RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1962 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f CHINA'S 35 MILLION NON-CHINESE 65 was contrary to the intention of the cadres. The distribution of confiscated animals among the slaves and bondsmen was at first regarded as a glorious opportunity to have a religious splurge of sacrifices and feasting instead of an investment for production. Sacrifices are required to placate the various spirits that were thought responsible for every evil and ill, from accidents to rheumatism. Winnington found that the Wa or K'a-wa of southwest Yunnan represent a different society, although Hsi-meng district to which he was taken by his Communist Chinese hosts lies only in the fringes of the Wa territory and may not be entirely representative. The Wa inhabit both sides of the south Yunnan-Burma borders and are divided into the "wild Wa" and the Wa tamed by contact with Burmese or Chinese civilizations. The "wild Wa" in British Burma in 1935 were still addicted to headhunting, both on other Wa and on non-Wa people coming into or living near their village areas.15 A Chinese account of the "wild Wa" on the Yunnan side related the headhunting to efforts to ensure good harvests. In any event, the "wild Wa" decorated the approaches to their thorn-fence walled-village with a double column of skulls mounted on posts. A person entered their territory at his peril. In the Sinicized northern part of the Wa territory there is a transition zone of intermixed hill Shan, La-hu and other mountain people as well as of Wa. Slavery here is practised in a very relaxed form, according to Winnington. Slaves constitute only about five per cent of the villagers as compared with over 90 per cent of the population in the Black-bone country. A slave suffers no social discrimination among the villagers and takes part in village and clan ceremonies open to other villagers. He can marry whom he pleases, and when the new couple sets up separate housekeeping, the master is bound by tradition to help them on pain of community criticism for failure to do so. Such a marriage virtually ends the slavery status, although the slave is expected to make payments to his master until his price is paid for. 1 Great Britain Treaty Series No. 80 (1947), Exchange of notes concerning the Burma-Yunnan boundary, 18th June 1941, London, 1947, 4. 16 Li Sheng-chuang, Yün-nan ti-yi chih-pien chü-yü nei chih jen-chung l'iao-cha (Research into the ethnic groups within the First Border Settlement District of Yunnan), Researches on the Yunnan Frontier Problems, Kunming, 1933, 194. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1962 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f 70 HEROLD J. WIENS but their main concentration in a solid bloc is in the Ta-liang mountains southwest of I-pin district of Szechwan. More closely related to the Tibetans, the Ch'iang live in the west fringes of the Szechwan basin east of K'ang-ting city. The chief areas of Tibetan settlement are almost all in the Tibetan plateaus, though politically the areas are divided among five provinces in addition to Tibet proper and not counting now-abolished Sikang province. These are Kansu, Chinghai, Yunnan, Szechwan and Kweichow. Since Sikang has largely been incorporated into Szechwan, the latter now contains over 700,000 Tibetans, whereas Yunnan has some 67,000, Aside from the Chuang who constitute about seventy per cent of the total population in what is called the Kwangsi Chuang Autonomous Region, other T'ai-related groups are widespread especially in Yunnan and Kweichow. The T'ung occupy a solid bloc of territory joining three provinces: southeast Kweichow, northern Kwangsi, and western Hunan. They are related to the Shui who live in the southeast corner of Kweichow. The Pu-yi (also called Chung-chia) are a T'ai-related group in southwest Kweichow. In central Kweichow they live intermingled with the Miao, and they constitute the majority of the country people around the provincial capital of Kuei-yang. The T'ai proper have settled in the southern half of Yunnan where they are divided into two branches: the Hsi-shuang pan-na T'ai and the Te-hung T'ai. The former of these branches constitute "Twelve pan-na or basin 'states'", whence their name. The latter are close relatives of the Burma Shan people. Also related to the T'ai more distantly are the Li people of Hainan Island, with their heartland in the Li-mu ("mother of the Li") mountains that dominate the southern half of the island. Some Miao also are found on Hainan, having been imported during the Ch'ing dynasty to make poison arrows in the campaigns against the Li.20 The Miao are a very scattered group and only in two regions do they form compact settlements: eastern Kweichow and southwest Hunan. In Szechwan they live along the Kweichow borderlands. In Kwangsi they have settled in small groups in the centre of the province. In almost all regions the Miao have 20 Hsu Sung-shih, Yueh-chiang liu-yü jen-min, 122-123. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1962 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f Hakka kept themselves to themselves in different villages and there has been a general antipathy between them until recent times. Whether Punti or Hakka the villages were inhabited by clans: either in villages in which there were only persons of one clan descended from a common ancestor; or in villages in which lived several groups of families of different name, that is several clans, having come there together or at different times. Examples of both kinds of villages, large and small, are to be found all over the New Territory. Both Punti and Hakka clans have a history of wandering from the north throughout the last ten centuries at least and it is clear that for all the families who came to what is now the leased territory it was the end of the line, the end of a chapter of wandering that was often interrupted for centuries in some location elsewhere in the province. At Fan Pui, for instance, a small village on Lantau Island, the FUNG clan5 arrived there in the eleventh generation after the first ancestor had entered Kwangtung province. The twenty-second generation are living there still in an adjoining bay, having had to make way for the Shek Pik reservoir scheme. The family came from Ma Tau Wai in Kowloon and had made their way there from Nam Hung district in the extreme north of the province after spending some time in Hok Shan district on the way south. Their neighbours the TSUI clan* of Shek Pik claim twenty-seven generations in Kwangtung and fifteen in Lantau: that is, nearly four hundred years. The first ancestor came from a village in Nam Cheung district in Kiangsi province and settled in Tung Kun district. Eventually, following the example of other members of the main branch who gradually moved southwards, a TSUI of the thirteenth generation came to Shek Pik and was buried there. Their clan history mentions that members of successive generations before the move to Lantau were officials and military officers who won the imperial favour in the Ming dynasty, whereas the FUNG genealogy gives no such claims to fame for its progenitors. Both these clans are Cantonese. The condition of the peasantry impressed Lockhart favourably on the whole, "The inhabitants, though by no means wealthy, seem to be, as a rule, comfortably well off and able to earn Page 80 Page 90 Page 91 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1962 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f LIFE IN THE NEW TERRITORIES 85 examination by the District Magistrate at Nam Tau and by the Kwang Chau prefect at Canton, proceeded to the Viceroy's yamen in the same city where eventually a favoured few would manage to pass the first degree of sau choi. This in theory entitled the scholar to qualify for an official post. In practise there were many more sau choi than there were posts and a scholar had to pursue further study and pass other examinations before he stood a real chance of becoming an official. In every district there were sau choi who would never obtain posts. Many became local schoolmasters. Others by virtue of wealth and position became the local gentry who, by report, were sometimes a help to the magistrate and frequently a nuisance, both to him and to the litigant or criminal public. They sat on the local tribunals kuk and advised the magistrate on local affairs. Being literati like himself they had ready access to his yamen and to his ear. Sometimes they even outranked him. Elders, on the other hand, rarely sat on the kuk. Lockhart estimated that there were one hundred and fifty sau choi in the whole district.20 In 1898 the elders of important villages like Ha Tsuen and Ping Shan were literati. Several of them played a leading part in the planning of operations against the British take-over.27 20 Sometimes the wealthier village elders enhanced their position by purchasing degrees. In the late Ch'ing period the sale of examination titles appears to have been considerable. Smith mentions it in his Village Life in China** and I have come across several such persons in villages in the Southern District of the New Territory. They were usually substantial villagers. Such a one was CHAN Tak-hang4 of Cheung Kwan O in Junk Bay who died in the seventeenth year of Kwong Shui (1892) at the age of sixty-four. According to his descendant, the present Village Representative, he was a man of substance who built a guest house in the village which is still standing to-day, gave money for the upkeep of the stone tracks which linked the villages of the area with Kowloon, and was well known locally. His portrait, painted at the age of fifty-seven, shows him in his borrowed finery as a kwok hok sang, for which he paid an unknown consideration to Government. A man such as this would obviously play a considerable part in the affairs of his immediate neighbourhood. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1962 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f 90 J. W. HAYES in the area, where presumably they would be seen by the worshippers who congregated there in large numbers at festival times. FE There is a spirited account of a dispute between tenants and a new and rapacious landlord at Kat O in 180243 which was complicated by the clerks of the yamen who, obviously for a consideration, deluded their magistrate and were in collusion with the landlord. The tenants petitioned no less a person than the Viceroy of the Two Kwang provinces in his yamen at Canton and his instructions, relayed through the Governor and Prefect, are set out in stone so that justice could be done, and seen to be done, ever after. Everything worthwhile, every precedent or decision of importance, seems to have been set forth on stone: to ensure compliance44; for observance by both parties45; 'to follow the judgment';46 for fear that this would be forgotten as time goes by, thus leaving endless troubles in the future47; for the general information of the people48 and so forth. The tablets were either set up by the people, or as in most of these cases, by order of the magistrate with the written approval of the Viceroy; by the community of Tung Chung, Sai Chung, Keung Shan etc.; by the fishermen of Peng Chau since approval had not been given for the erection of a tablet by the Viceroy49, (later given by the magistrate); by the Inspector General and like cases.49 K 46 44 Perhaps to compensate for the severities and uncertainties of this life the inhabitants of the District fortified themselves by a devotion to religion that was marked by its generous diversity. To the usual galaxy of gods such as Tin Hau6, Kwun Yam 觀音, Hung Shing 洪聖, Kwan Tai 關帝, Pak Tai 北帝, Tam Kung, and Yeung Hau Wong, they added local officials who had acted as their benefactors and anyone else who took their fancy. Whilst there may be some who are not so well known and whose memory has faded in the minds of the people, the two who have left an indelible mark in the New Territory are WONG and CHOW, successive Viceroys of the two Kwang provinces who were responsible for obtaining the cancellation of the edict of 1662 which ordered all inhabitants of coastal areas to remove50 inland in order to deny their assistance, forced or otherwise, to the pirate bands which were attacking the new dynasty in the name of the Ming ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1962 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f LIFE IN THE NEW TERRITORIES 91 which it had supplanted eighteen years before. Great hardship was encountered which is hardly surprising, and the people were eternally grateful to their benevolent officials and commemorated them in several temples dedicated in their honour. One of these was burned down in 1955 during the fire which destroyed Shek Wu Hui near Fanling, and others are to be found at Sha Tau Kok and Kam Tin, and Sai Heung in Chinese Territory. In addition a school was named in their honour at Kam Tin, and when it was repaired in 1744 the San On magistrate of the time composed a Confucian discourse which was inscribed on the wall of the restored building, to instruct the pupils and their parents. An interesting survival which still existed in 1898 was the appearance of an old beggar in the Yuen Long villages every Chinese New Year who brought statues of WONG and CHOW for the people to worship, and incidentally to supply him with food and money.'' To these men-become-gods for whom the construction of a temple was necessary to ensure their better worship and resulting favours, there must be added an equal and possibly much older faith in sacred tree spirits and the multitude of earth spirits known as pak kung ih, tai wong ★, and ordinary she taan 4, who look after villages and localities such as passes, bridges, and fords over streams. This insurance with the spirits who ruled this world and would assuredly be encountered in the next was expressed in the continual reconstruction of temples. A great many of the temples in the New Territory to-day owe their present fabric, or a great part of it, to repairs made during the last fifty years of the Ching dynasty. It was evidently a highly necessary part of the proceedings that the god should be informed of the names of the contributors so that his benefits should not pass anyone by, since their names, and often the amounts they gave, were scrupulously inscribed on the commemorative tablet which was always let into the wall to mark the occasion. Sometimes over a thousand names had to be recorded in this way, most of them in respect of trifling amounts, even for a small and out of the way temple, as in the reconstruction of the Tin Hau temple at Cheung Chau in the second year of the last Ch'ing Emperor (1909). The magistrate, too, was expected to play his part in warding off disaster. The District History mentions that CHAN Kuk ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1962 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f 92 J. W. HAYES wrote a prayer for divine help to the city god of Nam Tau after a dark mist resembling the shadow of a black dog haunted womenfolk in the third moon of the third year of Ch'ung-cheng (1630): and the magistrate LI Ho Shing wrote the "Lamentations" or odes and addresses burnt in sacrifice, when a severe typhoon hit the district city in the fifth moon of the twelfth year of K'ang-hsi (1673); this was preserved among the literary works recorded in another chapter of the history. There is no mention of later imitations. Besides this preoccupation with spirits of all kinds and a general disposition to ensure against all possible acts of ill will on their part which was, one almost thinks, a by-product of the bad times and the uncertainties which usually surrounded the Chinese peasant and his city counterpart, there was a regular and intense devotion to the ancestors of the clans which was carried on through the centuries. This, of course, was Confucianist, as opposed to the Taoist and animist forms of religion to be seen inside temples and on the fields and hillsides. There is no doubt that the clans were kept together by the regular attention that was paid to the ancestral duties and the particular reverence accorded to the first ancestor who had settled in the village. I have already explained how, on the material side, management of land by the clan for the clan assisted in keeping both land and people together. On the spiritual plane the ancestral duties had the same effect. At the heart of the clan was the ancestral hall.52 Here the soul tablets of past generations were ranged in rows on an altar: these can still be seen in a few ancestral halls to-day, notably at Ping Shan and Ha Tsuen, two villages of the TANG clan, whose green and gold tablets date back to the Sung dynasty. Most villages in the New Territory, large or small, appear to have had ancestral halls at the time of the lease. Many of them are standing to-day and I have traced the presence of others which have mouldered away since 1898. Each clan had its own hall and here its members gathered to perpetuate its corporate identity on occasions like births, weddings and funerals, and regularly each year at the New Year festival. 53 As an adjunct to the tablets in the ancestral hall, the graves of ancestors were also the subject of regular attention by the villagers, particularly the grave of the first ancestor and his wife.54 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1962 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f LIFE IN THE NEW TERRITORIES 97 J, FUNG Yiu Tsan, residing at No. 69 in this village, have a farm hut and a piece of waste threshing ground at Lot Nos. 94 and 95, which I hereby sell to a junior clansman FUNG Tak Yau, because I am old, have no son to support me and cannot make a living or obtain the money I need by borrowing. The price agreed upon is twenty-four silver dollars. This has been paid in full, after weighing, to me personally; the money is to be taken home for me to spend; hereafter the above-named payer will assume ownership of the farm hut and waste threshing ground, including the walls, tiles, ordure pit and boundary stones. From now on no arbitrary claims may be made, for this sale is voluntary and payment has been made in full and as agreed. This agreement is irrevocable. Should this property be found to have been acquired under suspicious circumstances, the vendor alone will be held responsible; the above payer is not liable. This written agreement is hereby prepared as proof and for retention by FUNG Tak Yau. Another, drawn up during the difficult days of the Japanese occupation in 1942 reads, This deed of sale on land is drawn up by the vendor CHAN Wan Shing. Because he has not money for purchasing provisions, he first offered to sell to his kinsfolk the nine plots of land, total area three dau chung, located at Nam Pei Tau in Shek Pik Village, bequeathed to him by his grandfather, but none of them are interested. Then, through the medium of a middleman, KWOK Lai Pai of Tai O was approached and he undertook to buy them at a current price of $165.00. Again, through the middleman, CHAN Wan Shing has received a sum of $165 for himself, and with effect from the date of this deed, the lots will become the permanent property of KWOK Lai Pai. For fear that verbal agreement may not constitute evidence, this deed is executed as a certificate to confirm the transaction. During a land court held during the Shek Pik settlement just as a case was being settled in the present possessor's favour in default of proof of the plaintiff's contention that the original document was a mortgage and not a sale (and therefore redeemable, according to custom, despite subsequent transactions) the defendant pulled out a new sheaf of papers for inspection. Among them was a white deed which proved to be the original mortgage of 1918. He thereby defeated his own case. It turned out that he had never bothered to read the papers handed over to him with the white deed of sale drawn up during the Japanese Occupation. Similarly, a sixty year old mortgage elsewhere on Lantau which was discovered in the land registers when succession was being determined, was honoured by the mortgagees, though grudgingly, the real point at issue being the amount of compensation and not the return of the land, as no figure was stated in the original entry. 12 This is recognised in the provisions of the New Territories Ordinance Cap. 97 where the registration of a so manager in the Land Office is obligatory. A change of manager can only be secured after the vacancy has been filled at a properly advertised clan meeting and notices of election, posted by the District Office, have expired without objection, Prospective sales of two land have to be reported to the Assistant Land Officer (the D.O.) and advertised by him, again without objection, before a sale is allowed. Trustees, too, are not permitted to sell land belonging to minors unless the Land Officer has given his ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1962 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f 98 J. W. HAYES approval. This authority, with powers of discretion, was given to the D.O. to help preserve the traditional way of managing land within the clan, and to provide a cheap and impartial arbiter in case of dispute. 13 In Shek Pik village the TSUI, CHEUNG, HO and CHI clans owned 1.1, 0.39, 0.55, and 0.04 acres of agricultural land in 1898. With the exception of the HO clan, they were intact in 1959. The TSUI tso probably dates from the fifteenth generation, and is therefore three hundred years old. The FUNG clan in Fan Pui owned 9.2 acres in 1898 but this was sold in 1953. 14 At Fan Pui I dealt with a disputed case of ownership in which the defendant stated that eight lots totalling 9,581 square feet of agricultural land had been specially set aside as joss and oil fields (shen you tian). Fields are also set aside for the worship of earth spirits. At Cheung Kwan O village in 1898 the two clans of CHAN and NG administered 1.41 acres of agricultural land under the name of a to tei wui. The rentals were originally devoted to the maintenance of the to tei or earth spirit who looked after the village, but for many years the revenue has simply gone to the clans. Many other cases are known at Mui Wo and Tung Chung. 15 See Chapter III (iii) and (iv) of H. B. Morse The Trade and Administration of the Chinese Empire (Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh, 1908) which is based on an article by Byron Brenan "The Office of District Magistrate in China” Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society XXII, (1897-98), 36-65, and incorporates his own wide experience of China and her officials in the course of over thirty years' service in the Imperial Maritime Customs. Brenan himself (1847-1927) had served in China from 1866 and was H.B.M.'s Consul-General in Shanghai 1898-1901. Of the district magistrate Brenan wrote, "The magistrate is the unit of government; he is the backbone of the whole official system; and to ninety per cent of the population he is the Government"; op. cit. p. 37. 16 Papers 1899 p. 583. The text of the stone tablet outside the Tin Hau temple at Kat O, referred to elsewhere in the article, uses this picturesque phraseology. Contrasting their sorry lot beside the power of the yamen officials they had written in their petition to the Viceroy "We, civilians, whose lives are cheap as ants... who are we to start a lawsuit against the district yamen's worms?" An interesting feature of this inscription is that it follows the customary form of Ch'ing document in which reference is made in the text to other papers, by summary or quotation, instead of the western method of adding enclosures. See John K. Fairbank, Ch'ing Documents, an introductory syllabus, (Harvard University Press 1952) p. 21. 18 When I asked an old gentleman who graduated sau choi in 1896 about extortion and venality among magistrates, he replied in distinctly extenuating tones "Some did; but then they had so many people to look after". He observed that there were some rich districts in Kwangtung in which a magistrate had to do nothing to obtain money as it came rolling into the Office in the way of presents, inducements, additions to land and other taxes etc., whilst there were others which were so poor that the magistrate could squeeze very little from them even if he tried very hard. This is curiously echoed in Morse, Trade and Administration p. 92 “In Kwangtung we (the Imperial Maritime Customs) have regularly applied to ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1962 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f 102 J. W. HAYES there are sometimes several. As a general rule they are small buildings, but the major clans have constructed large high spacious buildings with several courtyards and side rooms. Among the largest in the New Territories are the ancestral temples of branches of the TANG clan at Ping Shan and Ha Tsuen near Yuen Long. These are fine and impressive buildings but are not, unfortunately, kept in good repair. Much of the opposition to the British troops in 1898 was planned in the ancestral hall at Ha Tsuen. Beside the Ping Shan hall there is a school/library building, now used as a private residence. 53 The reason is always said to be lack of funds though I suspect a lack of leadership is also a prime factor. The clan usually waits until something is seriously wrong, by which time it is often too late; a storm completes the ruination. There seems to be some truth in this as I have found newly built ancestral halls in several villages, e.g. the CHEUNG ancestral hall at Lo Wai, Pui O which was rebuilt in 1960 on a new site, the old one having been in ruins for twenty years. 54 Clan worship at the graves still goes on, but is much more informal than in 1898. Mr. TANG Kiu-fong of Fui Sha Wai, a retired schoolmaster, previously quoted, who was born in 1894, tells me that when he was a boy the ceremony was taken very seriously. Everyone wore the long robe, elders were carried to the graves in sedan chairs, and male members of the clan were drawn up in ranks by generations and worshipped in strict seniority, under the direction of a master of ceremonies. 55 These ancestral obligations often imposed considerable inconvenience and up to several days' travel for the whole family. Mr. CHEUNG Yau of Tai Ping village, North Lamma, (b. 1883) tells me that his grandfather settled on Lamma Island from his native village of Wai Tau in the Lam Tsuen valley in the present Tai Po district. Ever since he can remember, and until old age interfered with visits a few years ago, he has gone back to his ancestral village at least three times a year, as dictated by custom. For the first twenty-five years there was no railway and his family used to go by junk to Kowloon and walk the rest of the way, children included. Others went further afield. Mr. LAM Shue Chun, Chairman of the Peng Chau Rural Committee, told me that his family went regularly to their ancestral village of Nam Leng Wai in Po On, north of the border, and were interrupted in their journeys first by the Japanese and latterly by the Communists. He has been twice since 1942 and an uncle has been visiting fairly regularly up to last year. The family travelled to Kowloon by junk, then used the railway and had a long walk from Sham Chon Market. Sometimes there was no need to go from home as contact had been lost with the ancestral village which was too far away. 56 They were full at any time. There is an interesting count of travel on the Colony's border roads and the Shum Chun ferries taken 11th and 12th December 1905 in Enclosure E to Despatch No. 59 in Correspondence relating to Kowloon-Canton Railway already quoted. The first was a market day, when the count of persons, with and without goods, roughly doubled the figures for the second, or ordinary day. On the two main ferries, for instance, the count on December 11 was with goods 1126, without goods 1379 and on the Shum Chun-Sha Tau Kok road 521 and 1302. On the day following the figures were 468 and 1124, and 158 and 550 respectively. At New Year and the two grave festivals the number must have been very much increased. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v 90 J. W. HAYES (1878-9 and 1906-7), stands in the street outside the Fong Pin hospital12 telling how it came to be established; and the third, in an old house in Tai Shan Street, commemorates the establishment and repair of a defence office in the 2nd and 10th years of T'ung-chih (1863-4 and 1871-2). The three tablets give information about the island population towards the end of the Ch'ing dynasty and, for instance, tell something of the various sections of the community, especially those where local leadership and authority rested; their links with other parts of the San On district and the Kwangtung province; their relations with the district government and other officials, civil and military; and the way in which such local communal needs as a hospital, schools, and a defence corps or local militia were met. The nucleus of Cheung Chau society seems always to have been the community of fishermen and shopkeepers, the two being interdependent to a great extent though separated by many basic differences. There has, in addition, always been a farming community, but it has ever taken a third place. A hundred years ago it is likely that the majority of the land dwellers were connected with the island's shops, as proprietors or fokis, and in subsidiary trades and occupations associated with the three main sections of the community. Cheung Chau also served as the market town for over a dozen villages on the central and southwest coast of Lantau, the largest of which was Shek Pik with a population of 363 in 1911, and for the inhabitants of the outer islands. The Fong Pin tablet states that there were two hundred shops in the 1870's, from which it can be deduced that Cheung Chau was a flourishing commercial centre at that time. This is borne out by the house in which the defence association tablet was found, which is long, narrow and surprisingly large, with a small open courtyard in the middle. It has changed very little in the last hundred years, like many other houses in the town which date from this period and before. In this urbanized community local power lay with two groups: the members of the WONG Wai Chak Tong*** of Nam Tau and Cheung Chau; and the larger traders and shopkeepers. The two were probably intermingled to some extent, in that some Tong members would be business men, but more investigation ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v CHEUNG CHAU Chung Tung Wan shekhau One Mite Hoi Ping Nam hor (Han-bai) © Hak shan Canton French 1. Sha Shun tak Whampoa Danes Tung Chaen Sun OCheungShan Heung Shan PTại chân Dan Ping (Tung kuan) Pearl River Estuary Mam-tav moon LINDAI Po On District [Pao-an-hsien) Capsingmoon Whichow Tar Pang Wan (Mrs. Bay) Trong Chun Tai Kowloon $ کی همینه taipa Coloane Shek Pik CHEUNG Hong Kon Island CHAU Ladrone Ladrone is 10 20 30 MILES Map showing Cheung Chau in relation to other places mentioned in the article. Lema Is. CHEUNG CHAU 93 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v 102 J. W. HAYES 36 shops from Hong Kong, 28 from Peng Chau and 15 from Tai O contributed to the Po On study (presumably all or mainly of Tung Kwun origin); a few outside shops sent donations to repair the Tin Hau temple; hardly surprisingly no outside shops contributed to the Defence Bureau; but the subscriptions for the Fong Pin hospital came from a wide area and the list included over 20 shops and 40 individual persons (including 2 tongs from Tung Kwun and Hok Shan), from Canton, Pun Yue, Tung Kwun, Nam Hoi, Shun Tak, Macau, and other areas of the province, Most of the temples still contain tablets and other dated items which record their repair from time to time. However, the series is far from complete and many tablets have been lost. A typical instance is the loss of commemorative tablets from the Tin Hau Temple at Tai Shek Hau (the local place name). A prominent citizen remembers seeing a whole row of them fronting an outside wall when he was a young man, about thirty years ago, but they have now all vanished without trace. 