[ { "id": 205087, "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-1966", "page_number": 43, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "38\n\nHUGH D. R. BAKER\n\nmen temples were built and dedicated to them in many parts of the effected area. In the New Territories there were three such temples - one at Sha Tau Kok,10 one built by the Kam Tin lineage of the Tang Clan,102 and a third in the market town of Shek Wu Hui known as the Chau Wong Yee Yuen,103 which was built by the five clans and endowed by them with land for its upkeep. It was not the five clans as clans which did this, but rather lineages of the five clans which came together and each purchased a share in the temple.104 The Man Clan took two shares in the temple, one purchased by each of the two lineages; as was the case with the eastern Tangs.105 The Pangs, Hau* and Lius each had one share. Not only was land purchased and a temple106 built with this money, but also a ferry boat was bought to assist all members of the five clans to cross the Sham Chun River107 to get to the large market town of Sham Chun, with which all had dealings. The share-holding lineages took part in an annual feast at which the business of the temple was discussed, the feast being paid for out of temple funds. As might be expected, however, the history of this temple association has not all been peaceful, and recently a major dispute has arisen, three members108 claiming complete control of the funds to the exclusion of the others.109 The matter quickly escalated to a point where both sides hired lawyers and placed vituperative advertisements in the Colony's newspapers. Eventually, after three years of argument, it was settled in 1963.\n\nThe second example of cooperation between the clans is of the army which they raised between them to oppose the arrival of the British when they took control of the New Territories in 1899. Under the leadership of literati of the Tang Clan, working from the ancestral hall of the Ha Tsuen lineage,110 they mustered men, arms and supplies in quantity and attacked the British at their landing point in Tai Po. Unfortunately they lacked training and could do no more than fight an ignominious retreat back over the hills. Some records of the organisation of this force are still available through documents captured by the British at the time, and it is obvious that all the planning was done by and communications established at the level of the literati of the five clans. It seems that these men kept up some kind of informal contact, and there is mention of an organisation called the Tung P'ing Kuk112 in the first British reports on the area, which was said\n\n*Hau is the correct spelling, not \"Haus\". I've made the correction. \nPlease let me know if you need further assistance.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205545, "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": 87, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "82\n\nFAN LAU AND ITS FORT: AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE\n\nARMANDO M. DA SILVA*\n\nSite and Situation\n\nFan Lau is located at the extreme southwestern tip of Tai Yu Shan or Lantau Island. It is almost equal in distance from Hong-kong and Macau and it is situated about twenty-five miles due east of the latter. Fan Lau can be reached by sampan or fishing boat either from the market towns of Cheung Chau or Tai O, or by walking along the water catchment from Shek Pik reservoir to a point above and beyond Kau Ling Chung, and then by descending a steep stony path towards the settlement. Another route is to strike out from Tai O, taking the coastal footpath through Yi O, and thence to Fan Lau. There is no motor road to Fan Lau.\n\nThe area of Fan Lau includes a headland known as Kai Yik Kok (†) meaning \"chicken wing point\" where an old fort is located (see map 1).† The high point of the Kai Yik Kok promontory rises to about 380 feet above sea level. In the north of this headland lies the cultivated waist of Fan Lau where a small settlement is located. Looming above the settlement is Kai Yik Shan1 from which two streams supply irrigation water to the padi fields. Two fine beaches, Tung Wan and Sai Wan, flank the waist of the peninsula. Tung Wan, though exposed to prevailing easterly winds and a long fetch from the village, can accommodate deep-draught junks.\n\nThe actual territory associated with the village extends beyond the physical boundaries of the settlement. Fan Lau villagers, for example, cultivate fields located in Tsin Yue Wan (see map 1) and records show that, at least in 1904, padi fields in Kau Ling Chung (since abandoned) were also cultivated.\n\nSituated at the entrance of the Chu Kong or Pearl River estuary, Fan Lau enjoyed a strategic location in the past. This position was reflected in the construction of numerous forts and guard stations\n\n* Mr. da Silva has a Master's degree from the University of California at Berkeley and is at present with the Department of Geography, University of Hawaii.\n\n† Maps 1-4 are located at pp. 92-95.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205761, "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-1969", "page_number": 67, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "33 Ibid., p. 113.\n\nMILITIA, MARKET AND LINEAGE\n\n61\n\n34 This event has a tangled academic history. The establishment of the association by the twenty-four villages was originally reported in the Chinese Repository (IV, 1836, p. 414), and is quoted by Wakeman (op. cit., p. 63) from that source. It is also quoted by Hsiao (op. cit., p. 309) as an example of inter-village co-operation for the purposes of defence and the maintenance of order. Skinner (op. cit., p. 39, n. 80), quoting from Hsiao, argues its significance for the analysis of standard marketing communities.\n\n35 Wakeman, op. cit., p. 39.\n\n36 Skinner, G. W. \"Marketing and Social Structure in Rural China Part II\". The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. XXIV, no. 2, February 1965, pp. 207f.\n\n37 Only those aspects of the New Territories most relevant to the argument will be discussed. There is a growing literature about the area which, taken together, gives considerable detail. Freedman, op. cit., p. viii, provides a bibliographical note on published works.\n\n38 The land frontier of the territory begins just north of the Sham Chun river and runs eastward from Deep Bay to the market of Sha Tau Kok. J. H. Stewart Lockhart, the then Colonial Secretary of Hong Kong, was deeply opposed to this boundary. \"It cuts in two the rich valley of which Sham Chun is the centre, and, while excluding that town, divides the villages in the valley hitherto linked together by family ties and common interests; all these villages regard Sham Chun as their central and most important market, where they dispose their goods and make their purchases\" Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, Extracts from Papers Relating to the Extension of the Colony of Hong Kong, 1899, Hong Kong, 1900, p. 196.\n\n39 Ibid., p. 187. Stewart Lockhart's population estimates cannot be regarded as very accurate. By 1900 he thought the number of villages to be 597. Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, 1900, Hong Kong, 1901, p. 252. The Hong Kong census of 1911 gave the total population of the territory as 104,101. In the Northern District alone, 398 villages were enumerated. Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, 1911, Hong Kong, 1912, pp. 103ff. On the other hand, as guesses go, Stewart Lockhart's count is by no means disreputable. His estimate of 100,000 is not all that far from the 1911 census figure cited above. Other examples could be given which suggest that his estimates are sufficiently accurate to indicate general magnitudes of population, if not precise numbers.\n\n40 Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, Extracts..., op. cit., p. 188.\n\n41 This discussion will be confined to that part of the territory which used to be known as the 'Northern District' and will not consider the markets at Sai Kung, Tsuen Wan, Sham Shui Po, and Cheung Chau island. For brief accounts of these, see Hayes, J. W., \"The Pattern of Life in the New Territories in 1898\"; \"Cheung Chau 1850-1898: Information from Commemorative Tablets\", Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 11, 1962, vol. III, 1963.\n\n42 Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, 1911, op. cit., pp. 103f.; Correspondence (December 15, 1903, to February 27, 1907) Relating to the Proposed Canton-Kowloon Railway, Eastern No. 88, Colonial Office, London, 1907, pp. 85ff.\n\n43 For example, the marketing schedule of the two Tai Po markets was 3-6-9. That is to say, the markets met on the 3rd, 6th, 9th, 13th, 16th, 19th, 23rd, 26th and 29th days of each lunar month. The same principle applies to the schedules of each of the other markets. Normally, in specifying a schedule, only the first three days are given.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206056, "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-1970", "page_number": 136, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "A BRITISH WARTIME CHART SHOWING HONG KONG\n\n131\n\nThe name \"Iron River\" given to the present-day Hebe Haven may be related to the fact that Ma On Shan to the north has iron-ore (Magnetite) deposits on its south western side. It would seem to indicate that the deposits were known in the eighteenth century, if not worked.\n\nMers (Mirs) Bay is shown as being very small. A number of soundings near the entrance indicate the visit of a ship, so the error in its size and shape would seem to be yet another indication of poor visibility causing errors in observation.\n\nSuggested Identification of Place Names\n\n(Alphabetical Order)\n\n \n Botoe Is.\n East Brother (Siu Mo To)\n \n \n Cape Lintin and Bay\n South West Point and Deep Bay\n \n \n Castle Land\n Nam Tau Peninsula\n \n \n Chang Cheou Is.\n Cheung Chau\n \n \n Chin-falo\n Tsing Yi Island\n \n \n Co-chee\n Ma Wan Island\n \n \n Co-long\n Kowloon City\n \n \n False Hook\n Wong Chuk Kok (on Lamma Island)\n \n \n Fan-Chin-Cheou or He-ong-kong\n Hong Kong\n \n \n Furado or Poo Toy\n Po Toi Island (N.B. Fury Rocks, 1 Sea Mile to N.E. on modern charts)\n \n \n Hay-tae-man Bay\n Tai Shan Bay\n \n \n Ichou\n Chi Chau\n \n \n I of Gatto\n Shek Wu Chau\n \n \n Iron Point\n Fat Tau Point\n \n \n Keyzers Hook\n Fan Lau Point\n \n \n Lammon\n Lamma Island (Nam A Island)\n \n \n Lang Shitoe or Chato Id.\n Lafsami\n \n \n Lantoe or Magpyes Island\n Lantao Island\n \n \n Lantoe Bay\n Bay at Sham Tseng\n \n \n Lentua\n Lantao Island-Peninsula north of Cheung Chau\n \n \n Lintin\n Lintin\n \n \n Lon-ko\n Lung Kwu Chau", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206057, "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-1970", "page_number": 137, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "132\n\nHENRY D. TALBOT\n\nLo cheou-Lo Chau (Beaufort Island)\n\n=\n\nMers Bay Mirs Bay\n\nMew Is.