RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811
34

HUGH D. R. BAKER

are usually situated at some distance from the villages; in some cases up to several miles away. It becomes an opportunity for the clans to display their wealth and numbers in public. The first and most important of the graves of the Tang Clan is on a hill behind the new, large, industrial town of Tsuen Wan,82 and the Tangs always turn out in their thousands at Chung Yeung, going to the grave in fleets of lorries, cars, and buses. The Lius' First Ancestor is buried behind the Hau village of Kam Tsin, and the Lius march round the Hau village in great numbers on their way to the grave. On the second day of Chung Yeung, the Lius go to the grave of their Second Ancestor, which takes them past the Pang village of Fan Ling and the Tang village of Lung Kwat Tau. The procession is always large, and banners and ceremonial foods are conspicuously displayed. The major clans are remarkable for the large number of ancestors which they worship on this and other occasions, some branches having a ceremony and feast nearly every day for several weeks at Chung Yeung as their various ancestors are worshipped. The cost of these ceremonies is very high, and is quite beyond the reach of smaller lineages and clans. The money comes in as rent from the fields with which the ancestral halls and other segments of the lineage are endowed. The proportion of lineage-controlled land which is owned by the lineage itself and by its segments (as opposed to that owned by individual members of the lineage) may be very high indeed, often well over 50 per cent.83 Thus, not only do the lineages control vast areas of land, but they also actually corporately own much of it, and have high incomes from which to finance ceremonies, public works, etc. Again, land is important.

Being wealthy, the clans needed to resort to some form of protection from thieves. Each of the villages of the clans organised and ran its own village watch system.84 I am not sure whether the system was identical in each of the villages, but one practice was to allow lineage members to tender to the ancestral hall for the position of watchman. Those who tendered most were allowed to take the positions, the number of watchmen being pre-determined. These men recouped themselves by charging individual villagers for the property they were protecting according to a fixed rate (so much for a field of paddy, so much for a field of sweet potatoes, so much for a buffalo, etc.). If a buffalo were stolen or some other property made away with, it was the responsibility...
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811
166

NOTES AND QUERIES

case at Compensation Board hearings, following upon such resumptions.

Rods, acres and chains are unknown measurements in Hong Kong insofar as the Chinese farmer is concerned. He uses such measurements as mau (mou), tau chung (tou chung) and tam shui (tan shui) which besides being different words are also very different in area. A mau = 4.8 of an acre. This measurement is still used in mainland China but has been out of general use in the Colony of Hong Kong since at least the early 1900's. Here in Hong Kong the tau chung and the tam shui are the local measures.1

Each Chinese village in Hong Kong has its own tau. Usually it is a wooden tub or boat-shaped container which holds approximately ten catties of rice seed. A catty is a Chinese weight of 1¼ pounds. The tau is therefore about 13.333 lbs., but could be more or less as there is no standard tau in use among the villages. Turning from the tau to the tau chung, the latter measure is the area of land required to grow one tau of rice seed.

Agricultural land in Hong Kong is rated as first class, second class or third class, dependent on its water supply. First class land is well-watered land that will grow two crops of rice and a catch-crop in the off season, generally sweet potato. Second class land relies generally on rainfall for its water supply and is rated as medium grade land. Third class land is generally located on hillsides, is usually dry, and is used as orchard land or for growing ground nuts, millet and upland rice.2

Just prior to the rice growing season which coincides with the southeast monsoon, padi nurseries are prepared here and there in the fields and the seed is scattered in a small nursery plot which grows very green and very thick. At the same time, the farmer gets out his buffalo and ploughs the padi fields in preparation for the planting. Each padi field is constructed so that it is at a slightly higher level than the one below it, which accounts for the terracing effect one associates with padi fields. The size and location of a padi field is governed by its ability to receive a gravity feed of water from its source. Each padi is surrounded by an earth bund in which outlets are made so that water flowing in from the top level feeds directly to the lowest level. With sufficient water in the lowest field the farmer plugs the bund outlet and allows the next level to fill until all the padis have
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g
EXPANSION AND EXTENSION IN HAKKA SOCIETY

45

Orchards with pineapples and tangerine oranges are located in Plum Grove Village and Grass Field Village. These orchards seem to be much exposed to typhoon damage, and are more or less of an experimental nature. Orchards form a new feature in the valley and have been introduced only in the last decade. They are not very profitable.

