economic standards and activities have become so adjusted to external income that its falling away occasions disruption and distress.\n\n81. It is of course artificial to treat the matter of overseas migration apart from the movement between the New Territories and the urban areas of the Colony. The city has always attracted New Territories people to it and provided the countryside with an income. It would be extremely interesting to have material showing where absent members of a village are at a given time and what they are doing for a living. I discovered that on one of the islands a local committee was keeping records on emigration and I was able to obtain the data which are presented below. They can have no general value for the study of the problem as a whole, but they suggest the possibility that some Rural Committees have gathered information of this sort and that others might be encouraged to do so. The total number of emigrants involved in this case is 183. Of these 62 are overseas and the remainder in the urban area of the Colony. Of the 62 overseas, 33 are seamen, 23 are in the United Kingdom, 5 in the U.S.A. and 1 in Borneo. All these are men, but 22 of the 99 people in the urban areas are women. Of the 23 men in Britain 5 are in their twenties, 7 in their thirties, 9 in their forties, 1 in his fifties, and 1 in his seventies. Of the 5 in the U.S.A. 2 are in their forties, 2 in their fifties, and 1 in his sixties. The sole man in Borneo is in his thirties. Over a dozen communities are involved in these figures. The distribution of overseas migrants and seamen", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207873, "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": 261, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "246\n\nMAURICE FREEDMAN\n\nround and not treated simply as a general topic that might be generally surveyed. On the other hand, there is certainly a need for basic data on the New Territories as a whole, some of which, as I have already suggested, might be gathered through the Rural Committees. I hope that it may be possible in a few years' time to have a clearer idea of such crucial questions as the uses to which emigrant money is being put, the role of the returned migrant, the social and economic adjustments of communities from which migration has been heavy, the reasons why particular communities have held aloof from the movement, and the part played by emigration in changing the status of individuals vis-a-vis the wider society (especially in the case of the Tanka and Hoklo who have been abroad).\n\n84. It had been my plan to pay close attention to certain other matters in the course of the second half of my stay in the New Territories. But as things have turned out I am not able to do more now than to suggest lines of further enquiry which were indicated to me by my general survey. I shall begin this last part of my report on the subject of land, the importance of which is obvious. A good deal is already known about land use because of the surveys done under government auspices, and many basic facts are available on the economics of agriculture, both in its traditional form and in the newer sphere of market-gardening and pig-rearing. But the ownership and tenancy of land that is to say, the complex of rights to occupation, access, and use which underline economic activity-have not been thoroughly explored since the Administration first took charge of the New Territories. From the 1961 census, which went as far as any census could go towards gathering information on this subject, we can measure the extent to which cultivators are using land which is their own, ‘ancestral', or leased; but the areas involved and the precise rights implied in these categories remain to be determined. The official land records seem at first sight to document the history of land tenure from 1905 to the present; but, partly because they are records of memorials and not deeds, they seem to be out of step with reality; and they cannot of course tell us anything about many forms of tenancy. Again, the land records use categories for collective ownership (tso, t'ong, and ui) the exact significance of which in modern conditions is not always very clear.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209368, "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-1982", "page_number": 25, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "Keep Hong Kong Clean campaign and the Fight Violent Crime campaign. Existing community organizations were called upon to give their services (Scott 1980: 18).\n\nThe Mutual Aid Committees, designed as they were with a residence-based structure, would also be useful organizations to mobilize for the promotion of these campaigns, and some district officials suggested that this possibility was in mind when the committees were established.\n\nA third, equally important, reason for establishing the Mutual Aid Committees was the desire of the government and concerned private citizens to improve the neighbourliness of high-rise buildings and multi-storey blocks. More specifically, government officials were becoming more concerned about cooperation and safety.\n\nWhen crime reared its head in these surroundings, the instinctive reaction was to retreat behind locked doors and ignore whatever might be happening outside. Prospects for neighbourly co-operation made little headway under these circumstances, and the concept of getting together with one's fellow tenants, to organize collective action for the common good, remained remote and unreal (Government Information Services 1974:9).