-Mo Chau\n\nNako chau-Papai (Nei Kwu Chau or Hei Ling Chau)\n\nNine-pin-Ninepin Group\n\nPo-ke-long Point=Lei Yue Mun Point\n\nPsang-chau-Kau Yi Chau\n\nRagged Island Steep Island\n\nRat Island or Ling Ting-Ling Ting\n\nR. Povado or Iron River-Hebe Haven\n\nSin-can-hien-Hsin-an Hsien (San On Yuen) or, rather, the district city of Hsin-an\n\nSingan Islands-Siu Chau and Tai Shan\n\nShu-lap-ko Is.-Chek Lap Kok Island\n\nSui-pak Siu Kau Yi\n\nSoko Cheou Is. the Soko Islands\n\nSong-kco Sung Kong\n\nTa baco=Chung Chau\n\nTat-hong Moon-Tathong Channel\n\n=\n\nTay Pak Peng Chau\n\nTay-pak-hoe Green Island (or perhaps the sea between Hong Kong and Lantao Islands)\n\nTsa-cheou Is. =Sha Chau\n\nTsan-Cheou-Kau Pei Chau (off Cape D'Aguilar) Tysa=Small island 1⁄2 mile south of East Brother\n\nWang Laang-Waglan Island\n\nNOTES\n\n1 Cf. The British Museum General Catalogue of Printed Books (London, 1961) Vol. 100, Col. 222.\n\nThe British Museum Catalogue of Printed Maps. Charts and Plans (London, 1967) Vol. 7, Col. 359,\n\nMorse, H. B. The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China 1635-1834 (Oxford, 1926-29) Lists of Ships.\n\n2 Cf. Bonacker, W. Kartenmacher Aller Lander und Zeiten (Stuttgart, Hiersemann, 1966) p. 200,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206060, "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-1970", "page_number": 140, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "HONG KONG BEFORE THE BRITISH\n\n135\n\nthe\n\nThere are, of course, other books on the same subject topography of Kwangtung province for instance or that of Tung Kun district which once included San On district.2 Many of them contain identical phrases and documents and do not add much to the material contained in the San On topography, which is sufficient basis for a history of this region during the last 500 years. Some earlier material is contained in family records and one or two phrases in books; but it is scant, and the date where there is no printed record occurs very early for a place within the Chinese Empire.\n\nAnd yet the region we are describing cannot be properly understood without some consideration of its prehistory. A place on the seaboard generally has a complicated agglomeration of races in its population, and not only does our region illustrate this, but it also has a complex kind of seaboard. To its west is a wide river estuary which brings down mud from all over Kwangtung province and deposits it along the coast. There is a good deal of flat plain which has been partly created by the deposit and partly by rice growers and reclamation, especially round the coast of Deep Bay. Around these plains are steep hills, the most westerly being the T'un Mun3 range on the mainland and the island of Tai Yü Shan or Lantao. There are many rocky islands with high peaks to the south, the biggest of which are Tsing I, Lamma, and Hong Kong and narrow straits through which the tide sweeps in an east-west direction, the most important being known as K'ap Shui Mun, Lai Yü Mun, and Fat T'ong Mun.5 The sea is roughest towards the south and east, and the country around this part and as far as Mirs Bay is very rugged and not easily accessible. There are many isthmuses and shallows, the most important being Mirs Bay itself, the Taipo Sea and the Sha Tau Kok isthmus, above which is the highest mountain of all Ng T'ung. The reader is invited to identify these names on the accompanying map* if he does not know them already.\n\nThis region has a country population consisting of four distinct communities known in Chinese as the Tanka, the Hoklo, the Punti and the Hakka.\n\n2 廣州縣誌 and 東莞縣誌\n\n3 屯門\n\n4 大嶼山 or 大溪山\n\n5 汲水門 鯉魚門 佛堂門\n\n* Plate 16.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206856, "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-1973", "page_number": 133, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "LEGENDS & STORIES OF THE NEW TERRITORIES: KAM TIN 127\n\n) 3rd year of T'ong (統) dynasty, by a Buddhist priest named Yuen Chong (圓聰) in the Ts'z Yun monastery (慈雲寺) in Ch'eung On (昌安) city, Shensi (陝西) province, near the Great Wall. This monastery had been built about fifty years previously by the Emperor T'ong Ko Tsung (唐玄宗) for his mother. When the pagoda was being built a wild goose flew against it and was killed, and the monks buried the bird underneath the pagoda and in this way it received its name. It became the custom ever since Shan Lung (神龍) years A.D. 705 & 706 of T'ong dynasty for the Emperor to give a banquet in the monastery called the Kuk Kong Yin (曲江宴) “winding river banquet,” to all the new \"Tsun Sz” (進士). Their names were carved on a stone tablet in the pagoda, and it became customary to use the expression “Ngaan T'aap T'ai Ming (雁塔題名) when congratulating successful candidates for the highest government examination. In Tang Lam's time the Tung Kwun people wished to have their own Ngaan Taap pagoda, and Tang Lam provided the money for them to do it. It was built some time during the ten years of Shun Yau (淳祐) A.D. 1241-1251 of Sung dynasty, and it was repaired in the 40th year of Shung Ching (崇禎) A.D. 1637 of Ming dynasty by a Tung Kwun \"Tsun Sz” named Kwok Kau Ting (郭九錠). Lam's grave is still to be found in Hon Yee Haang (巷義行) in Tung Kwun district.\n\nThe children of the four sons of Tang Tsz Ming seem to have left Kam T'in, and their descendants founded families in other villages. Those of Lam are to be found in the village of Lung Kwat Tau (龍骨頭) near Fanling (粉嶺); those of Waai still live in Tai Po Tau (大埔頭) near Tai Po market and Lai Tung (黎洞) near Sha Tau Kok (沙頭角), while Kei's descendants settled in Tung Kwun. But the great grandson of Tsz came back to Kam T'in. His name was Shau Tso (秀祖), he held the military rank of Chung Mo Kau Wai (忠武校尉) and in the Yuen (元) dynasty A.D. 1277 he received the honour of Hin Mo Tsueng Kwan (顯武將軍). He had two great-grandsons, brothers, named Hung Yee (鴻義) and Hung Chi (鴻志). The latter was a son-in-law of Hoh Tik (何狄) the younger brother of Hoh Chan (何真) who ruled Kwangtung (廣東) and Kwangsi (廣西) provinces at the end of the Yuen dynasty. When the Ming dynasty started Hoh Chan gave up his territory to the first Emperor, but later on he became involved in the case of General Leung Kwok Kung (梁國公) Laam Yuk (濫獄)...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207045, "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-1974", "page_number": 116, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "CHAN TSUEN\n\nTƯỞNG CƯ HẢI P\n\nI\n\nSHEK KI\n\nPEARL\n\nRIVER\n\nDELTA\n\nMACAU\n\nНАМ ТАЏ\n\nتي\n\nPAD-AN HSIEN\n\nĮPRESENT. KOWLOON.\n\nAWELSHIN MAVEN\n\nT\n\nTAM SHUI\n\nTAI PANG\n\nx\n\nGHUM CHUN\n\nISHA TAG KOK\n\nAHAS PAY\n\nТаг\n\nYUEN LONG\n\n* KAM TIN\n\nPING SHAN\n\nCASTLE PEAK\n\nTSUẸN WAN SHA TINKUNGA\n\nSAI\n\nL KOWLNOW CITY\n\nTING\n\nCHEUNG x\n\nנל\n\nSHA WAMLINE\n\nLINGAU TAU KOK\n\nSHA LÓ WANTE\n\nTRUNG CHUNG LANTAU ISLAND\n\nPUI 01\n\nPENG CHAJ\n\n„MUT WO\n\nISLAND\n\nITẠI TAM TUK\n\nSHEK PIK\n\nABERDEEN.\n\n(CHEUNG\n\nCHAU LAMMA,\n\nISLAND\n\nAP LET CHAU\n\nBELŞ\n\nBAY\n\nдо\n\n+2\n\n110\n\nLO MAN SHAR\n\nTAM VON SHAN (LEMA ISLANDS)\n\nMAP OF HONG KONG REGION\n\nJAMES HAYES", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207828, "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": 216, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963 201\n\nthe Man and their allies rallied local support to form a new market on the other side of what in British times has come to be known as the Kwun Yam River. This was the beginning of the market town of Tai Po in its present form. (The story up to this point is told by Sung Hok-p'ang, 'Legends and Stories of the New Territories. I. Tai Po', The Hong Kong Naturalist, vol. VI, no. 1, May 1935. The stone slab recording the magistrate's decision no longer stands in the temple; when the temple was recently rebuilt the stone was cast into the yard where it now lies, often encumbered with rubbish, a neglected minor monument of late Ch'ing history).\n\n19. The new market in a short time consigned the old one to a decrepitude familiar to anyone who has walked behind the Jockey Club Clinic which now stands next to the Tin Hau Temple. Soon the founder of the new market put up the first of the bridges to span the Kwun Yam River; the subscription list for the bridge is recorded on two stone plaques set into the wall of the Man Mo Temple which had been built as a centre for the new market. A room in the temple still houses the public weighing scales from which the founders and their successors have derived an income.\n\n20. The story goes that the Man who led the revolt against the Tang monopoly called a meeting of the leaders of seven yeuk around Tai Po, each of these taking a share in the new market in the form of shops. The land on which the market was built appears to have been for the most part the property of the Man. Now it is probable that the Ts'at Yeuk dates from this point in time. My informants take this view. And there is one piece of information which tends to confirm it: one of the constituent yeuk is Cheung Shue Tan which, according to what I was told in Sha Tin, was previously a member of a yeuk-complex in this latter area; so that it may well have changed its allegiance at the time of the founding of the new market at Tai Po. But even if the Ts'at Yeuk came into being so recently, the yeuk themselves can hardly have done so for they appear to have been the material out of which the complex was formed. Many locals assert that the yeuk did not antedate the Ts'at Yeuk, but I am inclined to think that we are dealing here with a very old form of grouping, as comparative evidence will suggest. The seven yeuk were Lam Tsuen, Cheung Shue Tan, Ting Kok, Shuen Wan, Hap Wo, Tai Hang, and Fan Leng. Together they had over seventy villages, but the yeuk were of unequal size, so that while, for example, the Man settlement at Tai Hang formed a yeuk", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208497, "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-1978", "page_number": 221, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n205 \n\nDISTRIBUTION OF FORTS AND GUARD STATIONS ON \n\nLANTAU ISLAND DURING THE LATE CH'ING PERIOD \n\nLantau, an island which lies to the west of Hong Kong Island, has an area of about 55.55 square miles. Situated at the entrance of the Pearl River estuary, the island enjoyed a strategic location in the past, especially during the late Ch'ing Dynasty. The position was reflected in the construction of forts and guard stations or shuen (屯) overlooking Tuen Mun 屯門.\n\nDuring the K'ang Hsi period (1662-1722), the island was fortified with a fort at Kai Yik Kok 雞翼角, known as the Fan Lau Fort 汾流砲台 or Tai Yu Shan Fort 大嶼山砲台; and with two guard stations; one at Tai O 大澳, the Tai Yu Shan Shuen 大嶼山汎; the other at Tung Chung 東涌, the Tung Chung Hau Shuen 東涌口汎.