RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 174 BURKHARDT, Col. V. R. - 86, Main Street, Stanley, H.K. BURTON, Miss Jill V. BUTT, Dr. Nancy S. G. - BUXEY, Miss M. J. BYRNE, D. J. CALCINA, P. G.* CAMERON, N. CAPLAN, M. · CAREY-HUGHES, Dr. J. CASHMORE, Miss M. CATER, J.- CHAMBERS, J. W. CHAN, Gilbert Fook-lam CHAN, Leonard CHAN, William Hok-Lam CHAPMAN, Dr. G. W. CHAU, Hon. Sir Tsun-nin* CHEN, Prof. Cheng-siang CHEN, Ching-Ho CHEN, Yih CHENG, Dr. Irene CHENG, T. C. CHESTERMAN, Prof. W. D. CHEUNG, Oswald CHING, Henry CHING, Joseph CHIU, Miss B. T. - 807 The Hermitage, MacDonnell Road, H.K, The Grantham Hospital, Wong Chuk Hang, Aberdeen, H.K. Flat 201 Sisters' Qtrs., King's Park House, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Kowloon. P. O. Box 981, Nassau, Bahamas, Commercial Investment Co., Ltd., Union House, 12th floor, H.K. A-9 Repulse Bay Towers, Repulse Bay Road, H.K. 6, Homantin Hill Road, Kowloon. Room 315 Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank Building, H.K. 3 Peak Pavilions, Mt. Kellett Road, H.K. c/o Colonial Secretariat, H.K. La Belle Mansion, 118-120 Argyle Street, 7th floor, Flat A, Kowloon, c/o Pfizer Eastern Corporation, G.P.O. Box 2513, Bangkok, Thailand. 3327 Graduate College, Princeton University, Princeton, N.Y., U.S.A. c/o The Nethersole Hospital, Bonham Rd., H.K. 8 Queen's Road, West, Hong Kong, Dept. of Geography, United College, 9 Bonham Road, H.K. New Asia College, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 6 Farm Road, Kowloon. 406A Bank of East Asia Building, H.K. c/o Confucian Tai Shing School, N.K.I.L. No. 4405, San Po Kong, Kowloon, United College, Bonham Road, H.K. 4. University Path, Pokfulum, H.K. Room 703, Prince's Building, H.K. 9 Village Road, 1st floor, H.K. Flat 8, 12th Floor, 91 Dundas Street, Kowloon. 3, Kidderpore Gdns., London, N.W.3., England. • Life Member Please notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy Page 180 Page 181 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g NOTES AND QUERIES 161 VISIT TO PLACES OF HISTORIC INTEREST IN THE ABERDEEN AREA OF HONG KONG ISLAND As mentioned in the President's Report printed at the beginning of this volume, this visit took place on 1 April 1967. Nearly 150 members took part, despite the threatening weather, and were rewarded for their persistence by being caught in the open by the first recorded hail-storm for twenty-seven years. The notes prepared for the visit are reproduced here. I. AN EARLY HONG KONG MILESTONE One of the early granite milestones of Hong Kong has recently been re-discovered near Aberdeen. It is located on a forgotten and now disused stretch of the original military road from Town to Aberdeen, opened in the first few years after the establishment of the Colony in 1841. It was brought to light through information given by Mr. TONG Kai (), aged 45, of Pokfulam Village. Mr. TONG used to live in the hut which has been built on the site of the milestone. One-third of the stone is actually embedded in the outer wall of the house. This section of the road was only part of the new round-the-island road system. The annual Colonial Reports on Hong Kong for 1845-46 mention the road. Eighteen miles out of twenty-three were reported completed in the 1845 report. Work had begun on the remaining 5 miles by the time the 1846 report was ready for signature. "For purposes of military protection as well as Police, and for the general traffic and internal communications of the Colony," said the report, "this road is essential". The circular road was not wholly ascribable to the English engineers, as some part of it had already been made by the Chinese and was improved and enlarged. So far as is known, it is the only survivor of the milestones on this route. When G. R. Sayer wrote his Hong Kong, Birth, Adolescence and Coming of Age published by the Oxford University Press in 1937, there were still six of them in situ—the third and fourth starting from town towards Stanley and the second, third, fourth, and fifth along the road to Aberdeen. This is the only one I have been able to trace, except for one at the Upper Tai Tam Reservoir on the old road to Stanley. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 164 NOTES AND QUERIES (a) the New Village was built entirely by inhabitants of the old village; (b) two of the houses in the New Village were built 1860-70 and some earlier, some later; (c) many families owned houses in each village; (d) many families owned 2 or 3 houses; (e) none of the cultivated land in the valley was (1893) owned by outsiders: (f) one of the villagers had been away in Singapore for over 10 years, another (most likely the future Sir Shou-son CHOW) was in Shanghai and one was “a cook for an Englishman”.12 The People of the Villages. The inhabitants of the two villages were all Cantonese, as opposed to Hakka etc.13 There were five clans in 1893. The CHOW family accounted for most of the Old Village and part of the New Village. This clan is of particular interest to us because Sir Shou-son CHOW, the well-known leader of the Chinese community before the war, was one of its members (see below). This lineage has other branches in several villages on Lamma Island, to which they seem to have migrated from Hong Kong. The other old families in the two villages came from clans whose main settlements are to-day still in Pokfulam on Hong Kong Island and other villages on Lamma. The marriages of those surviving old people in the village born in the decades 1880-1900 still reflect the close ties of family and village which bound together the scattered settlements of old Hong Kong. Enquiry showed another aspect of this unity, i.e. the participation of the two villages and the old village of Wong Nei Chung - with whose people they were related by marriage - in the series of ten yearly Ta Chiu or Pacification of Spirits ceremonies which appear to have been held regularly up to 50 or 60 years ago and in which my informants participated on several occasions in their youth. Origin of the Name Hong Kong. According to Prof. LO Hsiang-lin of Hong Kong University, the name Hong Kong means "incense port" and the village along the northern shore of the present Aberdeen, "extending as far as the present settlement of Little Hong Kong", once acted (in Ming and early Manchu ...) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g NOTES AND QUERIES 165 times) as the sole export agent for producers of a special kind of incense which, then as now, was widely used for ritual worship in temples and in the home. Incense is said to have been shipped to Aberdeen by sea from Kowloon Point, to which it had been brought from various parts of the San On and Tung Kwun districts. It was then re-shipped in large trading vessels to Canton, from which it was carried overland to the north to such cities as Soochow. (It is not entirely clear to me why such a round-about route was taken to bring incense to Canton.) The cultivation and trade in this specially-favoured type of incense is said to have received a fatal blow in the early Ching period when the government evacuated the coastal areas to deny the aid and collaboration of their inhabitants to the anti-Manchu ruler of Formosa and his sympathisers.14 Sir Show-son CHOW (1861 - 1959). Sir Show-son CHOW who died only a few years ago, at a great age, was one of the most famous members of the Hong Kong community. He was truly a local man as his ancestors had lived in Little Hong Kong for several hundred years. His successful career, though the result of his own merits, was made possible through his father, whose abilities removed him from a farming village to the business centre of Canton and the position of compradore to the Hong Kong and Canton Steamship Company. He was in business in Canton and it was there that his son, the future Sir Show-son, was educated. By reason of this opportunity, and his own undoubted capacity, the son was selected as a free scholar by the Chinese Government as one of the first batch of Chinese youths to be sent to America for a Western education. This was in 1874, when the boy was only 13 years old. He returned to China in 1881 and for the next 16 years held important posts in Korea in the Korean Customs Service and the Chinese consular service in that country. He was President of the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company at Tientsin, 1897-1903 and was managing director, Imperial Chinese Railways of North China, Peking-Mukden line, 1903 - 1907. From then until 1910, he was Customs Superintendent of Trade and Counsellor for Foreign Affairs at Newchwang, North China. On his return to Hong Kong after the 1911 Revolution his wide experience, undoubted ability and excellent reputation led to his being appointed to directorships in many firms and public utility concerns. He was appointed a member of the Legislative and Executive Councils and was knighted in 1926. He also ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 166 NOTES AND QUERIES held office for many years on the main advisory bodies representing the Chinese community in the Colony, including the District Watchmen's Committee, the Tung Wah Hospital Committee, the Chinese Public Dispensaries Committee and the Po Leung Kuk.15 Sir Show-son CHOW's son, Mr. CHOW Yat-kwong, J.P. has kindly given permission for members to visit the house in the New Village which contains the family's