\n\nThe formation of the MACs was hailed as a step forward in improving residents' concern for each other and in improving living conditions.\n\nThe tradition of mutual aid originally grew up in a rural setting. Today this tradition is being harnessed to tackle urban social problems found in the management of multi-storey buildings under divided ownership. The mutual aid committee is a simple form of organization which can be set up with a minimum of formality, enabling owners and tenants to work together to improve conditions in their buildings. Although the basic aim of the movement is building management, it is already clear that the mutual aid committee has the potential to meet other needs; in particular the need to replace the social links that disappeared with the decline of traditional forms of village life. A sense of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212086, "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-1990", "page_number": 28, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "There and elsewhere, the Rural Committees carried out many executive functions at that time, and in remoter places where government was less in evidence they continued to do so until much later.\n\n3. Self-Management among Tsuen Wan Squatters\n\nUnlike the villagers, the squatter population of Tsuen Wan in the 1950s and 1960s was neither homogenous nor long-settled. It mostly comprised newcomers from many parts of Kwangtung and elsewhere. However, like other groups of Chinese who happened to find themselves living together in a strange place far from home, they too were imbued with the spirit and practice of these long-exercised \"self-help skills\". It was, therefore, in no way surprising to find that able, willing men (and sometimes women) in the squatter areas organized themselves and their fellow residents for greater convenience, providing local services through their own efforts and giving very little trouble to the authorities.\n\n71\n\nThis self-servicing was decentralized. Committees formed in each squatter area in the time-honoured way, because men came forward and were accepted by the rest. There was a real need for their services. Life in such places was (and to a lesser extent still is) often fraught with dangers arising from fire, and from the floods, typhoons, landslips and similar natural disasters to which Hong Kong is periodically subject. However, the leaders were used to taking such precautionary measures as were possible and were ready to meet new crises as and when they occurred. There was an equal need for the exercise of initiative in daily life, since at that period the amenities provided by government departments or the public utilities mostly ended at the settlement fringes or some point in the neighbourhood. The leaders had to make their own arrangements to obtain and distribute water and electricity inside the lanes of the squatter areas, and they sometimes carried out minor public works. They also formed fire-fighting teams and security patrols. Disputes between residents over a wide variety of causes had to be resolved, and sometimes triad elements had to be deterred from taking a hand in “providing” security and services for a consideration. In short, the task of the local leaders was not light, even for capable men. It needed time, effort, and the right contacts in the community and the bureaucracy, including the local police, and cooperation and support from the residents was vital.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212598, "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": 152, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "132\n\nNOTES\n\nThis paper is based largely on the author's own experiences while attending and being involved with Chinese funerals over a period of four decades.\n\n2. B.D. Wilson, 'Chinese Burial Customs in Hong Kong', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 1 (1960-1), pp. 115-123.\n\nMartin K. Whyte, 'Death in the People's Republic of China', Death Ritual in Late Imperial and Modern China, Eds. James L. Watson and Evelyn S. Rawski, University of California Press (1988), pp. 289-316, (p. 313); Laurence G. Thompson, Chinese Religion, An Introduction, Fourth Edition, The Religious Life of Man Series (1979), pp. 50-54.\n\nPatrick Hase, 'Traditional funerals', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 21 (1981), pp. 192-6; Patrick Hase, 'Observations at a Village Funeral', From Village in the City: Studies in the Traditional Roots of Hong Kong Society, Ed. Davis Faure et al., Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong (1984), pp. 129-163; Hugh Baker, 'Burial, Geomancy and Ancestor Worship', Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch, Aspects of Social Organization in the New Territories, Week-end Symposium, 9th-10th May 1964, pp. 36-39.\n\n5. VR Burkhardt, 'Funerals, Requiem Masses and the Path to Purgatory', Chinese Creeds and Customs (1982), pp. 96-110.\n\nEvelyn S. Rawski, \"The Imperial Way of Death: Ming and Ching Emperors and Death Ritual\", Death Ritual in Late Imperial and Modern China, op. cit., pp. 228-253 (p. 238).\n\n7. T.C. Lai, Husein Rofe, and Philip Mao, Things Chinese, ed. T.C. Lai (1971), p. 70.\n\n9. Ibid., p. 71.\n\nJohn Z. Bowers, 'Surgery Past and Present', Medicine and Public Health in the People's Republic of China, ed. Joseph R. Quinn (1973), pp. 53-62.\n\n10. Linda Chih-ling Koo, Nourishment of Life: Health in Chinese Society (1982), p. 7, and discussion between Dr. Koo and the author, 18 June 1992.