\n\nDuring the Chia Ching period (1796-1820), more forts and guard stations were constructed, partly because of the coming of the Europeans. Thus in the 22nd year of Chia Ching's rule, the Tung Chung Walled City 東涌城 was constructed, and a guard station with two forts called the Shek Tse Fort 石子砲台 was founded on the coast to its front. Later guard stations were established at Tai Ho 大蠔, Sha Lo Wan 沙螺灣, and at Mui Wo 梅窩.\n\nThe military force on the island consisted of a Shau-pe 守備 or major, with his headquarters at the Tung Chung Walled City. Under him were 4 Tsin-tsung 千總 or lieutenants, 7 Pa-tsung 把總 or sergeants, and 5 Ngai-wai 外委 or corporals. They were in command of 691 soldiers, of whom 195 were infantry and 496 garrison soldiers. This force also manned guard-stations at the Kowloon Walled City 九龍城寨, Shum Shui Po 深水埗, Tsing Lung Tau 青龍頭, Cheung Chau 長洲, Tsing Yi Tam 青衣潭, Ping Chau 坪洲, Po Toi 蒲苔, Kap Shui Mun 急水門, and at Yung Shu Wan 榕樹灣.\n\nFrom this force 215 soldiers were in garrison on Lantau Island. The following shows the distribution of garrison soldiers in various forts and guard-stations on the island:\n\nTung Chung Walled City: 100 garrison soldiers under 1 Shau-pe, 1 Pa-tsung, and 2 Ngai-wai.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208844, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1980", "page_number": 6, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "205\n\n12 On this particular type of tenancy, see John Kamm, \"Two essays on the Ch'ing economy of Hsin-an, Kwangtung Province”, JHKBRÁS 1977, pp. 55-84, and James Hayes, The Hong Kong Region, 1850-1911, Folkestone, Kent, England, 1977, pp. 50-53.\n\n13 Ints. Mr. Wong 22.6.81, Mr. Lam Kaap Shau 8.6.81, Mr. Cheung Kau 26.6.81, Mr. Cheung 26.6.81, Mr. Cheng Yung 10.7.81, and Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 8.5.81; Hugh D.R. Baker, Sheung Shui, A Chinese Lineage Village, Guildford and London, 1968, p. 172.\n\n14 Father Sergio Ticozzi, 12.5.81, quoting from Giovanni B. Tragella, Le Mission Estere di Milano, Nel Quadro Degli Avvenimenti Contemporanli, Milan 1950-1963, vol. 1, pp. 274-275, vol. 2, pp. 85, 89, and 314. Int. Father George Carusso, 20.5.81.\n\n15 Ints. Mr. Lok Tak K'ei 17.7.81, Mr. Leung Yung Hei 16.6.81, Mrs. Lau 14.6.81, and Mr. Tse Kw'an 16.11.80.\n\n10 Int. Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 8.5.81. Mr. Yau's term for \"moorage inlet\" was \"siu wan t'au\". Cf. also the type of market James Hayes refers to as \"coastal market centres\" in his Hong Kong Region, p. 37.\n\n17\n\nDocuments on this case are included in Kuan T'ien-p'ei, Ch'ou-hai ch'u-chi (1836, n.p., Taipei reprint, 1968) 2/26a-33a, 56a-74a, 80a-99b. Kuan was Naval Commander-in-Chief for Kwangtung from 1834 to 1841. C. Fred Blake, in Ethnic Groups and Social Change in a Chinese Market Town, Hawaii, 1981, p. 46 note 8, states \"Lung Shuen Wan was a traditional outpost for the Chinese imperial navy's regulation of eastern approaches to the Pearl River. I wonder if perhaps Lung Shuen Wan was the original 'coastal market centre' in this area?\" Elsewhere (loc. cit. and p. 95) he points out that the Lung Shuen Wan Tin Hau Temple retained the patronage of the Pak Kong and Sha Kok Mei villagers, despite the greater convenience of the Tin Hau Temple within Sai Kung Market.\n\n18 These are figures of shops as registered in the Block Crown Lease (DD215, DD224). It is more than likely that these were shop spaces rather than shops, and in the event that a shop might take up more than a shop space, there were fewer shops in Sai Kung and Hang Hau in the early 1900's than noted here. For comparison, in 1905, Yuen Long had only seventy-four shops and Tai Po Market twenty-three large and fifteen small ones. See James Hayes, Hong Kong Region, p. 36.\n\n19 Ints. Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 15.5.81, Father George Carusso 20.5.81, Mr. Lei Kan 19.6.81, Mr. Ue Shun Hing 10.7.81.\n\n20 Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 15.5.81.\n\n21 Mr. Cheung Ts'oi 20.6.81, Madam Chiu I Mooi 7.5.81, Mrs. Foo, née Lei, 28.6.81.\n\n22\n\nMrs. Kong Lei San Kiu 21.6.81. Mr. Cheung Kin Wa 10.6.81 of Taai Fung Nin (opened c. 1933) in Sai Kung Market remembered that the shop used to slaughter a pig each day to sell to the boat people.\n\n23 Mr. Chan Kei Shang 28.5.81, Mr. Chan Shou 19.6.81.\n\n24 Mr. Hoh King 6.5.81, Mrs. Lei née So 20.6.81, Mr. Lei Yau 13.11.80, Mr. Cheung Ming Shing 8.6.81, Mr. Lai Foh 8.5.81. Mrs. Lei used to obtain piglets from Kam Lei Loi in Sai Kung Market. It took six to seven months to fatten them, and two dollars to have each pig carried back to Sai Kung Market. She also had rice and pig feed (chiefly rice husk) from Kam Lei Loi on credit. Kam Lei Loi was a butcher's cum general store, where her husband worked.\n\n25 According to Mr. Yau T'aam Shang, 15.5.81, the interest rate in Sai Kung Market was 5 cents per dollar per month, i.e. 60 percent per annum.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208957, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1980", "page_number": 119, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "FUNG SHUI: ILLUSTRATED BY KAT HING WAI, N.T.\n\n87\n\nvalley surrounded by hills in the east, north and south forming an armchair embracing it. It is located at the crosspoint where the breath of the azure dragon and the white tiger meet. The entire valley is fed by flowing streams like the sinews and veins within a body. It is also the confluence of meandering tributaries before the main river runs off to the sea. According to a geomancer who never saw Kam Tin, \"It is said [in the geomancy classics] that the Dragon [Water Dragon, not the same as the Azure Dragon] follows the watercourse, and the meeting-place of waters is the meeting-place of the dragons, where the virtues of hills and streams are united and the grass ever green.\" He continued, \"In the distance there should be groups of mountains with streams of water encircling them; in front a stretch of level plain, a pond, or lake. In the wider circuit, the space should be large enough for 10,000 horses, and the watercourse be sufficient to admit a dragon [large] boat... If the expanse be wide, children and grandchildren will multiply and be strong. From the top of the hill the view should extend for miles, with mountains and streams interspersed.\"16 Such vivid and precise description of the geographical features of Kam Tin by a fung-shui professor who never saw the place can only lead to the conclusion that the siting of Kam Tin was done piously in accordance with the geomancy canons. Moreover, \"the place where the flow out being low, with no hill or high embankment to obstruct the escape of good influences, a pagoda is erected to check these influences and throw them back over the land.”17 Indeed a fung-shui pagoda called Man Ch'eung Kok was erected near where I Tai College now stands in Shui-tau hamlet.* By the year 1850, \"the Tang family seemed to have reached the height of their prosperity. Many of them passed the highest government examination and a census taken that year showed that there were more than 1,800 males living...\"18 But the family experienced a decline in population and wealth after the pagoda was torn down and the course of the river was altered to accommodate three fish ponds and buildings of a school that blocked the view of the village.19 This mistake was remedied by repairing the banks of the river in 1930 and family membership was said to be on the increase again.\n\nFig. 2 in the original version of this article, published in Asian Architect and Builder, October 1979, which contains many other drawings and diagrams not reproduced here.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210379, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1984", "page_number": 350, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "329\n\nstudent who can find a generous sponsor for complementary studies of those rural areas which lie outside Dr. Hayes's purview: the other Peng Chau (in Mirs Bay or Dapeng-wan), Tap Mun, Sha Tau Kok, Tai Po, Yuen Long and their hinterlands. Even within Hong Kong's 400 square miles can be seen the kind of variations which Ouyang Hsiu described (in his preface to the Hsin Wu-tai Shih) as: it is a strength of Chinese society that such healthy variability can exist. Time is short, because when I was last there in 1982, the opening up of roads had already begun to erode village life, as it did in Tsuen Wan, Lantao and New Kowloon,\n\n+\n\n-\n\nDr. Hayes is a true Cadet, in the tradition of Cecil Clementi, Walter Schofield, Stephen Balfour and John Barrow, and his work puts even them in the shade. But oh! oh! that romanization! He says disarmingly in the Foreword \"I confess that romanization has been a problem.\" No shame in that: Chinese — whichever you wish of the 3,000 languages, all known as Chinese — does not lend itself to phonetic writing, and the Cadmean alphabet, while no doubt adequate for the Western Semitic language for which it was devised, was not really suited to Latin and is hopeless for English (though it does not do too badly for Finnish and Welsh) — how much less for Chinese? But of all the inadequate answers to this problem, why choose the obsolete Wade-Giles without its vital apostrophes and tone-numerals, too for what Western academics obstinately call “Mandarin”; and Meyer-Wempe for Cantonese? The latter, with omitted or misprinted diacritical marks, of which I found many (and have sent Dr. Hayes a list) is gibberish. Besides, being based on West River dialects, which differ considerably from the Upper Punyu which, after the eclipse of Sai Kwan wa from 1905 onward, became the standard speech of Canton, Hong Kong and overseas Cantonese (except those from the 5 districts known as Sze Yap), Meyer & Wempe's handy little dictionary has serious shortcomings. What a pity an updated Eitel never appeared!\n\nNothing will ever persuade me that Cantonese, Hakka and Hokkien place names should be written in letters indicating a pronunciation which no local would understand. (I suppose it must be a matter of politics, with which no scholar should soil his hands). Just you try getting a boat to “Shayuyung”! (The place is", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211732, "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-1989", "page_number": 147, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "122\n\nusually considered private in character, and hence the entrances are such that the general public can be excluded as desired.2\n\nIn smaller institutions, the buildings tend to form only a single range, and the Buddha Hall is built in the middle of it. Even here, however, the range of buildings will usually front an enclosed courtyard-garden, and the Hall will be raised up a few steps higher than the other buildings.