ancestral hall, III. THE Hung Shing Temple And AP LEI CHAU The Hung Shing Temple, The Hung Shing Temple at Ap Lei Chau, judging by the temple bell, dates from the 18th century.16 It appears to have been enlarged in 1847 and some wall-tablets show that it was given a major repair in 1888. The present building dates from that time or earlier. Its origin is uncertain because it is not clear who built it in the first instance. Records show that the Ap Li Chau land population was "no more than two or three families of Hakka grass cutters" before 1841, so that we must look elsewhere for the builders. It could have only been built and supported by the joint efforts of the local (i.e. Aberdeen) land people and boat population. The former only amounted to a few hundreds before the British came, but the boat population was probably as considerable before 1841 as after, e.g. 415 boats and 2,243 persons at the 1856 census18 and 424 boats and 4,130 persons in 1866.19 The temple is interesting in that it has old-style flagpoles still standing in front of the building. Old prints frequently show this kind of pole; but though a few bases can still be seen nowadays in Hong Kong, Macau and the New Territories these could be the only ones left with the poles and their basket-like tops still in place. Ap Lei Chau before 1911. The present land settlement on Ap Lei Chau was founded in the early decades of British rule. By the mid-1860's there were 60 houses there, which implies that several hundred residents were living on the island at that time.20 By 1897 the number of residents was 1,123 rising to 1,437 at the Colony Census of 1911.21 This population gained its livelihood to a great extent from concerns directly associated with the fishing industry, such as boat-building yards, ship chandlers and rope and sail works, and from provision shops and general stores that also catered for the fishermen's daily needs.22 There was very ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 191 BURTON, Miss Jill V. - BUTT, Dr. Nancy S. G. - BYRNE, D. J. - CALCINA, P. G.* CAMERON, N. CAPLAN, M. - CAREY-HUGHES, Dr. J. CARLSON, Miss R. E. CATER, J. - CHAMBERS, J. W. CHAN, Alfred T. CHAN, Gilbert Fook-lam CHAN, Leonard CHAU, Hon. Sir Tsun-nin* CHEN, Prof. Cheng-siang CHEN, Ching-Ho + CHEN, Yih CHENG, Dr. Irene - CHENG, T. C. CHEUNG, Oswald CHING, Henry CHOA, Dr. Gerald H. CHOW, Edward T. CLARK, Mrs. A. T. CLARK, Mrs. E. E. CLARK, Mrs. P. M. COLLINS, Mrs. D. A. COMAN, Miss A. A. COMBER, Leon T + + - + + - 807 The Hermitage, MacDonnell Road, H.K. The Grantham Hospital, Wong Chuk Hang, Aberdeen, H.K. P. O. Box 981, Nassau, Bahamas. Commercial Investment Co., Ltd., Union House, 12th floor, H.K. A-9 Repulse Bay Towers, Repulse Bay Road, H.K. 6, Homantin Hill Road, Kowloon. Room 315 Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank Building, H.K. 4, Mansfield Road, Flat 13, 6/F., H.K. 3 Peak Pavilions, Mt. Kellett Road, H.K. c/o Colonial Secretariat, H.K. Coronet Court, 14/F "H", North Point, H.K. La Belle Mansion, 118-120 Argyle Street, 7th floor, Flat A, Kowloon. c/o Pfizer Eastern Corporation, G.P.O. Box 2513, Bangkok, Thailand. 8 Queen's Road, West, Hong Kong. Dept. of Geography, United College, 9 Bonham Road, H.K. New Asia College, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 6 Farm Road, Kowloon. 406A Bank of East Asia Building, H.K. c/o Confucian Tai Shing School, N.K.I.L. No. 4405, San Po Kong, Kowloon. United College, Bonham Road, H.K. Room 703, Prince's Building, H.K. 9 Village Road, 1st floor, H.K. Queen Mary Hospital, Pokfulum, H.K. 3, Village Terrace, Happy Valley, H.K. 13, The Albany, Albany Road, H.K. Tytam Villa, 30 Tai Tam Road, H.K. c/o Jardine, Matheson & Co., Ltd., H.K. Dept. of Chemistry, The University, H.K. 53 Dina House, Duddell Street, H.K. K.P.O. Box 6068, Kowloon. * Life Member Please notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 160 NOTES AND QUERIES At the two villages of Old and New Heung Kong Wai near Aberdeen a group of villagers had to come before a Squatter Board in 1893 to help determine and register legitimate holdings. From the information then recorded, and happily preserved, the following facts emerge: (a) the New Village was built entirely by inhabitants of the Old Village; (b) two of the houses in the New Village were built 1860-70 and some earlier, some later; (c) many families owned houses in each village; (d) many families owned 2 or 3 houses; (e) none of the cultivated land in the valley was (1893) owned by outsiders. Elsewhere on the island I obtained and wrote down the following account of house occupation in the small Hakka village of Tai Tam Tuk for the period before this village was removed to make way for a reservoir in 1914: Some of the houses were in a ruinous condition in 1914, which is usually the case in the smaller and poorer villages in South China where frequent typhoons and heavy rains combine to shorten the life of these simply-constructed dwellings. Perhaps in consequence, most families in the village had several houses. For instance, one of my informants, her husband, his parents and his younger unmarried brother shared three houses and one shed, but ate together as one household. These examples seem to bear out Mr. Nelson's reinterpretation of Dr. Aijmer's figures i.e. that at that time (1911) there were about 35 households in Big Stream Village, owning on average 2.2 houses each; and that Plum Grove contained 12 households with 3 houses each.* Hong Kong 1969, JAMES HAYES * Since writing the above I also recall a case at Law Uk, Pui O where, speaking of her early married life there well before 1900, a very old village woman said theirs was "a three table household" with something over 20 persons eating together. It was also a multi-house one. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 CHINATOWN IN HONG KONG: THE BEGINNINGS OF TAIPINGSHAN DAFYDD Emrys Evans It seems unrealistic to talk of a 'Chinatown' in a place as obviously Chinese as Hong Kong. But for a very long time, there was indeed an area thought of by the Europeans as a part of the city into which they would not normally go. This area has, right from its inception, been known as "Tai Ping Shan' or Mountain of Peace, after the Chinese name for the mountain the Europeans called Victoria Peak. When the British arrived in Hong Kong at the beginning of 1841, the north shore of the island was substantially unoccupied, there being nothing more than scattered huts between the village of Sai Ying Pun in the west and Wong Nei Chung in the east. The principal site for the new city lay in the present Central District of Hong Kong, and the first areas built up by the Europeans (apart from the waterside godowns and houses which extended from the Central Market to Causeway Bay) lay around the present Central Magistracy but rapidly extended within the first three years of the Colony's existence east and west of that spot. Although a small number of Chinese obtained grants of land in this area it is true to say that the town was exclusively European (with, of course, a number of Parsee merchants from British India) from the line of the present Garden road as far as the present Aberdeen Street and up the hill to Hollywood Road. At the time of the Colony's inception there were never more than a few hundred Europeans contrasted with several thousand Chinese who came as tradesmen and artisans. Where, then, did the Chinese live? Apart from the small town that Jardine, Matheson & Co. built out at East Point, there were three principal areas where the incoming Chinese settled at first. It is known that in the early days after June, 1841 a good many matshed huts sprang up on the hillside to the west of the area later to be the site of the main part of the town (and these were destroyed by the great typhoon in August, 1841) and one stretch of the waterfront was 'taken over'. As early as August 1841 the 'Lower Bazaar' was forming in the area of what later became Jervois Street and Bonham ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g NOTES AND QUERIES 203 in the upper Aberdeen reservoir area, known to me, that may also have been connected with charcoal burning. It would assist if walkers who come across pits of this nature would be kind enough to report them to me, with a map reference, in order to build up information on this little known subject. One last point. Herklots asks why kilns are located so high up on the hill sides. Village people have reminded me that there is no point carrying wood down to a kiln when it is easier to put the kiln near the wood supply and carry the charcoal down to the village or the shore. Hong Kong, 1970. JAMES HAYES WHAT INSPIRED SIR JOHN BOWRING'S HYMN? Prof. Carrington Goodrich's reference to the hymn "In the Cross of Christ I glory" (Notes & Queries, JHKBRAS Vol.9(1969) pp.151-2) is interesting and although it shows that John Bowring wrote the hymn before he ever visited Macao, the tradition of a very close connection with the ruins of Macao's San Paulo is a very strong one. I have personally heard from two very knowledgeable persons that Bowring was a great admirer of the old church: Mr. Henry Hyndman was a local resident who was particularly interested in the personalities of old Macao. He was born in 1828, educated in Macao and then Singapore, and worked in Hong Kong and Shanghai before he retired to Macao. In the final stages of his