\n\n11. Hugh Baker, 'Soul', More Ancestral Images, A Second Hong Kong Album (1980), pp. 5-8.\n\n12. Elizabeth Sinn, Power and Charity: The Early History of the Tung Wah Hospital (1989).\n\n13. James Hayes, The Hong Kong Region 1850-1911, Institutions and Leadership in Towns and Countryside (1977), pp. 67-8.\n\n14. James Hayes, The Rural Committees of Hong Kong - Studies and Themes (1983), p. 45.\n\n15. Frena Bloomfield, The Book of Chinese Beliefs (1983), pp. 100, 101, and 112.\n\n16. The author has visited this 'Coffin Home' on various occasions.\n\n18. Harold Ingrams, Hong Kong (1952), plate vi; James L. Watson, 'Funeral Specialists in Cantonese Society: Pollution, Performance and Social Hierarchy', Death Ritual in Late Imperial and Modern China, op. cit., p. 109.\n\n19. James Hayes, 'Sandal Wood Mills at Tsun Wan', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 16 (1976), pp. 283-3.\n\n20. Gems of Langzhu Culture, exhibition at Hong Kong Museum of History, 11 April to 9 August 1992.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212882, "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": 191, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "176\n\nfrom other places [to Shek Lei Tau].\n\nIt is now clear that we have come to the end of [the available] burial ground and that there is nowhere to which we can effect removal [of the graves]. We therefore appeal to you in grief and resentment for your understanding and support in this matter. We shall be most grateful if you will advise the concerned authority to rescind the order and cease development in the area.\n\n15\n\nNo further action was taken by the Lands Department at the time, and during my three years as Regional Secretary, New Territories, I was concerned to retain the grave area and wrote to the department on their behalf. So far as I am aware, the rights of the Kau Wah Keng people to this remaining part of their traditional burial area are still being respected.\n\nCharitable Graves\n\nAnother kind of grave should also be mentioned. This is the yi chung or 'charitable grave' which was built to contain the remains of persons without descendants. Sometimes it was provided by a charitable society or a conscientious local organization, or at times by worthy individuals, after or during an epidemic which had killed numbers of people. This action was taken by the Tung Wah Hospital of Hong Kong and by the Lok Sin Tong of New Kowloon after the Plague of 1894. It has also been taken by rural committees in the postwar New Territories, and by temples and other religious bodies, for the remains of persons who were killed or died during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong between 1941-1945. Several such graves were provisioned by the Tsuen Wan Rural Committee.\n\nA grave of this kind had to be moved and reprovisioned at Sai Cho Wan on Tsing Yi Island when that part of the Island was being developed for industry in 1977. The Tsing Yi Rural Committee took up this responsibility, writing to the District Office to explain the position and ask for money to effect the removal and reconstruction in another place. The letter is not without charm and interest:\n\nBefore the War, Tsing Yi Island was a well-wooded spot, with lots of birds and wild-life. Magpies, partridges,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213443, "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": 39, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "6\n\nfrequently in consultation with rural committees and village representatives.\" For example, during the year 1956-57, of 138 land disputes which the District Officers dealt with, 30 were settled through rural committees or other local bodies, 92 were settled out of court and 16 were decided in court.” And in the following year, of 112 land disputes, 19 were settled through rural committees or other local bodies, 70 were settled out of court and 23 were decided in court. The method of disposal of one such case is recounted in the District Commissioner's report for the year 1948-49:\n\n\"For the first time since 1913 a land dispute, which had dragged on for nearly a year, was resolved when one of the parties satisfied the District Officer Taipo of his good faith by decapitating a cock in a local temple, a supreme test of honesty. As the dispute was not formally heard under Part II of the Ordinance, the legality of this expedient will fortunately not be subject to review by a Judge.\n\n1920\n\nThirdly, the Full Court ruled that it had no jurisdiction to entertain a further appeal from the decision of a judge of the Supreme Court under section 23 of the New Territories Regulation Ordinance, 1910,\n\nThere are, however, a further eight unreported cases of the Supreme Court sitting in its appellate jurisdiction from decisions of the land officer in land cases arising in the New Territories. The cases all date to the first post-war decennium until 1956. The pre-war records of the Supreme Court were destroyed during the Japanese occupation 1941-45; and since 1956 there has been no appellate proceeding of this type.\n\nWithout proof by evidence in court, it would clearly be dangerous to rely upon works describing customary law obtaining generally or in certain areas of China in the past, as information as to customary law obtaining in the New Territories for Chinese customary law \"is subject to divergencies not only from Province to Province but sometimes from clan to clan in the same neighbourhood.\" Such books may have some comparative value. It is, however, to be regretted that it is difficult in Hong Kong today to trace even one copy of those works written in English to which reference was made by the 1948 Committee.