\n\n1\n\nAlthough the great majority of Buddhist monasteries and nunneries in Hong Kong were founded in the last 80 years, a few are older, founded by indigenous groups before the coming of the British. Five are known to me in the mainland New Territories3 — the Ching Shan, or Pooi To (#4 · *) monastery at Tuen Mun, (certainly in existence in the fifth century*), the Ling To () monastery at Ha Tsuen (probably founded or refounded in the Ming Dynasty), the Ling Wan () nunnery at Shek Kong (an early Ming foundation4), the Lung Kai () nunnery near Lung Yeuk Tau (probably an early Ch'ing foundation5), and the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz (££‡), near Man Uk Pin on the old road from Sha Tau Kok to Sham Tsun (Shen Zhen).\n\nThe subject of this article.\n\nOf these ancient foundations, the Ching Shan monastery was rebuilt in 1918 and several times since, and the Ling Wan nunnery was rebuilt between 1919 and 1927. These now show the standard Buddhist plan mentioned above. The Lung Kai nunnery is a total ruin, following abandonment and the stripping of the roof during the last War. The Ling To monastery was rebuilt in 1928, and again (from the foundations up) in 1970. It is believed that both rebuildings used the foundations from the 1861 rebuilding, but the interior layout of the present structure is only a shadow of the original. Only the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz survives unreconstructured and undamaged as an example of a Buddhist institution in the area from before the twentieth century influx of immigrant monks and nuns. Because of this it seemed worth studying the monastery in some detail.\n\nThe old road from Sha Tau Kok to Sham Tsun ran more or less along the line of the present Sha Tau Kok road from Sha Tau Kok to the Wo Hang Au above Sheung Wo Hang. It then cut to the north-west of the present road, passing Man Uk Pin village, and thence on through the mountains by a low pass called Miu Keng (M, \"Temple Pass''), past Ping Yeung village, to cross the Sham Tsun river by the bridge", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211740, "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-1989", "page_number": 155, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "130\n\n―T\n\ntowards the end of the century. The original market for the Sha Tau Kok area was Sham Tsun; it was only from about 1825 that the population of the Sha Tau Kok area rose to the point where it could sustain a market of its own, at Sha Tau Kok.\n\nThe main impetus to the foundation of the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz, apart from the purely religious one, and the political one to be discussed below, was to provide a resting-place for travellers on the road to Sham Tsun. This road was long, and the two-mile-long deserted section through the mountains was without shelter, either from the elements or from wild animals (tigers were a serious problem in the area, as village tales and placenames demonstrate). The nunnery was founded, in part, to provide services to wayfarers; in particular, according to elderly villagers, free tea was given to anyone stopping to rest there.\n\nTraffic on this road was heavy. At its peak, between 1900 and 1915, about 20,000 people a month passed by, carrying up to 400 tons of goods, according to surveys conducted in 1904 and 1910 by the Hong Kong Government to assess likely traffic on railway lines in the area.\n\n10\n\nThe road from Sham Tsun to Sha Tau Kok was important not only because of its local significance to the two market towns, but to a wider area as well. It was part of the main road from the county city of Nam Tau (Nantou) to the Deputy Magistrate's city of Tai Pang (Dapeng), which was the most important east-west route in the county.\n\nThe main north-south routes in the county were those which linked Kowloon with Sham Tsun, and then on from Sham Tsun with the towns further north, and, eventually, with Canton. There were three main crossings of the Sham Tsun river between the New Territories area and Sham Tsun: the Liu Pok ferry to the southwest of Sham Tsun, which carried the traffic on the Yuen Long-Sham Tsun road, and the Lo Wu ferry and the Law Fong bridge, which between them carried the Kowloon-Sham Tsun traffic. The most direct route from Kowloon to the north was the road from Tai Po to Sheung Shui, and thence over the Lo Wu ferry. This ferry, however, was expensive, and could only be bypassed by using a waist-deep ford, which was difficult and dangerous, and impossible after rain. Many travellers, therefore, preferred the slightly longer, but cheap and safe Law Fong bridge crossing. There were two routes from Kowloon to the Law Fong bridge. One crossed the mountains north of Tai Po by the Kat Tsai Au pass,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211748, "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-1989", "page_number": 163, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "138\n\nthe \"major lineages\". If, as seems likely, the foundation of the nunnery represented, at least in part, a political move to strengthen the villages near the pass against the \"major lineages\", then it was the first step in what was to become open inter-village warfare two or three generations later.\n\nThe Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz and the Ta Kwu Ling Luk Yeuk\n\nIn the nineteenth century, local politics in the New Territories area were marked by the struggle for local political dominance between the rich and ancient “major lineages\", and the mutual defence inter-village alliances, or Yeuk, which set out to combat the \"major alliances\" by uniting the strength of villages too weak to oppose them on their own. The struggle for dominance was centred on control of the markets, and of the vital roads which linked them.\n\n24\n\nWithin the eastern New Territories the villagers of the area around Sha Tau Kok formed a network of Yeuk alliances which was responsible for the foundation of the market at Sha Tau Kok about 1825, and which controlled all the roads in the area immediately around the market. The villagers formed ten inter-village Yeuk alliances, and this Yeuk network was called the Shap Yeuk (+*, \"Alliance of Ten'') in consequence. The Shap Yeuk owned the market at Sha Tau Kok communally, and their interest in keeping open all the roads which served the market, but especially their vital road to Sham Tsun, is obvious. The Shap Yeuk was united enough, and strong enough, that it was able to ensure that the \"major lineages” had no significant influence within the Sha Tau Kok area, but it was never strong enough to control the whole of the road to Sham Tsun.\n\nTo the south, the area around the ancient market town of Tai Po had been dominated by the Tang lineage of Tai Po Tau since the Ming dynasty. The Tangs not only controlled the market, but also owned the extremely important ferry over the Kwun Yam river in the town, over which all traffic from Kowloon to the north had to pass. This control by a \"major lineage” was very irksome to the other villages of the area, who had been trying to seize control of the area since early in the nineteenth century.\n\nThe foundation of the New Market (Tai Wo Shi, ) at Tai Po, which was to have no Tang involvement, and the building of a new bridge", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211749, "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-1989", "page_number": 164, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "139 \n\n26 \n\n+ \n\nto replace the Tang's ferry (1892-1896), by a new grouping of inter-village Yeuk mutual defence alliances, the Tsat Yeuk (±§, “Alliance of Seven''), must be seen in this context.\" After the foundation of the New Market at Tai Po, the influence of the \"major lineages\" in this area was sharply curtailed. \n\nThus, of the major nodal points of the area, two, Sha Tau Kok and Tai Po, became politically dominated by alliances of minor lineages during the nineteenth century. The importance of the roads through Ta Kwu Ling has been discussed above, and the political significance of the inter-village grouping centred on the Miu Keng pass has been noted. The foundation of the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz represents a successful attempt to ensure that external “major lineages\" could not control the road through the mountains. But, for the Ta Kwu Ling villagers, this route, while important, was not as vital as the crossing of the Sham Tsun river and the route to Sham Tsun, \n\nSham Tsun was too big for any “major lineage” ever to dominate it entirely for long; it was usually an “open market” at least in practice. However, the roads to the town could be controlled. The two main routes through Ta Kwu Ling met at Kan Tau Wai. North-west of Kan Tau Wai is an area of marshland, criss-crossed with drainage channels. To the north of that runs the Law Fong river, which drains the entire Ta Kwu Ling area, and cuts through the mountains which ring the area by a gorge about half a mile north-west of Kan Tau Wai. The Law Fong river joins the other main branch of the Sham Tsun river immediately after passing through the gorge. The crossings of the river were by ferries owned by the Cheung clan of Wong Pui Ling. The ownership of the ferries allowed the Cheungs to control all the roads out of Sham Tsun to the east. \n\nIt is probable that the market at Sham Tsun was founded quite late. The 1688 Hsin An County Gazetteer (Ch. 3) records a number of markets in the Sham Tsun basin, including Sham Tsun, although only Sham Tsun survived to be recorded in the 1822 Gazetteer. One of the markets which died was at Kim Ho (金河), between the two river crossings. This market must have been owned by the Cheungs. As the Cheung market declined, and the importance of Sham Tsun and its approach roads increased, so the value of the ferries to the Cheungs grew, \n\nPassage over the ferries cost one cash per person, plus one additional cash for any goods carried. It is unlikely that the clan earned", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211756, "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-1989", "page_number": 171, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "146\n\nthe client relationship Lung Yeuk Tau wanted them in. Loi Tung, despite its genealogical connection with Lung Yeuk Tau, was always regarded by Lung Yeuk Tau as a \"poor relation\", and classed with the \"small villages\". Lung Yeuk Tau was, in addition, a member of the Po Tak Temple (#) Old Alliance: this alliance was of the \"major lineages” of the area (Lung Yeuk Tau, Sheung Shui, Ho Sheung Heung, and Tai Hang), and was a specifically gentry body, whose influence was certainly antagonistic to the “small villages\". The Sze Yeuk, therefore, divided into Lung Yeuk Tau to the west, interested mostly in its enmity to Fan Ling, and an eastern group, which had interests to the north.