life (he lived to be 98 years old) it gave him great pleasure to talk about the people he knew, among whom was Sir John Bowring, who visited Macao frequently from 1849 to 1859. Mr. Hyndman recalled seeing the English visitor at the foot of the ruins and of how, later, after he was Governor of Hong Kong, Sir John's name came to be associated with the hymn. In 1927 to 1928, Sir Cecil Clementi, then Governor of Hong Kong, used to visit Macao and on one occasion at dinner in the residence of the Governor of Macao, Sir Cecil spoke of his youth ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h NOTES AND QUERIES 211 We shall then walk to the Cemetery, five minutes walk through the grounds. I have not been able to re-visit recently, and you must look for yourselves. Father Caminondo states that there is persistent vandalism against the crosses on the headstones. From 1875 up to now, he writes, four bishops and 94 priests have been buried here. Pokfulam Village. There is nothing attractive about the present village, which mostly consists of small single-storey stone or wooden structures erected in haphazard fashion round the single row of old village houses that constituted the original village. The village is listed in the Chinese district gazetteer of San On (1819 edition) and thus pre-dates the British occupation of Hong Kong in 1841. The Chan (1) clan of Pokfulam, which probably settled the area in the 18th century, is still there today. They are Puntis, from Po On district. The Chans owned most of the agricultural land in the area, and fished by line and stakenet from suitable points on the coast. One of their stakenets is still in use today. Many of the fields above the Hong Kong Waterfall (see below) still belong to them, and up till 1941 were used to cultivate rice. (This was prohibited after the war on Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, as part of a government campaign against malaria). We shall not enter the village which has now little of interest, but will walk to the point indicated on the sketch map* from which we can see the Red Brick Pagoda erected, according to the date on it, in 1916. Three old residents, born in 1897-1900, say that it was erected by decision of the village leaders with subscriptions from all residents. It was built to counteract the bad influences of a then new culvert constructed under the Aberdeen Road, near the point from which we shall observe. Its wide black mouth faced onto the village, and made the villagers uneasy. An epidemic in which many residents became ill, and a supernatural event in which a goddess appeared to one of the villagers in a dream, decided the issue, and the pagoda was built. It is named Ling Tap (). The image inside it is of the goddess, known as Li Ling Shin Che (4). She is said to be of local origin, but I have not yet been able to check this thoroughly. We then walk into Tai Ku Lau. This was the building occupied by Nazareth House between 1885-1891. It was a European house * Not printed. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r 112 SUNG HOK-P'ANG land, distributed in various parts of the mainland, and on the island, having fields in Kowloon, Ch'eung Sha Wan (*) Kw'an Taai Lo (###) (where the city of Victoria now stands) Causeway Bay, Pokfulum and Aberdeen. He immediately promised to give one thousand piculs. When Yau Tai K'in heard of it he thought there must be some mistake, but the officer said, “At first I also thought he made a mistake, so I asked him again, and he said quite plainly, one thousand piculs!” So Yau T'ai K'in was very pleased, and he at once went off to visit Tang Yuen Fan, who said, “My rice is quite ready in the granary.” The magistrate sent off word to the "Yamen" to have junks sent to collect the rice, and on the day it was collected the river was so covered with the junks that the water could not be seen, and all the people gathered to watch shouted for joy. Yau remained with Tang several days and spent much time walking about the country admiring the scenery. He was much impressed by the fine buildings, open fields and pleasant woods, and exclaimed, “Why should the village have such a name? Sham T'in, it should be called Kam T'in instead!” The villagers were delighted with the new name, and it has remained till the present day. The name, however, now embraces quite a large collection of villages each with its own name, but most of the villagers still belong to the Tang family and the name of Ch'an has disappeared. There are a certain number of people with other surnames to be found among the Tangs, but they have come in from other places at different times and are not really native to the place in the same way as the Tangs are. A new village which goes by the name of San Ts'uen (††††) new village, has been built very recently for the Cheng (*) family who had to move from the Shing Moon (M¶) district when the reservoir was started. The only trace of the old Ch'an T'in village that remains is the temple known as Hung Shing Kung (g) in Shui Pin Ts'uen (k). This temple which was built by the Tangs is known in the village as the Big Temple although small, because formerly it was merely a shrine and was enlarged to its present size at a later date. The exact date of the temple is not known. Some say it was built when the first Tang came to Kwai Kok Shaan; others, that it was built first as a small shrine in the time of Shing Fa (✯ft) A.D. 1465-1487 of Ming dynasty when the Tang family built the village ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r 134 NOTES AND QUERIES of a new building for Queen's College. In January 1877, the Government advertised for sale at public auction the "materials, bricks, stones, tiles, doors, windows, joists, floors, etc. of buildings on Inland Lots 55, 93, 91 and 91A—known as Rangel's Estate”. Among the properties was "the Joss House, No. 10 Shing Wong Street". Soon after, the wreckers moved in and the temple was no more. So passed what was presumably the first community project of the Chinese population of urban Hong Kong. It is difficult to establish the exact date for the erection of the Temple from records now available. It is possible that a notice in The Chinese Repository, October 1843, (Vol. XII, p. 549) may refer to the Shing Wong Temple. "A new Chinese temple is about to be undertaken [in Hong Kong]. Handbills and placards are out, for the purpose of raising money for the erection of the building". The references to Chinese temples in the Hong Kong Blue Books are confusing and difficult to interpret. In 1844 under the heading of Ecclesiastical Establishments there is listed: Buddhist in Victoria, W.D. [Western District] Buddhist in Chekchoo [now Stanley] Buddhist in Shekpaiwan [Aberdeen Harbour] Buddhist in Sookumpoo Established in 1842 Chinese In 1845 it is stated that "There are 17 Chinese Temples in the colony, dedicated with few exceptions to 'Tee-how-mong-mong' (the Queen of Heaven)". In 1846 and 1847 it is stated that there are three small Chinese temples in Victoria, and in 1847 it is noted that there is "a small one in each village". Under the Blue Book schedule of Chinese buildings a Chinese Town Hall is listed in 1845 and 1846. In 1847 two Town Halls are enumerated, with the addition of one Joss House. Was the Shing Wong building listed as a Town Hall? A statement made in a Chinese document entitled "Information as to the period of the formation of Districts in Hongkong and the alteration of the Character Wan-a bay-to Wan—a circuit” translated and published in The China Review, Vol. I, p. 133 (1872-1873) suggests that the Town Halls were Temples. This article also provides a date for the construction of the Man Mo Temple on Hollywood Road: In 1843 one Sz-man-king opened a place for gambling. . Two years later, traders began to come, and two years after that ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d and 1860s. Like Hung Shing, its image is taken out in procession on the major festivals and placed in the seat of honour at opera performances given on the island and in neighbouring Aberdeen. Members also visited a soy sauce factory, a shipyard specialising in fishing boats and a fishing store. In November, Miss Werle arranged another visit, to a ceramics factory at Yuen Long, and to the single lineage village of Sam Tung Uk in Tsuen Wan, a joint excursion with the Hong Kong Ceramics Society. In January this year, I arranged a visit to the Sikh temple, with the kind cooperation of Mr. Pritham Singh, who is an active member of the temple. Sikh religion is a revisionist movement from within Hinduism, founded formally at the close of the seventeenth century as a reaction to what the Sikhs saw as the ritual and social excesses of orthodox Hinduism. There are some 2,000 Sikhs in Hong Kong. The occasion this time, we had a previous visit last year, was the birth anniversary of Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708), the last Guru of the Sikhs. Members of the Society attended part of the religious service at which members of the congregation came up to the altar to sing sutras, give comments or make observations relating to their religion, or play musical instruments and sing. We were then invited to the vegetarian curry luncheon prepared and served by members of the congregation for the congregation. Finally, in March, we were invited by our Council member M. Geoffroy-Dechaume, the