15 For mention of these Cheung Chau posts see the following tablets: salt (Tin Hau and Fong Pin), stamp (Tin Hau and Fong Pin), customs, e.g. tax on kerosene (Fong Pin). There was also a customs post on Lamma (Fong Pin), and there were various patrol boats (both tablets). The officer in charge of the military post on Cheung Chau is mentioned on the Tin Hau tablet, whilst the Fong Pin tablet lists eight officers of the Tai Pang battalion. 16 Only the defence bureau tablet gives donors their official ranks, though comparison with others shows that some of the graduates are mentioned there without their titles, i.e., persons mentioned in these tablets may also have been graduates. A comparison of the Tong's genealogical record with the names on the tablets is at first sight disappointing. The genealogical record does not record titles for the later generations, i.e. those of the generation whose names appear on the tablets. An additional confusion is that the clan generation names may not have been used on the tablets where business or personal names may have been recorded instead. However, I think we can be fairly certain that most of the WONGS on the tablets belonged to the Tong. 17 I have translated "WU" as "petitioned the district magistrate". 18 See Kung-Chuan HSIAO Rural China; Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century, (Seattle, University of Washington Press 1960), pp. 294-306 for defence organisations in this period. 19 His precise title was described on the Cheung Chau tablet as 城鎮 *which was probably the equivalent of colonel. A few years later he presented a large painted wooden commemorative tablet to the Hau Wong temple outside Kowloon City, on which his rank is described as tsung-ping or brigadier-general (see Ralph L. Powell The Rise of Chinese Military Power 1859-1912 (Princeton University Press, 1955) pp. 15 and 367). "The brigadier-generals were semi-independent, yet their units were scattered and practically sedentary," ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v 106 J. W. HAYES 30 The Tung Kwun association note book says that there was a Po On Wui Sor ★ ★ ƒ in the Ch'ing dynasty, but since this had always led to confusion their association (the Po On Shuc Shat) was renamed the Tung Kwun Wui Sor in the 12th year of the Chinese Republic (1923). 31 A tablet (1953) in the Free School says that this institution dates back to 1921 and local leaders say that the kung sor was rebuilt at this time. The old kung sor was also known as the hon kaam lau ★ ★# or watchmen's building. ** On the other hand it is unlikely that it predates the defence bureau (1863-70) as this would have been a suitable subject for the Kaifong to organise (there is no mention of it on the tablet). 33 Mr. LEUNG Yau recalls that there were two Kaifong junks operating a daily service between Cheung Chau and Hong Kong before the lease (1898). One left Hong Kong (Sai Ying Pun) at 11 a.m., whilst the other left Cheung Chau at the same time. Both were sailing junks and took three hours to make the journey under good conditions and the whole day if otherwise. They were subscribed and run by a number of local gentlemen for public use. A steam Kaifong vessel was bought with public subscriptions in 1910. Administrative Reports, District Officer, New Territories, 1910. & 34 There are now eight district associations on the island for natives of the districts of Po On; Tung Kwun; Wai-Chiu combined ✰✰ *#; Sei Yap ("The Four Towns') i.e. Toi Shan 4, Sun Wui. Hoi Ping, Yan Ping; Ng Yap ♣ (“The Five Towns") i.e. Hok Shan plus the towns of Sei Yap, Shun Tak: Chung Shan ✈ and Chiu Chau (separate), the four last named formed since 1945, all offering a variety of social, educational and charitable services to members. 35 HSIAO, in his interesting and lengthy study of rural China in the 19th Century, does not deal specifically with the internal organisation of the market towns. The market town of Tai O at the south west end of Lantau island (land population 2248 in 1911) would provide an interesting local comparison, though material is not so readily available as for Cheung Chau. I hope to write a similar outline account at a later date. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r JOURNAL OF OCCURRANCES AT CANTON 39 was persuaded to join the firm of Baring Brothers & Co. In 1873 he became senior partner of the house, finally retiring in 1882. (L.T.R.) 24 Lin Tse-hsü's fate. Hunter long survived Commissioner Lin. Lin Tse-hsü was dismissed from office in 1840 and later sentenced to exile in Ili in Chinese Turkistan, where he remained for three years. He was allowed to return to Peking in 1845. He later served as Governor-General of Yunnan and Kweichow, and retired from office in 1849. He died in 1850 at the age of sixty-seven. (J.L.C.B.) 25 Heang-shan (Heungshan). Former name of the District in which Macao lies. Re-named Chung-shan in honour of Sun Yat-sen. (J.L.C-B.) 26 Morrison. John Robert Morrison (1814-1843) was born in Macao, the second son of Dr. Robert Morrison and his first wife Mary (née Morton). He had some schooling in England but at the age of twelve he came back to Canton with his father in 1826. He became a fluent Cantonese speaker as well as a Chinese scholar, and on the death of his father in 1834 was appointed Chinese Secretary to H.M.'s Commission in China. In 1838 he became, in addition, Interpreter, and in 1841 succeeded Elmslie as Secretary and Treasurer to the Superintendent of British Trade in China. In 1843 he was appointed Chinese Secretary and member of the Executive Council of the newly founded Colony of Hong Kong and was recommended for appointment, by the Governor, as Colonial Secretary. Before the appointment was approved, however, he died in Macao in August 1843, and was buried in the Old Protestant Cemetery there. (L.T.R.) 27 Kwang Chow Foo. Kuang-chou fu The Prefect of the Prefecture of which Canton was the chief city. (J.L.C-B.) 28 Kam Hay Hue. No such title. But I suspect Hunter intended to indicate the Namhoi Hien which title was sometimes written Nam Hoy Hien. See note 14. (J.L.C-B.) 29 Pwan Yu Hue. Also written Punyu Hien. The magistrate having jurisdiction over the eastern part of Canton city and the District lying to the westward of the walls which included Whampoa and the foreign shipping there. (J.L.C-B.) 30 Fearon, Samuel Turner Fearon was the second son of Christopher Fearon and Elizabeth Noad who were married on 14 May 1818 at the Streatham Parish Church. His father served as a midshipman at the Battle of Trafalgar and after being discharged from the Royal Navy he joined the Honourable East India Company's marine service. In this service he made a number of voyages to Canton and when he decided to take a shore posting there he brought his wife and family out with him. Samuel became a fluent Cantonese speaker and in 1838 was appointed Interpreter to the Canton General Chamber of Commerce. After the cession of Hong Kong he was appointed interpreter and clerk of the Chief Magistrate's Court and a couple of months later were added the duties of Notary Public and Coroner. Three years later he was appointed Assistant Magistrate of Police and on 1st January 1845 he became Registrar General and Collector of Revenue. In July 1845 he was granted a year's sick leave and while in England he was appointed Professor of Chinese at King's College, London, an appointment which he held from December 1846 until December 1852. (L.T.R.) 31 Van Basel. Magdalenus Jacobus Senn van Basel, born in Groningen, Holland on 27 September 1808, was appointed clerk in the Dutch Consulate at Canton in 1826, and Vice-Consul in November 1831. He was later in partnership with G. M. Toe Laer and P. Tiedenan in the firm of Senn van Basel & Toe Laer & Co. In 1848 he became Collector General of Taxes ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r 58 K. M. A. BARNETT from the point of view of my present subject, the event which ushered in the new age is the capture of Canton in +878 by the Huang Chao146 rebels. Between this event and the re-incorporation of Canton's territory into China in +971, by which time the earliest Chinese had already a firm grip on what is now Hong Kong, the Liu76 family gave five emperors to the Nan Han99 Dynasty at Canton. This family was allied by marriage with the Cheng163 and Tuen families which successively at this period ruled the powerful kingdom of Nan Chao;100 with the Ma89 family which ruled the kingdom of Tsu1 and no doubt, if the evidence could be pieced together, with many other peoples. For we are told that the emperor Liu Chang78 had a Persian princess in his harem, and among the many Arab travellers who visited Canton there must be some who left a description of these flamboyant half-Chinese rulers, with their eighty or more palaces, the walls of which were encrusted with pearls, their bloodthirsty exuberance and, what shines even through the disapproving accounts of the Chinese historians, their courage and administrative skill. The name Po On3 revived by the Republic of China as the name for the district of which geographically, Hong Kong is a part, was adopted by the Canton rulers in obvious reference to the pearls for which this district was at that period famous. The statement in the San On Yuen Chi123 that the name comes from the hill called Po Shan north of Nam Tau8 city is the "cart before the horse". The pearls were fished in great numbers somewhere near Tolo Channel, probably in Double Haven where the name Chue Tong Wat162 survives as a bay on Kar O Island." They were then transported overland along the route marked by a chain of forts over the pass northeast of Tai Po Tau34 village, through Kau Lung Hang, over the present golf course and skirting the Pat Heung2 marshes to the present Ping Shan, and across the creek to the fort of Tuen Mun4 which I mentioned earlier in this paper. The route, I would have you observe, almost at every point passes one of the chief settlements of the Tang44 clan who are, I believe, together with all the old Cantonese-speaking clans of this territory, the descendants of the soldiers stationed here in the Nan Han Dynasty and its successors for the express purpose of guarding these precious pearls. They were as I have said encouraged, when too old to serve with their arms, to settle down ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r 78 J. W. HAYES six parts sea", an exaggeration which none the less makes its point.24 Hardly part of the fishing fleet as such, but a contribution to Peng Chau's sea-faring activity was the recovery of coral from the sea bed. The coral was used in the production of lime which was required in the building trade for making mortar. This was a major undertaking by the end of the century; it was, in fact, the largest in the New Territories at the time its numbers were reported in 1901.25 Twenty junks each carrying eighteen men and sixty boats each carrying six men, that is 720 men between them, were said to have been engaged in this work which took place within three square miles of sea between Peng Chau and Nei Kwu Chau, the present Hei Ling Chau leprosarium. Fishing, and the recovery of coral for the lime kilns, was such a large scale enterprise in Peng Chau waters at this time that, as two elders have put it to me on different occasions, you could walk on boats as far as the adjacent shore of Lantau, a distance of almost a mile. The land dwellers on Peng Chau were of two kinds: Cantonese, whose principal outlet was business, and Hakkas who had settled down to farm there in the decades before and after 1800. The history and origins of the latter are well-defined by family graves and the recollections of their present descendants but the influx of the Cantonese, and the time and manner of their coming — because in many cases they probably came and went without making a permanent settlement — is more of a mystery. Chinese land deeds of the Ching period are often useful since they sometimes uncover facts not recorded in the earliest land records of the British administration. I have seen such a deed dated 188226 which records the transfer of a shop from one party to another. Naturally this is a common enough transaction, but this particular deed provides interesting information about land ownership on Peng Chau at an earlier date. It relates how the CHAN Yan Hop Tong ✰✰ of San On district had, at a prior but unknown date, leased land sufficient to build ten houses to the CHAN Yee Ka Tong of Tung Kwun district, who in turn sold one shop built on this land to another person. There are actually two differently worded deeds of the same date relating to the same shop and the same transaction, and they Page 90 Page 91 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r PENG CHAU 79 provide complementary information which makes it clear that this is the position. Though this is not stated in the deeds, it is very likely that these two Tongs were related and formed part of one large clan. Of the two, the CHAN Yan Hop Tong is evidently the principal and probably owned more land on Peng Chau than the portion it leased to the other Tong. It is interesting that it still owned land on the Lantau coast after 1898 when the land registers give its address as Nam Tau, the district city of San On. However, on the scanty information at present available, this Tong is rather a shadowy body, though we have a little more information about its lessee, the CHAN Yee Ka Tong, which itself may have been quite wealthy. On one of the 1882 deeds the seller CHAN Kai-sin describes himself as Chung Tong Shi 中堂司 of this Tong. This must have been a clan office and the seller and other members of his Tong were almost certainly resident in Tung Kwun and not in Peng Chau. A few years before (1878) the commemorative tablet in the Tin Hau temple lists the CHAN Kai-sin Tong4 as having contributed six taels of silver to the repair fund. In the light of the deed, the inscription on the tablet is probably a mistake and should have read CHAN Yee Ka Tong, of which CHAN Kai-sin was a leading member. This gift put this Tong among the main subscribers, thereby attesting its importance on the island. The other is not mentioned on the tablet. These Tongs were almost certainly absentee landlords, and the first of them may perhaps have had tax-lord privileges for the whole island which may have been granted to it at an earlier and unknown date, in the eighteenth century or even before, in return for services rendered to the imperial government.27 They most likely belonged to a family of scholar gentry of some importance in its own locality, and the rents from its Peng Chau property would help to support its members and provide funds to enable them to study for the examinations and so continue to obtain official posts. Whilst the 1798 tablet in the Tin Hau temple gives no direct evidence of these Tongs' ownership of land on Peng Chau in the eighteenth century, it does give a few good hints. Two CHANS appear as the principal donors, and it is interesting that the names ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r A RECONNAISSANCE OF MA WAN NOTES 117 1 For a more detailed account of British trade to Canton at this period see J. L. Cranmer Byng, An Embassy to China. Being the Journal kept by Lord Macartney during his Embassy to the Emperor Ch'ien-lung 1793-1794 (Longmans, Green, 1962), 4-17. 2 Macartney's own journal printed in J. L. Cranmer Byng, op. cit., For Parish and Alexander see Appendix A, 313-16. 111-112. J. L. Cranmer-Byng, “The Defences of Macao in 1794: a British Assessment" in Journal of Southeast Asian History Vol. 5 No. 1 (1964). 4 Printed in H. B. Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China 1635-1834, 5 Vols. (O.U.P. 1926-9), I., 237. 5 This report is preserved among the Macartney documents in the Wason collection on China and the Chinese at Cornell University, No. 371 (part). I wish to acknowledge my thanks to the Director of Libraries at Cornell for permission to reproduce this document in full. In doing so I have modernized the spelling and the use of capital letters. I also wish to acknowledge permission received from the authorities of the British Museum to reproduce Parish's sketch map from the original preserved in the British Museum, Add. MS. 19822 (art. 13). 6 The Portuguese name of an island close to Macao which also gave its name to the anchorage there. 7 An officer of the Bombay Marine who had been sent to Macao in 1793 in command of the Endeavour brig, one of two surveying ships, which were earmarked for the use of the embassy. The Jackall had sailed from England in 1792 as tender to the Lion. Both the Endeavour and Jackall sailed from Chusan to Canton in October 1793, but I have not discovered why Proctor was transferred to the Jackall or why the original survey ship, the Endeavour, was not used for this purpose. 8 A large island about twice the size of the island of Hong Kong. The east coast of Lantao, although it has at least one good bay- Silvermine Bay is not sufficiently protected from the wind and is too exposed to the sea to make a good harbour for ships. Lantao Peak rises to approximately three thousand feet and is a useful local landmark. The Chinese name for the island is Tai Yu Shan. + 9 Chek Lap Kok *#, a long island just off Tung Chung bay, See map facing page 27. Like other ports of Lantao it appears to have been more prosperous in the past than at present. The 1911 census gave its population as 77, of whom 55 were men. They probably worked in its stone quarries. to This refers to the Tung Chung valley, which included a fort between the villages of Ha Ling Pei and Sheung Ling Pei. Tung Chung ranked as a cheng M. See Rev. Krone "A Notice of the Sanon District" in Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Part VI (Hong Kong 1859) p. 82. + 11 This is correct, since presumably Parish was referring to the head land of San Tau #. From here the coast runs sharply SW to Tai O. 12 Two islands known as the Brothers, consisting of the West and East Brothers. 13 In the vicinity of Tsing Lung Tau "Green dragon head", on the coast of the New Territories between Tsun Wan and Castle Peak. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r 148 NOTES AND QUERIES abandoned, broken-down, and over-grown with trees and scrub, probably because it lies in a more remote and less populous part of Lantau, so that there would be no use for it after the garrison left. An interesting feature of the Tung Chung fort is the presence of six old muzzle-loading cannons on its walls, each fixed to a cement base. (There are now none at Fan Lau). How these were preserved at Tung Chung is told in the following extract from the 1918 Administrative Report of the District Officer, South: Miscellaneous Receipts show an increase of $5,000 odd, due to the sale of old cannon for $5,265 which had previously remained neglected in the district. In this connection, it may be noted that any specimens of interest were retained, and that six guns were selected for mounting upon the wall of the old Yamen — the present Police Station — at Tung Chung, Lantau. So the guns at Tung Chung may not always have been there, but may have come from elsewhere, some perhaps from Fan Lau. The cannons vary in weight from 1,000 to 2,000 catties, i.e. between 12 and 24 cwts., and are quite large. An interesting comparison is the Ming cannon dredged from Kai Tak Bay in 1956 during the construction of the new runway, which weighs 500 catties and is now mounted outside the Colonial Secretariat. All six pieces carry inscriptions, of which only four are now legible. A typical description reads as follows (though there is room for dispute as to the precise translation): Cannon; weight - 2,000 catties (23-8 cwts.) YIK, Border Pacification General by Imperial Appointment. CHAI, Minister of Constant Support, Junior Guardian of the Heir Apparent and Viceroy of Kwangtung and Kwangsi. LEUNG, Assistant Minister of Defence and Governor of Kwangtung. LAU, Acting Prefect of Fat Shan Prefecture. CHEONG, Hoi Fung District Magistrate, on Reserve, supervised its manufacture in the 21st year of Reign of To Kwong, 10th Moon (1842) by Cannon Artisans LI, CHAN & FOK. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r NOTES AND QUERIES 151 evacuation (1662-1669). But it is certain that Tung Chung and Sha Lo Wan had a share in the incense trade which terminated with the evacuation. Wild incense trees can still be found but the art of making incense sticks has vanished. The ancestors of the people living in the valley may have migrated into the area from the north in 1669 but the area has been, until recently, notorious for occurrences of malaria which claimed heavy tolls. The entire population may have been completely wiped out several times, as the oldest of the families has a family history of no more than seven generations. Tung Chung came into the limelight again when Cheung Pao Tsai and his pirate band who had been using the bay as one of their bases to prey upon the coastal trade of the South China Sea, successfully repelled a Ching naval contingent after a ten-day battle in the Ping Chung Bay in the twelfth year of Chia Ching's reign (1807). The trouble was finally quelled in 1809 when Cheung Pao Tsai surrendered and his pirates were disbanded. 2 With the suppression of the pirates, trade flourished. The Viceroy at Canton petitioned the Ch'ing Government in 1817 saying that "Ta Yu Shan of San On District, an isolated island, is on the (trade) route of the ships of the "barbarians". Tung Chung and Tai O are the only places where these "barbarian" ships can anchor. A fort at Chi Yi Kok2 with a Captain(?) and soldiers from the Tai Pang Camp has been maintained but there is no garrison at Tung Chung. As the two places are very far apart, eight garrison houses should be built at the mouth of the Tung Chung Rivers and two batteries (the fort), seven garrison houses and one arsenal should be constructed on the foot of Shek Shee ShanJ. "6 The petition was accepted and the work was completed in the same year. Whether the work was carried out as requested by the Viceroy has still to be proved. However, the fort has been relatively well preserved and seven old 2 Fan Lau (), 24 miles from Tai O. 3 Nan Tau (南頭), Po On District, 15 miles to the north of Lantau. 4 The distance is 6 miles across the main watershed and about 9 miles along the coast. 5 The idea was to prevent the "barbarians" from drawing fresh water for their ships. 6 Kwangtung Annals (廣東通志), p. 2,530. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 28 HUGH D. R. BAKER point in history at which the clans arrived, and with their subsequent development. Grant gives some maps plotting the regions of land of various qualities, dividing the land into categories according to the number of catties of paddy per dau chung per crop it can produce.38 Best quality land produces 300 catties and upwards per dau chung, and then he grades the qualities down in units of 50 to 150 catties per dau chung, the lowest category of production worth his recording. The region of the New Territories which has the largest area of double-cropping land is the Kam Tin Valley, settled largely by the earliest comers to the district—the Tangs. The land is not all of the best quality, about two-thirds falling into the category of moderate productivity (200–250 catties per dau chung),40 but for sheer size, with good water supply, it is the best region of the New Territories. In the early thirteenth century the lineage segmented, one branch hiving off to the Ping Shan area, where again was a large region of paddy-growing land, double-cropping with moderate productivity,42 fairly well watered, and close enough to the parent village to be within the range of easy communications. Three generations later another branch hived from Kam Tin and established itself in Ha Tsuen.43 I have no information as to the quality of the soil in the area (though from Grant it would seem that productivity might not be very high44), but there is a large quantity of land. The Tangs thus secured to their near-exclusive possession the whole of the agricultural land in the Southwestern corner of the New Territories. When later other groups hived off to found villages on the Eastern side of the New Territories at Lung Kwat Tau in about 1368 A.D.,45 and at Tai Po Tau perhaps two generations earlier,47 they were less fortunate. Not only were they out of the immediate power sphere of the Tang Clan but they moved into an area where other clans were already settled or in the process of settling. The Hau48, who were the next of the clans to arrive, settled in an area which was well watered but rather too low-lying to be safe against flood. They appear to have had little power, and after an initial period of growth, when they founded several new villages,49 seem to have lost all impetus. Their land is of good quality, but when they expanded to Ping Kong,50 Kam Tsin,51 and Yin Kong,52 they did so along a line of poorer quality soil,53 arguing perhaps prior settlement in the nearby rich Sheung Shui ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 24 II. KUAN-FU JEN YU-WEN Where was Kuan-fu Ch'ang? It can be definitely identified with no other place than the eastern side of the Kowloon Peninsula. For several hundred years from Sung to mid-Ch'ing Kuan-fu was the official name of the area, while Kowloon was the vernacular name used by the local people. To avoid confusion, we must carefully differentiate Kuan-fu Ch'ang from Kuan-fu Tsai (stockade), Kuan-fu-shan (mountain) and Kuan-fu hsun-ssu (sub-district). Kuan-fu Ch'ang meant Kuan-fu Field, one of the four salt-producing fields in the Tung-kuan District amongst the thirteen fields of the whole province of Kwantung in the Sung Dynasty. The area of the Field covered not only the entire peninsula but also the nearby islands, including the present Hong Kong. It was under the administration of an office in the stockade called Kuan-fu Tsai, the present so-called Kowloon Walled City. During the last years of the Emperor Tu Tsung (1265-75) the administrator of the field was Yen I-chang of Kaifeng, Honan Province, who had the engraved stone made at North Fu-t'ang in 1274, less than three years before the royal visit to Kuan-fu.6 My interpretation is that the name Kuan-fu has a political and economic meaning: “Kuan" means Tung-kuan District and "fu" means rich. The field was thus christened by officialdom to signify the rich resources of Tung-kuan. Or else, it might signify the riches of the Emperor, for Kuan Chia was a popular term for the emperor. Anyway, it could not be a natural name and it may be inferred from this that the name of Kuan-fu Mountain, which was a long range of mountains with many hills, was adopted from the Kuan-fu Ch'ang and not vice versa. Researches into the Gazetteer of Hsin-an District, the writings of some historians and maps furnished by the Public Works Department of the Hong Kong Government lead to the conclusion that the Kuan-fu Mountain was along the western side of the Kowloon peninsula (see Plate 12). There were a number of hills of various heights inside the area and the highest, the rocky peak west of Ma-tau-wei Road, reaches a height of 405 feet. On the plain and in the valleys at the foot of the hills were separate salt-producing fields. Certainly, there were other such fields all over the Kuan-fu ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g The Travelling Palace of Southern Sung 35 its followers to a nearby islet, Ku-ta (†) or Ancient Pagoda, Tung-lung Island.19 In the autumn they proceeded to Ch'ien-wan (*) which is now definitely identified as Tsun-wan (now written) along the western coast of Kowloon. Two months later, the Mongol army, which had been pursuing them along the shore, began to attack. The boy Emperor sailed to Hsiu-shan (ƒ), now known as Hu-men or the Bogue. Continuously under pressure from the Mongols, Tuan Tsung passed by Hsiang-shan District (at present Chung-shan) and reached Tseng-o (#4), south of Macao, where his ship was badly damaged by a typhoon. He himself fell into the sea but was rescued. The terrible shock led him to contract a fatal disease. He was sick on board ship until the spring of 1278, when the whole fleet sailed northward back to the harbour at the mouth of the Pearl River. By that time Canton had been recaptured by some royalists and so they felt safe enough to anchor and encamp at Kang-chou which is identified as Ta-yu-shan or Lantau Island20. Two months later he died there. His younger brother Ping succeeded him on the throne and became the last emperor of Sung. He named the new reign Hsiang Hsing (#) and the 1st year began in the next month, still 1278. In the 6th month the new emperor had to sail away with the whole fleet southwestward until they arrived at Ya-Shan of the Hsin-hui District. Finally, in the 2nd month of the next year (spring 1279), they fought the last battle against the Mongol forces commanded by the arch-traitor Chang Hung-fan (K). As a result of the defeat the whole army perished. The boy Emperor with his royal seal was tied to the body of his prime minister, Lu Hsiu-fu, who plunged into the sea, to be followed by thousands of court officials in a mass suicide. When the Queen Mother Young heard of the tragic and heroic death of the Emperor she also drowned herself, thus ending the long reign of 315 years of the Northern and Southern Sung Dynasty. Before concluding this talk let me point out that besides the above story there is a deep and important meaning to be derived from our study of the Travelling Palace of Southern Sung in Kowloon. Throughout the Sung Dynasty, China was frequently invaded by neighbouring foreign tribes. Almost every year there was war, not only against the Hsi Hsia (the Tangut), but also, in turn, the Liao (Khitan), the Chin (Nuchen) and the Mongols. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 36 JEN YU-WEN At the close of Southern Sung, the last two emperors had to flee and seek refuge by the shores of the sea, from where they led a hundred thousand odd officials and soldiers in the noble endeavour to restore the empire. The Kuan-fu area, with the three big characters Sung Wong Toi still remaining, commemorates one of the last portions of Sung territory on which the two emperors stood. Shortly afterwards they met their ultimate defeat and the whole country was lost to a foreign tribe for the first time in China's history. But what we commemorate is not this unfortunate event in our national history; it is the spirit of nationalism and patriotism displayed in the last struggle of the Sung patriots for the recovery of the mother country. The independence and freedom of China had a higher claim to their lives. This unconquerable spirit, expressed in the unceasing revolutionary efforts of the Chinese people to fight against the Mongols ever since the last days of Kuan-fu and Ya-shan, was finally crowned with success in the overthrow of the Yuan Dynasty less than 90 years afterwards. Today, when we pass through the ancient site of the Travelling Palace and look at the Sung Wong Toi monument, we see the symbol of this same spirit, which is the essential quality necessary for the survival of any nation on earth. NOTES 1 This lecture is a condensation of my Chinese article Sung Kuan-fu Hsing-kung K'ou (†‡3hB) published in the Continent Magazine († A), Taiwan, September, 1966. 2 Such as Ch'en Chung-wei, Erh-Wang Pen-mo (RR#i, =±**), Shu Mou-kuan, Hsin-an Hsien-chih (Chia-ch'ing), Gazetteer of Hsin-an District (**T. ** **BA), K'o Wei-ch'i, Sung-shih Hsin-pien (MM. ER #), Chang Hsu, Ya-shan Chih (HM, AJA), Nan Sung Shu (ET). * Mother Yu was never again mentioned in historical records; probably she had died. 4 For references, details and discussions on the royal itinerary from beginning to end, see my treatise Sung-mo erh-ti nan-ch'ien nien-lu k'ou (**=*64***) in Sung Wong Toi, a Commemorative Volume (edited and compiled by myself), Hong Kong, 1960, pp. 122-174 (X£b444). 5 It is alleged that there were eight mountain ranges spreading over the peninsula which look like running dragons (lung), and that when the boy Emperor stayed at the place, people pointed out that he himself represented the ninth, as an emperor was commonly believed to be symbolized by a dragon. But the more rational and reasonable interpretation for the origin of the name would be that there are altogether nine mountain ranges spreading over the peninsula. According to Hsi-nan I Chuan (§§ AM) in Hou-han-shu (**後漢書**), the Ai-lao-i (‡‡✯ aboriginal tribe Lao) in Yunnan Province called back “k'ou" and seat "lung". Hence to them, Kowloon meant ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g LAND AND LEADERSHIP IN THE H.K. REGION OF KWANGTUNG 95 He also had land interests on Lantau outside his own village and entered into a business speculation with two other persons, who were probably his fellow merchants in Tai O. Land was purchased wherever it could be obtained by sale, or mortgage leading to possession, from needy farmers some of whom were very likely their customers - and registered in the name of a Tong (). In 1899, this Tong owned over twelve acres of farmland in various parts of the island and still exists today. An account book for the years just before the Japanese war is extant and shows that the Chans' share of the rents was forty per cent of the whole. Their shares were sold by degrees during the Japanese Occupation after being in the family for about a hundred years. In due course Chan Fu-shing's growing wealth enabled him to devote himself to public duties such as the management of village affairs, the arbitration of local disputes and the organisation of small public works. One of these was the repair of the village temple in 1852. A tablet commemorating the work shows that he donated a considerable sum to its repair, in addition to being the leading spirit in the work. This self-made man set the seal on his position by purchasing the title of chien sang () or "Student of the Imperial Academy" for which he would have paid the Provincial Treasury upwards of 100 ounces of silver. This title would have given him standing among the gentry of the San On District, and enabled him, if so inclined, to mix on favourable terms with the civil and military officers of the local administration. This bears out Professor Ping-ti Ho's estimate that "in late Ming and the entire Ching period it may be said that men of above average economic means almost invariably purchased at least an Imperial Academy studentship... by which they could acquire the right of wearing students' gowns and caps and exemption from corvée, thus differentiating themselves from ordinary commoners". If, however, chien sang were two a penny elsewhere it was not so on Lantau. The island was a poor place and there were very few other chien sang to steal Fu-shing's thunder there. CHEUNG KWONG-CHUEN () The second of these local notables, Cheung Kwong-chuen (c.1850-1916) was a Hakka from one of the smaller villages of ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 96 JAMES HAYES the Pui O group in South Lantau. Unlike Chan, who had been a newcomer, Cheung's family had been settled in the area for upwards of two centuries before his birth and his father possessed a small number of fields which had descended from his ancestors. The Cheung clan, too, was the most powerful in the sub-district. Its members were settled in five of the nine small villages of the group and included one or two degree holders by purchase among its immediate forebears. However, like Chan, Cheung went into business, but not in the market town and not as an errand-boy, but locally and on his own account. He opened a shop in a small house situated outside the main village of the group and stocked it with goods which he brought over by sampan from the nearby island of Cheung Chau, the local market centre and a fishing port. Again like Chan, Cheung had a good head for business and used whatever money he obtained from his shop to loan sums to other villagers. As usual the loans were made for interest at high rates or in return for mortgages of land. The deeds relating to about a dozen of his mortgages have survived in an old account book. One of them, relating to the year 1898, shows that he was capable of lending what was then, to a farmer, the considerable sum of 120 dollars, the equivalent of 90 ounces of silver in one single transaction. As happened more often than not in deals of this sort, this land, consisting of an acre and a quarter of good paddy fields, was sold to him seven years later. Cheung's career developed along much the same lines as that of Chan Fu-shing. He settled disputes over a considerable area, including villages outside his own group, and helped to arrange various public services, including a regular ferry to the nearby market town of Cheung Chau. Again, he also took the lead in managing the affairs of the local temples and in repairing them when this became necessary.10 It is not certain whether he purchased a degree, but he may well have done so because, as has been said, this was the normal thing for a prospering villager to do at this period. KUNG FONG-CHAI (***) The third member of the trio, Kung Fong-chai (c. 1850-1922) was a Hakka from a village a few miles from the market town of Tai O. Like the Cheungs, the Kung family had been settled on ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g LAND AND LEADERSHIP IN THE H.K. REGION OF KWANGTUNG 97 Lantau for a long time. He had a better start in life than either Chan or Cheung. His father was a schoolmaster with a business turn of mind who, besides owning land in his own village, had built up a small estate in a neighbouring settlement of Shek Pik where he had taught for many years.1 After being educated by his father at home he was sent to the District City to continue his studies in the academy there. However, despite this favourable beginning he does not seem to have obtained the first degree by examination after all, and had to purchase the title of chien sang later on. Being literate and neither a shopkeeper nor a farmer he probably possessed more of the external attributes of a gentry member than the other two. He was well known in the area as a scholar and calligrapher, and his services were in demand for writing presentation scrolls and for composing suitable inscriptions for temples, monasteries, and private houses. He was also a geomancer or expert on “fêng shui” and was often called in by local people when they wished to site a new grave. All these were gentlemanly occupations. Kung was also a teacher and taught for some years at Shek Pik like his father before him. Later on, he also taught in the school run by one of the district associations in Tai O Market. However, he did not forget the business side of his life, on which his superior position depended, and continued to act as a money-lender and land-broker. At the time of the lease of the New Territories, he owned or managed eight acres of land in the Shek Pik valley and was recorded as holding mortgages on 30 plots of farm land there. It was left to his nephew, who succeeded him in the property, to dissipate the estate which had been built up by Kung and his father. This man was known locally as a gambler but when I saw him in 1962, aged seventy-two, three weeks before his sudden death, I was impressed with his appearance and manner, and could well imagine that his uncle and great-uncle had been public figures in the area. Commentary What points of general interest can be made from what is known of the origins and careers of these three men? In the first place, it is interesting that two of them were Hakka at a time when Cantonese must have formed the great majority ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g LAND AND LEADERSHIP IN THE H.K. REGION OF KWANGTUNG 101 Lockhart calls them in his 1898 report on the New Territories.18 He states that the council for the Eastern Tung embraced most of the leased territory and sat in the market town of Sham Chun just north of the 1898 boundary. One imagines that men such as the three who form the subject of this paper might have been members. Here I have had the benefit of conversations with a former mandarin, now deceased, who served as a Chou and then as a Fu magistrate in Hupeh for some years before the Revolution of 1911. He told me that the councils of the poorer districts were augmented by prominent non-literati of the type to be found on Lantau, the normal restrictions on scholar membership being waived in order to secure the presence of persons who carried weight in their localities. If practised in San On this realistic approach, in part occasioned by the need to obtain their help in chasing in and securing the payment of the land tax, would probably have brought in local leaders like Chan, Cheung and Kung. I must record that this is conjecture since no information on their participation in the council, their work there, and their relations with the district magistrate and the true gentry of the District has yet turned up though I am by no means sure, given local conditions, that it ever will. However an account of these men would be lacking unless one hinted at the possibility of their participation in local councils, especially as it is probable that the rural gentry of Lantau and similar fringe areas in South China and elsewhere in the Ching period were similar in origins to these three men. NOTES 1 The New Territories were ceded by the Convention of Peking signed on 9th June 1898; for the text see The Hong Kong Government Gazette for 8 April 1899, pp. 552-553—but were not occupied until the following year. The boundaries were not discussed until March 1899, and some hostilities took place in March and April of that year when the Hong Kong Government took possession of the New Territory. See Sessional Papers 1899, No. 32 "Dispatches and Other Papers Relating to the Extension of the Colony of Hong Kong" and No. 35 "Further Papers relating to Military Operations in Connection with the Disturbances On The Taking Over of the New Territory". The Romanisation used in this article is in the Cantonese form. For place names see A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories. (Hong Kong Government Printer, 1960). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g LAND AND LEADERSHIP IN THE H.K. REGION OF KWANGTUNG 103 many Punti villages from "squeezes" formerly levied on them, "especially the Hakkas". 13 The market town of Tai O had a land population of 2,248 and a boat population of at least several thousands, many of whom lived in mat-huts over the water and were therefore part of the settled population. Sessional Papers 1911, p. 103 (26 and 38). The Hong Kong Government's Administrative Reports for 1911, District Officer South, mentions 221 mat-shed permits in respect of pile huts in Tai O Creek. There were said to be 8 schools in Tai O or district at a New Territories School Census in April 1912, with an average attendance of 21. See Appendix G to Orme's Report in Sessional Papers 1912, p. 63. 14 See for instance Hugh D. R. Baker, "The Five Great Clans of the New Territories" in JHKBRAS, Vol. 6 (1966), pp. 25-47 and his references at his note 9 to Sung Hok-pang's prewar articles in The Hong Kong Naturalist. 15 The schedules of ownership attached to the Block Crown Leases for 1898 New Territories' villages show this general pattern of peasant ownership very clearly. They are kept in the District Offices of the New Territories Administration. 16 A hint of the strength of superstition at this time is given by Orme, op. cit., paras. 97-98, 17 They held, in addition, a considerable number of mortgages from Shek Pik people. Those recorded in the 1904 Block Crown Leases for the Shek Pik Valley may well be less in number than in 1899 because, in the intervening years, it was reported that mortgagors were making great efforts to recover unencumbered ownership, e.g., Sessional Papers 1902, Mr. Stewart Lockhart's 'Report on the New Territory for the Year 1901' p. 4. It is not entirely clear from the context whether this was a general reaction or limited only to New Kowloon, 18 Hong Kong Government Gazette, 8 April 1899, p. 546 under the heading ‘Local Government in the Villages'. The information about there usually being four Tung in any administrative district comes from the former magistrate mentioned in the same paragraph of the text. He was in charge of ## and ✯✯ in Hupeh for part of the first decade of this century. Where no sources are cited, the text is based on information obtained from old inhabitants, some of whom knew Cheung Kwong-chuen and Kung Fong-tsai personally, and from documents in Chinese relating to the land and money transactions of these two men and those of the third, Chan Fu-shing, that have been made available to me through the kindness of their present owners to whom I am much indebted for their courtesy and cooperation. I am also grateful for help with translation, especially to Mr. Chan Kwun-ngok, and for the ready help of many Lantau residents with my enquiries, Addition to Note 8. The quotation in the text comes from Professor Ho's "The Examination System and Social Mobility in China, 1368-1911", Proceedings of the 1959 Annual Spring Meeting of the American Ethnological Society, pp. 60-65. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 158 NOTES AND QUERIES THE CHAN FAMILY OF TSEUNG KWAN O The village of Tseung Kwan O (4) is situated in the Hang Hau sub-district of the New Territories. It stands at the head of the bay of the same name, which is the northern inlet of Junk Bay. The village is said to derive its name of "a general's bay" from its resemblance to a general's armour in a geomantic sense. The village is a small one; two rows of houses of the single room type. It is surrounded by padi fields, which in front stretch down to the sea, and behind climb up the stream valley in many terraces to the Clear Water Bay Road and the village of Tseng Lan Shue (##). Although the village is but a short distance from Kowloon as the crow flies, it was, until recently, difficult to reach and thus remained largely unaffected by urban influences. Now, however, the bay has been made the home of the Colony's ship breaking industry and both shores are being reclaimed for steel rolling mills. The village itself is compact and was perhaps originally walled. Because of this, the fact that it is situated at the mouth of the stream, and because it possesses a large area of fields, it is not surprising to find that the village is inhabited by Cantonese (or Punti) in an area where most of the other villages in the highlands are Hakka. It is also not surprising that this village was founded at an earlier date than the Hakka villages in the same district.2 The village includes a number of surnames, but the main clan is the Chan (陳). Although this clan does not now possess an official genealogy or tsuk po (族譜), having destroyed it during the Japanese occupation, they maintain records of their family for 26 generations, dating back to the Southern Sung dynasty (1127-1279), the first recorded ancestor being reputed, as is usual, to be a successful scholar and official. During the Sung, this branch moved from Kiangsi to Nam Tau, the district capital of the present Po On district. In their travels, they followed the route of many of the old Cantonese families of the New Territories area. The village itself was founded by the 16th generation at the beginning of the Ching dynasty (1644-1911), approximately the same date of foundation as the other large Cantonese villages of the Sai Kung district.4 Page 165 Page 166 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 160 NOTES AND QUERIES of Hong Kong, when the latter was studying Chinese in Canton, and in later years, so the villagers say, the two used to claim to be fellow students (同窗) (F). Although in his youth he did not take any of the Imperial examinations, he had some reputation as a literary man and wrote fine characters. He was married to a CHENG (鄭) from the nearby Cantonese village of Pak Kong (白崗), and also had a concubine from a fishing family. His ancestral tablet perversely records the wife as KAN (簡) and the concubine as CHENG (鄭). Both wives apparently lived amicably in Tseung Kwan O, where Chan spent much of his time. At the New Territories survey of 1905 he was recorded as the owner of 2.3 acres of agricultural land and 6 building lots in Tseung Kwan O, and was the manager of the CHAN Hok-yin Tso (陳學賢祖) with 2.7 acres of agricultural land and 2 houses. He also owned 4 shops and a house in Hang Hau market. It was during this period that Hang Hau was at the peak of its prosperity as a porterage town for produce to and from Sai Kung and Hong Kong. According to local gossip he did not pay much attention to business, but smoked opium and lived on the wealth he had inherited from his father. The Yi Hing shop in Kowloon City lost money and had to be sold in about 1930. In spite of this he apparently continued to play a part in the affairs of Kowloon City and of the Lok Sin Tong. NOTES 1 Most of this information was supplied by Messrs. Chan Shui (陳瑞) the village representative and Chan Kin Ming (陳健明) the supervisor of the village school. 2 See S. F. Balfour, "Hong Kong Before the British" in Tien Hsia Monthly, 1936. 3 See Lo Hsiang-lin, Hong Kong and its External Communications before 1842 (Hong Kong, Institute of Chinese Culture, 1963), Chapter IX for the Tang clan. 4 The three large Cantonese villages of Ho Chung, Pak Kong and Sha Kok Mei, which dominate the three main valleys of the Sai Kung area, also give foundation dates of late Ming or early Ching. For brief notes on Ho Chung and Pak Kong, see my note "Visit to Ho Chung pp. 46-47 of M. Topley (ed), Aspects of Social Organisation in the New Territories (Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1965), and James Hayes, "Visit to Villages in the Sai Kung District", ibid., pp. 41-42. Hong Kong. 1967. BERNARD WILLIAMS ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d FURTHER NOTES ON THE SUNG WONG T'OI 69 4. Twenty metres south-east of No. 3 is a small stone on which only two characters could be deciphered: 山 本 ? 2 ? This may mark the boundary of a grave site, as do the stones on other hillsides marked 山界. 5. Grave inscription on the south ridge of the hill: 邑 香 梁氏孺 This commemorates a deceased wife, from the Leung family, of Heung Shan district, now Chung Shan. Her husband may have been an official. 6. An inscription of some length on a tile which stood in a cup-like hollow on the west slope of the hill commemorates the repair of a grave by the Ch'an family in the autumn of the 21st year of Kwang Hsu, 1895. The 'repair' can have been little more than nominal as there was no cement or building material such as is usual on graves. 7. At the foot of the path leading to the modern archway stands a T'o Tei altar bearing the following inscription which clearly refers to the historic associations of the hill; 宮王大 洪恩施福澤 聖德顯威靈 8 & 9. Two boulders on the south-east side of the hill-top each bear the same brief inscription: 記 王 10. Twenty metres north of Inscription No. 1 is a flat boulder bearing the characters:--- 號 I 11. A boulder on the south-east of the hill bears a single carved character: 英 These last four inscriptions evidently date back to a time prior to the passing of the Sung Wong T'oi Ordinance in 1899,* when * Ordinance No. 3 of 1899. For the text see Hongkong Government Gazette, 18th February 1899. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d FAN LAU AND ITS FORT 85 Lau, meaning "division of flows" and the name of that point on the southwestern tip of Tai Yu Shan, describes accurately and specifically the abrupt change of colour of the sea off the point, from a clear green to a muddy brown, as any traveller from Hong-kong to Macau can attest. The name Fan Lau is not only appropriately but propitiously applied. In fung shui the confluence of streams or sea currents is considered auspicious (conversely, a site flanked by forking streams is not considered lucky). Fan Lau, situated as it were at such a confluence, is considered a lucky site; hence the presence of a fort, a temple, and a settlement. Conditions must have deteriorated in the Chu Kong estuary some sixty years after the return of Ch'ing control in 1669, for we hear of the garrisoning and reinforcement of troops in Tai Yu Shan in 1730 to shore up existing coastal defences there. "In the 7th year of Yung Cheng (1730) forts were constructed on two hills, to deploy garrisons for their defence and to reinforce the troops garrisoning Tai Yu Shan, thus forming an angle similar to that made by the horns of an ox, to serve the exterior defence of Macau and the Boca Tigre". The Kai Yik Kok fort must have been one of the two strong points mentioned, the other being probably the fort at Tung Chung. The analogy between the location of the fortifications of the estuary and the shape of an ox's horns is interesting. A glance at a map of the Chu Kong estuary would show Macau (in reality, the Heung Shan district forts) and Fan Lau to be the tips of those horns. Both these strategic areas cover the entrance to the estuary. The Boca Tigre (Fu Mun19) at the apex of the near-isosceles triangle formed by these three points, served as the pivotal central fortification. We know too, that the Fan Lau fort was designated as the administrative boundary between the San On District and the Heung Shan District on the other side of the estuary from Fan Lau. A map of the Chu Kong estuary in the O Mun Kei Leukaz depicts the Kai Yik Kok fort with the accompanying caption “San Heung Fan Kai” (***), meaning "This is the dividing boundary between the San On and the Heung Shan districts". It is very likely that some of the fort's soldiers were allotted plots of land for their own use. Another interesting possibility is that the soldiers and officials appointed to preserve law and order came from the very ranks of rebels and pirates who had previously Page 90 Page 91 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d 86 ARMANDO M. DA SILVA defected to the government cause, and that as a reward, their land holdings were recognized officially by the government. This is a very Chinese approach to the problem of pacification. The Cheng 鄭 family of Fan Lau claims to have ancestral connections with Cheng Lin Fuk 鄭連福 and his son, Cheng Yat 鄭一, both notorious pirates from Tai Yu Shan, who terrorized the Chu Kong estuary during the latter half of the 18th century. The Cheng family still owns the land nearest to the old fort, which may suggest that this family had ancestors who were also on the government side (plate 10). The garrison could not have existed for long without food and it is reasonable to suppose that the padi fields of Fan Lau supported the soldiers from the fort (plate 11). There are reasons for believing that the Kai Yik Kok fort may have pre-dated the Coastal Withdrawal of 1662, and that it may have been a Ming rather than a Ch'ing fort. Some confirmation of this is afforded by a series of nautical charts in the Mo Pei Chi (A). The preface to this work is dated 1621, but it was not presented to the throne until 1628. However, it has been shown that the charts almost certainly date from the first half of the fifteenth century. Many of the place-names in that section of the charts pertaining to the Chu Kong estuary are identifiable when checked against similar or equivalent place-names found in the maps of the 19th century editions of the Kwong Tung Tung Chi, San On Yuen Chi, Heung Shan Yuen Chi and O Mun Kei Leuk, but the reader must be warned on two points. First, place-names may differ in both pronunciation and orthography in different sources. Yung Hai is written as 容海 on the Mo Pei Chi charts, but as 雍海 on the maps of the Kwong Tung Tung Chi. A second point to remember is that adjoining districts on one island are not infrequently depicted as separate islands. The Kwong Tung T'ung Chi carries a map of the San On district, for instance, which marks Tai Yu Shan, Tung Chung and Kai Yik Kok fort as separate islands, whereas the last two places are in fact both located on Tai Yu Shan. It is obvious that the place-names on these maps serve not so much to pin-point localities as to mark well-known landmarks and stopping places. Navigation in these waters depended not on nautical instruments, but on the experience of pilots familiar with key channels and navigational landmarks, such as headlands and mountain peaks. *Plates 12 and 13 also relate to this article. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d FAN LAU AND ITS FORT 87 Using the Ching dynasty maps from the District Gazetteers and the Provincial Gazetteer, I identify the places on the Chu Kong estuary section on the Mo Pei Chi charts as follows: (see map 4)— Po Toi Shan 蒲胎山 an island south of Hongkong. Now written 蒲台 Tung Keung Shan 東姜山 Yung Hai Shan 翁鞋山 Fat Tong Mun 佛堂門 Pak Tsim 北尖 Lang Tin Shan 小溪山 + ++ Tam Kon islands 檐桿 Yung Hai 湧鞋 or Hai Chau 鞋洲 retains the same name, Fat Tong Mun 佛堂門 retains the same name, Pak Tsim 北尖 as the "outer Lintin", Ngoi Ling Tin 外伶仃 as the "inner Lintin”, Ting Lin 伶仃 "Lantau", Tai Yu Shan 大嶼山 "Fan Lau", Kai Yik Kok 雞翼角 Nam Tin Shan 南停山 Tai Kai Shan 大溪山 Siu Kai Shan 小溪山 Kwun Fu Chai 宮富寨 + present day "Kowloon City", Kau Lung Shing 九龍城 Tung Kwun Sor 東莞所 District of Tung Kwun, Tung Kwun Yuen 東莞縣 Heung Shan Sor 香山所 District of Heung Shan, Heung Shan Yuen 香山縣 The absence of any mention of the San On district (新安縣) on the charts is significant. It is highly improbable that the compilers of the charts would have deliberately omitted or accidentally overlooked that district. Now, we know that the San On district was detached in 157310 from the Tung Kwun district to form two separate districts, the Tung Kwun and the San On districts, a circumstance which confirms the suggestion that the Mo Pei Chi charts were drawn at least before the creation of the San On district. If this were the case, the Kai Yik Kok fort must also be dated before 1573, which would make it a Ming dynasty fort. Between 1805 and 1810 control of the Chu Kong estuary slipped from the forces of the government. A new pirate leader, Cheung Po-tsai 張保仔 became master of the seas around Tai Yu Shan. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d FAN LAU AND ITS FORT 91 11 A lorcha is a specialized fighting craft from Macau that combined a Western-style hull (for speed and maneuverability) with Chinese batten sails and rigging (for easier sail-handling and disguise). 12 Charles F. Neumann, History of the Pirates (š), who infested the China Sea from 1807 to 1810, (London, John Murray, 1831) P. 58. 13 J. R. Morrison, A Chinese Commercial Guide (Canton, Office of the Chinese Repository, 1848) pp. 70-71. 14 The Last Year in China to the Peace of Nanking as sketched in Letters to his Friends by a Field Officer actively employed in that Country (2nd edition, revised, London, Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans 1843) pp. 51-52. 15 There is, in addition, the possibility that the fort had a temporary garrison in 1834 see the imperial directive given respecting defence and patrolling at Lantau and Macao quoted by J. L. Cranmer-Byng in his brief note "An old fort at Tung Chung on Lantao Island” in J.H.K.B.R.A.S. Vol 3 (1963) pp. 144-145. 