*2\n\nApart, then, from the Report of that Committee, which covers the wider field of Chinese customary law generally obtaining in Hong Kong", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213975, "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-1997", "page_number": 44, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "9 \n\n(b) the maximum decentralisation of functions by the Central \nGovernment; \n\n(c) simplicity in concept and operation; \n\n(d) the possession of built-in controls; \n\n(e) the allocation of priority of consideration to the densely-populated urban areas, including Tsuen Wan; \n\n(f) compromises, appropriate to particular localities, governing community of interest, development or expected development, economic and industrial characteristics, financial resources measured in relation to financial needs, physical features, population, past administration, size and shape of existing administrative areas, and the wishes of the inhabitants. \n\nAn interesting discussion was recorded of theoretical local government criteria, between the 'Grass Roots School,' which brought government close to the people through attending to day-to-day social cohesion but, while providing local debating societies, resulted in units too small for executive responsibility; and the 'Functional School,' which by relating boundaries to the area of optimal performance of technical services (as in the Colony itself) led to authorities too extensive to be local; and the ‘Finance School,' which by requiring viable internal financial strength reflected the views of the Finance Branch of the Colonial Secretariat but also questioned the validity of the whole concept. This did not daunt the working party's draftsman. \n\nNo immediate application to the NT was expected (where the ark was peculiarly susceptible to rocking), and the special position of the Heung Yee Kuk and the Rural Committees as important consultative bodies in the sensitive circumstances of the self-consciously unBritish leased territories was acknowledged; but although that door should be left open, Tsuen Wan, already a swelling wen, must be made an exception now. The recommended procedure was to appoint an officer with overall responsibility for each developing NT area; to establish an advisory committee to him of local residents; and ultimately to transform this committee into a local authority.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214705, "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": 120, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "84\n\nNevertheless tun fu may be seen as an extension of feng shui, although the latter is riteless whereas the rites of tun fu are complicated as can be seen from this paper. Feng shui is sometimes inadequately called 'Chinese geomancy', and the home, the workplace and the grave are designed so that they 'reconcile' with environmental currents and cosmic principles. And when the Author has told Chinese friends that there are aspects of feng shui that he believes in they have frequently retorted that you cannot be selective and just pick what you like as in a supermarket. You either believe in it in its entirety or not at all. But with much of the doctrine being considered by some Westerners as little more than superstition, total acceptance is not always easy for the average Caucasian. One person's superstition can indeed sometimes be another person's religion.\n\nThe Pat Heung ceremony\n\nThis paper concentrates on the large tun fu ceremony that was held in the district known as Pat Heung, which is situated at the eastern end of the Kam Tin--Pat Heung Valley.3 This lies nearly in the middle of the New Territories and is enclosed by steep hills on its northern, southern and eastern sides (Hong Kong Government; 1960, 170). To give an idea how rural it was until comparatively recently, in 1965 it was reported that a tiger had been sighted in the Pat Heung district (South China Morning Post, 1965). The police conducted a search but failed to find it. Approximately 90 per cent of the population in Pat Heung are of Hakka stock and the remainder are Punti, although today, only the elderly speak Hakka. The people have mixed surnames unlike many old, single family-name villages in the New Territories although nowadays, with greater social mobility, people with other surnames have not infrequently moved into them in varying numbers. Freedman writes that possibly tun fu rites were originally Hakka but they were adopted by the Cantonese (1979, 207). I have not seen any evidence to support this view nor does he appear to provide any sources supporting this statement.\n\nThe reason this large tun fu ceremony was held in the Pat Heung district, in 1999, was because a tunnel (at the time of writing) is being cut through the mountain for a new railway line. This necessitated moving family graves. It is understood the Government paid Pat Heung District village committees HK$600,000 to meet expenses for the holding\n\nPage 120\n\nPage 121", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214724, "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": 139, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "103\n\n1997, Introduction, the Anthropology of Contemporary Hong Kong.' Hong Kong: The Anthropology of a Chinese Metropolis, eds. Grant Evans and Maria Tam, Curzon\n\nFreedman, Maurice\n\n1979, 'Chinese Geomancy: Some Observations in Hong Kong', The Study of Chinese Society, Stamford University