French Consul-General, to his house in Old Peak Road. This is one of the few surviving old houses on the Island. Built in 1895 by Messrs. Leigh and Orange, still one of the large architectural firms in the Colony, on a piece of land acquired by Sir Paul Chater, it was named Victoria Lodge and has been the home of successive French Consuls since the earliest part of this century. Tea was kindly provided by Madame Dechaume. FILMS Most of our film shows were arranged by Miss Werle and shared with members of the Hong Kong Arts Centre, with which Miss Werle is professionally associated. In May, we had an evening of Japanese films, one on Noh drama, one on Kabuki and one on Japanese print-making, all in English and supplied by courtesy of the Information and Cultural office of the Consulate-General of Japan. A highlight of our film programme was a film made by Mr. Hugh Gibb, an old friend and member of the Society, whose ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 NOTES AND QUERIES 147 2 On the map, the location of Hong Kong Island should be that of Aberdeen today. There is another large island showing the names of Chung Hum春暟, Chik Chu赤柱, Tai Tam大潭 and Wong Nai Chung黄泥涌. * These two islands should be joined as one, since all these places are located on present day Hong Kong Island. It is probably so drawn because the author drew the map while he was standing on the mainland side, facing the water. * Chin Wan is today's Tsuen Wan. Island. The English name for Yeung Shun Chau is Stonecutters. * See, Map 72 of Volume 2 of Hong Kong Streets and Places published by The Lands and Survey Department of the Hong Kong Government. Also p. 154, Zone 30: Tsing Yi and Ma Wan Islands of A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories, 1978 edition. 7 ? See Chapter 13 of the San On Yuen Chi, 1819 edition.✩✩✩✩縣志卷十三、 * See Kwangtung To Shuet✯✯✯x, 1889 edition, and Kwangtung Yu Ti Chuen To (ARж#'), 1909 edition. A TUN FU (£) CEREMONY IN TAI PO DISTRICT, 1981: RITUAL AS A DEMARCATOR OF COMMUNITY I recently had the opportunity to witness a tun fu ceremony in Fung Yuen, a small multilineage village in a coastal valley to the east of Tai Po. Since I found Notes on earlier ceremonies published in this journal by James Hayes to be very valuable as I prepared to observe the Fung Yuen ritual, it occurred to me that other field workers might similarly find my notes on this subject useful. The ceremony aims to protect villagers from the wrath of various spirits that might be disturbed when engineering or construction works affect local fung seui in some way. If indigenous villagers feel that the health and well-being of their community might thus be threatened by government works, they may request such a ceremony. The expenses incurred in the hiring of a specialist to conduct the rituals and the purchase of various items of ritual paraphernalia and sacrificial objects are covered by the district office. Given the pace of development in Hong Kong today, we can expect that such ceremonies will continue to be held frequently. Thus there is considerable value in examining the meanings they hold for the people in whose interests they are performed. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m 142 TA ACTON 22 of J. Hayes "The Hong Kong Region" in JHKBRAS 14(1974) p. 111 and D. Akers-Jones, "Boat People's Ceremonies observed at Island House" in the JHKBRAS 15 (1975) pp. 300-303. This paper does not make overt ethnic judgments, but does have an odd ethnographic style: for example "In the middle of all this there was a wedding ceremony, and I think the preceding activities were connected with it. But I was particularly struck by the frenzied, almost ecstatic and unseemly behaviour of the women." 23 Barbara E. Ward, "A Hong Kong Fishing Village", in the Journal of Oriental Studies 1 (1955) p. 195 24 Barbara E. Ward "Varieties of the Conscious Model" in M. Banton ed. The Relevance of Models for Social Anthropology. (Association of Social Anthropologists Monograph No. 1, London, 1965). p. 113, and "Sociological Self-Awareness: Some uses of the Conscious Models” in Man, (1966) p. 201. 26 H. Kani A General Survey of the Boat People in Hong Kong, (New Asia Research Institute, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1967) p. 67, E. Anderson, "The Boat People of South China" in Anthropos 65 (1970) and “The Floating World of Castle Peak Bay", University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, Mich. 1978. 26 E. Anderson "The Ethnoichthyology of the Hong Kong Boat People” in his Essays on South China's Boat People", Orient Cultural Service, Taipei, 1972, p. 39. 27 J. McCoy, "The Dialects of the Hong Kong Boat People: Kau Sai" in the JHKBRAS 5 (1965) pp. 46-64. But note that this paper is based on work in only one village, does not take account of the well-known habit of respondents with both “high” and "low" versions of their own language to use the "high" version when speaking to outsiders. Note also the contradictory evidence in this paper at page 18. 28 T. Acton, "II ruolo della cultura tradizionale romani come contributo allo sviluppo dell'educazione moderna" in Lacio Drom, Rivista Bimestrale di Studi Zingari 15:3 (1979) p. 20 29 J. Gibbon ed. Viewpoint Hong Kong (Longman, Hong Kong, 1977) ch. 3 For example, on p. 19 of this book of English Language development exercises, we are asked "Some people look down on the boat people. Why is this unfair?” 30 F.M.O. document "Duties and Responsibilities of Liaison Officers", Para. 11 (3) iv. 31 Ibid. Para III (6) 32 W. Hahn Aberdeen Catching the Last Rays (Perennial Press, Hong Kong, 1974) pp. 193-4. 33 D. Wood ed. Hong Kong 1980 (Government Information Services, Hong Kong. 1980) p. 59 34 SOCO, A Survey of Boat People in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, 1978, in Chinese), p.3 35 V. Wong "Among the Sewage and Sampans of Yaumatei” in the South China Morning Post, 13 October 1979. pp. 10, 14. R. Daryanani "Home for 5,000 is most polluted” in the South China Morning Post, 8 September, 1980, p. 19 36 E. Elliott "Ordinance not in public interest" (Letter) in the South China Morning Post 11 August, 1980, p. 20. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p BOOK REVIEWS 335 thing rarely if ever seen in books on landscape architecture, a guide to the plants used. Since every kind of climate and ecological environment is included in this book covering all of China, it would be of great interest to know how botanical variety is adopted in different kinds of gardens. H. Y. SHIH Over Hong Kong Lew Roberts, South China Morning Post, Hong Kong 1982, 97 Colour Plates. Over the last few years the South China Morning Post has published a number of volumes of photographs of the highest quality, both having regard to the photography and to the printing. This volume is almost certainly the best of these, since it is simply by far the best photographic record of Hong Kong yet published. The 97 plates of this volume are all aerial photographs, and give a very wide ranging view of Hong Kong, with 28 plates of Hong Kong Island, 17 of Kowloon, and 49 of the New Territories, and of subjects ranging from Government House to squatter areas, duck farms, and junk heaps. Obviously, any volume of aerial photographs is bound to be short on reflections of the human element: a particular problem in a city such as Hong Kong where the vitality, colour, and bustle of the street-level community is so important in the creation of the spirit of the city. By photographing from the air, even though from a low flying aircraft and with razor sharp reproduction, almost all of this street-level vigour is lost. It is very much to Mr. Roberts' credit that, despite this huge disadvantage, he manages to suggest a substantial amount of the human element in his pictures, and in many of them actually manages to provide a new perspective on human activity. Thus, his photographs of the Aberdeen Junk Yards (No. 36) conveys the chaotic, busy nature of those yards perhaps better than any other type of photograph could. His photographs of Ocean Park (No. 39), the Shaw Brothers Studio (Nos. 88 and 89) and a Mai Po marshes village ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 116 In selecting these organizations for study, I must emphasize that they are representative of many more from Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. These simply happen to have come to my attention in the course of official duties and aroused my interest over the years. Taken as a group, whether situated in street, sub-district or suburban village, and despite being under foreign rule, they demonstrate the same capacity for social organization and self-management as in the much older communities on the mainland New Territories, then still under Chinese rule. They provide further evidence to show that communities of shopkeepers and villagers, of diverse origins and without benefit of kinship ties and long settlement, could manage their own affairs without any necessity for gentry or merchant elite leadership. In short, the instances from Hong Kong Island carry this conclusion one step beyond that reached for areas like Tai O and Cheung Chau, and the individual and linked villages of the Southern district of the New Territories, because, if gentry were lacking in those areas, there was altogether no possibility of their presence in early British Hong