The terraces mentioned above were once used for tea plantations also. It is possible to trace the remains of such terraces on the steep slopes all along the valley. They are the remains of plantations of tea and a shrub giving a dye, most probably the indigo plant Indigofera tinctoria, common in South China. The tea plantations are mentioned in an early report:

Tea is cultivated... at the villages lying in the higher mountain valleys about Tate's Cairn and Buffalo Hill. The bushes are grown in lines on narrow steps or terraces out in the rich soil of recently felled woods or along the dividing banks of sheltered vegetable fields, in either case only in fairly elevated situations. There is a tradition that tea growing was once a thriving industry here and terraces similar to the above are pointed out on the mountain sides in all parts of the district, which are said to have been made by tea planters. Whether the cultivation has diminished through extortionate taxing previous to the British occupation or in consequence of the destruction of the woods and with them the suitable soil, it is hard to say, but the latter would alone count for it.5

Tea plantation in South-eastern China experienced a general crisis towards the end of the last century as Indian and Ceylon tea invaded the Western market. There is no reason to assume that these circumstances had a direct effect on the New Territories plantations, but generally unsettled conditions on the tea market might have contributed to the actual decline. Wild-growing tea shrubs are still plucked of their leaves for local use. As to the dye plant cultivation, it seems reasonable to suggest that the introduction of foreign artificial indigo and aniline dyes in the beginning of this century was the main reason for the abandonment of these plantations. During an earlier period, however, the production of tea and dye-stuff will have been prominent features in the economic activity, complementary to rice production.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077
LEGENDS & STORIES OF THE NEW TERRITORIES

175

found in Wing Lung Wai where his portrait in military officer's uniform is to be seen.

Tang Ming Luen, the son of Tang Kuen Hin, was another military officer. He was a very powerful man with exceptional strength in his arms. When he was young and before he studied the military arts, he came across, one day, two water buffaloes fighting in a road. The people standing by were unable to pass and yet could do nothing to separate the animals. Tang Ming Luen, seeing this, seized each buffalo by the horn, wrenched them apart, and stopped the fight. It happened that a newly passed Kui Yan named Tang T'in K'ei, who came from Tung Kwun district, was visiting Kam T'in to worship at the ancestral hall, and, according to old Chinese custom, to report the good news of his degree to his ancestors. He witnessed Tang Ming Luen's feat of strength and greatly admiring him, he encouraged him to study for the army, giving him ten taels of pure silver sycee as a reward. Tang Ming Luen passed his Mo Sau Tsoi in the 25th year of Ka Hing, A.D. 1820, and the Mo Kui Yan in the following year.

There is another story that Tang Ming Luen dug up some hidden treasure in his orchard, which was near Sui T'au Ts'un. To the North of the garden, there was a large banyan tree and close by it a rock covered with creeping plants. On dark days, it was said that a light used to shine near this rock and at a distance, it appeared like a big white horse. One day, Tang told a labourer to dig a hole for planting a fruit tree in a corner of the garden where a lot of long grass was growing. In doing so, the man dug up a large earthenware jar with a lid on it, which was full of silver sycee. He seized a handful of them and started to carry them home, but at once, his eyes became dim-sighted and he was unable to see his way. Thinking that it must be a punishment for trying to take money that did not belong to him, the man put the coins back in the ground, and his sight recovered at once. When he told Tang of his discovery, Tang had the ground thoroughly dug, and many more jars, each full of silver coins, were found.

Tang Kuen Hin was born in the 20th year of Kin Lung, A.D. 1755, and he built a school called So Lau Yuen in Shui Tau Tsuen, one of the Kam T'in villages. This building has a curious carving inside, rather like the face of a clock with Roman lettering on it, the origin of it being unknown. Another building called Ch'eung Tsun Yuen was built by one of his descendants.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p
300