Press\n\nGrout, GCW and James Hayes\n\n1971, 'Ceremonies of Propitiation Carried Out in Connection with Road Works in the New Territories, in 1960', JHKBRAS, vol. 11\n\nHayes, James\n\n1965, 'A Ceremony to Propitiate the Gods at Tong Fuk, Lantau, 1958', JHKBRAS, Vol. 5, Notes and Queries\n\n1983, The Rural Committees of Hong Kong: Studies and Themes, Oxford University Press\n\n1998, February 26, letter to the Author\n\nHong Kong Government\n\n1960, A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories\n\nHong Kong Standard\n\n1990, March 23, ‘A Million to Bury Village Ghosts'\n\nLeung, Chor-on\n\n1992, 'Blessings Are Not For All', The Hong Kong Anthropologist\n\nLo, Raymond\n\n1992, Feng Shui and Destiny, Tynron Press, England\n\nMyers, John T\n\n1975, 'A Hong Kong Spirit-Medium Temple', JHKBRAS, vol. 15\n\nPhillips, David P, Todd E., Ruth and Lisa M Wagner\n\n1993, November 6, 'Psychology and Survival', The Lancet, vol. 342, Britain", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215836, "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": 135, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "68\n\nAll associations were required to be registered under the Societies Ordinance of the Laws of Hong Kong or as limited companies under the Companies Ordinance. Partly because of this, another duty undertaken by officials was to attend or officiate at the inaugurations of new terms of office-bearers, including administration of an oath of office to the new incumbents. This was particularly the case with the rural committees and the kaifong welfare associations, which (as major channels of communication with the local public) had close links with, and came under the supervision of, the District Commissioner, New Territories, and the Secretary for Chinese Affairs and their senior staff in the districts.1\n\nDuring my fifteen years in the New Territories Administration (NTA), and five more in the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs (SCA, which later became the Home Affairs Department or HAD) both of them to be described as \"political\" departments whose staff had direct dealings with the public, we were also in contact with a miscellany of other community bodies, including the many clansmen's (same name) and district (same place) associations, in both town and country. From the early 1970s, these were joined by the government-sponsored and assisted Mutual Aid Committees, of which large numbers were formed across the whole territory.\n\nThose officials with district responsibilities (including police), were invited to all major local functions as a matter of course, and the officiating officers were either the District Officers, or their superiors in headquarters or in concerned departments. I attended a great many functions during my service in various departments, and thus became familiar with their way of conducting them. This hardly varied, the difference being mainly a matter of degree and extent, depending on the importance of the bodies concerned and the nature and significance of their events.\n\nThe Nature of the proceedings\n\nA marked formality characterized all their occasions. The ceremonies followed set procedures, and each stage was introduced by a\n\n1 For anyone wishing to learn more, the index to Friends and Teachers indicates where information concerning these and other Chinese associations, and their interaction with government departments during my service (1956-87) can be found.\n\nPage 135\n\nPage 136", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215837, "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": 136, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "69\n\nmaster (more often than not a mistress) of ceremonies. There was, too, a high cultural content to their framework and its component parts, as will become evident in the course of this paper.\n\nHardly surprisingly, what may be styled this framework of formality with cultural overtones had to be underpinned by a support mechanism. The organizers needed to, and fortunately were able to, draw upon the calligraphic, literary, and other skills needed to supply the time-honoured invitation cards, scrolls, banners, and presentation items customarily in use on their ceremonial occasions. By listing the main features of this formality, its content, and back-up, this article aims to bring a rather neglected subject to wider notice, and to encourage more detailed study before it is too late.\n\nMy initial intention was also to examine in detail the literary content of the invitation cards and presentation items, and to include them in this paper. Phraseology and meaning, together with origins, must be traced back in guides to protocol and forms of address. These are intriguing topics, grounded in Chinese culture, and are well worth study for their own sake. However, this hope has not been realized. It is a considerable undertaking in itself, and will have to be the subject of a second paper, from my own or another's pen.\n\nThe need for experts\n\nAssociations which had frequent contact with government, like the rural committees and the kaifong welfare associations, all engaged paid secretaries. These were usually middle-aged or elderly men who had received an old-style Chinese education. Most of them were without an English language capability, for which reason they were precluded from entering government service, or from taking employment with the larger firms in Hong Kong's export-led commercial sector. However, such persons were very suitable for the secretaries' posts in the associations, where besides the skills needed for coping with ceremonial occasions, their knowledge of the correct epistolary forms of written Chinese enabled them to conduct their employers' correspondence with government offices and other agencies in a manner commensurate with the dignity of the association and its leaders - since, in this particular, the latter's prestige, too, was at stake.