Kong, concerning which frequent estimates of the low quality of the population can be found.7 Ap Lei Chau and the Hung Shing Festival Ap Lei Chau, the island on the south shore of Aberdeen Harbour, had apparently no more than "two or three families of Hakka grass-cutters" when the British occupied Hong Kong in 1841. There was, however, a temple to Hung Shing, the God of the Southern Sea, that had stood on the island for many years; its bell is dated 1773.10 The likelihood is that the temple predated the land population, and that (together with the Tin Hau Temple on the north shore, where Aberdeen town now stands) it originally served the boat population of the Ap Lei Chau-Aberdeen anchorage. By the mid-1860s there were 60 houses there, with a population of perhaps two or three hundred persons.11 By 1897 the number of residents was 1,123, and by the Colony Census of 1911 it had risen to 1,437.12 This population gained its livelihood from concerns that served the fishing fleet: the local Aberdeen-Ap Lei Chau anchorage had 424 boats and 4,130 persons at the 1866 census.13 There was little farming, as the island has steep ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 133 NOTES 1 See John A. Brim "Village Alliance Temples in Hong Kong" in Arthur P. Wolf (ed) Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1974) pp. 93-103. More recently, David Faure has given examples from the eastern New Territories in articles published in this Journal. See pp. 76-85 of "Hong Kong and China in the Village World” in Vol. 21(1981); pp. 172-179 of “Saikung, the Making of the District and its Experience during World War II" in Vol. 22(1982); and his Note (with Lee Lai-mui) "The Po Tak Temple in Sheung Shui Market" in the same Volume, pp. 271-279. A book is forthcoming. 2 This is the theme of my own studies, particularly in The Hong Kong Region 1850-1911, Institutions and Leadership in Town and Countryside (Hamden, Conn, Archon Books with Dawson, Folkstone, 1977) and The Rural Communities of Hong Kong, Studies and Themes (Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1983), hereafter Hayes 1977 and Hayes 1983. 3 A study of one of the smaller villages of Hong Kong island, Tai Tam Tuk, is given at pp. 61-73 with 250-255 of Hayes 1983. This provides some information on the coastal market centre, Shau Kei Wan, to which the villagers went regularly (pp. 65-6 and 253) but, generally speaking, this entire subject is still badly under researched. 4 The Hong Kong government's census returns, printed in the Hong Kong Government Gazette from 1853 (and before that in the China Mail into which government notifications were placed) show the rapid growth of population, almost all of it newly urbanized. G.B. Endacott's A History of Hong Kong (London, Oxford University Press, 1958) devotes half its length to the first thirty years and gives population figures at pp. 64-66, 85, 98, 116 and 125 for this period. The population rose from 20,338 in 1848 to 121,825 in 1865. 5 See Revd. Carl T. Smith "The Emergence of a Chinese Elite in Hong Kong" in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch, Royal Asiatic Society (hereafter JHKBRAS) 11(1971), pp. 74-115. 6 The native place of the Chinese land population of the Colony was overwhelmingly Kwangtung province (227,615 out of 234,443 at the 1901 Census, with the population of the newly acquired New Territory taken separately. The Report was published in Sessional Papers (Papers laid before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong) 1901, No. 39 of 1901. See paras. 23-24, and the detailed breakdown of origin by districts of the province at Table XI. This detail is not available for earlier printed reports and is included here to indicate the diverse origins of the urban population, most of whom may be presumed to have been from the rural countryside of Kwangtung. 7 "It is not regarded as a promising missionary station, because it is the resort of the lowest class of the natives", wrote Revd. William Aitchison, a newly arrived American missionary to China, in 1854, a view imbibed from English and American Colleagues at Hong Kong, Revd. Charles P. Bush, Five Years in China The Life and Observations of Revd. William Aitchison, Late Missionary to China (Philadelphia, Presbyterian Publication Committee, 1865) pp. 91-2. 8 Ap Lei Chau or Aberdeen Island () is an island, 0.455 square miles in area, on the southern side of Aberdeen Harbour—see the Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories (Hong Kong Government Printer, 1960) p. 97. 9 Evidence given by a local inhabitant (b. 1815) in a hearing under the Squatter Ordinance 1890—see Notes of Proceedings of the Squatters ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 107 see, had a reputation for civility. The larger farming villages included Little Hong Kong and Wong Nei Chung. The smaller villages and hamlets included Hok Tsui, Chai Wan, To Tei Wan, Tai Tam (at Stanley), Tin Wan (at Aberdeen), Wan Chai, Tai Tam Tuk, Kwan Tai Lo, Wong Ma Kok, So Kon Po, Shek O and Pokfulam, whilst the port villages cum small towns included Chek Chu (Stanley), Shau Kei Wan and Shek Pai Wan (Aberdeen).” Most of these settlements exist today, albeit greatly changed, although a few have gone. What did these places look like in the 1840s when they first came under British rule? Fortunately, in those days before the camera, one of the officers stationed on the island and entrusted with the first contour survey (1843-1845) entered some useful descriptions in his letters home. This was Lieutenant Thomas Bernard Collinson of the Royal Engineers, a gifted young man who died a major-general at the age of 81 in 1902." In a letter he wrote: "There is really a great deal more to be seen in Hong Kong than its appearance promises. Besides the town of Chuck Chu [Chek Chu] there are 10 villages and at least 400 acres of well cultivated ground. Some of the villages certainly consist of only 7 or 8 houses, but they are distinct villages with ground attached. The largest is Shapwont as it is printed," or “Chuckpyewan" as it is called by the inhabitants, and “Aberdeen" as it is called by the Governor. Her Majesty's surveying vessel employed by the Board of Ordinance has been anchored for a fortnight exactly at the figure 6 at Careening island [on the Chart of the anchorage] and begins to know something of Aberdeen and if the old Aberdeen is anything like the new, it must be a straggling village scattered round a small bay, with an ill-paved sort of quay in front and about 50 fishing boats lying about a great rock in the middle, a good supply of shops where bamboo hats, mats, sails, ropes and baskets; rice, fruit, vegetables, tobacco, earthenware and fireworks are all sold together; these being the staple commodities of a Chinese country shop and cakes by the bye, with plenty of pork fat in everything and a thousand of the dirtiest men women and children that ever talked altogether in a singsong: ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 108 JAMES HAYES “How they live I don't know for I seldom see any boats going in or out; but they all manage to look fat somehow.” Collinson goes on to describe Little Hong Kong. The village still stands at the head of the Wong Chuk Hang valley immediately west of the southern concourse of the Wong Nei Chung to Aberdeen Tunnel, although its few remaining old village houses are buried inside an area of squatter huts and squatter industries. He continued in the same letter, “The valley between Shuckpyewan and Hong Kong bay (called Hong Kong in the map) is the proper Hong Kong of the Island and is the largest and best cultivated and prettiest in the island. It is almost a dead flat and according to the people's account has 100 acres of these little fields in it, with the village on an artificial level at the head and a thick wood of evergreens around and behind it and steep rocky hills rising above the wood. Though as dirty as every Chinese place I have been in, it contains a piece of civilisation I did not expect in Hong Kong -- a village schoolmaster; who in his black cotton coat and white stockings is ridiculously like both in manner and appearance (if his tail was cut off) the same character in England. He has only nine scholars, but they are certainly the cleanest 9 of the 200 in the village and he teaches them arithmetic, by giving them so many characters to copy and learn by heart. The school room would have shocked Charley and from the number of drawings on the walls I should say ‘Boys will be boys.’ Even in China.”12 Collinson concludes by commenting on the village itself and the wood clearly the fengshui wood behind it. “You will have some idea of the way they build villages in this part of China from this one, 70 houses of which are all packed on a space 100 yards by 70. The evergreens behind the town are most luxuriant and reminded me of the oak woods in Wicklow, and the tall bamboo would make a graceful ornament to any garden.’ 