NOTES AND QUERIES

In the fall of 1934, the third welfare center was located in a populous village in a thickly settled area. The investigation by the welfare workers showed much that they could do to help the people in the village. But somehow in every home they visited and every person they met they found the same lack of interest in everything except the ongoing lawsuit between the Hsiungs and the Lius, the two largest clans, who accounted for more than half the population of the village. There existed a piece of poor land of about two acres which each side claimed to be its own. The Lius were largely farmers while the Hsiungs were scholars and merchants. The case was decided by the district court in favor of the Hsiungs, with the result that the Lius threatened to appeal to the high provincial court. Following the decision of the district court, the Hsiungs let their buffalo graze on the disputed land. This act was challenged by the Lius and a fist fight ensued. The Hsiungs, being white-collar workers, were beaten and had to flee. The Lius seized the buffalo and took it to their ancestral hall, thus making good the Hsiungs' charge that the Lius had stolen their animal. The Hsiungs refused to take back their buffalo without appropriate apology accompanied with musicians and fire-crackers after the fashion of a victory parade. The Lius, being farming families, could ill afford to continue the lawsuit, yet they found the thought of "losing face" by complying with the Hsiungs' demand even more distasteful than bankruptcy.

The welfare workers from outside were neutral. They had many talks with both parties and insisted on chiang li or talking reason with both sides. The disputants finally agreed that the object of their lawsuit was worth less than they had spent, and that if they insisted on continuing it both sides would face bankruptcy. The welfare workers then organized a parade with flags and firecrackers and led the buffalo from the Lius' ancestral hall back to that of the Hsiungs. They invited the elders from both sides to a tea party for a peaceful settlement of the lawsuit. Each side disclaimed any desire for the two disputed acres, provided the other did not claim it. Finally, to the relief and
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572
271

At the present time there is a tea plantation on Lantau at the Ngong Ping plateau next to the Po Lin Monastery. Mr. Brook Bernacchi, for long a leading barrister here, established this plantation at his home there in the 1950s. His plantation is not operated along the traditional village lines, but more on the commercial lines of plantations in other parts of China. However, commercial tea-growing on Lantau peak is nothing new, it seems. In 1971 I interviewed a very old village woman, born in one of the Tung Chung villages in 1879, who had accompanied her mother to pluck tea at plantations in that area which were apparently run by Chinese persons from outside the island. This was in the late 1880s and 1890s, some time before the lease of the N.T.

These notes, gathered from visits and interviews, are sufficient to show that tea cultivation and tea drinking from local bushes was common in some parts of the New Territories, and together with Dr. Hase's account, that it still lingers today.

However, there is also evidence which suggests that tea cultivation was probably a major enterprise at one stage in the Hong Kong region. The 1688 district gazetteer refers to tea growing on Tai Mo Shan where there are what appear to be tea terraces on many of its slopes, especially on the north side. There are also terraces to be seen in the Ma On Shan Country Park and on the hills south west of Crooked Harbour and other places in the north-east New Territories. From the wide extent of the terracing work presumably done for this purpose in various parts of the New Territories, it would seem that a commercial crop was intended, and perhaps realized for a period. The Hong Kong Government's Botanical Report for 1906, commenting on one of these areas, states, "Tea is cultivated... at the villages lying in the higher mountain valleys about Tate's Cairn and Buffalo Hill ... There is a tradition tea growing was once a thriving industry here and terraces are pointed out on the mountain sides in all parts of the district, which are said to have been made by tea planters. Whether the cultivation diminished through extortionate taxing previous to the British occupation or in consequence of the destruction of the woods and with them the suitable soil, it is hard to say, but the latter would alone account for it." It is interesting that this early official reference is mainly to the area in which Mau Tso
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299
309

SOJOURNERS IN XIAMEN: NOTES ON THE RAS VISIT

It was up-up-and-away' on Friday March 6, 1992, as 18 stalwart RAS Members took a one-hour flight to Xiamen Island, in Fujian Province. Also known as Amoy, the town is similar, in some ways, to Hong Kong. Both are situated in the typhoon belt. Also, like Macau, there are isolated 'dip-nets' for coastal fishing, mournful water buffalo haul ploughs as in Guangdong and 'knife-bean' and flame trees adorn skylines as at Repulse Bay. As in most of China for the past decade, 'free markets' exist in Xiamen with intriguing street stall smells.

But this city, where Chinese still stare at Europeans, is also different from Hong Kong. Limited English is spoken, and, when it is, people often have Japanese accents. Nor is there the same high-rise concrete jungle, sampans and junks have more pronounced curves, straining bare-footed labourers pull carts and street sweepers use brooms made from branches of trees.