\n\nIn the Shap Yeuk area, Man Uk Pin, the westernmost of the ten or eleven Yeuk of the Shap Yeuk, was also part of the Sze Yeuk, in which organisation it did not form a Yeuk by itself, but was merely a subordinate part of the Loi Tung Yeuk. Man Uk Pin was a long way from Sha Tau Kok market, and, again, looked in a different direction from most of the rest of the Shap Yeuk. To Man Uk Pin the road through the Miu Keng pass was essential, and the villages on the other side of the pass were, therefore, of more interest to it than would have been the case with the other Shap Yeuk villages.\n\nareas\n\n―\n\nPeripheral areas, on the boundaries of the Yeuk inter-village alliance areas, were always more conscious of interests outside the Yeuk areas than villages closer to the centre of local political activity. The Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz is built where the Luk Yeuk, Shap Yeuk, and Sze Yeuk meet. The area is peripheral to the centre of interest of all three Yeuk - the Law Fong bridge, the Sha Tau Kok market, and the river crossing between Lung Yeuk Tau and Fan Ling. The continuing existence of the nunnery committee, and the continuing inter-relationship of the villages holding the six shares of the nunnery, was a standing brake to any attempt by hot-heads to provoke enmity between the three Yeuk alliances as units; if such a thing had happened, the three groups of \"front-line\" villages would have been unlikely to have been very enthusiastic participants. It is probably this factor which led to there never being any outright fighting between these three alliance areas as a whole, despite the Sze Yeuk and Shap Yeuk friendliness with Wong Pui Ling. Equally, the capacity to look for support from outside the Yeuk area must have strengthened the position of Loi Tung, Man Uk Pin, and the Ping Yuen people within their respective Yeuk areas.\n\nThe influence of the Magistrate and the gentry in the area was minimal.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212338, "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": 280, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "257\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nTA KWU LING,\n\nWONG PUI LING AND THE KIM HAU BRIDGES\n\nIn Volume 29 of the Journal, I wrote a paper on the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz, and its place in the history of the Ta Kwu Ling area'. That paper discussed the war which took place about 1860 between the Ta Kwu Ling villages on the one side, and Wong Pui Ling on the other, over the bridges at Kim Hau*. The paper suggested that, before the war, the Cheung clan of Wong Pui Ling both owned the ferries which carried traffic across the two arms of the Sham Chun River at Kim Hau, and was the politically dominant force in the area. The paper suggested that the Ta Kwu Ling villagers were successful in the war, and that the political influence of Wong Pui Ling was rooted out from Ta Kwu Ling, the villagers of that area demonstrating their independence by building bridges over the river crossings on the line of the old Cheung ferries.\n\nRecently, three documents have come to light which show that the dispute between Ta Kwu Ling and Wong Pui Ling was more complex, and lasted longer, than this. The documents in question are a petition to the Provincial Governor of Kwangtung from the Sha Tau Kok (Tung Wo Yeuk) and Ta Kwu Ling (Shing Ping Yeuk) villagers, dated 10th day of the 2nd Moon, 10th Year of the Republic (March, 1921), a second petition from the same group to the Provincial Governor, probably dated about a year later, and a letter in reply to the second petition from the Provincial Governor. These documents show that the second river crossing was only bridged in the mid 1920s, and that enmity and sporadic violence between the Ta Kwu Ling and Wong Pui Ling villagers lasted right through from 1860 until then. A translation of the second petition is given below; the first petition makes the same points, but less fully.'\n\nA Petition from the gentry of the Tung Wo (CFT) and Shing Ping (41) Yeuk of Po On County, Chan Sheung-yan (B469(1)), Lei Tsok-san (†), Ng Wai-kit, (NMLS), Wong Tsuen-tan (EPF) and others, whose place of original residence is legally registered in the tax registers.\n\n* See Map\n\nT", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212340, "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": 282, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "In the matter of the forcible stoppage of work, and the repeated closure of a worksite, a joint presentation of further evidence.\n\nWe cordially request Your Benevolence to send an official to investigate and clarify the position to avoid the situation of a public bridge being destroyed.\n\nThere is a river at Kim Hau (1) which lies between Sham Chun, and Sha Tau Kok and Tai Pang () and so on, and which is on a most important road for anyone travelling from east or west. Everyday thousands of people pass there. The Cheung () clan, living over three li away at Wong Pui Ling (Bai) came in violence and took it for their own, establishing a ferry across the river there for their profit. All this happened years ago.\n\nEveryone coming there, at any time of day, must use the ferry. Bridal parties and funerals have to pay particularly heavy sums. Every Winter the river dries up, and the flow of water reduces, and then people have to wade across with obvious difficulty. Sometimes wooden hand-rails are put up beside the crossing, but these are frequently destroyed, and people are reviled and struck there. Every kind of perverse and unprincipled behaviour can be seen, too frequently to record.\n\nThese many years we the gentry and others have donated cash, and rice to sell at low rates. This is because, when they cannot run the ferry profitably they force the coolies to go into the water to cross; several dozen sacks of rice have been lost here as a result, and we the gentry and others cannot bear to see their suffering. We have been thinking of building a bridge for many years.\n\nLast year Cheung Tsan-tai and Lei Chung-chong (*44) both wealthy men, and others, twice gathered material for construction, but it was deliberately entirely destroyed on both occasions. The people really feared we would have to go back to the original position.\n\n---\n\nPage 259", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212345, "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": 287, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "264\n\nat Law Fong (this bridge is shown on the 1905 War Department map of the area). The villagers of Ta Kwu Ling built their temple at Kim Hau between the two branches of the river. But they were clearly unable to cross the second river. Control of the crossing of this second river, the Sha Wan River, remained with the Cheungs. This was land close to Wong Pui Ling, in the heartland of the Cheungs' territory. It would seem that the Cheungs' ultimate line of defence was the Sha Wan River, and that the Ta Kwu Ling people, despite the heavy loss of life on their side, were unable to breach this. The outcome of the 1860 war was, therefore, a compromise, with one branch of the river bridged, but one left with a ferry, and with the Cheung political power destroyed in the one area, but not the other.\n\nIt is, however, clear from the petition that the Ta Kwu Ling people had not accepted this compromise outcome, but were eager to reopen the question, to complete the freeing of their road to market from Cheung control. For how many years the Ta Kwu Ling elders collected cash for their project is unclear, but it is likely that a decade or more was spent. Probably, the cost of the 1860 war made it imperative for the Ta Kwu Ling villagers to recoup their finances for at least a generation before they were able to contemplate a **second round**.\n\nIt is interesting to see just how uncompromising the two sides were in this 1921-1922 dispute, and how determined the Ta Kwu Ling people were to eradicate this last Cheung stronghold on their road to market. It is equally interesting to see with what contempt the Ta Kwu Ling villagers treated the County Magistrate and his order: as soon as it was issued they treated it as \"stupid and muddled\", ignored it, and continued as though it had not been issued. What is more, they were willing, with their talk of a \"fighting with guns\" and consequences \"that cannot bear being thought about\" at least to hint that, if the Provincial Governor failed to give them what they wanted, they would go to war.\n\nThe Sha Tau Kok villagers had not supported the Ta Kwu Ling villagers in 1860, but the road from Sha Tau Kok to Sham Chun was vital to the Sha Tau Kok people, and, clearly, by 1921 they had come round to accepting that nothing but the removal of all Cheung controls would do. The first petition makes it clear that the Sha Tau Kok", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212346, "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": 288, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "265\n\nKok and Ta Kwu Ling people had established a trust to collect cash and construct this bridge: Chan Sheung-yan (of Luk Keng in the Sha Tau Kok area), and Lei Tsok-san (of Lei Uk in the Ta Kwu Ling area) were the two Chief Managers of this trust, representing the totality of the people of the two areas.\n\nP.H. HASE\n\nI\n\nNOTES\n\n\"Cheang Shan Kwa Tsz. An Old Buddhist Nunnery in the New Territories, and its Place in Local Society”, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 29, 1989, pp 121-158.\n\nThe documents are contained in a recently recovered genealogy of the Chan clan of Luk Keng. I understand that a copy of this genealogy will be placed on record in the collection of Hong Kong historical documents held at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in due course. I am indebted to Mr. Chan Wing-hoi for drawing my attention to these documents.\n\nII\n\nI am indebted to Mr. P.L. Lau for assistance in the translation of this document.\n\nThe Sha Wan River, unlike the main branch of the Sham Chun River, which flows in a deep and well-defined channel, was a shallow and ill-defined stream, which meandered through a broad valley which it often flooded. This river has now been dammed off to form the Shen Zhen Reservoir.\n\nSee the paper at n. 1 for details of the loss of life in this War.\n\nA VILLAGE WAR IN SHAM CHUN\n\nThe Rev. Carl Smith has drawn attention to the great wealth of material available in the Basel Mission Archive on the history of the Hakka people of Kwangtung Province. When looking through his notes and summaries of important documents I saw a summary of an important document on an inter-village war in Sham Chun (深圳). Through the courtesy of the Mission Archive, a photostat of the document was received, translated, and is published below.