13 Another military officer was impressed with the villages and the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 112 JAMES HAYES en are all of the sort that go barefooted and work in the field. I have not seen one small-footed woman here. At least 8/10 of men here smoke opium.' As we have seen, Aberdeen, about the same time, was, as Collinson reports, also a fishing port. According to another military observer, Captain Cunynghame, it contained about 200 buildings, and had “a very respectable appearance”. It is thus very likely that it engaged in the same mixed business as Stanley, and contained a similar size of population and a similar mixture of people.24 The villagers were essentially farmers and fishermen relying on their padi fields for a subsistence rice crop twice a year, supplemented by coastal fishing. The old style of village life, that must have characterized Hong Kong's settlements before British rule, lingered on in its essentials well into this century until squatters and development ended the old life style. Even as late as 1967, at Little Hong Kong, Old Village, an old lady then aged 80 told me that her's had been the first family in the village to apply for a mains water supply ten years before, and some villagers were still in 1967 cutting grass to use as fuel to heat water, cook pig food, etc. and going to the foreshore to find edible items. In earlier days, the hillsides were apportioned for grass cutting between clans and their member families as in the New Territories, and she had changed areas where she married a man in another clan from the New Village. Besides being cut for fuel at home, grass was taken to Aberdeen and Deep Water Bay to sell to the boat people anchored there. They used it to burn the marine growth from the underside of their craft at regular intervals (usually twice a month), as was done in many coastal villages in the area. The villagers used the adjacent sea shore to supplement their diet, waiting for the tide to go out and spending up to four or five hours daily in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th lunar months (March till May or June) gathering sea eggs, digging in the sand for clams, looking for other shell fish among the stones and gathering sea weed to feed the pigs. Both men and women engaged in the work, and she recalls both her mother and father carrying large baskets of sea ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 113 produce from the sea near the present Aberdeen Country Club. Some villagers operated stake nets lowered by windlass into the sea from a rocky headland, and others used lines catching fish like nai mang (鯺鏝) to make a sweet congee. The old lady's mother, born about 1860, planted hemp and made it into string used for tying and mending clothes until she was sixty years of age. The village people also grew a kind of rush (cheung po) (菖蒲) when she was young, using it as a charm to hang over their doorways, especially in the fifth moon, in the manner reported in old works on China.2 25 - The stake nets were an especially favoured form of fishing in local waters. One can see a few surviving sites round the southern coast of Hong Kong island to this day. In the Tangs' time as sub-soil owners see below they may have leased sites to local persons, as they were doing in the New Territories in 1899. It is also of interest that no less than 13 sites on the south side of Hong Kong island were leased out by another absentee landlord family of scholar gentry, the Wongs (王) of Nam Tau (南頭) and Cheung Chau, as shown in maps in their printed genealogy issued in the 1860s. People walked far to secure a livelihood in those days. One of the persons interviewed in the investigations into the murder of two British officers near Stanley in 1849, was a villager of Little Hong Kong who had a hut and operated a stakenet on the point where Stanley Fort now stands. 26 27 However, farming was the principal occupation. The Little Hong Kong fields can be seen on the Hong Kong Government's first survey sheet for the area, whilst the extent of the Wong Nai Chung fields can be gauged by the race course at Happy Valley which was built over them.28 Rice was favoured because there was a plentiful supply of stream water available that only required damming, leading and terracing, albeit by dint of hard labour, to provide fertile land that would support two crops of rice yearly. An account of harvest time in one of the Hong Kong villages appeared in one of the numbers of the Illustrated London News for 1858. "On the 1st of November (1857) I took a walk with a friend into the interior of Hong Kong and saw the process of rice-harvesting, beneath a bright, hot sun, the entire village popu- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 136 JAMES HAYES p. 78. There was a custom-made school building on the edge of Wong Nei Chung village which is shown on maps from Collinson's survey onwards. 13 By "town", Collinson means village. 14 The Last Year in China by a Field Officer actually employed in that Country (London, Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 2nd edition 1843) p. 75. 15 Cited from the Canton Press for January 1842 by G.R. Sayer op. cit., p. 121. For information on present day So Kon Po, see the Notes by Revd Carl T. Smith and myself in JHKBRAS, Vol. 23 (1983) p. 7-77. 16 Wright and Allom, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 17 and again at p. 33, "Bamboo Aqueduct at Hong Kong". For a fuller account see J.W. Hayes The Hong Kong Region 1850-1911, Land and Leadership in Town and Countryside. (Hamden, Conn., Anchor Books, 1977) pp. 25-32. E A copy of this letter from Mr. Chow Yat-kwong, JP, dated 30 March 1967, is now in the Public Records Office, Hong Kong, 19 This statement can be found in the manuscript volume Summary Report of the Squatters Commission 1891-1906 in the Public Records Office, Hong Kong, under the date of hearing 6 July 1893. By "100 years" is meant "from before anyone now alive can remember," as normally in local village usage. 20 21 Ibid, hearing of 26 January 1891 of claims at Wong Nei Chung. Report of the Hong Kong Mission, Vol. 23, June 1843, November 6, p. 157, in American Baptist Board of Foreign Missions Archives, Valley Forge, Pa., by courtesy of Revd Carl T. Smith. 22 American Baptist Mission Archives, folder of Revd I.J. Roberts, No. 1 — China, also by courtesy of Revd Smith. 23 Captain A.A.T. Cunynghame, quoted in Sayer, op. cit., p. 104. 24 Stanley and Aberdeen in 1841 would seem to have been very similar in size and composition to the New Territories Market Towns in 1898 and earlier. Thus, Sai Kung had 50 shops and 150 houses in 1898 with a population of 512 (cf. C. Fred Blake Ethnic Groups and Social Change in a Chinese Market Town. (Hawaii, 1981 p. 27-28), Tai Po New Market had 38 shops within eight years of its foundation (J.W. Hayes The Hong Kong Region, op. cit. p. 36 and n. 78), and Yuen Long Old Market had about 160 buildings of which at least 100 were shops (see unpublished Report 24 (Yuen Long Kau Hui) produced by Antiquities and Monuments Section, Hong Kong Government). 100 shops specifically noted as being from the Yuen Long Old Market donated to the restoration of the Tai Wong Temple there in 1837. At the Yuen Long Old Market many of the families working in the Market lived in the adjacent villages of Nam Pin Wai and Sai Pin Wai. As well as the 100 shops donating in 1837, 7 residents in the Market, 52 in Nam Pin Wai, and 22 in Sai Pin Wai donated, suggesting a total community of about 200 families, about half of which had shops. Tai O must have had more than 100 shops: 119 shops donated to the restoration of the Tin Hau temple there in 1838, 98 to the restoration of the Hung Shing temple there in 1841, and between 105 and 126 to the restoration of the Man Mo temple there in 1852 (in each case counting "workshops" and "ferries" as shops). 科大衛,陳總集,吳倫電位,合術 香港碑靠藥衚 MOMSKOM * (D. Faure, B. Luk, A. Ng The Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong) (Hong Kong Urban Council 1986), pp. 86-90, 90-93, 95-97, 103-107, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 54 BARBARA E. WARD would engage a Taoist priest to come down to his junk and perform a ceremony known as Changing the Gods (woon shan). This, which involved spilling the blood of a domestic fowl, was believed to provide cleansing from pollution and open the way for good fortune. The annual ritual cycle began with the New Year and proceeded almost immediately to the public festival for the 'birthday' of the local tutelary deity, Hung Shing Kung, on the 13th day of the 2nd lunar month. These two occasions were the ritual highlights of the year. Quickly in their wake came Ch'ing Ming, fixed by the Chinese solar calendar at a date corresponding with April 6th and falling therefore usually in the third lunar month. This was one of the two special occasions for the commemoration of a family's departed members. The third month saw also the festival to T'in Hau, the so-called Queen of Heaven, protectress of all seamen, celebrated biennially with Chinese opera at the neighbouring village of Lung Shuen Wan and annually in a large number of other places in the Colony. In the fourth month there was a festival at the temple of T'am Kung in Shaukiwan to which a few Kau Sai people sometimes went to watch the plays, and on the fifth day of the fifth month the Dragon Boat festival. Kau Sai had once had a Dragon Boat of its own which, I was told, on one memorable occasion even came in first in the 'regatta' held in those days at Aberdeen and attended by H.E. the Governor. But that was back in the 'twenties. Later, Kau Sai people merely looked on at the Dragon Boat races held elsewhere, or sometimes 'fielded' a scratch 'team' for the fun of the thing at Sai Kung. All boat families also made offerings at