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215845, "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": 144, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "77\n\nprovided an account of one failed scholar in the Appendix.\n\nTeachers as helpers\n\nLike the scholars, local schoolmasters had long performed a vital role in the literary segment of the popular culture, including assistance with mounting local events and ceremonies. Even after the depopulation or abandonment of many old settlements, and the amalgamation or replacement of schools in places altered by development, had changed their situation, their successors in today's modern and much larger schools in the new town areas of the New Territories are still valued by the rural committees and a wide range of social and cultural associations. Some are calligraphers and scholars in their own right, and assist the associations' leaders and their secretaries in various ways. I used to meet many principals in the course of attending district functions and association dinners, and can bear witness to their major contributions to community life. In the old Southern District (present day Sai Kung and Islands), they were well to the fore, particularly on Cheung Chau, a large and always vibrant though outlying community, with a number of regional associations, some of which provided schools.\n\nWho paid?\n\nThe secretaries of kaifong and other urban associations were usually hired and paid for by their chairmen. For this reason, salaries and running expenses were generally kept low, and when a wealthy man was prepared to underwrite the cost, there were in general few changes of chairmen. In the New Territories, a small monthly subvention was paid to rural committees from 1961 on, to assist with running expenses, reflecting official recognition of the work they were performing in the public interest, assisting government and people alike in a period of ever-accelerating development and the disruptions it created for ordinary folk. Later on, similar small monthly sums were made available to federations of societies and to mutual aid committees across Hong Kong. (See Friends and Teachers, p.308, and my Tsuen Wan, Growth of a New Town and its People (Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1993), Pp.212, 231 and 243 for these several payments).\n\nThe cost of the ceremonies and anything that went with them, and in the case of religious festivals of hiring the priests, the opera troupes.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216297, "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-2003", "page_number": 56, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "The council members believed that Sai Kung would definitely be the most suitable location for developing a tourism centre to cater for both domestic and foreign visitors. They realized the market for 'non-urban based modern large-scale recreational and leisure facilities.' The district was visualized to be fully developed as an ‘Asian Pacific Tourist and Recreation Centre,' consisting of four main elements: the natural environment and scenery, historical and cultural features, outdoor sports and recreation (especially water-based ones), and science-based facilities. Other transportation and infrastructural facilities were also suggested in the plan.\n\nAlthough this plan was not approved, it demonstrated the interests of the local community in developing their homeland in tourism. Most of the council members are from the local community, and the academic representative in the council is the president of the HKUST, which is located in the Sai Kung district. The other members are mostly president or vice-president of rural committees. In order to collect information for the proposal, these members have visited various famous tourism attractions all over the world, including Australia and Singapore, and met important people in those developments. They consulted specialists in developing tourism in Australia for the plan. They spent a total of HK$3 million (US$386,600) on the whole project. The Sai Kung District Development Foundation is dedicated to enhance Hong Kong's attractions in order to 'out-compete our regional neighbours and to sustain the promised growth of our tourist industry.' Their enthusiasm and determination in developing their homeland is undisputed.\n\nAs evident in the above cases, different parties play a part in the development of environmental conservation and tourism. The success of development often depends on effective communication and cooperation between these parties. For each of the cases, the support from the local community within the development is a key element in developing the homeland of those indigenous people and the sustainability of a development often depends on this factor.\n\nAs I have mentioned, Sai Kung district was designated as one of the two centres for recreation and leisure activities in the twenty-first century; the objective of the Southeast New Territories Development Strategy Review (SENTDSR) was to carry out the planning of the district. The idea of a Sai Kung leisure garden was considered a complex", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]