\n\nSham Chun lies at the centre of a broad and fertile valley, drained by the Sham Chun River. This river has four main tributaries: the stream which drains the Ta Kwu Ling valley (this stream is considered as the headstream of the main river), the Sha Wan River, which joins the first stream at Kim Hau (or) at the entrance to Ta Kwu Ling, the Sheung Yue (or Beas) River which drains the Sheung Shui/Lung Yeuk Tau area and which enters the main river", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212347, "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": 289, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "266\n\nabout a mile below the Sha Wan River, and finally the Ching Shui River which drains the northern part of the valley from Po Kat (Buji) down, and which enters about half-a-mile below the Sheung Yue River. The main river is navigable for small skiffs as far as Kim Hau, but for junks only as far as the confluence of the main river and the Ching Shui River. However, the river at the mouth of the Ching Shui River is not navigable for junks at low tide. Furthermore, the navigable part of the river is not wide enough for a junk to turn around in easily when under sail. The Ching Shui River, at the junction with the main river, splits into two branches, with a low, marshy island between them and the main river.* Junks could come up the main river, enter the Ching Shui River, pass behind the marshy island, and back into the main river via the second branch of the stream, thus turning round without cutting across the channel, using a \"one-way\" system. The landing place used by the cargo junks and ferry boats, therefore, was the channel of the Ching Shui River behind the island. Junks would come up the river with the tide, and would load and unload while at rest on the mud at low tide, and would cast off and go down the river with the next high tide. Three significant roads pass through the valley, crossing at Sham Chun: the Yuen Long to Wai Chow (Huichou), Nam Tau (Nantou) to Sha Tau Kok, and Po Kat to Kowloon roads.\n\nIn the Ming, this valley had a number of markets, of which Sham Chun was only one. There was another at Kim Hau, and others to the west, including one at Lung Tsun Hui (Longjinxu), which was part of the Fuk Tin (Futian) village cluster. By the nineteenth century, however, all these other markets had either become extinct, or else survived only in a very small way as satellites of Sham Chun. Sham Chun had developed until it had become a very large market, with probably 500 and more shops. The market was ringed by large villages of rich clans—the Cheungs at Wong Pui Ling (Huangbeiling) about a mile to the east, the Tsois at Tsoi Uk Wai (Caiwuwei) about half a mile to the south-west, the Wongs at Fuk Tin about a mile to the south-west, the Yuens at Lo Wu (Lohu) about half a mile to the south and the Hos at Sun Kong (Sungang) about half a mile to the north. These rich and ancient clans were almost perennially in dispute, as they jostled for power and position in the district.\n\n* See Map.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212360, "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": 302, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "TABLE 1: VILLAGE WARS IN THE HONG KONG AREA\n\n279\n\n \n Antagonist\n Lo Wu\n Antagonist\n Tsoi Uk Wai\n \n \n Date\n Source\n Comment\n \n \n \n 18.36\n Above\n Over control of landing place\n \n \n \n Lo Wu\n Wong Pui Ling\n 1856-75\n Ahove\n \n \n Ta Kwu Ling\n Wong Pui Ling\n TRGON\n Hase 1989\n \n \n Sheung Shui\n Wong Pui Ling\n VERSOS\n Baker 1967 1979\n \n \n Sheung Shui\n Ho Sheung Heng\n long-term\n Baker 1966\n \n \n \n \n Over control of landing place\n \n \n \n \n \n Over control of river-crossings. 23 dead on TKL side alone. Hero shrine.\n \n \n \n \n \n Over control of irrigation systems\n \n \n \n San Tin\n Ping Kong\n 1851\n \n \n \n Kam Tsin\n Baker 1966 1968\n \n \n \n \n San Tin\n Ping Shan\n 1851\n Baker 1968\n \n \n Hero Shrine\n \n \n \n \n \n Shup Pat Heung\n San Tim\n Ping Shan\n 1851\n \n \n Watson 1982\n \n Over control of ferries\n \n \n \n Ha Tsuen\n \n \n Baker 1968\n \n \n Sha Tseng\n Pok Tau Kong\n 185.3\n Krone (above)\n \n \n Po Kat\n neighbours\n 1853-\n Above\n \n \n Sheung Shun\n Fanling\n long-term\n \n \n \n Ping Kong\n Fanling\n \n Baker 1966\n \n \n \n \n Over control of market\n \n \n \n \n \n Earthwall on border\n \n \n \n Ho Sheung Heung\n Long Yeak Tho\n Fanling\n long-term Oral\n \n \n Par Fleung\n ?Kam Tia\n Tinid 19\n \n \n \n Hero Shrine\n \n \n \n \n \n Sheung Tsuen\n Wang Tei Shan\n 2nud (19\n Oral\n \n \n Lam Tsuen\n \n \n \n \n \n Hero Shrine\n \n \n \n \n \n Tsuen Wan\n Shing Mun\n \n \n \n \n Tsim Sha Tsui\n neighbours\n \n \n \n \n Tai Wai\n Cheung Sha Wan\n \n \n \n \n Keng tam\n \n 1862-4\n \n \n \n \n \n 1862\n mid-late c19\n \n \n Haves 1983\n \n Hero Shrines\n \n \n \n Hayes 1983\n \n \n \n \n \n Paure 1986\n \n Hero Shrine\n \n \n \n Kak Tin\n Shek Pik\n \n \n \n \n Sha Lo Wan\n \n נִי\n \n \n \n Hayes 1983\n \n \n \n \n \n Pui O San Tsuen\n Pui O La Wai\n 1930\n Hayes 1983\n \n \n Kam Tin\n Ping Shan\n \n Chan 1989\n \n \n Heroes worshipped\n \n \n \n \n \n Pat Heung\n Kam Tiu\n Ping Shan\n long-term\n \n \n mid c19\n \n Chan 1989\n \n \n\n#\n\n[Baker 1966 = \"The Five Great Clans of the New Territories\", H.D.R. Baker, Journal. Vol. 6, 1966, pp. 25-49; Baker 1968 = H.D.R. Baker, Sheung Shui: A Chinese Lineage Village, London, 1968; Baker 1979 H.D.R. Baker, Chinese Family and Kinship, London 1979; Faure 1986 = D. Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society: Lineage and Village in the Eastern New Territories, Hong Kong, 1986; Hayes 1983 = J.W Hayes. The Rural Communities of Hong Kong: Studies anet Themes, Hong Kong. 1983; Watson 1982 = Rubic S. Watson \"The Creation of a Chinese Lineage: The Teng of Ha Tsuen, 1669-1751\", Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 16(1). 1982 pp 69-108; Chan 1989 = \"The Tangs of Kam Tin and their Jio Festival\", Chan Wing-hoi, Journal, Vol 29, 1989. pp. 302-376.]", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212362, "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": 304, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "281\n\nSee P.H. Hase “The Cheung Shan Kwu Ts'un: an Ancient Buddhist Nunnery in the New Territories, and its Place in Local Society”, in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 29, 1989, pp. 121-157.\n\nJournal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 7, 1967, pp. 104-137, reprinted from Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 6, 1859, pp. 71-105.\n\nDer Evangelische Heidenbote, Jan. 1862.\n\nSee also P.H. Hase \"Ta Kwu Ling, Wong Pui Ling, and the Kim Hau Bridges\" elsewhere in this issue.\n\nKrone, loc. cit. says that missionaries were usually treated as neutral and ignored in fighting.\n\nDer Evangelische Heidenbote, Feb. 1906.\n\nSHA TAU KOK IN 1853\n\nThe Rev. Carl Smith drew my attention some time ago to the wealth of material available in the Basel Mission Archive on Sha Tau Kok in the middle of the nineteenth century. Through the courtesy of the Mission Archive, photostats of a number of documents were received and studied. Among them was a most interesting general description of the District and Market at Sha Tau Kok dating from 1853. Given its general interest, a translation of this document is printed below. Comments in square brackets are editorial clarifications.\n\n\"Tungfo.\n\nTungfo* | Tung Wo, 41, the formal name of Sha Tau Kok Market station is situated in the Province of Quang-tung [Kwangtung], in the District of Sinon [San On #1. The southern border of this District is formed by the China Sea, whereas, to the east and west, the borders are formed by inlets of this sea. The western inlet is the larger, although it is too small to be called a gulf. The English call it the \"Canton River\". The city of Canton is situated on this estuary. Because of the Canton River, traffic between Canton and Hong Kong is very easy, and\n\n* All placenames in this document are given in the original Hakka transcription. Placenames in Hong Kong are also given in square brackets according to the Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories; placenames in China are also given in square brackets in Cantonese transcription and characters.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212363, "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": 305, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "282\n\nevery week two or three ships travel via Macao to Canton and back again. The small eastern inlet is called Mirs Bay. The western coast of this bay is very broken and rugged. About half way along, a stretch of water shaped like an arm leads off to the west, with fingers which seem to stretch out in different directions (Tolo Harbour). The mainland to the north of Mirs Bay acts like a dam, so that the water cannot penetrate further in that direction; it is forced to turn west where it peters out into sandbanks. This inlet to the west [Sha Tau Kok Hoi] is only used, in practice, by Chinese passenger ferries, cargo ships, and fishing boats.\n\nBetween these two inlets, the Canton River and Mirs Bay, lies the Sinon District, which stretches for a distance equal to about 12-13 hours' walk towards the north from the sea. The width of this District differs from place to place because of the irregular coasts of Mirs Bay to the east and the Canton River to the west. At its widest, the District is 14-15 hours' walk wide, whereas at its narrowest it is only 2-3 hours' walk wide. The inhabitants of the region are mostly Hakkas, but you can also find Puntis, who form a majority especially in the north-western part of the District. Two of the towns are seats of Mandarins, that is, Kaulung [Kowloon] and Namtao [Namtau]. Kaulung is a fortress, situated on the mainland, just opposite Hong Kong. It is occupied by a Mandarin of a lower rank. The Mandarin who is in charge of the whole of Sinon District resides in Namtao, a place on the east coast of the Canton River.\n\nTungfo station is situated in the north-eastern part of Sinon District, on the northern coast of the previously mentioned arm of Mirs Bay, where the waters are turned west and come to an end. The geographical position is, according to mathematical calculations, about 131°54' east longitude, and 22°33′ north latitude. It is 9-10 hours' walk from Hong Kong, and lies in a northerly direction from there. The station can be reached from Hong Kong by two routes only. One route is by water, the second mostly by land. If you choose to travel to Tungfo by the water route, you have to travel first by the China Sea, and then, for", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213103, "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-1993", "page_number": 171, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "153\n\nwas dangerously exposed to storms behind low and flimsy buns. This little temple almost certainly dates from the original reclamation for the saltpans.