the temple on the Double Fifth which was also widely used as a kind of dividing mark in the calendar: hired crew, for example, were usually engaged or laid off at New Year and the Dragon Boat festival. In the sixth lunar month was held the festival for Koon Yam, 'Goddess of Mercy', observed in all her many temples but attended particularly by Kau Sai residents at the village of Pak Sha Wan, near Sai Kung. (The fact that this village was also the site of that Kau Sai New Village to which the landsmen were ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 58 BARBARA E. WARD Marketing Organisation's depot in the local market town at the road head in Sai Kung, or even to the wholesale market at Shaukiwan on Hong Kong island.25 Here were opportunities for buying kerosene and diesel oil, fishing gear, foodstuffs, clothing materials, arranging to have a new boat built or raise a loan, having one's hair cut and shampooed,26 chatting with friends and business acquaintances in the tea houses, and so forth: opportunities which might or might not be taken up on any particular day but which were always available. Women went ashore in these places far less often than men, but they were certainly free to do so if they had occasion. Kau Sai-based children, rather shy in such large centres of population or restrained by anxious parents, tended to stay on board. It is important to notice that these were at least potentially daily movements. Even under sail the voyage from Kau Sai to Sai Kung seldom took as long as two hours. With a fair wind Shaukiwan could be reached in three. Although by cutting these times to forty minutes and under two hours respectively mechanisation allowed visits to be more frequent, it did not initiate them. Many of the Kau Sai fishermen had contacts in Shaukiwan and Sai Kung that were of very long standing and spread far beyond the mere marketing of fish. It was interesting to observe that when with mechanisation the longer journeys to Aberdeen and Kowloon (and later Cheung Sha Wan) markets became possible, they remained largely ‘one-shot' voyages: the fish once sold the junks turned straight for home. In the small liners the pattern of daily movement was somewhat different. Less dependent than the purse-seiners on the daily performance of shore-based tasks and requiring less space for the less frequent tasks they did have to do there, they were at the same time more dependent upon being able to sell their fish fresh. It was obviously convenient for them, therefore, to orient the economic/technological aspect of their lives first towards the places where they could sell their fish and only secondarily, if at all, towards a particular village anchorage. With a few exceptions the small liners claiming to be "Kau Sai people" were consistently much less regular in their attendance at Kau Sai's anchorage than the purse-seiners. The movements that took ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 114 BARBARA E. WARD 22 All but one of Kau Sai's long-liners fall into the category Small long-liner. A small long-liner shoots his lines direct from his junk, which is on average about 30-35 feet in overall length. Bigger long-liners (classed as Medium or Large Long-liners) carry sampans for the shooting and hauling of lines. Baiting-up is always done on the mother ship. In 1950 the Large Long-liners based mainly on Shaukiwan were the aristocrats of the Hong Kong fishing fleets, wealthy men, employing large crews. Informants claimed that before the Japanese occupation two or three of these large boats had been based on Kau Sai anchorage. By 1970 shortages of labour had driven nearly all of them out of business. Kau Sai then boasted one Medium Long-liner. The nylon line, which everywhere replaced the old ramie during the early 'sixties, was greatly appreciated for lightness, strength and quick drying, but it tangled easily and so made baiting-up an even more finicking job than before. 23 Note on this and role of F.M.O. (N.B.) and on numbers of pupils etc: 84 in 1970. [Note not written; for related information, see T.A. Acton, "Education as a by-product of fish marketing,” JHKBRAS vol, 21 (1981) pp 120-143.] 24 In 1969 a special typhoon shelter, with concrete break-waters, was constructed at Government expense at Yim Tin Tsai a well sheltered cove to the north of Kau Sai island. 25 The Fish Marketing Organisation, a non-government trading organisation controlled by a Government Servant, the Director of Marketing, was established in 1945. The Director is empowered to control the landing, movement and wholesaling of all marine fish (except shellfish and marine fish 'alive and in water'). For further detail see Chapter V below. In 1950 controlled wholesale markets existed at Shaukiwan and Kennedy Town on Hong Kong Island, in Kowloon, and at Tai Po in the New Territories. The Kennedy Town market was transferred to Aberdeen in 1952 and the Kowloon market to Cheung Sha Wan in 1966. A fifth market was opened at Castle Peak in 1969. The Organisation also maintains collecting depots and/or other offices at Cheung Chau, Castle Peak, Tsun Wan, Sha Tau Kok and Sai Kung. 26 A male recreation; women in 1950 always wore long hair, shampooing their own or each other's with... [note incomplete] 27 On this and the whole question 'What is a real Kau Sai person? see below Chapters 5 and [p. 75]. [The following indicates how this question might have been answered: "The non-kin groups to which he sees himself belonging are also few. First there is the village as a whole: Kau Sai. He may describe himself as a Kau Sai man, or refer, as he does very frequently, to 'our bay' as a membership unit. This includes all people for which Kau Sai bay is a permanent anchorage, or who have houses ashore there." "Sociological self-awareness: some uses of the conscious models”, Man (1966), vol. 1, p. 203.] 28 [G. William Skinner, "Marketing and social structure in rural China, Part 1,” Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 63 (1964), pp. 21-50.] 29 See also Ward 1967 and 1968. [Probably reference to articles cited in note 4.] 30 One most important aspect of the territoriality of all the fishermen was their inescapable need for credit. See below pp. 31 boon wan ge yan this expression which was used synonymously with "Kau Sai" was the more usual in colloquial speech. 32 [The next paragraph in the manuscript summarizes the argument here: "These ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h THE HISTORY OF HONG KONG: FROM A VILLAGE TO A CITY 391 Introduction Hong Kong, which lies at the mouth of the Pearl River, has an area of 398 square miles. It lies between 113°52′E and 114°30′E, and 22°9′N and 22°37′N. It is 83 miles south of Guangzhou and 39 miles east of Macau. It consists of Hong Kong Island, Kowloon Peninsula (the land which lies to the south of Boundary Street), and the New Territories (including Tai Yue Shan and 235 adjacent islands). The name 'Hong Kong' does not appear in any Chinese historical records before the Ming Dynasty. It was the name of a small village on the south coast of Hong Kong Island.1 The village lies to the north-east of Shek Pai Wan Zi, nowadays known as Aberdeen Harbour. How Hong Kong got its name The village of Hong Kong (Heung Kong Tsai Tsuen) got its name from its export of incense products. Previously, Hong Kong and its surrounding areas were famous for the growing of incense trees which produced incense wood, known as Kwun Heung. During the Ming Dynasty, incense wood and incense products were assembled at the north-east of Shek Pai Wan before being shipped to Canton.3 Thus, the bay which lies to the north-east of Shek Pai Wan was named Hong Kong (Heung Kong), i.e. Fragrant Harbour, and the village which lay near the coast was called Heung Kong Tsuen. Hong Kong Island before the Ming Dynasty Before the Han Dynasty, Hong Kong Island and its neighbouring areas were occupied by the Si, the Yao& and the Tan. Little is known about them. However, ancient rock carvings were found in Tai Long Wan and Wong Chuk Hang on Hong Kong Island recently. The carvings have approximately the same spiral appearance& as the carvings on the bronze drums of the ancient Yuet# people. These prove that there were people living on Hong Kong Island in very ancient times. 