Although one of the People's Republic's Special Economic Zones, Xiamen cannot be compared to hectic Shenzhen. But if direct relations can be established across the shallow, 150 kilometre wide, Taiwan Straits, instead of routing transactions through Hong Kong, the volume of trade could increase rapidly. To make it easier for the Taiwanese, to attract business many of the street signs in Xiamen are in conventional Chinese characters, as in Hong Kong, rather than the simplified ideograms normally used in China.

The Group's first stop on arrival in Xiamen, arranged by Member David Norris, was to 'Meixia Arts and Handicrafts' established and run by American Bill Job and wife Kitty. They manufacture and export stained art glass murals, windows and lampshades.

The following day, the couple invited the Party to their spartan but adequate house, built in 1928, for which the present rent is US$120 a month. An open well and grapevines grace the forecourt. Their two young daughters attend the Chinese school and are fluent in both Putonghua and the local dialect. The latter sounds more nasal than Cantonese. When the Group arrived the two girls were playing ball with Chinese friends in the narrow street at the front of their home.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g
'Doctrine of the cosmic breath', and outlines of nature involving landscapes, mountains and watercourses, and their likeness to animals either mythical or real, are employed. Of the Fukien and the Kiangsi Schools, the latter is the more popular in Hong Kong, although the two have tended to merge and overlap like Buddhism and Taoism over the past century.

In addition to the two main schools of fung shui, as already demonstrated, there are variations in methods used by different practitioners. Although they may know things about 'unseen forces' and the supernatural that they did not learn through schooling, because fung shui is complex, alternative interpretations by different masters are by no means uncommon. One frequently finds that a master's personality plays an important part. Many masters do not share the same views or give identical advice. They have been likened to blind men feeling the same water buffalo and getting different impressions. One touches its head, another its tail and so on. On account of such factors, Chinese geomancy has been described as rather 'hit and miss'. Certainly, it is 'by no means an exact science'. But science can be a dead end anyway to an imaginative soul.

Sick Building Syndrome

A great deal has been written in recent years about the effects of chemical emission of building materials on occupants. Dr Bill Wolverton, a member of the United States 'Plants for Clean Air Council' (Plants that cure ..1992), maintains that research proves plants in buildings can filter out harmful chemicals. Microbes in the roots detoxify and help purify air. Naturally, some plants are better at this than others, and only fresh plants can provide energy and power to attract positive forces. Azaleas or plants with sharp, pointed leaves are to be avoided because of the 'dagger effect', Chinese believe.

When the leaves of fortune plants wither and turn yellow, however, they should be replaced, or yellow edges should be trimmed. Most Chinese will tell you that with fresh bamboo, this is permissible. Others insist you should not cut plants after they have grown, while in your possession, as you are 'cutting away your own wealth'. Incidentally, some Chinese believe, with plants and flowers symbolising growth, life and nature, and with colours linked to the Five Elements, it is natural to place them in green or blue vases.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641
236

The rituals performed by both the 'red hat' and the 'black hat' professional religious specialists, often connected in one way or another with mortuary rites, continue as before. The difference being that before redecoration the ritual performances in the half light, by 'red hats' in particular, accompanied by the boom of their ox horns blown at intervals during the rituals, provided an even more exotic and eerie scene.

The former layout of the temple consisted, as you entered the temple from the street, of the main hall dedicated to the Lord of T'ai Shan. This led through to the rear hall dedicated to the Saviour of the Underworld, the Buddhist deity, Ti-tsang Wang, with a long and comparatively narrow annexe running down the sides of the whole length of the two halls. On the other side of the halls were large rooms dedicated to the ritual services.

The usual images one would expect in the halls of both the Lord of T'ai Shan and Ti-tsang Wang stand either before or beside the altars, and lining the walls. Many are tamed demons such as Horse Face and Buffalo Head, and the Short Black and Tall White Demons who seize the souls of humans on their due date of death, dragging them before the City God for their primary interrogation. Others include the City God himself and the Goddess of Maternity, Chu-sheng Niang-niang, both of whom occupied their own secondary altars flanking that of Ti-tsang Wang; the Judges of the Ten Courts of the Underworld; and the Civil and Military Secretaries to the Lord of T'ai Shan.