\n\nThe ferry pier and the Tin Hau Temple were built on the foreshore, about 200 yards from the town proper. Chan Hip-tsun and the other elders of the Shap Yeuk had designed the town proper as an approximately square walled enclosure, with two east-west streets, joined by a north-south street somewhat east of the centre of the town.* The town had four gates, two each to the east and the west. The most important was the Upper East Gate, which faced the fine three-span granite bridge built by the Shap Yeuk over the often violent waters of the Sha Tau Kok River,\n\nThe Shap Yeuk had built the walls and roads of their new market, but the shop units were built by investors from villages of the Shap Yeuk area willing to take them up. These investors then built over their lot, from the road back to the already completed wall.\n\nOnce the Shap Yeuk had succeeded in their political aims of freeing their district from the influence of outsiders, and had founded their market and its temple, they thereafter ran the district and market through the Council of the Shap Yeuk (the Tung Wo Kuk, \"The Council for Peace in the East\"). The day-to-day management of the market was handled by a Headman, appointed by the Tung Wo Kuk. He adjudicated minor disputes, and had at his disposal certain trust funds, and the income from the ferry tender, and from rent of the town weigh-beam. He let tenders to sweep the streets (the street-sweeper was expected to reimburse himself from the sale of the wastes as fertiliser), and supervised the Town Watch, recruited from youngsters of the surrounding villages, whose job was to maintain order, especially at night. The Council of the Shap Yeuk, the Headman, and the Town Watch, are all mentioned by the Basel missionaries in the 1850s, and there can be no doubt that the management structure of the town and district was in place from the first foundation of the town.\n\nThe market founded by the Shap Yeuk was called by them Tung Wo Market, “Eastern Peace Market”, but it was more usually\n\n1\n\n* See Map 2, taken from a map of 1853 prepared by the Basel missionaries.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213105, "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-1993", "page_number": 173, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "155\n\nto the front of the school building, to double the defences of the bridge, probably some time in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.\n\n27\n\nThe building of the gun-towers, the school, the Man Mo Temple and Meeting Hall, and the communal grave, is evidence for the prosperity and vitality of the town, and the village society in which it was set, in the later nineteenth century. By 1904, the market had about doubled in size, and in the number of shops operating, from its situation fifty years earlier. From its foundation in 1830-1835, in fact, the prosperity of the town seems to have increased steadily until 1898, with the only check being the very temporary set-back of the Taiping attack.\n\nThe Market and the New Frontier\n\nThe leasing of the New Territories to Great Britain in 1898 was traumatic for the villagers of the Sha Tau Kok area. The line originally proposed for the new frontier would have run along the Sha Tau Kok River from source to sea. This would have put two of the eleven village alliance areas of the Shap Yeuk into China, the market and the other village alliance areas into the New Territories. This was unacceptable to the Chinese authorities, who were unwilling to allow so significant a place as Sha Tau Kok to become part of the area administered by Britain. Eventually it was agreed that the frontier should run along the Sha Tau Kok River from the source down to the Sha Tau Kok bridge, and then be diverted from the bridge down the centre of the bridge access road to the sluice at Yim Liu Ha, then in a straight line to the sea, and thence east along the high-water mark to the mouth of Mirs Bay.* This line was drawn very close to the northern and western edges of the market. As such it isolated the market from the rest of Chinese territory; its only access was either over the bridge, which was half in Hong Kong, or through Hong Kong territory, or by sea through Hong Kong waters.\n\nIn the late nineteenth century, China controlled imports and exports through customs regulations, enforced by the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service. By the drawing of the frontier where it eventually was, the normal, day-to-day trade of Sha Tau Kok market suddenly found itself\n\n* See Map 4.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213115, "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-1993", "page_number": 183, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "The road and terry junction in this area attracted attention from the military authorities from an early date. While the Salt Commission and the Pearl Monopoly were active in Mars Bay, law and order were probably maintained by the special salt and pearl troops. After these were withdrawn, a military post was established at Shek Chung Au, with a watchtower nearby. This was close to the Wu Shek Kok ferry pier, and near to the road junction at Wo Hang Au. Other troops were established at Yim Tin. In various formulations and strengths, this military position remained at Shek Chung Au for several hundred years, until the mid-nineteenth century - eloquent testimony to the continuing importance of this traffic node.\n\nSha Tau Kok's position in the road system of the area gave it two economic advantages. The first was the Sha Yue Chung Ferry. There was only one a day in the early twentieth century, and this can safely be assumed to have been the case earlier as well. Many travellers, therefore, would be obliged to spend the night in Sha Tau Kok, or at least several hours, waiting for the ferry, and, if the weather was bad, these enforced waits could stretch out to several days. There was, as a result, plenty of opportunity for merchants in the town to profit from servicing travellers held up there. As noted already, in the 1920s Sha Tau Kok had more guesthouses, restaurants, and entertainment facilities than most towns in the area, and although most of those facilities were new, servicing the new frontier garrison and Customs staff, some at least were certainly a feature of the town from an earlier period.\n\nThe other great economic advantage was the geographical location of Sha Tau Kok in relation to Sham Chun. Sham Chun was at the head of navigation on the Sham Chun River, and was a busy port for the small junks that came up the river from Deep Bay. Sham Chun was, therefore, well located as far as water-borne traffic from the west went. But Sham Chun had no water route to the east, to Mirs Bay. By sea from Sham Chun to Sha Tau Kok is a good hundred miles: by land, barely seven. There were three important commodities not available in the Deep Bay area which could be had from the Mirs Bay area - rice, some sorts of quality fresh fish, and salt. Sha Tau Kok was, in effect, the port of Sham Chun to the east, where these commodities in particular were landed, and then carried by coolies over the Miu Keng pass to Sham Chun.\n\nMirs Bay was usually - despite occasional famines - a rice surplus area. The Sham Chun and Deep Bay area was a rice shortage area, even", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213116, "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-1993", "page_number": 184, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "166\n\nIn good years, like so much of the more heavily populated parts of Kwangtung. In the nineteenth century the Canton and Pearl River areas made up their shortfalls in rice, to a large extent, by imports from outside Kwangtung, but the Sham Chun area was not well placed, and had no deep-water harbours capable of taking ships larger than small junks, and so was not able to use imported rice to the same degree as those more metropolitan areas. For Sham Chun, rice carried from Sha Tau Kok was a matter of life and death. The anti-Customs extract printed above specifically notes problems when 'at the harvest... the crop was carried across the frontier': this was a routine local activity. Salt was less critical, but still important. Most of the salt produced at Sha Tau Kok was carried to Sham Chun for sale, and through Sham Chun to the other significant markets between Sham Chun and the East River. Fresh fish were a luxury. There were plenty of fish in the Deep Bay area, but that bay is shallow and muddy - poor for those species which prefer clean, deep water with a rocky bottom, like garoupas and coral fish. Mirs Bay is deep and full of rocks and coral, its waters are clear and fast moving, and full of high quality fish. These fish, landed at Sha Tau Kok at first light, could be at Sham Chun by nine or ten in the morning, still fresh. A similar carrying trade in fresh fish linked Sha Tau Kok with the markets at Po Kat and Wang Kong.\n\nMost of the fishing ports in the Hong Kong area dealt primarily in dried fish, landed and dried at the port, and then carried inland to be sold at those inland markets far from the sea. Sha Tau Kok was unusual in having a fish trade predominantly in fresh fish, although, of course, some fish were dried there as well. This double trade, in fresh and dried fish, was already established by 1853, as the Basel missionaries make clear:\n\n'A number of people make a sparse livelihood from fishing. They either sell the fish immediately, or dry them first in the sun, and then salt them, which is a method of preserving them for a longer time, and then sell them as salt fish,' 53\n\nThis trade in rice, salt, and fish carried by coolies to the bigger market seven miles away was what made Sha Tau Kok prosperous. It was a surprisingly large trade - about 200-250 tons a month, rising to 400 tons in peak periods, were carried from Sha Tau Kok to Sham Chun in the early twentieth century, while total traffic on the Sham Chun road averaged 20,000 travellers and more a month, and double that at peak periods", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213134, "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-1993", "page_number": 202, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "184\n\npreoccupied with the fuel trade to have any spare time to enter the carrying trade.\n\nEspecially in the 1930s, one of the biggest coolie trades was smuggling, although it was of significance earlier as well. Villagers smuggled their own purchases back over the frontier (the bridge carrying the footpath over the border river near the Sha Tsui temple was a commonly used route, as it was not continuously guarded by the Customs), but bulk smuggling (mostly of sugar, kerosene, tobacco, and also opium) was organised by the shops in the market, especially the tobacco dealers. These treated their trade as any other carrying trade, with village women being hired ad hoc to carry loads to customers across the frontier, or across the lines to Sha Yue Chung. Most village women active in the coolie trade took part in this smuggling business.