4 During the Tang and the Sung Dynasties, most of the people lived on the south coast of the island. In recent years, lime kilns established ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 186 in matters relating to personal relationships. During Lunar New Year, hundreds of people come from all over the Territory, even from as far away as Aberdeen on Hong Kong Island, to offer prayers at the foot of the tree and to throw red and yellow prayer flags, attached to strings weighted with stones, up into the branches. Only in four villages was it claimed that the special trees were the home of earth gods. At Lin Au, the large, old Cinnamomum trees were planted by the villagers when the settlement was founded in order to protect the shrine that was built to honour the ancestors. The earth gods have their home in the trees and also roam about in the wood. Lin Au and Sheung Tsuen were the only cases found where this was said to happen, but it may be that such a belief could have been more widespread in the past. At Pak Kong, a grove of six trees protects the Tai Wong shrine to Tin Hau beside which is a smaller Paak Kung that is used to worship the earth gods who live in the trees. Kuk Po is also an example of an ancestral tree which is also the home of the local earth god. In most cases, however, the tree adjacent to the shrine is there simply to provide shelter. In the study carried out by the author, a variety of reasons were given as to why specific trees were protected and the commonest reason given was that the trees protected the important shrines of the village, which were both Tai Wong and Paak Kung shrines. The shrines were situated at important fung shui locations, usually protecting the entrance points of the village from loss of chi (good luck or prosperity) and affording protection from undesirable forces. The spirits live in the shrines rather than in the trees themselves. For example, at Tai Om, camphor trees protect each of the three Paak Kung shrines in the village and trees protect four of the principal shrines in Man Uk Pin. Such trees are commonly banyan, or camphor, although other species may be used. The commonest shrine trees found during the study were; Ficus microcarpa Banyan 19 Cinnamomum camphora Camphor 13 Euphoria longan Longan 5 Gironniera nitida 5 Litchi sinensis Lychee 4 in addition to 26 individuals of other less common species. 19 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g 147 incense or joss sticks. According to Lo (1959, quoted in Iu, 1983), these trees were introduced into Guangdong Province from Vietnam in the Tang dynasty (619-907 AD) and were planted in large numbers in the New Territories during the Sung dynasty (960-1279 AD). In the late Ming period, the county of Tung-kuan was renowned throughout China for the quality of its incense. Until 1572, Tung-kuan county included the area subsequently forming the county of Hsin-an (including the present day New Territories) (Chan, 1989). In the Kuang-tung hsin-yu (Ch’u, 1974), it is noted that many people in Tung-kuan made their fortune from Kuan-heung (meaning incense from Tung-kuan) which was so popular that the annual sales values amounted to tens of thousands of taels. Incense trees were very suitable for the decomposed granite soils of the area and were particularly grown in the area of Shatin and the lower part of Lam Tsuen valley, whose name means "forest village", and around Tung Chung and Sha Lo Wan on Lantau. Interestingly, Schofield (1983) referring to the fine fung shui wood at Sha Lo Wan adds “In a suitable light, ancient log slides can be seen running straight down the steepest hills on this stretch of coast", although whether these have anything to do with the incense trade may never be known. The successful cultivation of the incense tree depended on three conditions, the suitability of the soil, adoption of proper methods of cultivation and the mastering of tapping and cutting methods for the collection of resin, which had a medicinal use. The general name of the varieties of incense produced in Tung Kwun, Po On districts, which included Hong Kong and the New Territories in those times, was "Kuan-heung" (Iu, 1983). The logs were collected at Tsim Sha Tsui from where it was shipped by small boats to Shek Pai Wan near present day Aberdeen on Hong Kong Island, where it was re-shipped onto Chinese seagoing junks to Canton, SE Asia and as far away as Arabia. It has been suggested that the cultivation of and trade in incense trees gave rise to the name of Hong Kong (meaning incense harbour). "Little Hong Kong, or Heung-kong-wai, is said to have been so-called on account of the quantity of Pak-miu-heung-shu then growing there, the wood of these white-wood fragrant trees is called "Nga-heung" (i.e. fragrant wood white as a tooth), is odoriferous when burnt, and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 Tai Hang Tsz Tong Tsuen TP 29 77 37.7** Tai Hang Chung San Wai TP 52 112 46.4 Tai Hang Fui Sha Wai TP 47 117 40.2* Sha Lo Tung TP 120 307 39.1* Fung Yuen TP 60 133 45.1 Ha Hang TP 40 97 41.2* Shuen Wan Tseng Tau TP 21 48 43.8 Shuen Wan Tung Tsai TP 14 43 32.6** Shuen Wan Po Sam Pai TP 70 156 44.9 Ting Kok TP 301 669 45.0 Shek Tau Pai TP 25 56 44.6 Ko Tong TP 34 80 42.5* Tai Tai TP 12 35 34.3** Pak Sha Au TP 52 117 44.4 Nai Tong Kok TP 19 48 38.8** Kam Chuk Pai TP 39 93 41.9* Yeung Shu Long I 5 13 38.5** Kau Lung I 2 6 33.3** Mau Tat I 23 69 33.3** Upper Tung Oi I 18 44 40.9* Lo So Shing 30 75 40.0* Luk Chau 16 54 29.6** Tai Ping I 49 113 43.4 Pak Kok 15 52 28.8** Tai Wan 52 113 39[+] Wang Lung [?] 17 50 34.0** San Tsuen I 61 133 46.2 Luk Tei Tong I 23 76 43.4 Leung Uk I 46 104 44.2 Kau Pa Kong SSP 73 165 44.2 Pak Shue Long SSP 61 151 40.4* Aberdeen Old Village HKI 74 164 45.1 Aberdeen New Village HKI 45 98 45.9 Hok Tsui Wan HKI 15 39 38.5** Villages with severe shortage of males (43% or less) * Village with extreme shortage of males (39% or less) ** ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 91 7 The Census Officer in 1931 came to this conclusion, after considering the evidence in some depth Census Report, 1937, pp. 139-141 440 Papers Laid before the Legislative Council of Hongkong, 1902 (Hong Kong Sessional Papers), printed Noronha and Co Government Printers, 1903, No. 14 "Report of the Committee of Education” (The Brem Report), "Land before the Legislative Council by Command of His Excellency the Officer Administering the Government”, p.392 * Crime Report, op cit para 101, and Appendix G * Administrative Reports for the Year 1913, pages N[3-17 ** Administrative Reports for the Year 1921, pages 03-4, 022-23 ** Administrative Reports for the Year 1921, page 03-4. An average of 34 years would imply about 80% of boys received some education 4 years, about 70% *The Tampo Market Girls School, the Cheung Chau Girls School, the Yuen Long Girls School, and the London Mission Society School (Co-educational) at Tsuen Wan By 1931 there were distinct signs of improvement while only 2.81% of land population females over 21 were then literate, 1.69% of those aged 16-20 were Her The withering scorn with which the Sung Report treats the content of the traditional curriculum and teaching methods of the village schools should be treated with some caution Sung was an extreme proponent of the "new methods” in education * Census Report, 1977, Tables XXXV, XXXVI, Census Report, 1927, Table XVII KH KU Census Report, 1921, para 4. The criticism of the 1921 "Occupations” statistics was repeated in the 1931 Census Report Census Report, 1921, Table XXVIII Census Report, 1927, Table XXXIVa "Census Report, 1927, Table XXIII, Part I and Part II 02 Omitting people working in agricultural occupations, fishermen, domestic servants, people working in religion, teachers/students, sailors on ocean-going ships, grass-cutters, Cartway workers, road transport workers, caddies miners and lime-burners, seamstresses and Mu Tsu "Aberdeen, Ap Lei Chau, Lam Wan and Wong Chuk Hang also show dominance of the population by males, as does Shau Kei Wan, but these areas should be considered more as market towns, with subordinate industrial villages, and thus to fall more with places like Sai Kung or Peng Chau * Census Report, 1971, Tables XII, XIII Page 120 Page 121 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 253 '106 Western side of Cheung Chau Island and about half a mile to the South-West of the village of Cheung Chau and containing about 5.19 acres, was authorized. This was the first cemetery designated on an outlying island and was later extended in 1921.107 108 In 1912, two Chinese cemeteries were authorized. The first one was situated at 'New Kowloon Survey District 1 Lot Nos. 582 and 583,' very close to Sai Yu Shek Cemetery. The cemetery appeared in a 1924 map109 and was marked as 'Fukienese Cemetery.' In another 1940 HKGG Notification, the cemetery was also referred to as 'Fukienese Cemetery.' The second cemetery appointed, a Christian cemetery, was 'to be known as the Tsun Wan Christian Cemetery situate and being near Tsun Wan in Demarcation District No. 453 in the New Territories in the Colony of Hongkong, containing an area of 10,000 square feet,'111 In the following year, a site 'to be known as the Hau Pui Loong Cemetery situate and being near Hau Pui Loong in Kowloon in the Colony of Hongkong containing an area of about 19 acres' was appointed.112 The Chinese Permanent Cemetery in Aberdeen Although a number of Chinese cemeteries were authorized and appointed since the 1870s, these cemeteries were not intended for the upper and wealthier classes. By the early 20th century, the absence of what were considered proper and decent sites for these Chinese who wished to settle in Hong Kong was apparent. In 1901, the Cemeteries Committee of the Sanitary Board moved to set apart a piece of hillside between the Aberdeen Channel and Deep Water Bay for wealthy Chinese as a burial ground.113 However, for some reason, eventually this site was not appointed. Eight years later, the issue was presented again to the Sanitary Board by Lau Chu-pak, a member of the Board and one of the most prominent members of the Chinese community in the Colony,114 Lau said: The better class of Chinese who had made Hong Kong their permanent home had not a decent cemetery in which to bury their dead, and the Chinese had no control on what were called Chinese Cemeteries. These cemeteries were simply tracts of barren land set apart by the ================================================================================