and they have been

However, since the refurbishment of the temple, which took some two and a half years, the images down the side annexe which used to stand each in its own shrine have been relocated. The comparatively large image of the local tutelary deity, the Earth God, now has a shrine of his own in the Ti-tsang hall and the other two major images, of the Lord Protector of the Realm, Hu-kuo Tsun-wang Immortal Celestial Physician, Tien-i Chen-jen moved to the Ti-tsang Wang hall where they now sit on the main altar but in front, one on either side of the altar, both newly repainted. These two deities have borne these titles for at least thirty years and during that time the temple staff who appeared to be quite knowledgeable explained that the images down the side wall of the annexe had been brought in from other temples when the latter had been demolished for one reason or another, and their identities had been lost over the years.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n
PHOTOGRAPH OF HONG KONG HARBOUR AND WATERFRONT TAKEN IN 1954

JACK LAO MOU CHI

251

The photograph is actually five photographs joined together, approximately 30 inches by 6 inches.

Starting at the Central District Vehicular Ferry to Jordan Road, it can be seen that, moving to the right, Connaught Road at the time formed the Praya or Waterfront. Near the right-hand end of the photograph both Blake Pier and Star Ferry Pier can be seen. The Star Ferry moved to its present piers, on reclaimed land, in late 1957 when a number of people complained about the extra distance to walk!

Behind the two piers can be seen the Queen's Building (where the Mandarin Hotel stands today), the old Hong Kong Club building and Mercury House (Cable and Wireless). Behind is the Royal Naval Dockyard, which was where Admiralty is situated today. Beyond, of course, is Wan Chai, where Gloucester Road at that time formed the Waterfront, and still further on is North Point.

On the other side of the Harbour the skyline is formed by the Kowloon Foothills and one can pick out such landmarks as Kowloon Peak (Fei Ngo Shan), Lion Rock and Beacon Hill. Passes along the Foothills, from west to east include Kowloon Pass, Sha Tin Pass, Grasscutters' Pass, Customs Pass and Tate's Pass. Further to the north are Heather Pass and Buffalo Pass.

Right over to the west of the photograph is Tai Mo Shan, Hong Kong's highest mountain.

In those days there was a clear view of the Harbour from Government House and Governors were said to use the number of ships in the Harbour as a barometer of the economy. In this photograph there does not appear to be a great deal of activity.

(Question from Dan Waters, who borrowed the photograph and copied it: 'During the 1956 Riots I served as a Special Constable based at the Waterfront Police Station. I was under the impression that this
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390
192

Karun without an effective paddle wheel but he met every emergency with energy and resolve.

Wherever he went, he surveyed the river, recorded his observations and updated his map. He explored other waterways, first by sailing boat and then in the Shushan in order to establish which rivers in the area were navigable. The account of Shushan's journey of exploration up the River Diz in 1891 is still included in the current edition of the Admiralty Pilot for the Persian Gulf,

Life in Iran

Life in Iran for the young Cornell Plant was not all hard work. Game was plentiful and he enjoyed shooting it. If it was edible he ate it, if not, he just enjoyed the shooting. He shot hare, fox, jackal, wolf and deer and went pig sticking with mixed results. He was asked by representatives of one of the villages along the route to shoot a desert lion that had been raiding their herds. Less sportingly, he shot another lion that he spotted from the bridge of the Shushan. Far more dangerous was his encounter with a wild buffalo, which he dropped in the true tradition of the best heroic tales with a shot from his .577 Express, as it charged at him from a few yards away. The most amazing of his adventures was watching a formal battle between two warring Arab tribes from a concealed position on a hill overlooking the chosen battleground. It took several hours for the 600 or so mounted warriors to assemble and hurl insults at each other but once the battle proper started, it was over very quickly. One side felt they were losing and left the field at speed leaving their Sheikh and his family to fight on alone. The opposing warriors withdrew to allow the families of the two opposing sheikhs to fight it out - to the death which they did. Only one 14-year-old boy was spared from the losing Sheikh's family.

The whole area through which the Shushan travelled was under the direct control of the Nizam, an official appointed by the Shah but when he lost favour and another took over, law and order seemed to break down and Plant found himself threatened by gangs of river pirates. Fortunately, he kept on the move and away from trouble but on one occasion, when anchored overnight in a remote spot he and his team were stood to with their hunting rifles at the ready. The watch, while half asleep, had observed what he made out to be dusky figures stealing
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