\n\nThe society of the market at Sha Tau Kok was entirely dominated by the local Hakka of the surrounding villages. The Tanka - the boat people - were, as always, regarded as somewhat second-class, even though their presence was essential to the economic success of the town. The perceived inferiority of the boat-people may well be the reason that few of them lived in the market at Sha Tau Kok: they preferred to live at Kat O, a few miles off-shore, outside the Shap Yeuk area.\n\nEven more regarded as second-class, however, were the Hoklo saltworkers. These groups of workers, living for the term of their contract away from their families in their miserable huts on the saltpans, had no status at all. Of the total population of the town, perhaps as many as one fifth were saltworkers (assuming five workers per salt-works). The Hakka villagers owned the salt-works, but left them entirely to the contract overseer and his hired staff, so long as the rent was paid. No-one remembers the names of any of these salt-workers, nor can anyone remember any marriages between local Hakka or Tanka girls and these Hoklo labourers. The villagers kept away from them, and their only contact was the exchange of fuel or vegetables for salt at Yim Liu Ha. The salt-workers were important to the economy of the town, but they were treated as being the very bottom of the social scale.\n\nAt the other end of the social scale were the teachers at the Tung Wo School. The Shap Yeuk elders had wanted to ensure that the district had at least one first quality school, and had consequently built the school to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213137, "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-1993", "page_number": 205, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "Year \n\nEvent \n\nSource \n\n1919 \n\n8 serious cross-border armed robberies. The Customs Stations closed in 1918 re-opened (August). \n\nAR JLHG \n\n1920 \n\nRefugees flee to New Territories from communal fighting in border area. Assisted cross-border crimes increase. Sha Yue Chung Customs Station sacked by bandits. \n\nAR \n\n1921 \n\nIncrease in smuggling native tobacco from China. 4 piracies (including of the Sha Yue Chung Ferry). Further armed cross-border banditry. \n\nAR \n\n1922 \n\n2 piracies on the Sha Yue Chung Ferry. Fighting between pirate bands in Mirs Bay. \n\nAR \n\n1923 \n\nLarge increase in smuggling, due to disturbances in the border area. Serious cross-border armed raids, an execution in China as a result. \n\nAR \n\n1924 \n\nUnsettled conditions, due to continuous fighting between Sun and Chen Faction armies for control of district. Upsurge in cross-border crime, including 8 armed raids, some mounted by Chinese irregular soldiers. \n\nAR \n\n1925 \n\nBoycott causes considerable trouble in Sha Tau Kok. Huge crime wave of cross-border crime. \"Quite 90% of crimes committed in the New Territories could be traced to persons coming from over the border\". Sinkers enter and terrorise New Territories villages. British troops sent to Sha Tau Kok to restore order. Hoi Luk Fung Soviet rebellion affects Mirs Bay area. \n\nJLHG \n\n1926 \n\nConditions better, but disturbed conditions across the border lead to boom in New Territories because of the number of refugees seeking houses. Many matsheds erected for refugees. Heavier border policing needed. Mirs Bay fishermen unable to fish except close inshore because of \"disturbed conditions\". \n\nAR \n\n1927 \n\nConditions better, but still troubled near border. Attempted piracy of Tolo Harbour ferry junk. Heavier policing of Sha Tau Kok border area reduces cross-border crime. Border patrol constructed in New Territories. \n\nAR \n\n1928 \n\nIncrease in smuggling. Violence against recent refugee arrivals in New Territories. Chinese irregulars replaced by regulars and disciplined at Sha Tau Kok – Major piracy in Mirs Bay (\"Fean\" case). Hoi Luk Fung Soviet rebellion affects Mirs Bay area. \n\nASR \n\n1929 \n\nCustoms seek major increase in staff because of increased smuggling (every year until late 1910s). Much better conditions on border because of better policing on Chinese side of border. \n\nAR \n\n1930 \n\nIncrease in smuggling. Kai Miu Customs Station sacked by bandits. \n\nAR, JLHG \n\n1931 \n\nIncrease in smuggling, especially sugar. Sha Tau Customs Station sacked by bandits. 2 Battles with smugglers off entrance to Pearl River (\"Loser Maru\" case). Inadequate customs staff members leads to problems. \n\nAR JLHG \n\n1932 \n\nIncrease in smuggling, especially sugar and cloth. Smuggling on Railway a growing problem. Smuggling through Lok Ma Chau and Sheung Shui a growing problem. Smuggling on Shan Chun River a growing problem. Kai Chung Customs Station sacked by bandits. Gun battles with smugglers at Law Fong (twice), Chek Mei, Man Kam To. \n\nAR, JLHG \n\n187", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213147, "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-1993", "page_number": 215, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "197\n\nconditions, under which the pickets contented themselves with exacting 'squeeze' from the local trade over the border1. Administrative Reports for the Year 1925, Appendix J, \"Report on the New Territories for the Year 1925\", p. J2. In Administrative Reports for the Year 1926, App J, \"Report on the New Territories for 1926\", p. J3, the District Officer notes that the fishermen in Mirs Bay suffered particularly seriously from the boycott, as they were unable to fish except close inshore, because of the \"disturbed conditions”.\n\nThese Communist guerrillas had appeared in various parts of the East River area since at least 1925. They were the direct descendants of the rebels who had operated near Yim Tin in the first decade of the century, and were closely related to the groups who took over the Hoi-Luk Fung area to form the \"Hoi-Luk Fung Soviet\" on three separate occasions between 1925 and 1928. They were the original nucleus of the \"East River Guerrillas\" of the war years and just after.\n\n40 The agreement specified that goods for the guerrillas would be treated as duty-free.\n\n41 Juntonghanguan Bainian Dashup, op cit passim.\n\n42. The son of the executed man had committed a robbery in the market, and left a \"paper\" at the scene of the crime which implicated him. He had fled back to his home near Yim Tin, where the soldiers could not get at him. So they took the father and shot him instead, behind the Man To Temple in the market, in the presence of most of the district's young people. The fact that the son fled to the rebel-held area, and the \"paper\" left at the scene, suggests that the robbery was politically motivated, and the execution, too.\n\n43 Shatoupaode Lishe, op cit.\n\n44 Administrative Reports for the Year 1910, Appendix I, \"Report on the New Territories\", p. 16. The bulk of the Sha Tau Kok marketing district was in the New Territories, and there was a satellite market at Yim Tin, which could service the part of the marketing district in China if the Sha Tau Kok market did cross the frontier.\n\n45 Administrative Reports for the Year 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934, Appendices J, pp. J8 (and Table IV), J3, J2, and J17 (and Table IX), respectively.\n\n46 Administrative Reports for the Year 1937, Appendix J, pp. J7-10. \"The typhoon of September the 2nd will long be remembered in the eastern parts of this District, where it caused much damage and suffering. Unfortunately, the height of the gale coincided with a very high tide, so that the swollen waters of Mirs Bay were driven with double force westward up Starling Inlet, whence they had no outlet. The sea rose, about 2-5 am, in places 20 feet and more higher than it had been known to rise for many decades. The resultant damage was astonishing. All round the shores of Starling Inlet roads, bridges, paths, piers, and bunds were breached and broken up, and buildings overthrown.\n\nAll the big bunds on Starling Inlet were [almost wholly overthrown].\n\nCasualties were heavy, about 100 in \"Brush\" Sha Tau Kok.\n\nAt Sha Tau Kok the Officer in Charge of the Police Station displayed initiative in [getting the dead buried, animal corpses burned, and obstructions cleared] and in arranging for a supply of rice and peanut oil from Kowloon, which broke a ring at Sha Tau Kok Market who had greatly raised the prices of these two.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213605, "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": 201, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "173\n\nwith a strong visible presence along the colony's first line of defence.\n\nA very comprehensive description of the new observation posts was given in an article by Sub-Inspector M.E. Davis* which appeared in the HK Police Magazine in December 1953:\n\n\"The land frontier of the Colony of Hong Kong extends from Mirs Bay in the East, to Deep Bay in the West, following for the most part the tortuous course of the Shum Chun river. The country is intensely varied. The arable plain at Sha Tau Kok soon gives place to rugged mountains and deep gorges, which gradually fall away until the extensive marshy tracts near Mai Po are reached. Along the border for 16 miles of the length runs the frontier fence. It is, without any overstatement, difficult territory. The frontier area forms part of the New Territories Division of the Hong Kong Police Force, and is commanded by Mr. N.B. Fraser, M.B.E., Senior Superintendent of Police. One of the most important of the several methods of border control in effect in this area is the operation of a chain of Observation Posts\n\nThere are seven of these posts in the chain, covering the whole of the land frontier. Each is within sight of one or more of its neighbouring posts. All are accessible from the frontier road, or by means of jeep track from the roads. Most are located on prominent hill features which gives them an excellent field of observation. The elevation of the highest is over 700' above sea level. The frontier is divided into three sections, each with its complement of observation posts, which are controlled by a parent station in each section. From East to West the stations are Sha Tau Kok, Ta Ku Ling and Lok Ma Chau. The first has only one post, Pak Kung Au, under its control. Ta Ku Ling, the central and largest area has four, Kong Shan, Pak Fa Shan, Nga Yiu and Nam Hang. On the Western flank Ma Cho Lung and Pak Hok Chau posts are controlled by Lok Ma Chau\n\nThe posts are all almost identical in construction. Centrally there is a round, two storied, tower, and jutting from its sides are two long, one storied arms. The plan of the whole is roughly in the shape of a chevron. The upper storey of the tower is the Control Room, equipped\n\n* Deceased-Editor", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 } ]