16 Hong Kong Government. New Territories Administration. Block Crown Lease Demarcation Districts 322 and 327, Shek Sun village, Lantau Island. BIBLIOGRAPHY CITED J. J. L. Duyvendak, "Sailing directions of Chinese voyages", T'oung Pao vol. 34 (1938), pp. 230-237, "The true dates of the Chinese maritime expeditions in the early fifteenth century", T'oung Pao vol. 34 (1938), pp. 341-412. Luis B. Gomes, Monografia de Macau, Macau, 1951. Hongkong Government. A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hongkong, Kowloon, and the New Territories, Hongkong, 1960. Lo Hsing-lin, Hongkong and its External Communications before 1842. Hongkong, 1963. J. R. Morrison, A Chinese Commercial Guide, Canton, 1848. Charles F. Neumann, The History of the Pirates who infested the China Sea from 1807 to 1810, translated from the Chinese original, London, 1831. Ch'ing dynasty work: Chinese Sources Mo Pei Chi (AA) A.D. 1621 The provincial Gazetteer of Kwangtung: Kwong Tung Tung Chi (♬✯ ih sk) 1864 edition The District Gazetteers for the following: San On Yuen Chi (%) 1819 edition Tung Kwun Yuen Chi ✯✯✯) 1797 edition Heung Shan Yuen Chi (3) 1827 edition O Mun Kei Leuk (39 1932) 1800 edition ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 8 T. C. CHENG It was as late as February 1880 that an eligible Chinese took his seat as an unofficial member in the Legislative Council. He was Ng Choy, later known throughout China as Dr. Wu Ting-fang. Ng's parents went to Singapore from Chung Shan District,* Kwang-tung Province, and he himself was born in Singapore in 1842. He came to Hong Kong as a boy and was educated at St. Paul's College.2 Having served as an interpreter in the Magistrate's Court in Hong Kong from 1861 to 1874, he was admitted to Lincoln's Inn, London, to study law and was the first Chinese to qualify as a barrister-at-law in January 1877. He was admitted to practise as a barrister in the Supreme Court in Hong Kong in May the same year. Ng Choy's appointment to the Legislative Council was entirely a result of the efforts of the Governor, Sir John Pope Hennessy (April 1877 - March 1882), an Irishman, and a great champion of the Chinese community which had changed a great deal since the 1850's.3 In 1880 when Hugh Gibb, a member of the Legislative Council, went on leave, Sir John took the opportunity to appoint Ng Choy to a provisional seat in the Council. When he addressed the Secretary of State on this subject, he quoted a memorial from leading Chinese in which they asked that since the Chinese out-numbered the foreigners by ten to one, they should be allowed a share in the management of public affairs. He then went further and suggested a reorganization of the Legislative Council so as to enable Ng Choy to have a more permanent seat. The Secretary of State was not sympathetic with Sir John's views but agreed to Ng's appointment only on a temporary basis until Gibb's return to Hong Kong, or for three years. One view expressed in the Colonial Office was that should the Governor want to consult the Legislative Council secretly or should relations with China become strained, the presence of a Chinese member on the Council might be awkward.4 In any case, when Ng Choy took his seat in the Legislative Council for the first time on 19th February 1880, it was a great occasion for rejoicings among the Chinese community and a deputation of leading Chinese members called at Government House to congratulate the Governor and themselves on the appointment.5 * Then known as Heung Shan District. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d CHINESE UNOFFICIAL MEMBERS OF COUNCILS 11 for nomination by the Governor. The new Council met on 28th February, 1884, and consisted of 6 officials excluding the Governor: the Chief Justice, the Colonial Secretary, the Attorney General, the Surveyor General, the Colonial Treasurer, and the Registrar General. There were also 5 unofficials: Mr. T. Jackson (elected by the Chamber of Commerce), Mr. F. D. Sassoon (elected by the Justices of the Peace), Messrs. P. Ryrie, F. B. Johnson and Wong Shing, appointed by the Governor. Thus in 1884 Wong Shing became the second Chinese to serve on the Legislative Council as an unofficial member. He too was a Cantonese from Chung Shan District. In 1841 he entered, with two other Chinese boys, Yung Wing and Wong Foon, the Morrison School in Macao which was later transferred to Hong Kong. In January 1847, Dr. Robbins Brown, an American teacher in the Morrison School, had to leave China on account of ill health. He offered to take a few of his old pupils back to America for further education. Yung Wing, Wong Foon and Wong Shing signified their desire to go and, through Dr. Brown and the Morrison Education Society, expenses for two years for the three boys were arranged. They embarked at Whampoa on the ship "Huntress" and proceeded via the Cape of Good Hope, the journey taking more than three months. Upon arrival in the U.S.A. the three boys were admitted to the Monson Academy at Monson, Massachusetts. As a result of ill health, Wong Shing did not manage to acquire any academic honours during his sojourn in the United States. On his return to China he was offered an appointment in the Foreign Ministry. He served with Viceroy Li Hung-chang and Marquis Tseng Chi-tze and was a member of the Chinese legation staff in Washington. He resigned later from the Chinese diplomatic service and came to Hong Kong as a merchant. He was also associated with the Anglo-Chinese College and with the London Missionary Society for which he directed its printing establishment under Dr. James Legge. When the Tung Wah Hospital was founded in 1870, he was a founder director. He was naturalized in December 1883 and was appointed to the Legislative Council in February 1884. He was described as a man of property, much-travelled, speaking good English and fully qualified to “look at Chinese affairs with English eyes and at English affairs with Chinese eyes". His career as a Legislative Councillor was an ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 18 T. C. CHENG watchmen being paid for with subscriptions from the Chinese community.* In 1893 a District Watch Force Committee was formed with the Registrar General (Protector of Chinese) as Chairman, and from that time onwards up to 1941 many prominent Chinese leaders served on that Committee. Indeed, for many years, it was more or less a tradition for prominent Chinese who wished to render public service to the Colony to begin their public career with this Committee and then, in the case of those who had a knowledge of English, to proceed to the Sanitary Board (which was replaced by the Urban Council in 1935) and thence to the Legislative Council. For some years Wei Yuk was more or less an unofficial liaison officer between Hong Kong and the Manchu Government, and the latter was indebted to him in no small degree for the assistance he rendered in bringing to justice Chinese criminals who had fled from Chinese territory to Hong Kong. He was so respected by the Chinese in South China that, following the successful revolution in 1911, when Admiral Li Tsun, Commander of the Chinese Imperial Naval Detachments of Kwangtung and Kwangsi Provinces, declared his surrender to the revolutionary forces directed by Dr. Sun Yat-sen's deputy, Hu Han-min from Hong Kong, Mr. Wei Yuk was asked to act as the guarantor of good faith on both sides! In 1894, a fierce bubonic plague broke out in Hong Kong which accounted for over 2,000 deaths mainly in the oldest Chinese section of Hong Kong, viz., Tai Ping Shan (the present Po Hing Fong). In 1896 and subsequent years the plague recurred to a greater or less degree every spring. As there was little scientific knowledge of the plague and as there was no western treatment for this, Government decided to take drastic measures including the cleansing and disinfecting of infected areas, compulsory removal of the sick and house-to-house visitation carried out generally by the military. As it was very un-Chinese to allow sick parents or relatives to be removed from their homes to die in strange hospital rooms, and as the Chinese looked upon house visitation as interference and intrusion upon their privacy and personal liberty, they adopted an attitude of passive resistance and often hid away the dead and the sick. Wei Yuk was able to do See chapter 4, "District Watchmen" of Regulation of Chinese Ordinance, No. 13 of 1888. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d MILITIA, MARKET AND LINEAGE 57 as leaders during the fighting. Ten of the 63 leaders are identi-fiable as members of the gentry, in the sense that they are men-tioned in the documents as having degrees obtained either by purchase or by examination. examination. Most of the remainder could be termed 'local notables'. Some were substantial owners of agricul-tural land and village houses. Other owned shops in their local markets. It is probable that they were often --as was Man Cham-tsun managers of corporately-owned lineage property. The available information about these men is summarized below. — Table II LEADERS IN THE RESISTANCE MOVEMENT (By Marketing area, District & Village, Surname)* Marketing area District, or other Association of sharing gradu-ates Village, or Surnames No. No. of leaders Yuen Long 5+ Ha Tsuen Tang 12 2 Ping Shan Tang 11 1 Kam Tin Tang 10 2 Pat Heung Tang 2 Li 1 Lai 1 Tse 1 1. +3 15 Shap Pat Heung Chu 1 Ng 2 2 15 Tai Po Tun Mun Ts'at Yeuk Tang 1 Lo 1 Tai Hang Man 3 1 71 Pan Chung Chan 1 Mak 1 - * +3 + ++ 7 ** Fan Leng Pang 1 Sha Lo Tung Li 2 " ** * * 2 Cheung Shue Tan Chan 1 7: * H 3. Hang Ha Po Lam 1 Tai Po Tau Tang * Shek Wu Hui Lung Yeuk Tau Tang I ++ +1 Sheung Shui Liu 1 Ping Kong Hau 2 1 ** Sha Tau Kok Sham Chun Wo Hang San Tin Li 4 Man 1 * All romanisations are in Cantonese. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 104 JOHN MCCOY Unfortunately, in the vast collection of Chinese literature there is comparatively little folk poetry and most of it is of recent origin. Doubtless it has existed at all periods, but except for the very early samples which became part of the classical tradition, or for the occasional single item preserved in other writings, most of it was lost. The literati generally scorned it, at least in public, and today we are able to turn up only a few collections of any significant age and these chiefly through historical accident. In recent years the Peking government has published a collection of Ming and Ching Dynasty folk songs as part of a general policy to point attention to the artistic efforts of the proletariat. I was lucky enough to run across this material in a Hong Kong book store. Of particular interest was a book called Shan Ko or 'Mountain Songs', a collection made in the later years of the Ming Dynasty by Feng Meng-lung. These songs were recorded verbatim from the farmers and laborers in the fields near Feng's home, that is, in Wu District near Soochow. To date this group of poems represents the earliest popular collection which I have been able to find. At least it is my earliest collection showing no evidence of revision and rewriting by the collector. More such materials doubtless exist but I have not come across them yet. Mountain Songs as a literary genre have probably enjoyed a long life. The oldest reference to them may be that found in the 'Song of the Lute' or P'i P'a Hsing by Po Chu-i of the Tang Dynasty. However, this may be merely a general reference to songs from the mountain areas rather than 'Mountain Songs' as a specific genre. Today the Mountain Songs flourish, particularly in South China, with new verses appearing daily. Other Peking publications have collected modern Mountain Songs and added a companion set of more acceptable lyrics with political themes. This gives us a possible spread of at least 1300 years with extant samples of a homogeneous genre going back about 300 years. The poetic structure of the Mountain Songs won't add anything especially new to our picture of Chinese poetry. The basic verse is four lines of eight metric beats each, or multiples of eight in various combinations. This is much like the classical seven character poem where the eighth metric beat is realized as a pause at the end of each line. The major difference is that the Mountain Songs allow a considerable variation in the actual ================================================================================ 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-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 132 HENRY D. TALBOT Lo cheou-Lo Chau (Beaufort Island) = Mers Bay Mirs Bay Mew Is.-Mo Chau Nako chau-Papai (Nei Kwu Chau or Hei Ling Chau) Nine-pin-Ninepin Group Po-ke-long Point=Lei Yue Mun Point Psang-chau-Kau Yi Chau Ragged Island Steep Island Rat Island or Ling Ting-Ling Ting R. Povado or Iron River-Hebe Haven Sin-can-hien-Hsin-an Hsien (San On Yuen) or, rather, the district city of Hsin-an Singan Islands-Siu Chau and Tai Shan Shu-lap-ko Is.-Chek Lap Kok Island Sui-pak Siu Kau Yi Soko Cheou Is. the Soko Islands Song-kco Sung Kong Ta baco=Chung Chau Tat-hong Moon-Tathong Channel = Tay Pak Peng Chau Tay-pak-hoe Green Island (or perhaps the sea between Hong Kong and Lantao Islands) Tsa-cheou Is. =Sha Chau Tsan-Cheou-Kau Pei Chau (off Cape D'Aguilar) Tysa=Small island 1⁄2 mile south of East Brother Wang Laang-Waglan Island NOTES 1 Cf. The British Museum General Catalogue of Printed Books (London, 1961) Vol. 100, Col. 222. The British Museum Catalogue of Printed Maps. Charts and Plans (London, 1967) Vol. 7, Col. 359, Morse, H. B. The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China 1635-1834 (Oxford, 1926-29) Lists of Ships. 2 Cf. Bonacker, W. Kartenmacher Aller Lander und Zeiten (Stuttgart, Hiersemann, 1966) p. 200, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 168 S. F. BALFOUR Emperor and his court were at a place called Ngai Shan in San Wui district. The army was gathered round him, waiting for news of Wen Tien-chiang's attack on Canton. But Wen Tien-chiang was defeated at Waichow and finally captured at Hai Fung. He was brought as a prisoner on a Mongol ship, from which he witnessed the final assault on the Emperor's army and fleet, which was conducted by the commander of the Mongol armies, Cheung Hung-fan. It is recorded that during the battle Wen T'ien-chiang received a message from the Mongol Emperor offering him a post in the government if he would change sides. In reply, he wrote a poem often quoted in books about our region since it mentions the Ling Ting Yeung or Desolate Sea between the islands of outer and inner Ling Ting in the Canton estuary. The poem may be freely translated as follows: "After many hardships I am come to a place where the stars foretell the doom of my arms. The waters toss my broken body like a tiny thread, the wind strikes at the wreck of my life. By the Sands of Huang Kung I tell my despair, in the waters of Ling Ting I sigh my desolation.23 Since life began nobody has escaped death, only honour has immortal record among men." This poem was sent in reply to the Yuan Emperor and Wen T'ien-chiang remained loyal to the Sung cause until his death which occurred in prison some years later. At the battle in the Canton estuary the Sung forces were finally dispersed. The last prime minister then took charge of the Emperor's person. Separating them from the army, whose treachery he feared, he led all the surviving members of the royal family to a place on the sea and exhorted them to commit suicide, saying that it was preferable to surrender. When the women had drowned themselves he walked into the sea with the boy Emperor on his shoulders. It remains to tell the legends which sprang up over the burial places of the Emperors. According to a story of the Yuan dynasty, one of the Mongol soldiers found a garment floating in the sea 23 惶恐灘頭說惶恐,零丁洋裏歎零丁。 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g CHINESE ELITE IN HONG KONG 79 authority and its geographical location made it a base for pirates. One of the stories about the origin of the name of the Tai Ping Shan District on Hong Kong Island is that a pirate named Cheung Po-chai used it as his headquarters. He finally went over to the authorities and left the island. In relief the local population named the mountain side on which he had dwelt "Great Peace Mountain". Since it was easy to slip away by boat if government officials came to check on inhabitants, the islands on the edge of San On District were popular haunts for outlaws and the criminal element. At the time of the establishment of the British claim to the island, The Canton Register under date of 23 February, 1841, predicted that under British jurisdiction the island would become even more popular with these classes: "Hongkong will be the resort and rendezvous of all the Chinese smugglers. Opium smoking shops and gambling-houses will soon spread; to those haunts will flock all the discontented and bad spirits of the empire." Future developments substantiated this forecast. FACTORS WHICH IMPEDED THE EMERGENCE OF RESPONSIBLE LEADERS IN THE CHINESE COMMUNITY. Samuel Fearon, the Census and Registration Officer, in his report dated 24 June 1845, describes the origin of the first settlers of Hong Kong. The arrival of the British fleet in the harbour speedily attracted a considerable boat population, and the profits accruing from the supply of provisions and necessaries at once raised many from poverty and infamy to considerable wealth. The shelter and protection afforded by the presence of the fleet soon made our shores the resort of outlaws, opium smugglers, and indeed, of all persons who had rendered themselves obnoxious to the Chinese laws, and had the means of escaping hither. In course of time the demands for labour, for the public and other works, drew some thousands to the island, the majority of whom were Hakkas or gypsies; people whose habits, character and language mark them as a distinct race. Careless of the ties of home and of those moral obligations, the observance of which is deemed absolutely necessary ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g 84 CARL T. SMITH therefore in the hands of shopkeepers, compradors and pedlars of whom there are many, though their transactions when considered as a whole are but trifling.' 12 In his remarks on native trade, Gutzlaff states that an attempt had been made by a Cantonese capitalist to establish himself in Hong Kong. He is referring to Chinam, alias Chan Akuen, who with three other partners operated under the firm name of Tun Wo *. The Colonial Treasurer, R. M. Martin, also refers to him in his report: "One man of reputed wealth named Chinam, who had been engaged in the opium trade, came to Hong Kong, built a good house, and freighted a ship. He soon returned to Canton, and died there of a fever and cold contracted in Hong Kong. It was understood, however, that had he lived he would have been prohibited from returning to Hong Kong",13 In June, 1843, Chinam bought Marine Lot 54 from Richard Oswald paying $8,000. At the time it had on it a Singapore frame house14 with brick enlargements. On the lot Chinam proceeded to build a large Hong in the Chinese style, but before the building was completed, he died in July, 1844. With his death the firm closed down its operations in Hong Kong and most of the Hong stood unoccupied for a number of years. One of Chinam's partners, Chan Chun-poo, was appointed his administrator, but due to irregularities in his handling of the estate he was imprisoned in 1854, and remained in prison for two years. He petitioned the Government for his release on the grounds of his advanced age. The property of Chinam's firm was sold in 1854 to Ow Yeung Sun, a trader from the San Wui District in Kwang Tung. Another Canton firm that established itself in Hong Kong in the early days was Akow and Company. It was not in the same class as Chinam's Tun Wo firm, but its position was above that of the shopkeepers and tradesmen concentrated in the Bazaar areas. The company was granted Inland Lot 22 located at the corner of Queen's Road and Pottinger Street in the European section. The firm consisted of five partners, of whom Cheung Kam Cheong was resident in Hong Kong. He began to speculate in real estate and bought several lots at Government land auctions. His land investments were not successful and Page 90 Page 91 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g 96 CARL T. SMITH Wong Shing, newspaper editor and manager of the London Mission press; and Cheung Achew, a wealthy carpenter.29 The Rev. Ho Fuk Tong and his family lived at the nearby compound of the London Mission Society. In time this area around Peel, Graham, Gage Streets and Hollywood Road became a centre for Parsee and Indian merchants, as well as European brothels. Some of the old families stayed on, but the opening up of the area bounded by Wyndham, Wellington and Pottinger Streets by the Dents provided a needed location for the houses of the better Chinese. After the Peak was developed in the 1870s and 1880s, the wealthy Chinese moved up to Mid-levels occupying the mansions of the Europeans who moved to the Peak. Of the individuals who had their family residence in the former Middle Bazaar area were two who were on the organizing committee of Tung Wah Hospital, Wong Shing and Ho Asek alias Ho Fai Yin #alias Ho In Kee. Ho Asek first appears in Hong Kong records in 1849 when he purchased a lot in Tai Ping Shan. At the time he was compradore of the opium firm of Lyall, Still and Company. It failed in 1867 and Ho Asek embarked upon his own business ventures under the firm name of Kin Nam. According to a newspaper account, he was subject to a $2,000 “squeeze” from the mandarins during the second Sino-British War.30 He traded extensively in opium as well as rice, and in 1871 held the gambling monopoly from which within a year he realized a $28,000 profit. In an action brought against him in 1871, he testified that he operated with a capital of $200,000.31 In 1868 two of his employees were brought before the court on a charge of extortion. In the evidence presented it was stated that about September 1866, some influential Chinese started a system of subscription or unofficial taxation to support district watchmen. The city had been divided into two sections, East and West. The West District was superintended by Tam Achoy and Ho Asek, "a most respectable and honest trader”. A shopkeeper resisted the pressure put upon him to contribute and brought the charge of extortion against two of Asek's employees who had been collecting for the scheme. The court gave judgment in favour of the defendants.32 Ho Asek was still a member of the Kai Fong Committee in 1872. He died in Pang Po (likely Ping Po+), Shun Tak District in 1877. His wife was granted letters of administration on his estate, but she being blind, gave her power ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g A # THE DISTRICT WATCH COMMITTEE 117 quarrymen a lawless and potentially dangerous class of people. But Chinese on Hong Kong Island, like their fellow countrymen in Hsin-an hsien (a county which then comprised the future British Kowloon Peninsula and New Territories) formed a socially well-organised community, knit together by ties of family and kinship and involved, apart from the boat people, in wider forms of social organisation such as the clan and the lineage3. They were constrained by the type of in-built social controls found typically in any rural Chinese community. On the other hand, immigrant Chinese arriving after 1842, who came mostly from Canton and the delta counties, formed a purely urban population, lacking roots and sentiments of belonging: they had necessarily few attachments at first to their new area of residence. Congregated in the mushrooming city of Victoria and soon outnumbering the old, established Chinese population of the island, they were not subject to any in-built system of social control. The new population of urban Chinese from Kwangtung Province, like newly arrived Europeans, were faced with the problem of maintaining public order and protecting their families and properties. The better-off Chinese merchants and traders were soon compelled to employ their own guards and some householders and shopkeepers engaged their own street watchmen, either paid for by the individual householder or collectively by subscription. By the 1850s Hong Kong Chinese had developed not only their own associations, such as Kaifong, but even a rudimentary system of self-government, if the evidence is to be believed. A note in the China Review claims, for example, that in 1851 the shopkeepers of Sheung Wan (i.e., the area of the Chinese 'Bazaar', west of the European central district) 'repaired the Man-mo Temple, elected a Committee, and therein afterwards decided all cases of any public interest5'. The same writer also claims that in 1857 'the U-lan-shing-ui (a sworn mutual aid association) united Tai-ping-shan, Sai-ying-pun, Sheung-wan and Chung-wan under one public committee, and these four districts were called the Sz-wan or four circuits'. Eitel states (but cites no authority) that around 1851 the Committee of the Man Mo Temple 'now rose into eminence as a sort of unrecognised and unofficial local-government board (principally made up by Nampak-hong or export merchants). This Committee secretly controlled native affairs, acted as commercial arbitrators, arranged for the due ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g The District Watch Committee 137 to be the richest man in Hong Kong. When Ho Tung retired as chief compradore to Jardine, Matheson's in 1900, Ho Fook succeeded him. Ho Fook's assistant was Ho Kom Tong, another of Ho Tung's brothers. The members of the District Watch Committee were members of a small circle of businessmen, often related through ties of blood or marriage. When the Tai Yau Bank was established in 1914 with a paid-up capital of $6,000,000, the proprietors were named as Lau Chu Pak, Ho Fook, Ho Kom Tong, Lo Chung Shiu and Chan Kai Ming. Lau Chu Pak was compradore to A. S. Watson and Co., chairman of the Po On Commercial Association and chairman of the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce; Chan Kai Ming was manager of the Opium Farm; and Lo Chung Shiu, assistant compradore to Jardine, Matheson and Co., was Ho Fook's brother-in-law. All were or became members of the District Watch Committee. 22 T. C. Cheng writes that Wei Yuk 'was very much concerned about law and order among the Chinese masses because in those early days riff-raff and political refugees from South China continued to come into Hong Kong. Thus it was at his suggestion that the District Watch Force was founded in 1888. Mr. Cheng appears to be mistaken about the date and is no doubt referring to the ordinance of that year, no. 13 of 1888 rather than to its proper date of origin. Wright and Cartright, Feldwick, and Professor Woo all state that the Committee was formed on Wei Yuk's suggestion. See: T. C. Cheng, 'Chinese Unofficial Members of the Legislative and Executive Councils of Hong Kong up to 1941', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 9, 1969, pp. 17-18; Arnold Wright and H. A. Cartright, Twentieth Century Impressions of Hong Kong, Shanghai and other Treaty Ports, London, Lloyd's Greater Britain Publishing Co., 1908, p. 109; W. Feldwick, ed., Present Day Impressions of the Far East and Prominent Chinese at Home and Abroad, London Globe Encyclopedia Co., 1917, p. 576; Professor Woo Sing Lim, The Prominent Chinese in Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Five Continents Book Company, 1939, p. 4. 23 Unfortunately all the records in the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs were destroyed or lost during the Japanese occupation and hence anyone trying to reconstruct the history of the District Watch must work mostly from scraps of information found in government publications, newspapers, books. 24 My guess is that a large number were traditional Chinese merchants from the Five Districts operating on a relatively small scale. The Committee after 1891 represented the views of a more westernised and modernised elite with a knowledge of modern business techniques and modern financial manipulations. Dr. Ho Kai, for example, played the stock exchange with great success and speculated in many fields, particularly land development. He was, properly speaking, a financier although his occupation is often given tout court as lawyer. He had also qualified in medicine at Edinburgh but gave up the practice of medicine soon after his return to Hong Kong in 1882 because of Chinese resistance to western medicine. 25 In 1903, for example, the Committee opposed the re-introduction of the night-pass system but suggested other remedial measures (see Index to Correspondence (General Register) 1894-1904, Hong Kong, Noronha and Co., 1909, p. 100). In 1909 'at the request of the District Watchmen Committee, children who are hawking without a licence are on their first offence sent to the Registrar General who cautions their guardians. This procedure seems to have proved effective in each case' wrote the Registrar General in 1909. It is worth noting that both Registrar General and Committee wanted to end the night-pass system and were opposed by the Captain Superintendent of Police, who was unsuccessful. As for hawkers, very few Chinese regarded them as a serious menace although colonial administrators ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g THE DISTRICT WATCH COMMITTEE 139 36 In 1917 there were 31 guilds for employers only (in trades such as silk, sandalwood, wicker furniture and copper), 35 skilled craftsmen guilds (sandalwood workers, masons, tinsmiths, etc.) and 5 guilds with mixed membership (employers and workers). There were also 17 district societies, such as the Heung Shan (Hsiang-shan) resident merchants association and the General Commercial Association of the Tung Kun (Tung-kuan) merchants resident in Hong Kong. See the list of exempted and registered societies in the Gazette, 27 April 1917. 37 Wei Yuk was appointed in 1891 and served until his death in 1929. He resigned several times in order to allow a newcomer to join the Committee but was soon re-appointed. Lau Chu-pak was appointed in 1902 and served until his death in 1922. Sir Shouson Chow was appointed in 1917 and was still a member in 1949, the year of the demise of the Committee. 38 During the years 1929 to 1931 and in 1936 the Committee met four times a year at Government House. Lennox Mills states that members had the right to a guard of the District Watch Force on the occasion of weddings and other festivities'. The Secretary for Chinese Affairs tells us in his report for 1936 that through the kindness of His Excellency the Committee was able to meet the members of the Mui Tsai Commission on the occasion of their first visit to the Colony, 'All members attended and there was a valuable discussion with frank interchange of views'. When the Governor, Sir Henry Blake, left the Colony in 1903 on the day of his departure he inspected the District Watchmen. Clearly, everything was done by the government to give prestige and éclat to the Committee and the force. 19 T. C. Cheng, op. cit., p. 18. 40 Of the Chinese land population in the 1901 census 227,615 returned themselves as natives of Kwangtung Province, 179,296 of this number belonging to the Kwong Chau Prefecture, 28,844 came from Tung-kuan hsien, 28,587 from P'an-yü hsien, and 27,221 from Nan-hai hsien. The situation was substantially the same in the censuses of 1911, 1921 and 1931. In 1911, for example, 311,992 out of 350,418 Chinese in Hong Kong, exclusive of the New Territories, spoke Cantonese, 41 Op. cit., pp. 399-400. 42 Heung Shan, present-day Chung Shan, is the arid county on the west side of the Pearl River, stretching down to Macau. It was the Heung Ha, the Cantonese term for the province, district or village from which each person derives his ancestry, of many prominent Chinese, including Ng Choy (Wu Ting-fang), Yung Wing (Yung Hung), Wong Shing (Huang Shêng), and Sun Yat-sen. Many Chinese merchants in Hong Kong came from this county; for example, Wei Yuk, Ma Ying-piu (founder of the Sincere Company), M. Y. San (before 1941 the largest biscuit manufacturer in China), Tsang Foo, Look Poong-shan (founder of the Bank of Canton). Su Chao-cheng, organiser and leader of the Seamen' Strike in 1922, came from this county; in 1928 Su was elected to the Central Political Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party. The anarchist, Liu Ssu-fu, was also born there. In 1938 the Chung Shan Commercial Association had a membership of over 4,000 in Hong Kong. 43 In 1905, for example, at least seven members of the Committee were compradores to important western firms; one was manager of a native bank; another of a prosperous pawnshop; a third ran a large export firm. Ho Kai was primarily a financier rather than an entrepreneur. See on this point the Chinese speculator Marie-Claire Bergère, "The Role of the Bourgeoisie' in M. C. Wright, ed., China in Revolution: The First Phase 1900-1913, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1968, p. 236. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h BOOK REVIEWS 227 points out, that they have sometimes had interests in the twentieth century homeland which chimed with those of the secular patriot: notably in anti-Japanese activities, but in contrast to the messianic organizations there are no long-range idealistic goals. Like these groups however, messianic organizations have tended to splinter, as indeed have many kinds of Chinese association. And the coordination of the lodges and halls of the two kinds of grouping appears to have been weakened by the various ecological and sub-cultural differences between the regions they tried to encompass. This is itself an interesting matter which cannot be pursued here. But it is one that should perhaps have engaged the author rather more. As an introduction to a vast, intriguing and complex subject, this book certainly deserves attention, and the specialist will welcome some of the more contemporary material. It has some fascinating illustrations and photographs and is well translated from the original French. But it is too ambitious. The material is just too heterogeneous, the social and historical context too broad, and the theoretical context too narrow, to warrant some of the more generalized assertions and suggestions that are made. Hong Kong, 1972. MARJORIE TOPLEY CHINESE VILLAGE PLAYS FROM THE TING HSIEN REGION (YANG KE HSUAN), a collection of forty-eight Chinese rural plays as staged by villagers from Ting Hsien in Northern China, tr. from the Chinese by various scholars after the original recordings and edited with a critical introduction and explanatory notes, SIDNEY GAMBLE, Research Secretary of the Chinese National Association of the Mass Education Movement, Amsterdam, Philo Press, 1970, (xxix+762p.). This is a translation of the Choice of "Yang ke" from Ting Hsien district, Ting Hsien Yang ke hsuan Akif, published by Li Ching-han and Chang Shih-wen in the early nineteen thirties. Unfortunately the few photographs of the original have here been omitted. A copy of the Chinese text is in the Fung P'ing-shan Library of Hong Kong University, and Professor Lo Tzu-k'uang has just reprinted it in his marvellous series of reprints on folklore. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r LEGENDS & STORIES OF THE NEW TERRITORIES: KAM TIN 127 ) 3rd year of T'ong (統) dynasty, by a Buddhist priest named Yuen Chong (圓聰) in the Ts'z Yun monastery (慈雲寺) in Ch'eung On (昌安) city, Shensi (陝西) province, near the Great Wall. This monastery had been built about fifty years previously by the Emperor T'ong Ko Tsung (唐玄宗) for his mother. When the pagoda was being built a wild goose flew against it and was killed, and the monks buried the bird underneath the pagoda and in this way it received its name. It became the custom ever since Shan Lung (神龍) years A.D. 705 & 706 of T'ong dynasty for the Emperor to give a banquet in the monastery called the Kuk Kong Yin (曲江宴) “winding river banquet,” to all the new "Tsun Sz” (進士). Their names were carved on a stone tablet in the pagoda, and it became customary to use the expression “Ngaan T'aap T'ai Ming (雁塔題名) when congratulating successful candidates for the highest government examination. In Tang Lam's time the Tung Kwun people wished to have their own Ngaan Taap pagoda, and Tang Lam provided the money for them to do it. It was built some time during the ten years of Shun Yau (淳祐) A.D. 1241-1251 of Sung dynasty, and it was repaired in the 40th year of Shung Ching (崇禎) A.D. 1637 of Ming dynasty by a Tung Kwun "Tsun Sz” named Kwok Kau Ting (郭九錠). Lam's grave is still to be found in Hon Yee Haang (巷義行) in Tung Kwun district. The children of the four sons of Tang Tsz Ming seem to have left Kam T'in, and their descendants founded families in other villages. Those of Lam are to be found in the village of Lung Kwat Tau (龍骨頭) near Fanling (粉嶺); those of Waai still live in Tai Po Tau (大埔頭) near Tai Po market and Lai Tung (黎洞) near Sha Tau Kok (沙頭角), while Kei's descendants settled in Tung Kwun. But the great grandson of Tsz came back to Kam T'in. His name was Shau Tso (秀祖), he held the military rank of Chung Mo Kau Wai (忠武校尉) and in the Yuen (元) dynasty A.D. 1277 he received the honour of Hin Mo Tsueng Kwan (顯武將軍). He had two great-grandsons, brothers, named Hung Yee (鴻義) and Hung Chi (鴻志). The latter was a son-in-law of Hoh Tik (何狄) the younger brother of Hoh Chan (何真) who ruled Kwangtung (廣東) and Kwangsi (廣西) provinces at the end of the Yuen dynasty. When the Ming dynasty started Hoh Chan gave up his territory to the first Emperor, but later on he became involved in the case of General Leung Kwok Kung (梁國公) Laam Yuk (濫獄)... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 The Hong Kong Region 117 overlooked in 1898 when only the inshore islands were included in the territory that Britain requested be leased to her at that time. What were the islands like? I have spoken with several old men who now live on Lantau but were born on two of the eight or more islands in the Lo Man Shan group in 1891 and 1893, and with several younger men. Their accounts show that there were long-settled villages there, with padi and sweet potato fields. There were also flourishing inshore fisheries using the largest types of stake net.1 These were owned by village families, and the catches were salted and taken to Macau by a public ferry operated by local people. Salt, which was needed in large quantities for the stake net fisheries, was bought mostly in Cheung Chau, where it was said to be cheaper than in Macau. This was the position in my informants' youth, early in this century. Some of the islands belonged to Hsin-an Hsien, others to Hsiang-shan, but this allocation for administrative purposes was less important than the economic and other ties which dictated the connections favoured by its inhabitants. Wind and sea also affected links in the different seasons of the year. Hsin-an and the outlying islands were thus part of the historical, strategical, social and economic life of the Canton Delta in the late Ch'ing period. The safety of their seaways was likely always to have been an important consideration with the provincial government. This contrasts with the relative unimportance of Hsin-an's history and record of scholarship when compared with the older hsien of the Kuang-chou prefecture. 2. The principal events in the local history of the Hong Kong region since the establishment of Hsin-an hsien in 1573 As already mentioned in the Introduction, the Hsin-an district, to which the Hong Kong region belongs, was established as a separate administrative division of the Kuang-chou prefecture in 1573. The area was then separated from the old Tung-kuan district in response to problems of defence. It followed upon a petition from local persons which complained that because it was 100 li from Tung-kuan City, ‘barbarians and dwarves’2, had been able 1 The village representative of Shek Pik on Lantau island (b. 1899) and friends of the same age had found regular work there in their youth. 2 HNHC 14/2. I have followed Peter Y. L. Ng's rendering of the character, pp. 143-144. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 122 JAMES HAYES the settlement into a fortress to guard against marauders. This involved construction of a walled enclosure, built of stone, and the replacing of the existing wooden gateway by a stone structure on the advice of the writer of the clan record, then an old man. As the positioning of the wall and its main gate was of great importance, for geomantic reasons as well as military considerations, a message was sent to Shing Mun* to invite a man named Cheung Lam-to, presumably a noted geomancer and perhaps a distant relative, to advise on the siting and on auspicious days for carrying out the work. The record ends: Work began on the 13th day of the 8th moon of the 8th year of Chia Ch'ing, and the gate was fixed on the 16th day. All the village men and women co-operated in the work which took a month to complete. Other areas of the Delta suffered in these years. In 1789, the 54th year of the Ch'ien Lung reign, an official of Hsiang-shan, the district in which Macau is situated, led an expedition in person against a considerable pirate known as the "wave-leveller".1 The scourge continued in the Delta and riverine areas of Kwangtung for over twenty years, and reached its worst proportions in the years 1807-1810. An interesting account of an enforced stay of eleven weeks and three days with a pirate fleet in 1809 was given by Richard Glasbrooke, the mate of an East Indiaman, who was captured by them. This fleet spent a long time on and near Lantau which probably suffered from their levies and depredations. One of these pirates, Cheung Po-tsai, is remembered today in the Hong Kong region, where local stories link many places with his activities.3 With the help of the Macau authorities whose squadron fought a sea battle off Lantau in January 1810, Cheung was blockaded in the shallow waters of the bay of Hsiang-shan and was induced to capitulate with over 270 junks, 16000 men, 5000 women, 7000 swords and jingals and 1200 guns.4 1 Waley, 1956, p. 176. 2 Neumann, pp. 97-125. 3 Lo, 1963, pp. 106-118. See also the Ch'ao-lien of Hsin-hui gazetteer pp. 281-284 and Centenary History of Hong Kong, pp. 12-14. Cheung's memory lingers strongly in the region, though most attributions are unsubstantiated and many stories are probably apocryphal. 4 Montalto de Jesus, pp. 231-248: he calls him Ĉam Pao Sai or Chang Pao. *In the Tsuen Wan sub-district of the New Territories. See Gazetteer, pp. 147-148. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 128 JAMES HAYES be feared, but internecine wars are almost always raging between some or other of the villages: and these wars, although often arising from trivial causes, are not mere temporary quarrels, but are often long-continued and sanguinary'.1 He gives a description of these feuds, and relates one example in which the District Magistrate, even with a force of 1,000 men, was unable to restore peace, and could not even save his face without the mediation of a neighbouring village. The device that secured this, Krone comments, had no influence at all upon the dispute, fighting being carried on afterwards just as before".2 There are several documented examples of intervillage and clan wars from the mainland New Territories at this time which indicate that Krone was not exaggerating the situation in mid century. Halls to 'martyrs' killed in these struggles were provided in at least four local temples, each containing memorials to slain heroes. These are to be found in the temples at Shek Kong (Pat Heung), Miu Kong (Tsuen Wan), Lam Tsuen, and Yuen Long (Shap-pat Heung). The Tsuen Wan memorial tells of a three year feud between the Tsuen Wan villagers and Shing Mun Pat Heung, beginning in the first year of the Tung Chih reign (1862-1863) and ended only after eventually successful mediation by elders of neighbouring villages. During this time, the Tsuen Wan villages—their men being outnumbered according to the tablet—were invaded and left in ruins, and 17 local men were killed in the prolonged struggle.3 Baker gives other local and contemporary examples of these clan wars taken from genealogies and village tradition in the northern New Territories. He also draws attention to the feuds that occurred within local lineages, including frequent fights between the Ping Shan and Ha Tsuen branches of the Tang lineage. These persisted into the British period. In 1921, in his administrative report for that year, the District Officer North mentions trouble that 'assumed very serious proportions' over water rights between 1 Krone, p. 114. 2 Krone, pp. 125-126. 3 The hall at Miu Kong is entitled the I-yung Tz'u (義勇祠) and that at Yuen Long the Ying-yung Tz'u (英勇祠). In the Pat Heung temple the tablet is in the Ching-chung Tz'u (清忠祠). At Lam Tsuen there is no named hall, but a side room contains a tablet bearing the characters jang hsiang ch'ang sheng lu wei (...). 4 Baker, 1968, pp. 167, 183 and 187. 5 Baker, 1968, p. 188 and Baker 1965, pp. 39-41. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 172 SUNG HOK-PANG He then returned to the capital, and stayed in General Ngai's house where he was able to make friends with many famous scholars. He wrote a book named "Yin t’oi san ngai” which had a preface written by Ts'oi Shing Yuen ## Noi Kok Hok Sz a political minister of high rank. Three years later Tang passed his Tsun sz degree, and was appointed district magistrate of Lung Yau Yuen in Chekiang province. Tang Man Wai was of a kind-hearted disposition and some say that through this the wall of T'aai Hong Wai was built. The story goes that when Tang passed his Sau Tsoi degree he was sent to Kwai Shin district, now Wai Yeung, to collect the rent due on cultivated lands, belonging to his family property. While there he came across a young man named Lei Maan Wing * hanging upside down as a punishment. On asking the reason why, Tang learnt that Lei had contracted gambling debts and was unable to pay them. Tang was sorry for the young man, paid all his debts and was able to use his influence in obtaining a military post for him. This happened during the end of the Ming Dynasty. Later on when the Manchus drove out the Mings in the North and the Ming Emperor Wing Lik✯✯ had retreated to Kwangtung, Lei was a colonel under Cheung Ka Yuk ✯ who was fighting against the Manchus. When Cheung was defeated in battle in the 4th year of Shun Chi A.D., 1647 of Ts'ing dynasty, and drowned himself, Lei, who was with him, fled with about a hundred soldiers. Gradually many of Cheung's soldiers were able to rejoin him, and with a strong army he attacked both Tung Kwun ✯✯ and San On ✯* districts. He drove out the Manchus, and made his headquarters in what is now known as the New Territories. One of Lei's camps was situated in the district round K'ei Lun Wai LP'ing Shan A and T'sing Leung Fat Yuen ****. Before the latter, which is a nunnery, was built, the locality had been known as Ying P'oon Tei, "The ground of the camp," and while the building was in progress the workmen dug up many old coffins which were supposed to be those of Lei's soldiers. Among them was found a general's sword, broken in many pieces. Anyone going to Kwun Yam Shaan to visit the Ling Wan monastery would notice half way up Taai Mo Shaan, far above the cultivated land, a stretch of hillside that has been terraced and flattened out in some former time. This is supposed to have been another of Lei's encampments. Lei burned and pillaged, and most of the + ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 198 NOTES AND QUERIES Dock Company for $150,000. In turn, the Company sold the property in 1883 to a Chinese consortium composed of three members of the Li Family and Chan Kun, with the proviso that the premises were not to be used as a dock or slip except for Chinese style ships. This was to prevent Chinese competition to their Dockyards at Hung Hom and Aberdeen. In time other industries were developed on the site: a soy factory, and a lard manufactury, and godowns were built along the Praya. The Li family of Tsat Po Heung, San Wui District, had established its interests in Hong Kong as early as 1854, and under the astute leadership of Li Sing it had become probably the wealthiest family in Hong Kong by the turn of century. Shortly before the death of Li Sing in 1900, he divided his extensive real estate holdings among his eight sons. Marine Lot 239 was included in the share of Li Po Lung (***), also known as Li Wai Tong (*). He sold out most of his interests in the property in 1921. ** In 1918 new Crown Leases were granted to Li Po Lung in lieu of the original lease of 1873. The upper part of the original lot was then set off as an Inland Lot numbered 1355. The top left-hand corner of the Lot (as seen when standing on the seafront facing the hillside) had some years previous been given to the Contractor's Guild to build the 'Lo Pan' Temple, and a path led up to it bearing the name of Li Po Lung. The hillside was terraced for building sites. The first row was known as Li Po Lung Terrace, situated between Belcher Street and the present Tai Pak Terrace. Ching Lin Terrace upon which the Temple is located was formerly known as Li Sing Kui Road and To Li Terrace was formerly Tam Woon Tong Road. 44 Li Sing Kiu, Tam Woon Tong, Look Poong Shan, Li Tsz Chung and Chung Sek Fan had purchased the site of the Temple along with other land from Li Po Lung in 1921. They, in turn, in 1923, sold the Temple site as Section E of Inland Lot 1355 for a sum of $4,222.40 to Lam Lau, Lam Sheung, Yu Cheuk, Ng Wah and Ng Tsz Mei, representatives of the Temple, though the conveyance stated they were tenants in common in equal shares rather than Trustees. 44 Due to difficulties over payment of the Crown Rent for Inland Lot 1355, the Government re-entered the lot in 1926 in ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 232 Sam Tung Uk NOTES AND QUERIES The Sam Tung Uk (village), is a small, square-walled lineage village dating back to the 18th century. It was settled by the Chan (陳) family. Before the Ch'ien Lung period of the Ch'ing Dynasty (清朝), the Chan clan lived in Ning Fa District, Ting Chow prefecture in Fukien Province (福建省). One of the branches then moved to Lo Fong, of Po On District* in Kwangtung Province (廣東省). Later Chan Yam Shing (the 13th generation) came to Tsuen Wan (old name Chin Wan meaning shallow bay) with four sons. Guided by his uncle (ancestor of Kwan Mun Hau Village, Tsuen Wan), they took up farming. They worked very hard, put up sea walls, reclaiming much land, and were content. Straw huts were built firstly at Lo Uk Cheung (羅屋丈) (where Block 2 of Tai Wo Hau Estate, Tsuen Wan, is now located) in the 22nd year of Ch'ien Lung, (1757). The elder son, Kin Sheung (堅常) was a herbalist doctor, renowned in fung shui and possessed a wealthy home. The other sons, Ying Sheung (應常), Wai Sheung (維常) and Cheuk Sheung (卓常) were farmers, living moderately. Kin Sheung, after settling down, searched around Tsuen Wan hoping to find a suitable site to establish a village. He found that a piece of land situated on the right side of Ngau Kwu Tun (牛牯墩) (present site of Tsuen Wan Government Secondary Technical School) would be the best, but it belonged to the Sun clan of San Tsuen at that time.† His brothers were told to contact the Sun family, hoping for a possibility to purchase it. One day a member of Sun clan turned up being, at that time, urgently in need of money. He offered to sell the much-desired land but no decision could be made as Kin Sheung was not at home. Mr Sun then said that he would go to Shing Mun to consult with other rich men who were likely purchasers. The brothers debated what should be done but in their elder brother's absence were unable to make any decision. When their elder brother returned home and heard of the Sun Clan's proposal, he was delighted and rushed to Wo Yee Hop (old name Woo Lee Hop meaning Fox's Valley), and the bargain was made. * Strictly speaking, San On (新安) at that time. †新村孫旗 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 34 WELLINGTON K. K. CHAN charitable halls were not merely institutions in which merchants participated; they were merchant institutions initiated and dominated by merchants. In Canton, Governor-general Chang Jen-chün once observed that charitable halls were particularly numerous in Kwangtung because there were a large number of rich merchants.24 Several factors contributed to these developments. The first was a change in the composition of the merchant class by 1900. By turning themselves into entrepreneurs, a number of officials and gentry members had joined the merchant class. Men like Yen Hou-hsin and Chou Chin-piao who came from official backgrounds took the lead in the formation of the Shanghai Commercial Consultative Association and later the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce. The founders of Ai-yü shan-t’ang in Canton probably had official backgrounds as well. Two had taotai rank and the house they bought had belonged to their friend, an official salt merchant who had gone bankrupt. A second factor was these merchant founders' conscious borrowing from the West. It is not enough to argue that they started charitable halls because as a group they commanded great wealth. For then the question arises: Why had the rich salt merchants or the cotton merchants not done the same before? Insofar as the merchants who sponsored charitable halls came from the treaty port areas, it seems that these merchants had been influenced by the work of the Christian missionaries. In one case, an orphanage was founded in Shanghai in 1892 by merchants and the district magistrate after there were reports of alleged cruelty to orphans in the missionary orphanage.22 Indeed, Po Leung Kuk's emphasis on tracking down kidnappers was in response to complaints of a similar sort, while Tung Wah Hospital's emphasis on healing and hospital care paralleled the activities of missionaries like Peter Parker in Canton. This in no way means that works of philanthropy were alien to the Chinese merchant's ethos. The merchant's traditional justification for acquiring wealth was in order to benefit the rest of society. What was new was not the attitude, but the organisational mechanism they now employed to further their ends. A third factor was the local officials' increasing reliance upon the leaders of the trade and handicraft guilds from the 1860's. They were asked to help conduct tax farming, and to organise contributions in money and labour towards the reconstruction of public ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS IN 19TH CENTURY 99 adjacent to the European business centre, the so-called Central District (Chung Wan), or, eastwards along Queen's Road, in the district of Wan Chai." Once Kowloon was acquired, pong-paân were attracted to this new area of settlement because of low rents and the propinquity of the docks, wharves and godowns soon established there, which in time gave employment to numerous European overseers. At the end of the century, Kowloon had become the principal habitat of lower class Europeans. There were terraces of houses occupied solely by them. A witness wrote: These are generally employees in the dockyards, or clerks, or the families of engineers and mates of the small steamers that have their headquarters in Hong Kong... Hong Kong looks down on Kowloon with all the well-bred contempt of Belgravia for Brixton. And even in the despised suburb on the mainland these social differences are not wanting. The wives of the superior dock employees are the leaders of Kowloon society; and the better half of a ship captain or marine engineer is only admitted on sufferance to their exclusive circle.18 But the part of Victoria most frequented, especially at night, by the European lower orders—soldiers, sailors, merchant seamen, beach-combers and others—was Tai Ping Shan, a densely populated Chinese residential area west of the Central District. In 1875 a visitor to Hong Kong wrote: Passing westward along Queen's Road, we come upon a quarter of the town much frequented by seamen of all nations. Here spirits are sold in nearly every second shop, and bands of common sailors may be seen spending their time and money on questionable drink in more questionable company, roaring out some rough sea-song in drunken chorus, or dancing to the time of a drum and flute, accordion or cornopean. The piles of Chinese houses which rise above this locality embrace Tai-Ping-Shan, or the hill of great peace. The name is a fine one, but a fine name will not hide the sins of the place. Tai-Ping-Shan is inhabited, for the most part, by Chinamen; but men are found there belonging to all the nations of the East. As for women, these are principally Chinese; they are numerous enough, but of the lowest type. There are strange hotels in this quarter, * There are a number of 19th century street maps available for early Hong Kong, held in the Public Records Office, Hong Kong. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 312 NOTES AND QUERIES The Deputy Commander at Taipang was the highest ranking officer in the locality of Kowloon during the Ch'ing Dynasty. At that time, the headquarters was set up within the Kowloon Walled City. This office, which also served as a garrison, still existed before the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, but had been converted into a Home for the Aged run by a Catholic Mission. In accordance with the [Kwangtung] military system adopted in Ch'ing Dynasty, there were altogether 6 battalions of armed forces under the Kowloon garrison commander. The reason why the Kowloon headquarters was named the Taipang Garrison is that the geographical name of Kowloon was once alternatively called Taipang Shan (⚟) and was politically under the sovereignty of Po On (then San On) District Magistracy.* Besides, there is also a very good harbour by the name of Taipang Bay located at the southeastern part of Po On District and east of Kowloon. In Taipang harbour the water runs to 5-10 fathoms deep where large warships can cast anchor. It was partly due to the importance of local coastal defence and partly due to the necessity of civil administration that such a garrison was established at Taipang Bay. The post of Deputy Commander was normally held in a 3 years' term; and among all the previous commanders, General Cheung was the most important in terms of historical significance. Cheung Yuk-tong, alias Hon-sang,† was born in Wei Yeung District, Kwangtung, and for many generations the Cheung's family lived in the Peach Garden in the capital town of the Wai Yeung District. In the 4th year of Hsien Feng (A.D.) (1853) he was appointed as Deputy Commander at Taipang, being promoted from staff officer at the Chin Shan Checkpoint [near Macao]. For four successive tours of service, in all a total of 13 years Gen. Cheung had been holding this post, and in those days the local inhabitants enjoyed a very peaceful time. It was not until the 5th year of Tung-chih reign (1866) that General Cheung retired from the military service at the age of 72. When the southern part of the Kowloon Peninsula was ceded to Britain as a consequence of the signing of the Peking Treaty he was still in office. As the Treaty was signed by the Imperial Court, *This is not so, but the Taipang garrison force served in and controlled Kowloon and district. Except where stated footnotes are supplied by James Hayes. † ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q # SAI KUNG, THE MAKING OF THE DISTRICT AND ITS EXPERIENCE DURING # WORLD WAR II ## DAVID FAURE'* ## INTRODUCTION The traceable history of Sai Kung District begins in the eighteenth century. At that time, the whole of Hong Kong, * ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This article records and analyses the findings of a research project into the oral sources available for the history of Sai Kung, conducted by members of the Oral History Project Team of the Centre for East Asian Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Thanks are due to many people for the successful completion of this project. Mr. Colin Bosher, former District Officer, Sai Kung, suggested it in the first place, and Mr. S.J. Chan, the present District Officer, gave his advice and encouragement most generously. Professor Chen Ching-ho, former Director of the Institute of Chinese Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong, took a most understanding attitude towards research on local history, and his kindness made possible not only this project, but also several other projects concerning the history of the New Territories. At every stage, the staff of the Sai Kung District Office and members of the Sai Kung Rural Committee helped in many and varied ways. The kindness of Miss Carrie Tsang, Miss Joyce Nip, Mr. Lei Yun Shou, J.P., Mr. Chung P'oon, Chairman, Sai Kung Rural Committee, and Mr. William Wan, must be especially acknowledged. Between November 1980 and August 1981 many residents of Sai Kung and neighbouring districts kindly agreed to be interviewed by the research team and their student assistants. For the record, their names and the dates of these interviews are appended to this report. As always, Dr. James Hayes and Dr. Patrick Hase offered kind and sound advice, and made available their own research notes for consultation. Father Sergio Ticozzi provided information on the history of the Roman Catholic Church in Sai Kung. Mr. K.M.A. Barnett generously gave us his time to discuss numerous issues that arose in the interviews. Thanks are also due to the Sai Kung Rural Committee and the Chinese University of Hong Kong for providing financial support for this project, and to Mr. Deacon Chiu, whose generous donation to the University made its grant possible. At different times, the following students at the Chinese University assisted: Cheng Shui Kwan, Kwok Po Nei, Lam Loi, Lau Kwan Yau, Lee Lai Mui, Lui Shuk Yee, Ngo Yin Ling, Tang Chan Yiu, Tsui Lai Yi, and Wong Yue Leung. Miss Cheng Shui Kwan and Miss Lee Lai Mui worked on this project from the start to its completion, and their contribution to the project is immense. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 162 DAVID FAURE including the New Territories, was part of San On county. The magistrate governed from the county seat at Nam T'au, across what is now Deep Bay. There were also sub-county offices, at Tai P'ang on the northern shore of Mirs Bay, and at Koon Foo, later renamed Kowloon City. These, with Nam T'au, were responsible for the southern part of San On county, that is, the area which includes the present-day Hong Kong, Kowloon, and the New Territories. The officials hardly ever visited the villages. By default, these villages were for the most part left to conduct their own affairs. Taxes were often collected with the co-operation of the rich and influential families in Yuen Long and Sheung Shui. Litigation could be conducted at Nam T'au, but lawsuits were rare. The principal markets on the mainland in this area were Tai Po, Sheung Shui, Yuen Long, and Sham Chun, and understandably, the main trade routes in the eastern New Territories went north-south, linking Kowloon City, Sha Tin, Tai Po, Sheung Shui, and Sham Chun, from where there were ferries to Nam T'au. Cut off from these trade routes by Ma On Shan, the Sai Kung villages were very much in the backwaters of the county. The history of the development of these villages is the story of a backward area slowly pulling itself up by its bootstraps.1 Development came in two stages. From the early eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth, population increased steadily. In the late seventeenth century, only three villages in the entire district merited entry in the San On Gazetteer, i.e., the Punti-speaking villages of Ho Chung, Pak Kong, and Sha Kok Mei. Not surprisingly, all three were located in well-watered valleys that were close to the footpaths leading to Sha Tin and Kowloon. By 1819, the next edition of the gazetteer recorded, in addition to these three, the Punti villages of Wong Chuk Yeung, Tai Long, Chek Keng, Ko Tong, Pak Tam, and Cheung Sheung, as well as the Hakka villages of Mang Kung Uk, Tseng Lan Shue, Sha Kok Mei (sic), Pan Long Wan, and Lan Nei Wan (later Man Yee Wan). The listing is not complete, but it accords with the general pattern of Hakka immigration into the Hong Kong region throughout the eighteenth century. There must have been a substantial boat population in the eighteenth century. There was, in fact, a larger boat population ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q PRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR 1975 (Covering the period April 7, 1975-April 1, 1976) This has been another active twelve months for your Society. I start my Report with a review of the programme and will then turn to matters concerning publications, the Art Centre, Library, Membership, and the Photographic Survey which has been one of our more recent ventures. During the period we have organised nine lectures, 2 excursions to places of local interest, and one tour abroad, to Burma. We have arranged two film shows, one recital and a symposium — the seventh in our series. Most events were well attended. Lectures and films related to the regions of China, contemporary and traditional, Vietnam, India, Korea and Hong Kong. The year started last April with a lecture on changing patterns of merchant organization in late Ch'ing China given by Dr. Wellington K.K. Chan, a visitor from the United States, and also in that month we arranged our first excursion, to Macau, where members, guided by Dr. Leigh Wright, visited Chinese temples and toured the Museum and colonial cemetery. In May and June our focus was on Peking opera. In May, Dr. Rulan Pian, visiting professor in music at Chung Chi College, spoke on musical elements in the opera; and in June Dr. Chiao Chien explained revolutionary opera as a means for transmitting values and political ideas. The arts were further represented in June with a demonstration of Kathak dancing by a well-known expert Mr. Satyanarayana Charka; and in July and August we showed films--one on Chinese paintings and one on music. Another film dealt with the excavation of a Silla tomb of 5th century Korea. In August Sir John Addis, formerly Ambassador to China, described a visit to Ching-te Chen; and in September a talk was given on Brahman ritual by Professor Fritz Staal. Also that month James Hayes, our editor and one of our vice-presidents who in his professional life is District Officer Tsuen Wan, led members to visit his area. The focus was on the past-historical places, the present, as well as the future of the area--development plans. Following, in October, a discussion was conducted by Drs. Graham and Elizabeth Johnson, both anthropologists working in Tsuen Wan ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 108 TIN-YUKE CHAR To identify Li Sun's name as written in Chinese characters and to gather more information on this interesting person, a letter was written to Hamilton College on April 8, 1975. A reply from the President's office said, “A search of our records revealed that Li Sun (listed as Chan Lai Sun in our files) attended Hamilton College for two years, in 1846-48. He was awarded the honorary degree of Master of Arts during his visit to the College in 1873 [as a member of the Chinese Educational Mission]." Frank K. Lorenz, Reference Librarian at Hamilton, also wrote, "Unfortunately we cannot determine what Chan's full name was in Chinese. We have a dozen letters from him, under the letter head of the Chinese Educational Commission, but they are entirely in English (very fluent and colloquial English at that) and are all signed "Chan Laisun." Thus began the search for Chan Laisun's name in Chinese. Yung Wing, a commissioner of the Chinese Educational Mission in 1873 made this report: "The educational commission was to consist of two commissioners, Chin [Ch'en] Lan Pin [  ] and myself. Chin Lan Pin's duty was to see that the students keep up their knowledge of Chinese while in America; my duty was to look after their foreign education and to find suitable homes for them. Chin Lan Pin and myself were to look after their expenses conjointly. Two Chinese teachers were provided to keep up their studies in Chinese, and an interpreter was provided for the Commission. Yeh Shu Tung [***] and Yung Yune Foo [***] were the Chinese teachers and Tsang Lai Sun was the interpreter.” He was most likely selected because he had been educated in English and was familiar with the Chinese dialects of the Southern maritime provinces from where most of the students were chosen by Yung Wing who was himself from the Heung Shan (now Chung Shan) district of Kwangtung. Tsang Lai Sun was identified with the Chinese characters 曾蘭生 (Tseng Lan-sheng in kuo-yu pronunciation) in the Chinese translation of Yung Wing's book. Thus, it appears that this Tsang Lai Sun was the same person as Chan Lai Sun as listed in Hamilton College records and also Li Sun who met the Hawaiian King. Chan wrote in a letter to Professor Edward North of Springfield, Massachusetts, that he would be enclosing a family photograph about which Mr. Lorenz wrote on July 30, 1976, “.. we cannot ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n PRESIDENT'S Report TREASURER's Report THE LIBRARY CONTENTS Page 1 6 10 TRANSACTIONS : Brunei: A Historical Relic - LEIGH WRIGHT Behind Japanese Barbed Wire: Stanley Internment Camp, Hong Kong 1942-1945 - G. C. EMERSON A Journey to Yenan 1946 - W. A. REYNOLDS ARTICLES: Two Essays on the Ch'ing Economy of Hsin-An, Kwangtung - J. T. KAMM Under Altars - K. G. STEVENS Social Organization and Ceremonial Life of Two Multi-Surname Villages in Hoi-p'ing County, South China, 1911-1949 - YUEN-FONG WOON "Little Fujian (Fukien)” Sub-Neighbourhood and Community in North Point, Hong Kong - GREGORY E. GULDIN Reprinted ARTICLES: Cheung Chow - Long Island - W. J. HINTON Memories of the District Office South, Hong Kong - W. SCHOFIELD NOTES AND QUERIES: Notes for the Royal Asiatic Society Visit to Tai Mo Shan, 3rd April 1976 — (I) L. B. and S. L. THROWER (II) JAMES HAYES Notes for the Visit to the Tang Family Graves, 11 December 1976 - DAVID LIU and JAMES HAYES Royal Asiatic Society Visit to Tsuen Wan, 10th December, 1977 - A Village War'. JAMES HAYES The Rural History Project in Yuen Long and Field Notes on the Social History and Fung Shui of Kam Tin - J. T. KAMM Bean Skim, A Product of Blood and Sweat Four Chinese Banks Fail, Partners Blame Head Two Letters From Wartime China A Further Note on Feng Yun-Shan and Gützlaff - Jen Yu-wen Reptiles New to Hong Kong - J. D. ROMER The Public Botanic Garden of Hong Kong Birds of Tai Mo Shan - MICHAEL Webster Occurrence of the Birds - J. D. ROMER 12 30 (55) 85 101 112 130 144 179 (185) 199 216 218 220 228 232 234 236 237 Page 15 Page 16 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n TWO ESSAYS ON THE CH'ING ECONOMY OF HSIN-AN 67 12 Lockhart lists 255 villages occupied by Hakkas, with a total population of 36,070 in the Tung Lo in 1898. Assuming a population of 250,000 for the total district in 1900, Hsin-An probably had a Hakka population of around 90,000. 13 Rawski's bibliography in Agricultural Change and the Peasant Economy of South China offers the most complete listing of works bearing on perpetual tenancy. p. 64. 14 CSO280/04 Extension. See note 4, Essay 2. 15 Hsu T'ien-tai, Fu Chien Wen Hua (福建文化), Vol. 1, No. 1, (1941), 16 Correspondence Respecting Affairs of China, March 1898-September 1900. "Report on the New Territory at Hong Kong," (Presented to both Houses of Parliament, November 1900) p. 19. 17 The Shih Chien T'ang Chia P'u (世鑑堂家譜), a collection of genealogies from Kam Tin, gives the following settlements of lineal descendants in Tung Kuan: Chuh Yuan (竹園), Yen Tien (燕田), Fu Lung (福龍), Huai Te (懷德), Shih Ching (石井), Tu Kao (土高), and Ping Hu (平湖). 18 "These clans gain their local influence, not through numbers alone, but owing to the fact that certain of their numbers have official rank, gained through competitive examinations, or obtained by purchase, which keeps them in touch with the Magistrate and even higher officials." Correspondence Respecting Affairs of China ibid., p. 20. The Shih Chien T'ang Chia P'u records that, from Cheng Hua (Ming Dynasty) to Tao Kwang (Ch'ing Dynasty)—that is, from roughly 1470-1820—fourteen Kam Tin Tangs passed the state examination. Several of these became office holders. Another indicator of gentry connections with officialdom was the construction, in Kam Tin, of a temple (祠堂) dedicated to the two officials (Chou Yu-te (周有德) and Wang Lai-jen (王來任)) who petitioned the Emperor, on behalf of the inhabitants of the coastal areas, to allow resettlement. 19 Introduction to the Nan Yang Tang Shih Tsu P'u (南陽堂世族譜), compiled by the Ping Shan Tangs. 20 Sung Hok-P'ang, in his articles on the Kam Tin Tangs in the Hong Kong Naturalist, claims to have seen references to Tang lands on Hong Kong in the Land Register (土地冊) of Tung Kuan. "One may judge that the land was owned by the Tangs before the first year of Maan Lik, AD 1525, (sic) as after that the San On District was formed” (Vol. VIII, nos. 3 and 4). 21 HKTCSMTC, "Details of Cultivated Land” (耕地詳情). 22 ibid. 23 The landlord clans were often referred to by the British as "first cultivators." See, for instance, CSO3172/1915 cited in the essay on tax-lordism. 24 Correspondence Respecting Affairs in China, ibid., p. 16. 25 Hsin-An Hsien-chih, ch'uan 8. 26 In this regard, note the high degree of correlation among the different "tax-burdens" in Table II. One is tempted to speculate that a native formula for the conversion of rent rates from tax-rates existed. 27 In the 1934 edition of the Chung-Kuo Ch'ing-chi Nien-chien (中國經濟年鑑), chapter 7 (Chinese Tenancy Systems), contains the following description of the Fen Chih Chih (分種制) system, a form of perpetual lease found in the East River counties of the Kwangchow Prefecture: "This ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n TWO ESSAYS ON THE CH'ING ECONOMY OF HSIN-AN 77 administration" was first implemented in the Sheung Yu Tung (**). The Land Court recognized the status of fourteen tax-lords, and granted them a total of 252.33 acres of unclaimed crown land. The taxlords, however, were in no hurry to select the land, and it was only after considerable prodding (over a period of several months) that they made their choices. The problems which arose over the plots selected were to plague district officers for years. Information regarding potentially profitable land was secured from bribed government clerks, with the result that speculation on railway land became rampant. Another problem arose when taxlords staked claims to "fung shui" groves and proceeded to extort and blackmail neighboring villages by threatening to chop down the trees for firewood. As a result, taxlord schedules for the tung were not completed till August, 1909; references to taxlord claims crop up in CSO reports well into the 1920's.20 By the time the Land Court got around to hearing the Un Long claims, little sympathy existed in the colonial service for the compensation plan. It is not surprising, then, that the Tang claims were dismissed as invalid, a decision which elders in the neighborhood still relate to the fact that the Tangs led the resistance. Official records regarding this decision have apparently been lost;29 thus, our only data on the nature of taxlordism refer to Sheung Yu Tung.* The most complete account of the taxlord settlement is provided in CSO6269 of 1909. Of the fourteen taxlords compensated throughout the tung, nine are dealt with in this file, which was compiled over the period 1904-1910. The table below summarizes these nine settlements. Table II: Taxlord Settlements, Sheung Yu Tung Taxlord Amount granted Located in: Tang Yung Peng 45.0 acres Fan Ling Liu Yin Yu 13.0 acres Man Lai Ngam Man Fung Chi 9.5 acres Tang Yui Shan 16.0 acres Pang Shin Han 65.0 acres Fan Ling, Hau Yeuk Fan Ling 9.0 acres 60.0 acres Ho Sheung, Lam Tsun Luk Yeuk 11.0 acres Hau Chak Wing Hang Chung Hin 4.8 acres Man Cham Tsum *The claims by Tangs over Tsing Yi Island were originally labelled. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 80 J. T. KAMM One of the earliest petitions received by the British after the occupation relates to the collection of land tax by a group of tax-lords, and illustrates their ability to lobby effectively for the preservation of their "rights": Hau Chak Wing (侯澤榮), Liu In Yu (廖延裕), Liu Sut Kam (廖雲錦) and Tang Yui Shan (鄧銳臣) gentry of Sheung Yu Tung, complain that Ho Fung Wing (何鳳榮) of Ki Ling Ha (企嶺下) village, Wong Sin (黃先) of Nai Chung village (坭涌村), Li A Fat (李亞發) of Wong Chuk Yeung (黃竹揚), Tang Shek Tse (鄧錫梓) and Wong Fat Shing (黃佛成), have combined together, and instigated the various villages of Tung Hoi (東海) district to refuse paying the rent in paddy amounting to 2000 stone. Petitioners have already produced title deeds for the payment of taxes, and the government has already issued notification directing the farmers to pay their rent as hitherto. These farmers have not paid their rent for two years, nor have they been dealt with, although petitioners have brought this matter to the notice of the Government.40 Though considerable confusion initially existed over the issue of whether the sum stated referred to taxes or rents, the matter was eventually resolved with the Land Court's recognition of these gentry as "taxlords."41 Examination of the early history of Britain administration in the New Territories lends final proof to the economic interpretation of the basis of tung. Though the colonial administration attempted to bolster the chu as local judicial bodies, they essentially undermined their power by abolishing taxlordism. As a result, the category tung rapidly dropped out of local usage.42 NOTES 1 Imperial Maritime Customs, Decennial Reports, See Kowloon reports in the volumes for 1882-1891 and 1892-1901. 2 Ibid., 1882-1901: p.682. 3 C. M. Chang, "Tax Farming in North China,” in Nankai Social and Economic Quarterly 8:4 (1936), pp. 831-836. Chang defines ya shui (牙稅) as "at first no more than a license fee paid by various brokers for the privilege of doing the business of brokerage, i.e. to bring together prospective... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 168 NOTES AND QUERIES ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY VISIT TO TAI MO SHAN, 3RD APRIL 1976 HISTORICAL AND GENERAL NOTE 1. Tai Mo Shan is 3,140 feet (957 metres) in height, the highest mountain in Hong Kong territory. 2. It is a curiously unimpressive mountain at close quarters. Viewed from Tsuen Wan, the former small market town at its foot on the southern side, the visitor could be forgiven for not noticing the mountain at all. It is, from there, only part of a large hilly area that arises quickly from sea level and extends in all directions, with occasional higher points of which the Tai Mo Shan summit is only one, in no way outstanding or separating itself from its neighbours. 3. From a distance, however, the true splendour of its peak and general mass is revealed. A visitor looking north from Magazine Gap or Wong Nei Chong Gap on Hong Kong Island, some 10-12 miles distant, cannot fail to notice, to the north, the bulk and height of the mountain, overtopping all around. The Lion Rock range of hills behind Kowloon Peninsula, closer to the viewer and usually so impressive from low ground, then appears in its true and diminished scale. 4. Mountains figure prominently in Chinese historical geography. There is, in every district, prefectural, provincial or general gazetteer, a section devoted to Shan-chuen - 'Hills and Streams'. As befits its size, Tai Mo Shan always receives a notice in the local works. The earliest mention I can find so far is in the 1688 edition of the Sun On District Gazetteer. This is repeated with much the same text in the 1819 and last edition, and in the 1822 and 1879 editions of the provincial and prefectural gazetteers respectively. The 1688 notice may be translated as follows: Tai Mo Shan is 50 Chinese miles east of the District City. It has the shape of a big hat. It extends south and west from Ng Tung Mountain. Its peak measures 2,000 Chinese feet. It is a big mountain in the Fifth Division, with a stone pagoda and many tea plantations. 5. So far as I know, there never has been a separate gazetteer of Tai Mo Shan such as has been provided for the more famous mountains of the Province; e.g. the White Cloud Mountains near Canton or ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 216 NOTES AND QUERIES head for the hall, the result is that the hall would bring about Great Wealth (大富) On the ancestral hall itself, it is apparent that it is being surrounded by green mountains and beautiful streams. Its walls are finely made and its direction is carefully orientated so as to suit the Dragon form. The rooms inside are spacious, comfortable, and neatly packed together. In front of it is Shau Sing Kung Shan (壽星宮山) ("Long-life mountain") and on the left of it is Kwun Yam Shan (觀音山). All these signs imply that from here “Great Nobility" (貴) would appear. Its form, so magnificent, calls for the Red Bird (朱雀) to lead the way (朱雀護送迎) and the Green Dragon and White Tiger to kneel (†). It drives the ranges to curl around it and the stars to look after the outlet. Every mountain, no matter how far comes to guard the cave, and every stream comes to gather round the hall. This indicates "Great Wealth" (大富). Thus the window of Heaven is made open and the door of Hell is tightly shut. This is the best Dragon form. It should foster great wealth and great nobility. It explains why the Tang clan has had so much success in wealth, fame, and in civil examinations, as compared with the other villages in Pat Heung (八鄉). Of course, it owes very much to the keen choice of Fung-shui by the Tang ancestors. Hong Kong, 1973 JOHN THOMAS Kamm BEAN SKIM (豆漿皮); A PRODUCT OF BLOOD & SWEAT FROM THE MAKERS Bean skim is a traditional rural product in the Tsuen Wan District of the New Territories of Hong Kong. The following account was written by WAN Chung-yan of Pun Shan Village, Chai Wan Kok, Tsuen Wan on 12.1.1976, at the Hon. Editor's request. Bean skim is a kind of bean product of rich nourishment. In the age when the electric motor had not yet been invented, such product was really a product of blood and sweat from the makers. The making of bean skim is easily described. Choose the best yellow beans, dry them under the sun and peel them. Then soak the beans in water and crush them into a paste. After filtering off the refuse, boil them in a pot. Skim off the upper layer of foam. Keep heating the paste at a certain temperature until a thin layer ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n LIST OF MEMBERS ORDINARY MEMBERS: DE FAZIO, Mr. & Mrs. M. F. - DE SILVA, Ms. Minette - + + · DEUTSCH, R. R. - DIAMOND, A. I. DOLFIN, J. 4 = DOMENACH, J. L. DONALD, Mrs. A. E. - DRAGE-FRANCIS, C. D. S. DRAKEFORD, L. S. DRYSDALE, Mrs. J. G. L. · DUNCAN, N. + 251 16, Tung Shan Terrace Flat 2B, Hong Kong. Dept. of Architecture, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. Chung Chi College, Chinese University of Hong Kong. Shatin, N.T. Public Records Office of Hong Kong, 2, Murray Road, Hong Kong. 155, Argyle Street, Kowloon. c/o French Consulate, 2B Kennedy Terrace, Hong Kong. 2, Mount Kellett Road, The Peak, Hong Kong. 12 Miles, Clearwater Bay Road, Kowloon. B 101 La Hacienda, 33 Mount Kellett Road, Hong Kong. 7, Shouson Hill Road, A/2F, Hong Kong. DUNKERLEY, Mrs. C. H. 401 Villa Verde, 14 Guildford Road, The Peak, Hong Kong. EDWARDS, Miss A. H. ELIAS, Mrs. P. E. ELSOM, G. J. B. EVANS, C. J. - · - + EVANS, Prof. D. M. E. FABRY, Mrs. R. G. FABRY, R. G. - FESSLER, L. · FORSYTH, A. J. A FORSYTH, J.- GAILEY, Mrs. N. GAMLEN, R. GARCIA, A. - - GARRETT, Mrs. V. M. GATELY, C. GHOSE, Mrs. R. T - + American Consulate General, 26 Garden Road, Hong Kong. B2 Habitat, Pak Sha Wan, Sai Kung, N.T. 6A, 6M Boven Road, Hong Kong. Flat 9, 8 Mansfield Road, The Peak, Hong Kong. Dept. of Law, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. Rural Retreat, Taipo Kau, N.T. Rural Retreat, Taipo Kau, N.T. Universities Service Centre, 155 Argyle St., Kowloon. 102, 80 Macdonnell Road, Hong Kong. 102, 80 Macdonnell Road, Hong Kong. Flat 16, 14 Mount Austin Road, Hong Kong. 62 A-D Robinson Road, 19/F, Flat B, Hong Kong. Victoria District Court, Hong Kong. 19, Vivian Court, 20 Mount Kellett Road, Hong Kong. Environment Branch, Colonial Secretariat, Lower Albert Road, Hong Kong. St. Paul's Convent School, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 186 in the district.68 DAVID FAURE On its way to Kowloon, the Japanese army looted Ho Chung. Mr. Tse Ming recalled that the Japanese came in groups, and took away the villagers' food. This continued for about a week. Tseng Lan Shue and Pik Uk, the next stop on the route to Kowloon, probably suffered more than other villages in Sai Kung, for Japanese troops stayed there for more than twenty days. The troops disturbed the women, took most of the crop that had just been harvested, and burnt the doors and furniture in the village houses for firewood. It seems that only scattered units of the Japanese army went into the Hang Hau area. Mr. Leung Chiu Man of Hang Hau saw some fighting between British and Japanese troops but recalled that the Japanese did not greatly disturb the village.69 The bandits After the Japanese came the bandits. Mr. Chau T'in Shang's impression in Sai Kung Market was that the bandits came many times and took away all the residents' valuables. Mr. Cheng Ip of Pak Kong remembered that it was Tung Chi (winter solstice) when the bandits first came. They were armed with guns, and they forced the villagers to carry their grain to Kei Ling Ha where they departed by boat. Mrs. Ts'ui of Sai Kung Market, whose husband was a fish-monger, remembered that many bandits came, and soon she was required to deliver a fixed quantity of fish every month to them. She fled to Yim Tin Tsai for two weeks, and then went up to P'ing Shan on the Chinese side of the border for three months, before she dared return to farm on her own land at Pak Kong. Mr. Hoh King of Nam Shan had just returned from Kowloon, and learnt that his name was on a list drawn up by the bandits of people they wanted to hold for ransom. He left Sai Kung with the proprietor of Kwong Tak Lung, whom he knew well, for the villages near Sham Chun, and stayed there for a month before he returned to Nam Shan. Even then, he did not stay in the village, but lived for a while up on the hillside.70 Bandits were reported throughout Sai Kung District, from Clear Water Bay, Junk Bay, to Long Harbour, in both the poorer villages and the richer ones and the market towns. According ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 189 although military power was much needed at the time. In fact, it was quite ineffective against the bandits. Several months into the occupation, the office was burnt by the bandit Wong Chuk Ts'eng.70 Mr. The burning of the Wai Ch'i Wooi was well-known. Chan Tsz K'eung, of Sai Kung Market, thought that a Japanese spy had been sent to investigate the guerrillas in Sai Kung and that this was a reprisal. Mr. Lei Yun Shau thought that it was due to a dispute between Wong Chuk Ts'eng and the Wai Ch'i Wooi. Mr. Loh Kai Faat of Kau Sai thought that Wong Chuk Ts'eng, having made a fortune from banditry, was wavering between looting and working for the guerrillas; the Wai Ch'i Wooi, however, was on the verge of deciding to capture him. Mr. Sham Kin K'eung, who spent most of his war years in Tai P'ang, said that Wong had fought on the side of the Nationalist forces in Tam Shui at Pak Mong Fa. He was a bandit and a smuggler who operated from Sham Chun to Wai Chau, and he had many small groups working under him. Mr. Sham thought it unlikely that Wong would have come to Sai Kung himself, and believed it must have been one of these groups working for him that was responsible for burning the Wai Ch'i Wooi. It is not at all clear what the disputes between the Wai Ch'i Wooi and the bandits amounted to. Several months after the burning of the Wai Ch'i Wooi, Mr. Lei Shiu Yam resigned as chairman, and the post was given to Mr. Hui Mei Naam of Lai Chi Chong. This change might not have had anything to do with the burning of the Wooi. Several months into the occupation, the Japanese Government could afford to strengthen its presence in the districts. On July 20, a new system of district administration was promulgated, dividing the whole of Hong Kong and the New Territories into twenty-eight districts, Sai Kung being one of them. Each one of these districts was represented by a K'ui Ching Shoh (District Administration Office), and this name came to be used in place of Wai Ch'i Wooi. The extent of the district was the entire peninsula east of Ma On Shan, including not only the villages from Tseng Lan Shue to Man Yee Wan, but also those north of Pak Tam Chung, those in Shap Sz Heung, and those near Hang Hau. The K'ui Ching Shoh office was set up at the Sung Chen School, and at about this time, a small contingent ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 42 KEITH STEVENS In addition there were scraps of cotton, threads, one or two grains of rice, a tiny sac of cotton cloth stuffed with more cotton and several beads and slivers of mica. There were also two dried sea-horses* in the image dedicated in 1871 though there were no signs of any other remains. The strips of paper are not all that usual and are rarely found in Southern Chinese images. Precis translations of the six strips of paper are included later in this note. The papers show that five of the seven images were dedicated and placed on altars in the County of Wu Kang (A) in South East Hunan, one hundred miles due north of Kweilin and three hundred and seventy-five miles NNW of Hong Kong, near the Hunanese boundaries with its neighbouring provinces of Kwangsi and Kweichow. The west and south-west of Hunan were not easily accessible until the 1930's due to the dangerous rapids in the upper reaches of the plentiful rivers. Then a system of highways opened up the area. Prior to that, apart from the occasional traveller, traders and, of course, the petty officials sent to such "punishment" posts, all that was known of the area came from tales passed on from mouth to mouth. Wu Kang is in rising country, on the edge of an area marked on old maps as the lands of the Thai minority peoples, the Ko Lao (z) and another larger minority people, the Miao (δ). The other two images come from Chi An prefecture () in Kiangsi province, some two hundred and eighty miles due east of Wu Kang. Chi An, an old walled city and a major centre on the north-flowing Kan Chiang, had closer cultural links with central rather than south China. The first image (Plate 2), from Wu Kang and dedicated in 1756, is a household deity to protect the home and family and to bring blessings. The slip of paper relates that Worshipper Fu Shih-hsiang, together with his three sons and others from his family, all of Hsin Wu Chang Village, Yen Shan, Lung Chu district of Wu Kang county in Pao Ching prefecture (now Shao Yang), Hunan, on the 4th day of the 7th moon of the 20th year of Ch'ien Lung (1756), offered sacrifices to the gods at the City God temple in Shih Pei.† He also reported to them in writing that he and his whole family * Seahorses, found as far inland, would have a rarity value, though they are commonly used by Chinese herbalists & pharmacists. † Chinese characters are to be found on the illustrations of the slips of paper. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 44 KEITH STEVENS 1871) offered sacrifices at the City God temple and reported, in writing, that he and the whole family with gratitude had made an image of the Duke Wei which he presented to undergo the rite of consecration, so that it would protect all members of his family and all his domestic animals and poultry. The image is of a seated soldier, dressed in armour and military cap, his right hand is clenched and rests on his right knee. His left hand, the first and fifth fingers only, pointing vertically, is held at waist height in a magical sign. Wei had a gilded face, traces of which can still be seen, five tufts of black beard, the stubble only remaining and gilt armour covered by a red and blue robe again only traces of which are still visible. This image was blackest and greasiest of all and is quite surprisingly handsome now that the film of filth has been removed. Wei could possibly be Yu-ch'ih Ching-te (*), the Door Guardian who according to Mathews' dictionary is well-known as one of the two door guardians on temples and is “depicted with a black face and the fingers of one hand twisted up". The image, dressed in loose robes over armour and chain mail, has a gilded face but otherwise, has his fingers twisted up. In reality Yu-ch’ih was a general who served the T'ang Emperor T'ai Tsung in his wars against rebels and died in 659 A.D. The fourth image (Plate 5), also from Shan Men district, Wu Kang county in Hunan and dedicated in 1938 is of the bodhisattva Kuan Yin. The image, easily identifiable as such by her five-leafed bodhisattva crown, beads and vase, is seated cross-legged on a lotus, and dressed in gilded robes, The slip of paper in Kuan Yin's back relates that Petitioner and worshipper Mrs. Yin Wu-chi together with her five sons, four daughters-in-law, and one grandchild, on the 21st of the 6th moon of the 27th year of the Chinese Republic (18th July 1938) offered sacrifices to the Earth God at the City God temple in Lao Chai, presented and installed a new image of Kuan Yin. This has been done, the slip said, so that this Buddhist deity can be resorted to in her natural form and can kindly bestow good luck and eternal protection and prosperity on the Yin family and its future generations. In words of glowing praise, the petitioner described the heart, the liver, the lungs, the kidneys, the soul, the gall, the eyes, teeth, the bones, the bowels and the spirit of Kuan Yin, as 'the liver of a green dragon', 'lungs of a white tiger', ‘kidneys Page 60 Page 61 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 POLITICIZATION OF CHINESE CRAFT ORGANIZATION 95 going into a small red numbered membership book, which the worker keeps in his possession at all times, and which has a space for stamping receipt of dues, as well as a list of union regulations. A numbered badge is also given out to new members, on which is embossed a yellow star on a red background, with the carpenter's hammer, the carver's carving tool, and the painter's brush crossed beneath and tied with a ribbon, and the union's name around the lower perimeter of the badge. The union keeps scrupulous records of every action and transaction that occurs within its purview. Every member who has given money, bought a ticket, received a magazine, or whatever, is given a chit to receipt his every transaction, all of which are dutifully recorded in the account books. In August-September, 1973 a membership drive began and a chart posted on the bulletin board showed in bar graphs the increases in membership for the various districts in which art carved furniture factories are located: Cheung Sha Wan, San Po Kong, Kwun Tong, Chun Shek Shan (Diamond Hill), Tsim Sha Tsui and New Territories/Tsuen Wan, with Kwun Tong well in the lead. Kwun Tong is the site of the largest carving factories in Hong Kong where it could be argued the concentration of capital, and the alienation of the worker from his tools and from his product have progressed furthest. According to the union vice-chairman, about 200 additional members were recruited in the recent drive bringing current membership up to somewhere around 800 workers. I had occasion to witness the actual recruitment of a new member in progress at Heng Lung Co. where I worked. There was quite an enthusiastic union member working there, one who had been back to visit his native village in Kwangtung province in the San Wei district several times and came back with glowing reports about the progress of his home village under socialism. He even had several arguments with other workers in the factory concerning how accurate his observations and glowing reports were. This fellow began working on a younger worker in the factory proselytising. The younger worker had previously explained to me that he had no use for the union or anything political at all. In the course of their work the older worker talked to the younger one about the benefits of union membership and ultimately invited the younger worker to a weekly meeting. While I have no idea what the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 208 NOTES AND QUERIES The westermost cannon has an inscription showing that it was cast in the 1st moon of the 10th year of the reign of Chia Ching (1805), weighing 1,200 catties (嘉慶十年正月造,重一千二百斤). Again, this cannon and some others were probably cast for the defence of the region against pirates.4 The cannon which lies next to it had been severely weathered, and the inscription is illegible. Two cannons on the east wall bear the same inscriptions. These read as follows:-- Cannon: weight 2,000 catties. Yik: General of Border Pacification, by Imperial Appointment (欽命靖逆將軍奕(山)). Choi: Minister of Constant Support. Kay: Junior Guardian of the Heir Apparent, and Viceroy of Kwangtung and Kwangsi (太子少保廣東總督都堂祁(墳)). Leung: Assistant Minister of Defence, and Governor of Kwangtung (兵部侍郎廣東巡撫部院(寶常)). Lau: Acting Prefect of Fat Shan Prefecture. Cheong: Reserve Magistrate of Hoi Fung District, supervised its manufacture (海豐縣丞即補縣昌、監造). In the 10th moon of the 21st year of the reign of Tao Kwang (1841) (道光二十一年十月吉日). Cast by Cannon Artisans Li, Chan, and Fok. During that time, British influence in this area was strong. Viceroy Lin Tse-hsü ordered the casting of cannons from Fat Shan for the fortification of the coast of Kwangtung. These two cannons must be two of those that Viceroy Lin had ordered to be cast, and they were placed in this region for defence purposes. The cannon which lies next to these two is again illegible, because of severe weathering. These six cannons were selected from elsewhere, some perhaps from the Kai Yik Kok Fort, others from the Shek Se Fort, and were mounted there. Though they were not cast at the same time, they had the same purpose: they were used to defend the region against pirates and foreign invasions. They are now preserved at Tung Chung and help to commemorate these events. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 NOTES AND QUERIES 211 Ching period of the Ming Dynasty (1553). From this, we can see that, at that time, there was no fort nor guard-station at Fat Tong Mun. 4 See my article "A Short History of the Pirates of Hong Kong before 1842," published in Volume 8, No. 4, of the Kwong Tung Man Hin 早期海盜略，原載廣東文獻第八卷，第四期。. 5 Chapter 4 of the San On Yuen Chi, Ch'ia Ching edition, ★★★✰ recorded, "North Fat Tong is an isolated island, A fort is erected during the K'ang Hsi period, for the protection of the waterway against the pirates." This proves that the fort on Tung Lung Island was erected during the K'ang Hsi reign. 6 See Chapter 13 of the Kwong Tung Hoi Tu Shuet. 1889 edition ★***, and Chapter 73 of the Kwong Chow Fu Chi, 1879 edition 廣州府志。 7 Chapter 125 of the Kwong Tung Tung Chi, Tao Kuang edition £ A records, "In the 15th year of the Ch'ia Ching rule, Viceroy Chin Mun Fu ✰✰ suggested to have the Fat Tong Mun Fort abandoned, and rebuilt near the Kowloon Walled City, Viceroy Pak Ling ordered the Magistrate of the San On District 4 to carry out the suggestion. The Fat Tong Mun Fort was under the command of the officer commanding of the Tai Pang Battalion ***. The fort stood on an isolated island, two hundred li from the Tai Pang Walled City, and forty li from the Kowloon guard-station. There were no villages on the island that could assist in protecting the region. Thus the fort had to be removed to the Kowloon City Region." Chapter 14 of the Kwong Chow Fu Chi, 1879 edition АЯ, and the Genealogy of Tang's of Kam Tin, New Territories of Hong Kong, 香港新界錦田鄧氏族譜 have the same record. 8 See Note 6, Chapter 8 of Professor LO Hsiang-lin's Hong Kong and its External Communications before 1842, Chinese edition, 1959 -AS- 一八四二年以前之香港及其對外交通，羅香林著. FIRST RECORD OF THE PELOBATID FROG LEPTOBRACHIUM PELODYTOIDES BOULENGER IN HONG KONG It is indeed gratifying to find-in an area as small and zoologically well studied as Hong Kong-any amphibian not previously known to be part of our fauna. Not only does the discovery of Leptobrachium pelodytoides add another species, but represents a genus new to the known fauna of Hong Kong. The first specimens found here, and subsequently identified, are nine tadpoles collected by Dr. Frank F. Reitinger and Mr. Jerry K. S. Lee at an altitude of about 853 metres on Tai Mo Shan in the New Territories on 30 November and 7 December 1974. However, it was not until two adult frogs were found by Mr. Phillip J. Bishop ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 RELIGIOUS LIFE IN PRESENT-DAY TAIWAN 191 10 See M. Saso, The Teachings of Master Chuang. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1978. 11 Journal of Buddhist Culture, Fo-Chiao wen-hua hsüeh-pao,*** published by the Institute for the Study of Buddhist Culture since 1972. Articles are in Chinese or English. 12 Journal of Taoist Culture, Tao-chiao wen-hua,Maxit published by the Taoist Culture Journal Association since 1976. Articles are in Chinese. 13 Examples are: Fo-kuang hsüeh-pao,1*£* published by the Buddhist monastery on Fo-kuang mountain near Kaohsiung, since 1975 or 1976; Boahedrum, Pw-ti-shu,### Taichung: Hui-châ, & Torch Wisdom, Taipei; Hal Ming-tao, published in Tounan (Yünlin district). of 14 See E. Ahern, The Cult of the Dead in a Chinese Village, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1973. 15 See L. G. Thompson, "Notes on Religious Trends in Taiwan", Mon. Ser., vol. 23 (1964), 319-350. 16 See A. P. Cohen, "Fiscal Remarks on some Folk Religion Temples in Taiwan", Mon. Ser., vol. 32 (1976), 85-158. 17 See Liu Chih-wan, Taipei-shih Sung-shan ch'i-an chien-chiao chi-tien (Great Propitiatory Rites of Petition for Bene-ficence at Sungshan, Taipei, Taiwan), Taipei: Academia Sinica, Institute of Ethnology, (monographs no. 14), 1967, Liu Chih-wan, Chung-kuo min-chien hsin-yang lun-chi (Essays on Chinese Folk Belief and Folk Cults), Taipei: Academia Sinica, Institute of Ethnology (monographs no. 22), 1974. M. Saso, Taoism or the Rite of Cosmic Renewal, Washington State University Press, 1972. 18 See St. Harrell, "Modes of Belief in Chinese Folk Religion", in JSSR, vol. 16 (1977), 55-65. 19 See D. Jordan, Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors. Folk Religion in a Taiwanese Village, University of California Press, 1972, G. Seaman, Temple Organization in a Chinese Village (Asian Folklore and Social Life Monographs, vol. 101), Taipei: Chinese Association for Folklore, 1978, 20 See D. Overmyer, "The Saying of Master Lu", Unpublished paper, given at the joint panel of the CASA and the CSSR on Chinese Religion at the Conference of the Learned Societies in Saskatoon, May, 1979. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 202 NOTES AND QUERIES sister, now a spirit, had proffered good advice, he built a folk religion shrine in her honour. Her cult thrived, so much so that her image is revered by Ch'aochou emigrants in most areas of South Thailand and, so the story goes, also in Singapore and in Nakorn Sri Thammarat. The Bangkok god carver claims that Miss Lin is the only Chinese deity with a special urn donated by the King of Thailand who is well known for his tolerance towards and encouragement for other religions. He is said to have bowed in her honour before her image which consists of a simple, seated country girl with bare feet and large hands, dressed in working clothes Plate 3. Her festival is celebrated in her temples each year on her birthday, the 15th of the first lunar month. Hong Kong. March, 1980. KEITH STEVENS THE TEMPLE OF THE SUPREME RULER, NEAR SUNG WONG TOI, KOWLOON* In the thirteenth century A.D. the Southern Sung Emperor Tuen Chung was attacked by the Mongol Conquerors of the North. Driven from his provisional capital at Hang Chow, the Emperor retreated southwards through Fukien and on to Kwangtung province, stopping temporarily at more than 30 places on his way. Besides the well known Palace at Ngai Mun in the San Wui district of Kwangtung, that at Sau Shan by the Pearly River has been fully described in the Imperial Records which were published in the Yuen Dynasty. Such buildings provide evidence of the efforts of the Sung Emperor and his ministers to make that stand against their enemies which has long been cherished in the people's minds. In the spring of 1277 during the second year of his reign, the Emperor left Kam Tsz Mun of Wai Chau district in Kwangtung and reached Mui Wai. In the fourth moon he arrived at Kwun Fu Cheung, a district which included present day Kowloon, the New *This heading and the following text are taken from a memorial tablet erected in the Urban Council's Rest Garden at Lomond Road, Kowloon, site of this former old temple. A Chinese tablet is also provided. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 144 NOTES AND QUERIES Tai Lam Chung Sub-district:- Tai Lam Chung, So Kun Fat, Tai Lam, Tsing Fai Tong, Un Tan and Tin Po Tsai 田箭仔、 Lung Ku Tan Sub-district:- Nim Wan, Tai Shui Hang 大水坑, Pak Long 北朗, Ha Nam Long 下南朗, Sheung Nam Long 上南朗 and Tuk Mi Chung 篤尾涌. 18 At present, Tuen Mun consists of thirty-two villages; namely: Chi Tin Tsuen, Ching Chuen Wai † (mainly surnamed To 陶), Ching Shan Keuk 青山脚, Ching Shan Tsuen 青山村, Chung Uk Tsuen (mainly surnamed Chung), Fu Ti Tsuen 虎地村, Fu Hang Tsuen 福亨村, Ho Tin Tsuen 河田村, Ki Lun Wai 麒麟圍 (mainly surnamed Chan 陳), Kwong Shan Tsuen 礦山村, Lam Tei 藍地 (mainly surnamed To 陶 and Kwan 關), Lam Tei San Tsuen (mainly surnamed To), Leung Tin Tsuen 良田村 (mainly surnamed Ho 何), Lung Ku Taan 龍鼓灘 (mainly surnamed Lau), Nai Wai (mainly surnamed To 陶), Nim Wan 稔灣, Po Tong Ha 寶塘下 (mainly surnamed Tsui 徐), Sam Shing Hui 三聖墟, San Hing Tsuen 新慶村 (mainly surnamed Siu 蕭), San Hui 新墟, San Wai Chei 新圍仔, Shun Fung Wai »§ £, ♬ (mainly surnamed Cheung 張 and Leung 梁), Siu Hang Tsuen 小坑村 (mainly surnamed Tse 謝), So Kwun Wat 掃管笏 (mainly surnamed Lee 李), Tai Lam Chung (mainly surnamed Wu 吳 and Wong 黃), Tin Fu Chai (mainly surnamed To and Choi), To Yuen Wai (mainly surnamed Lee 李), Tseng Tau Tsuen 井頭村, Tuen Chi Wai 屯子圍 (mainly surnamed To 陶), Wo Ping San Tsuen 和平新村, Yeung Siu Hang 楊小坑 and Luen On San Tsuen 聯安新村. Tuen Mun has now been developed into a large new satellite town. A major road, the Tuen Mun Highway, has been built, joining it with Tsuen Wan, and a light rail system within the town area will be developed in the near future. NOTES 1 The name 'Tuen Mun' appeared first in Chapter 43 of the New History of T'ang. 2 Tuen Mun Shan was also known as 'Pui To Shan'. Nowadays, it is also called 'Castle Peak'. The Bay was also known as Tuen Mun O. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p # SAI KUNG, THE MAKING OF THE DISTRICT AND ITS EXPERIENCE DURING # WORLD WAR II ## DAVID FAURE'*' ## ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This article records and analyses the findings of a research project into the oral sources available for the history of Sai Kung, conducted by members of the Oral History Project Team of the Centre for East Asian Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Thanks are due to many people for the successful completion of this project. Mr. Colin Bosher, former District Officer, Sai Kung, suggested it in the first place, and Mr. S.J. Chan, the present District Officer, gave his advice and encouragement most generously. Professor Chen Ching-ho, former Director of the Institute of Chinese Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong, took a most understanding attitude towards research on local history, and his kindness made possible not only this project, but also several other projects concerning the history of the New Territories. At every stage, the staff of the Sai Kung District Office and members of the Sai Kung Rural Committee helped in many and varied ways. The kindness of Miss Carrie Tsang, Miss Joyce Nip, Mr. Lei Yun Shou, J.P., Mr. Chung P'oon, Chairman, Sai Kung Rural Committee, and Mr. William Wan, must be especially acknowledged. Between November 1980 and August 1981 many residents of Sai Kung and neighbouring districts kindly agreed to be interviewed by the research team and their student assistants. For the record, their names and the dates of these interviews are appended to this report. As always, Dr. James Hayes and Dr. Patrick Hase offered kind and sound advice, and made available their own research notes for consultation. Father Sergio Ticozzi provided information on the history of the Roman Catholic Church in Sai Kung. Mr. K.M.A. Barnett generously gave us his time to discuss numerous issues that arose in the interviews. Thanks are also due to the Sai Kung Rural Committee and the Chinese University of Hong Kong for providing financial support for this project, and to Mr. Deacon Chiu, whose generous donation to the University made its grant possible. The research team included David Faure (co-ordinator), Lai-hung Kwan, Bernard H.K. Luk, Yue-him Tam, and Barbara E. Ward. At different times, the following students at the Chinese University assisted: Cheng Shui Kwan, Kwok Po Nei, Lam Loi, Lau Kwan Yau, Lee Lai Mui, Lui Shuk Yee, Ngo Yin Ling, Tang Chan Yiu, Tsui Lai Yi, and Wong Yue Leung. Miss Cheng Shui Kwan and Miss Lee Lai Mui worked on this project from the start to its completion, and their contribution to the project is immense. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 257 approximately between 1900 and 1915. We find that of the four born before 1898, three had attended class for an average of four years, one attended for only one year, and then worked first in the farm for a few years and then in the construction of the railway. Amongst the six born after 1898, however, three never went to school and one claimed that he learnt to read a little when he worked as a shop assistant in a small tea-house at Shamshuipo. Around 1900, at least two teachers are known to have given up teaching, one to work in the Land Office of the New Territories administration and the other to work for his brother-in-law at Taipo. Liao Chung-nan, the siu-tsai who formerly taught a small class at high fees in his own home as mentioned above, eventually had to move to teach at the Wan Shih Tang at a lower fee of about $5 per pupil. Three government schools providing an elementary English education were set up between 1905-1906, one being situated at Taipo, about six miles from Sheung Shui. Unlike in urban Hong Kong, response to this new educational provision was not great. The school at Ping Shan fared most badly and was closed in 1907 to be replaced by one set up in Cheung Chau. The average attendance throughout 1905-1912 in these three schools was twenty, out of a total of 224 schools in the whole Territories with an average attendance of sixteen each.15 The Report of the District Officer of 1912 states: “Government schools on a small scale have been opened at centres in the New Territories providing an elementary instruction in English, the fee for these is 50 cents per month. There is not, however, a great demand for this instruction of a more modern type in most of the districts, for the people still cling to the old-fashioned learning.”16 We have no record of village people from Sheung Shui attending the Taipo government English schools before 1913. 1913. The social and economic changes resulting from the change of government were still small and the opportunities for new jobs were still limited, and the jobs were mostly confined to manual labour. New demands had not yet appeared to bring marked changes in popular literacy which remained basically rooted in the traditional and relatively confined village society, but it was perhaps beginning to lose its former hold both as a basic education for the masses and, at a more advanced level, as the avenue to position and wealth. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 112 Haven". Pui O at present often uses for its name characters meaning "Shell Harbour". 1* Yi Long Wan ("Second Wave Bay"). 1 These villages used to stand just south of Discovery Bay but have since given way to the major housing project of that name. " Tai Pak Island is now called Tai Lei ("Great Profit"). 19 Shau Chau is now called Sha Chau ("Sand Isle"). "Tongkwu is now called Lung Kwu Chau ("Dragon Drum Island”). "The Society for the Aid and Rehabilitation of Drug Addicts (SARDA) has had a treatment centre here since about 1960. 31 * Capital of San On District. ** No villages now survive on Hei Ling Chau, which, after the closure of the leprosarium, is now occupied solely by the Correctional Services Department. The remaining villagers were resited to various places on Lantau in 1952-53. ** Chau Kong is now called Sunshine Island (Chau Kung To), after an agricultural rehabilitation programme for refugee families launched there in the 1950s by Mr. Gus Borgeest (of Hong Kong) and others. "Kau Yi Tsai is now called Siu Kau Yi Chau, with the same meaning. **A prewar periodical magazine containing many items of great interest, including Father D.J. Finn's contributions on local archaeology, 1933-36. These were reprinted, edited by Rev. T.F. Ryan S.J., by Ricci Hall, University of Hong Kong, 1958, entitled Archaeological Finds on Lamma Island (M) near Hong Kong. ** Waglan at present uses for its name characters meaning "Barrier to the Waves". #T Respectively Cheung Shek Pai, Ngan Wu, and Shan Liu. " Also known in English as Junk Island. At present the island is known in Chinese only as Fat Tau Chau ("Buddha's Head Island"). Nam Tong Island is now known as Tung Lung Chau ("Eastern Dragon Island”). * This is the Tin Hau Temple (Tai Miu) on Joss House Bay. After partial excavation, it is now listed as an ancient monument under the care of the Urban Services Department. ** Respectively Pak A, Leung Shuen Wan, and Pak Lap. ** These inlets were drowned in the mid 1970s to form the High Island Reservoir. *Tolo Harbour. Yuen Chau Tsai, see note 2 above. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 121 temple repairs. Ap Lei Chau was a fishing port and its temples were very popular with the boat people in the anchorage. They thronged to them at the festivals and to the performance of opera and puppets organized by the chik lei, but it seems that they were not allowed to share in the management of these events. My informants recalled that at one time, even, because of a dispute over seating arrangements at an opera performance, it was decided not to seek donations from boat people in future at festival times. This happened before the Pacific war, and from that time on, the decision has been followed. On the other hand, the boat people's contributions have been sought for temple repairs whenever these have become necessary." The tablets in both temples on the island show that, as at Tai O and Cheung Chau, other large centres of boat and land populations, both communities have combined on these occasions, no doubt because the high cost of the work made it necessary to get contributions from every possible source. The Earth God Shrines at Sai Ying Pun and Tai Ping Shan (1) Sheung Fung Lane (4) At Sheung Fung Lane in the Sai Ying Pun district of Hong Kong Island there is an old shrine to the Fuk Tak Kung, the earth god of that locality. It has a large granite altar, carved with figures at each end, which has corners cut to simulate bamboo trunks and is inscribed with Chinese characters. These give the names of the persons (listed by their shop names) styled tai chik lei who contributed the costs of erection in the year 1910-1911, together with the name of the overall organiser, styled chung lei (1) dated the year before. However, this was a reconstruction, as the present managers have in their possession, dated from the year 1905-1906, a large banner, a hanging cloth and an umbrella, all well-preserved and made for use in processions round the area in time of need of spiritual protection*. Local tradition supports an earlier origin of the shrine, and traces its beginnings to a great epidemic that caused many deaths in the district at "an earlier time". This might have been the great * Plates 1 to 5 illustrate this section. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 127 the 18th to 20th days of the 1st moon, the birthday of the earth god. To celebrate the occasion, a Committee of twelve members was formed. One of these was the Chairman (Chung Li), one the Vice-chairman (Hip Li) and the rest were ordinary Committee members (Chik Li). All the Committee members were chosen from among those interested in taking up the post by casting divining blocks before the gods on the altar, as at Ap Lei Chau; thus, as we have seen, in a different way from the nearer Sheung Fung and Tai Ping Shan shrines. The Committee was also responsible for subsidizing the function in case there was a deficit. The annual celebrations took place, not at the shrine, but in Hau Wo Street, a few hundred yards away. A temporary metal structure of about 12' X 8' was erected for the purpose of staging a puppet show. Sacrifice was offered and joss papers and candles were burnt. To conclude the ceremony, there was a distribution of gifts, mainly rice and other foodstuffs, to the poor of the district. According to Mr. Chow, local residents were generally very interested in this event. They believed that by celebrating the festival they would be more fortunate and prosperous throughout the whole year."4 The Earth God Shrines at Nam On Fong and Sai Wan Ho, Shau Kei Wan I turn now to other shrines of this kind at Shau Kei Wan, in the eastern part of Hong Kong Island. Shau Kei Wan has a good harbour and was a fishing port and boat people's anchorage long before 1841. Its land population was given as 1,200 persons in the first Hong Kong census of May 1841. By 1860 it was listed as having 2,561 land dwellers and 4,338 boat people. In the mid 1860s it was said to have had 307 houses and shops, and 603 boats. In the 1871 census it had 2,360 land inhabitants. At the 1911 census the land population had risen to 11,727 and the number of persons on boats was given as 6,440.5 These figures include not only the town section of Shau Kei Wan, long known as Tung Tai Kai (東大街) or Great East Street, but a number of villages, and stone quarries with their attached ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 135 14.8.1897, all three Ap Lei Chau residents belonging to the old Luk Hing, Sau Hing, and Fuk Hing Tongs respectively. Their evidence enlarges and confirms the information obtained from the record of the Squatter Board's proceedings. "Hayes 1977, pp. 99-101. The Tai O information is more explicit on this point, but the Cheung Chau practice was the same. ** See E.G. Pryor, Housing in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, 1983) pp. 15-17. These new urban districts were very susceptible to contagious disease. It is well to recall Governor Des Voeux's report of 1889 in which, describing the City of Victoria, he wrote: "Going ashore our visitor would see in the Chinese quarters houses, constructed after a pattern peculiar to China, of almost equally solid materials, but packed so closely together and thronged so densely as to be in this respect probably without parallel in the world.. It is believed that over 100,000 people live within a certain district of the City of Victoria not exceeding 1⁄2 square mile in area. It is known that 1,600 people live in the space of a single acre." (Sessional Papers 1889, pp. 303-304). 15 ** Victoria had seven officially-approved sub-districts in 1857, as listed and described in the Hong Kong Government Gazette for 9 May 1857, GN No. 69. They included "No. 1, or SEI-YING-POON — From the small village westward, called Cowee-wan, to the end of Circular Buildings, including all the houses on Bonham Strand, west of No. 1 Police Boat Station. The historical development of this area is given by Revd. Carl T. Smith's note at pp. 211-218 of JHKBRAS 14(1974) in "Programme Notes for Visits to Older Parts of Hong Kong Island (Urban Areas....) See also Chapter 3, Sheung Wan, of Frank Leeming's Street Studies in Hong Kong (Hong Kong Oxford University Press, 1977) pp. 45-66. 24 Sheung Fung Lane itself is situated between Second and Third Streets in that section bounded by Centre Street to the East and Western Street to the West. ** An account of pao wui at the Tam Kung festival in Shau Kei Wan from a Secretariat for Chinese Affairs' file of 1958 is typical: "There were about 15 Kaifong elders in the Tam Kung temple who were enrolling pao wui (K), there were about 18 pao wu's from the sea and about 10 from the land. The wul's who brought their own roast-pigs with them had to pay "oil money" and "worshipping fees" from $10 to $30 to the elders before entering the temple. It is learned that the worshippers have no objection to pay these fees. In addition the temple keeper also charged $5 or $10 for each roast-pig brought into the temple plus $5 to $10 "oil money". 20 A recent account of the proceedings at Sheung Fung Lane is given in the article "Everyone's festival" in The Asia Magazine issued weekly by Asia Magazines Ltd., Hong Kong, Vol. 21, Number V7, 4th January 1981, pp. 3-6. 3-6. For a very well illustrated account of a similar old neighbourhood in Singapore, and its community festivals, see "Singapore's Vanishing Chinatown" by Joan Ogden in The Asia Magazine 25th July 1976. * "No. 3, or TAI-PING-SHAN From the end of Hollywood Road near Circular Buildings, to Gough Street steps, including all the houses on the south side of the Queen's Road between these two points." See the plan opposite p. 124 of Marjorie Topley (ed) Some Traditional Chinese Ideas and Conceptions in Hong Kong Social Life Today (Hong Kong, Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch 1967). This was drawn in 1882 (ibid, pp. 123-124). ================================================================================ 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 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 298 WONG TAK YAN Slaking The shell powder from the kiln is heaped up into a pile and water is mixed with it. Smoke appears and the shell powder is converted to lime. Sieving A further day after the addition of water, the by now already slaked lime is sieved with a copper mesh sieve. The lumps of waste residue after sieving are thrown into the sea to reclaim it. Bagging The finished lime is bagged in hemp or grass-cloth sacks of about 100 cattys weight, and is then shipped on small boats to the buyers. My family involvement in lime making The San Shing Lei (新盛利) lime kiln factory operated by the Wong (黃) family has enjoyed a relatively lengthy history and occupied a distinguished place in the local lime kiln industry. Five generations of the family were involved in it, for more than one hundred years. The Wong family came originally from Chung Shan (中山) county, and our ancestor first came to Hong Kong shortly after Hong Kong was established, to operate a lime kiln in the Western part of the city (西區). Later, at various times, the kiln moved. This was because, as the area became prosperous and developed, so the kiln had to move away to quiet and undeveloped areas near the sea to carry on business. Lime burning is an offensive trade because of the large quantity of lime dust emitted, and also because of the heavy pall of smoke blown about in the first hour after the kiln is lit, while the dry grass is burning. In fact, during lime-burning, local residents and passers-by would all run away to try to avoid this smoke. However, the kiln is not dangerous to health — in fact, kiln workers all enjoy excellent health. The Wong family factory moved to several places: from Western District to Tsimshatsui (near the present railway station area), then to Tai Kok Tsui (near Fuk Wing Street), then to Shamshuipo. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 2 BARTHOLOMEW P.M. TSUI ordinary run of religious sects in Hong Kong and render it worthy of attention. II. History of a Faith-healer Perhaps the best introduction to Tan Tse Tao is to tell the story of its founder, Patriarch Lo Ka Ping.2 Born into a well-to-do family in the District of Hsiang-shan in Kwangtung Province in the year 1894, the Patriarch received a thoroughly Western education from Protestant missionaries.1 He studied in Lingnan University, again a Christian institution, and graduated with a B.A. degree at its first convocation in 1918. He became a tutor in English at the Chung-shan University (中山大學) and later became the headmaster of a number of middle schools.* It is no longer possible totrace the exact route of the Patriarch's religious development in his early years. Suffice it to say that he became a fervent Christian and married the daughter of a Protestant minister by the name of Tan (譚). Apparently, he did not show any interest in Chinese philosophy or religion. He adopted a Western style of life and became a keen player of tennis, joining tournaments including at least one in Hong Kong. In his spare moments he also took up traditional physical exercises, to be precise, the set of exercises called I-ken-ching.5 6 It was during one of these exercises that Patriarch Lo felt God's presence, an experience which radically changed his life. Recounting the event he said: "The Supreme Spirit's manifestation occurred on the 18th day of the eighth month of the year yi-hai (乙亥). The location was at my residence Man Lu in Canton.6 While I was exercising in the twelfth position of the I-ken-ching, suddenly I felt that all my limbs moved of their own accord. It was as if my ten fingers were charged with spiritual energy and light. The execution of the exercises was not only effortless and skilful, but I was also absolutely tireless. The same thing happened to me a second time, and again a third time. At first, I thought this was an effect of my subconscious mind, but later it dawned on me that it must have been a gift from God. Then I burned incense and bowed in veneration.7 Not knowing how to communicate with God, I simply asked with my mouth 8 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 87 I did not record very much about the role of the Hoklo, Wai Chau, Chiu Chau newcomers. They were actually visible mainly through the flags in their honour and the Chiu Chau performers whom they hired to perform on the main day of the celebration. Their participation was more in contributing money to provide performances in their own dialect than in participation in the processions or in preparation of the offerings. The number of persons present in the main-day procession and the procession with the Daai Si Wong was impressive. However, they were more sharing the fun and enjoying the novelty than making a collective, disciplined presence as in the case of the same processions in the New Territories jiu festivals, in which the participants wore special clothing and hats, excluded women and were in general more organized at least in appearance. I did not see many signs of nearby villagers (who did not live in the three participating villages) coming to the jiu to visit or to offer good wishes, as was the former custom. There was a flower basket on display outside the festival office at Shek O. It was presented by the chairman of the rural committee of Cheung Chau. The only fa-paai was from Ma Hang, Laan Lai Wan, Stanley and Tai Tam Tuk, which are nearby. Near noon time on the main day some guests did come. One of them was a police officer, probably the head of the Chai Wan Police Station. Another was the District Officer for South District, who came with some assistants. Married-out daughters were expected to come back for the festival too. On the bus back to town on the main day of the celebration, I overheard a middle-aged woman telling someone that if a married-out daughter did not come back for the jiu, she could not come back until ten years later, presumably during the next celebration. Other than the villagers, participants at the jiu included the professionals, among whom the most important were the priests. The yn-sau, or his companion, explained to me that they had hired a team headed by the priest Chan Wa as they did for the last celebration. I had thought, when he explained this was because Chan was 'familiar', he had in mind familiarity with the local ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 179 The case of O Soey-cheong illustrates the predicament of the student in a missionary school. The conditions of enrolment obligated him to remain in school until his course of study was completed. At the same time he was dependent upon the school for his food, clothing, and lodging. If he was accepted as a theological student, he received, in addition, a cash allowance. By that time, as an advanced student, he had acquired a fair mastery of English, sufficient to qualify him for a larger income if he would leave his studies and use his language ability in business or as an interpreter. This is what most of the students did. It was a discouraging development for teachers who had set out to train religious workers for the Chinese church. YOUNG A-CHICK'S EARLY SCHOOL DAYS When the gold fever affected the students in the schools in Hongkong and Canton, their principals had to use persuasion and diplomacy to keep their older students from joining the exodus to California and Australia. On the other hand, some of their graduates were sent overseas with the blessings of their former teachers. Armed with letters of introduction, they were able to establish contacts outside the Chinese community. One of these students was Tong Mow-chee, known in his school days as A-chick. He was a former pupil of the Morrison Education Society School and of St Paul's College. Before describing his departure from Hongkong and his rise to leadership in the Chinese community in California, we shall relate his experiences as a schoolboy in Macau and Hongkong and as an interpreter in Shanghai and Hongkong. Tong A-chick was the eldest of three brothers. Their family home was Tong Ka, a village in the Heung Shan District (now Chung Shan) not far from Macau. The harbour upon which the village was located was the opium ship anchorage at Cumsingmoon. When the Morrison Education Society School was opened in ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 194 CARL SMITH felt among the large bodies of emigrants of his own race already in the state, or coming in the spring. The trust of the Chinese community in putting Tong A-chick in a position of leadership had not been misplaced. They had found an able spokesman. WHEN THE CANTON AND MACAU GROUPS 'RULED' SAN FRANCISCO Tong A-chick had become the spokesman for the Chinese community in California because of his natural leadership qualities, his fluency in English and his knowledge of Western manners and customs. The organisation in which he first rose to leadership was the association organised in San Francisco by people from his home district Heung Shan (Hsiang-shan, now Chung-shan). It was one of the earliest of what were eventually six such organisations of people from the Pearl River Delta. The Heung Shan men adopted the name Yeung Wo for their group, meaning Association for Peace in a Foreign Place. Such bodies organised by the Chinese outside China to oversee community affairs were sometimes criticised by the established Government authorities. This was true of the Tung Wah Hospital Committee in Hongkong in the 19th century and it was also true of the Chinese associations or “companies” of San Francisco. In 1853 the California Legislature and a San Francisco Grand Jury looked into the manner in which the Chinese had organised themselves to look after the interests of their community. The report submitted to the legislature by its Committee on Mines and Mining Interests begins with a statement of the reasons the associations were organised. “After the large immigration which took place in 1850, the Chinese, finding that their language, habits and customs were not understood by our people, thought it necessary to establish some system for their better regulation and internal government. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 27 May 9 30 June 10-13 27 July 11 August 1 October 1 17 November 1 26 December 1 10 January 6 21 February 24 25 March 4 10 17 "Women in China" (lecture: Dr. Maria Jaschok) Cocktail Party for New Members "Britain and Vietnam, 1948-1955" (lecture: Prof. Mary Turnbull) Visit to Foshan (organiser: Dr. Michael Lau) "Fortune & Safe Passage: Chinese Paper Folk Art (Kam Fa)" (lecture: Dr. Janet Lee Scott) 1 "Ancestors" (lecture: Mr. Frank Ching) "Pirates in the Pearl River Delta" (lecture: Prof. Dian Murray) Visit to Fung Ping Shan Museum, Hong Kong University (organiser: Dr. Michael Lau) **Introduction to Chinese Musical Instruments" (lecture: Prof. Tong Kin-woon) Chinese Dinner for Members Tour of Central Police Station and Royal Hong Kong Police Museum (organiser: Mr. Geoffrey Roper) "Jade Carving" and "Chinese Costume" (joint lecture: Mrs. Sydney Fung and Mrs. Valery Garrett) Walk around Western District (organiser: Dr. James Hayes and others) "Influenza: the Asian Connection" (lecture: Prof. K. F. Shortridge) Introduction to New Territories Villages (tour: organiser Dr. Patrick Hase) **Shanghai Entrepreneurs in Hong Kong" (lecture: Prof. Wong Siu-lun) Tour of Kowloon Walled City (organiser: Dr. James Hayes) Tour of Country Parks (organisers: Dr. James Hayes and Mr. K. C. Iu) "The Tale of the Norma Bell" (lecture: Mr. John Chetwynd-Chatwin) Annual General Meeting and Dinner We are grateful to all speakers and organisers, and following last year's innovation have continued the practice of inviting them to attend the Annual Dinner as guests of the Society. It is gratifying to report that eleven of them have accepted our invitation this year. In addition, we vili ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 124 Table 2: Genealogy of the Jong Family Jong Sun Lup m. (1) Chang (Violet's grandparents) (2) widow Tin Yau (Uncle) m. Wong (Aunt) *Annie, *Mary, *Helen, *Alice, Reuben, Aaron, *Esther, *Amy, *Ella, Raymond *Jong Hung (Violet's mother) m. Chan Tin Suk (son, Ging Heen) *Ah Fook *Ah Look (Chun Moy) m. Heu (bond servant) (step-daughter) m. Pong (4 daughters, 4 sons) Sister (Seventh Paternal Aunt) -Sister m. Chang Chang Gum Chin m. Chew L-Sunny Hung Sun Chang -(son) three-year contract with a sugar plantation on Maui and was assigned the task of chopping down ironwood trees. He was born in the ancestral home at the South Gate of the City of Shekki, District of Heong Shan, in Kwangtung Province. Because there is no certificate giving his birth date, there is some question as to whether he was born in 1847 or 1854. There were four brothers sharing the family home, but one of them had already died by the time Grandfather emigrated to Hawaii. Mother could not recall how many sisters he had. One of them was known as Seventh Paternal Aunt, who had a fondness for gossip. Another sister was married to a native of How Tow, surnamed Chang, by whom she had two sons. One of the sons, Chang Gum Chin, married the sister of Leong Chew, and came to Hawaii without his family. He went into the dry goods business with Chang Yee, Chang Kwai, Leong Chew, Chun Kam Chow, and others. He was very close to my grandparents, who would often turn to him for assistance. After he returned to China, he sent one of his sons, Sunny Hung Sun Chang, to Honolulu under the guardianship of Leong Chew. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 177 of the most tragic periods of my life. The students were bright and eager to learn. They were tolerant of my inadequate command of Chinese and were helpful in teaching me a more refined use of the language. Among them was Sally Sun, the adopted daughter of Sun Yat-sen. She followed me to Honolulu and lived with us while she attended the University of Hawaii until she left after her freshman year for Pomona College. To this day I am in touch with many of my former students. I was glad for the opportunity to meet many relatives, some for the second time, and to know them better. I felt welcomed in the homes of First Paternal Uncle and Cousin Toby. The former lived in a traditional compound on the bank of a small river in the Lai Chee Wan district in Canton, an area where the elite of the old regime resided. He also maintained a home on Kennedy Road, in Wanchai, Hong Kong, a sturdy building of British design. About once a month, on pay day, I would invite Bertha Young, Sarah Mao, and Miriam Simpson, teachers at True Light, to spend a weekend at Uncle's Kennedy Road home. This gave us a chance to savour foreign food, perhaps to see an American film, or to attend a tea-dance at the Hong Kong Hotel. Cousin Toby and his wife Louise lived in the Tung Shan I section of Canton where many westernized Chinese congregated. Staying with them on occasions was a pleasant change. Sometimes I would go with them to the Euro-American Club for a night of dancing. Because my salary was only 120 Mex. dollars a month (about 20 U.S. dollars), I could not see as much of China as I would have liked. I was able to visit Father's birthplace and our Chan relatives a second time, and to pay respects to the graves of my grandparents and great grandparents during the Ching Ming Festival. I also paid a short visit to the home of my maternal grandmother in Shekki where we had lived in 1919, and to the new home of Aunt Pong nearby. In the summer of 1934, with Bertha Pang, Tiu Kei and Suk Kei Chan, and Ethel Au, I set out to see Peking by rail from Shanghai. I found Peking a charming old city and was thrilled to visit the Great Wall and the Imperial City and other attractions, so rich in history. People here seemed more refined, more cultivated; even the salesmen were very polite. On the way back, we stopped at several well-known places. We met and were joined at times by Daniel Yee, William Leong, Deborah Kau and Elizabeth Ching. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h and a treadmill was in operation for punishment up until the early 1900s. Prisoners were escorted to Court, so it is believed, by a tunnel. Although the author went to Victoria Prison in the 1970s, on Justice of the Peace visits, he is unable to substantiate this. A few colonial-style buildings, such as the Helena May Institute (completed 1916) on Garden Road, and the old Supreme Court building (foundations laid 1903, completed 1912) in Central District, are still in use. The latter is now the Legislative Council Chambers, and has been described as "Lutyens classical revival style adapted for the tropics". In spite of forceful protests by the Heritage Society which was wound up, despondently, in 1983 — and the Conservancy Association, the Repulse Bay Hotel, the previous Hong Kong Club building, and the old Kowloon Railway terminus (except for the tower2) have all succumbed to the wrecker's hammer. The average Hong Kong citizen, it seems, has limited interest in conservation. He or she believes that a building has an economic life span, and, after that, it should go. To be fair, the Government, advised by the Antiquities and Monuments Office and the Antiquities Advisory Board, has declared a number of structures, for instance the Stanley Police Station (1859)13 as Monuments under the Antiquities Ordinance. Other Monuments include the steps and gas lamps in Duddell Street, Central District; rock carvings and inscriptions; old villages, for example Sam Tung Uk in Tsuen Wan; and the District Office, North, building at Tai Po in the New Territories. The Territory also possesses a variety of other old structures, such as the fort and battery at Tung Chung and the fort at Tung Lung. There are also ancestral halls and study halls, like Shut Hing Shue Shan, at Ping Shan, and Chou Wong Yi Kung Shue Yuen, in Kam Tin. Among other declared historical Monuments are Wan Chai Post Office (1915)1* in Queen's Road East, Western Market in Sheung Wan, and the Pathological Institute,1 in Caine Lane. As of 1990, such Monuments totalled 43. One of the most famous of Hong Kong's old buildings was Murray House (circa 1843).1 It was demolished carefully in 1982, and the parts were labelled, numbered and stored. The intention is to re-erect it on another site. In 1935, the then new 66-metre high Hong Kong Bank (the third bank on that site) was fully air-conditioned (the first large building in Hong Kong). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 121 CHEUNG SHAN KWU TSZ (長山古寺), AN OLD BUDDHIST NUNNERY IN THE NEW TERRITORIES, AND ITS PLACE IN LOCAL SOCIETY The Plan of the Nunnery P. H. HASE* Hong Kong has dozens of Buddhist monasteries and nunneries, mostly located in the New Territories. Almost all are recent foundations. The majority were founded by monks or nuns fleeing from one of the three major disturbances to Buddhist life in China in the last 80 years - the 1911 Revolution, and the chaos of the Warlord years which succeeded it; the Anti-Superstition Campaign mounted by the Kuomintang from the mid 1920s; and the Communist Revolution of 1949-1952. These monasteries and nunneries mostly share a single common plan, which distinguishes a Buddhist place of worship from the ordinary temple of the traditional village religion. The ordinary temple consists of a windowless rectangular hall, with the altar to the God against one of the short walls, and entered through the opposite short wall. The hall usually has a Tin Tseng (天井), or lightwell, in the centre for the escape of incense smoke. Often two subordinate similar halls are placed one on either side of the main hall, interconnecting by arches. Most Buddhist institutions are built to a different plan. They are centred on a Buddha Hall (A, 大殿), which is also a rectangle, but one entered through the centre of one of the long walls, and the altar is not against the opposite long wall, but free-standing a little in front of it. These Buddha Halls usually have windows, and do not have Tin Tseng. In large monasteries or nunneries, the Buddha Hall is a free-standing structure surrounded by a portico, placed in the centre of an enclosed courtyard-garden on a raised podium, with the other buildings forming ranges along the edges of the courtyard. The whole complex is enclosed: the monastery or nunnery, unlike the ordinary temple, is * The author would like to thank those Ta Kwu Ling elders who gave him the information on which much of this article is based, and also the staff of the District Office, North, who assisted in setting up the interviews. He would also like to thank the staff of the District Land Registry, North, for their unfailing courtesy and assistance. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 136 Lei (#) clans were settled in the area then, and the Ho family at least must have been there from the late Yuan." It seems likely, however, that no Ming political groupings survived the chaos of the Coastal Evacuation (1662-1669) in the area - the returning villagers must have had to re-create their society more or less from scratch. Soon after the rescission of the Coastal Evacuation Order Hakka groups moved into the Ta Kwu Ling area. There is no evidence that there was any opposition to this, and the area has been one of marked Punti/Hakka co-operation throughout the last three hundred years." The first, and the most important, Hakka group to enter the area was the Chan (B) clan, of Ping Yeung, Nga Yiu Ha, and Wo Keng Shan. Other Hakka groups arrived mostly during the eighteenth century. These villages began to establish alliances between themselves from early in the eighteenth century. The Chans of Ping Yeung, Nga Yiu Ha, and Wo Keng Shan allied themselves with the Fus and the other tiny clans of Wo Keng Shan to form the Sam Heung (, "Three Villages"), and this alliance in turn allied itself with the Mans of Ping Che to form the Ping Yuen Hap Heung ("Ping Yuen United District'). The Tin Hau temple at Ping Che was founded by this group of villages, probably in the early eighteenth century, and they celebrated the Ta Tsiu festival in front of the temple from the eighteenth century until the 1930s." The groupings of Kan Tau Wai, Tai Po Tin, and Lei Uk; and of Lin Tong, Wang Kong Ha, and Au Ha2 are very probably of the same sort of date. Several villages in the area were genealogically related, and these also tended to form loose groups around their main ancestral graves during this period. However, inter-village alliances in the area in the eighteenth century do not seem to have been particularly strong or socially significant. Each individual village had its own Tai Wong (AE, “Superior Earthgod Shrine"), and the groupings of villages around a single, shared shrine found in many places in the New Territories were unknown here. Thus, when the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz was founded towards the end of the eighteenth century, it was founded within a region with a weak political structure, marked by numbers of villages without alliances with others, or only weakly grouped with others. The strongest grouping, the Ping Yuen Hap Heung, consisted of only four villages, two of them very tiny. It is entirely likely that the area was in this period dominated politically by “major lineages" from outside the area -- particularly the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 137 Cheung (張) lineage of Wong Pui Ling. The area, however, was fertile, rich, and, by the later eighteenth century, becoming relatively densely populated. Growth of stronger and less politically quiescent inter-village groupings could be expected, and the clearest evidence of this comes from the nunnery. The nunnery was founded by the villages of the Ping Yuen Hap Heung on the one hand, and Loi Tung and Man Uk Pin on the other. Loi Tung was a tight lineage alliance of three large villages of the Punti Tang clan (Loi Tung Lo Wai, San Wai, and Tai Tong Wu), and Man Uk Pin was a single, large Hakka village, predominantly of the Chung clan. The nunnery lay in six shares: Ping Che, Ping Yeung, Wo Keng Shan, Loi Tung, Tai Tong Wu, and Man Uk Pin. Of these, the Wo Keng Shan and Tai Tong Wu shares were probably there to reflect the greater size and strength of the Chan and Tang lineages within the grouping. In practice, however, the nunnery was controlled by the four clans of the Mans, Chans, Tangs, and Chungs, and normally probably had one Manager drawn from each lineage.” This group of eight villages, most of them large and wealthy, clearly represents a new generation of inter-village grouping in the Ta Kwu Ling area. The importance of the road through the Miu Keng pass has been discussed above. The position of the nunnery on the road was not only of value to travellers seeking shelter, it was also of major strategic and political significance. The road was the only passage through the hills, and could not be by-passed. Whoever controlled this pass controlled much of the Sha Tau Kok to Sham Tsun road. The foundation of the nunnery was the result of the grouping together of a few villages which were clearly seeking to capitalise on their strategic location, and thus to increase their local political leverage and district significance. The political significance of the foundation should not be downplayed. The religious impetus behind the foundation should not, of course, be ignored, but the strategic significance of the grouping is too strong to be overlooked. The nunnery-founding group of villages seems to be, in fact, an early example of a Yeuk (約) mutual defence and support inter-village alliance. The villages which had founded the nunnery seem to have worshipped there together at the Yu Lan Festival in the summer, when vegetarian food was served to the elders and faithful in front of the nunnery. It is likely that the Ping Yuen Hap Heung people used their alliance with the groups east of the pass to strengthen their position as against ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 144 The Shing Ping She was thus required to maintain the Kim Ho Temple, and at least the Heroes Shrine part of the Ping Yuen Temple, and had to meet the costs of the rituals it conducted there. It also had to maintain the bridges and roads, and to meet the costs of the patrols it sponsored. However, it had no land at the time of the Block Crown Lease (1905). Apart from the temple itself, the Ping Yuen Hap Heung owned no land at that date either. Similarly, none of the individual villages of the area owned any significant amounts of communal land. The Shing Ping She did, however, have enough income to buy a good deal of land within the New Territories later — five and a half acres was bought, together with a house, between 1911 and 1920, at a cost of $1,272.50 for just over three of the five and a half acres. Villagers believe the She also bought land at Wang Kong Ha during this period. 18 The She seems to have imposed a grain tax on all householders and cow owners within the patrol district. At least in the 1930s, as the elders recall, some of this grain was passed to the nuns at the Kim Ho temple and the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz for their sustenance, but most was sold. The villagers claim that the Shing Ping She also bought from the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz all the nunnery's lands within Ping Che and Ping Yeung, at a date somewhen in the 1920s, but without changing the registration of the land in the Land Registry. This is possibly why the She's programme of land purchase in its own name comes to an abrupt end in 1920. This claim may well hide a more complex situation. As mentioned above, neither the Shing Ping She nor the Ping Yuen Hap Heung held any communal land in 1905, although they had significant communal commitments: Loi Tung, equally, seems to have had no communal land to provide income for the needs of the Loi Tung Yeuk. At the same time, the nunnery land does not seem to have been used to meet nunnery needs. After the fire, the abbess repaired the roof by seeking donations, not by selling or mortgaging part of the land, and this was clearly the position also at the time of the 1868 rebuilding, since the inscription in the temple records the donors. In the 1930s, the nuns' rice came from donations from the Shing Ping She, not from rent. It seems very likely that the Ping Yuen Hap Heung and Loi Tung people had placed their communal lands under the name and protection of the Buddha. This is not uncommon in the area; such an arrangement made it more difficult for managers to embezzle the land entrusted to them, and protected it from external... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 148 villages in the neighbourhood. Of the nuns of the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz, the abbess from before 1920 to 1931, Wong Tik-yuen, is believed to have come from Fu Tin (Futian), just west of Sham Tsun. Her successor (1931-1944) was Yip Yuet-kwan. It is not known from which village she came, but she, like Wong Tik-yuen, was definitely Punti. This strongly suggests that there was a tradition in the New Territories area among the long-settled Punti lineages which made it respectable for girls of those lineages to refuse marriage and instead to enter a nunnery. Those lineages or village groups which owned nunneries were proud of them, and proud of the fact that the nuns came from within the lineage or from the village group or a nearby village. Certainly, the Ling Wan nunnery holds a critically important position within the folktales of the Tangs of Kam Tin.43 — For a district to have a nunnery with a few dedicated women living a pure life, eating vegetarian food, and offering shelter and prayer to and for all men, certainly helped protect the district from spiritual disaster, but equally it must have helped reduce social tensions by providing a socially acceptable outlet for girls who did not wish to marry. It is probable that most of these indigenous Buddhist establishments were usually nunneries;14 the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz is called a nunnery ( ) on the 1789 bell, and in the Hsin An County Gazetteer of 1820* and the folktales of the Tangs about the Ling Wan house clearly presuppose that it was always a nunnery (it is specifically called a nunnery on the bell there, of 1755). The evidence for Ling To and Lung Lai before about 1900 is less clear.¶ However, these nunneries were occasionally handed over to devout men to live in, if such men presented themselves to the villages which owned them when the nunnery would otherwise have been vacant. Villagers remember that, before Wong Tik-yuen became abbess, the nunnery was lived in by a man, who was not a monk (he wore his hair “like a Taoist''), and who terrified the children of the villages.** Lei Pui-yuen may have run the nunnery in the same way. The Ching Shan monastery at Tuen Mun must have been founded for men, and this alone may have remained a house of men in the nineteenth century.¶ What is clearer, however, is that there were no Hakka monasteries or nunneries within the New Territories — presumably the Hakka in this area had no nunnery-based tradition of socially acceptable marriage-refusing women. The question of nunneries and marriage-refusing women in this area requires further study. 48 49 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 13 153 PP. 12 The inscription recording the rebuilding is at Faure, Luk and Ng, op. cit. Vol. I, 128-129, but it is unreadable through weathering, except for the heading and date. (4). Loe An-lim (羅安廉) (42), Qianren Wenxian (千人文献), ÑÍAL. [Collected Writings of Men of Past Ages], unpublished manuscript collection, Vol. 2, ff. 75a. (Copy in library of Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, Kowloon Central Library, Hong Kong). Lee An-lim was a villager of Sheung Wo Hang. (3) Lee An-lim, Qianren Wenxian, op. cit. ff 73-78. + As honour board recording the donors to the 1920 repair has recently been found. It lists the donors by village. Every village in Ta Kwu Ling donated (except Ping Che, Chuk Yuen, Nga Yiu Ha, very probably included with their lineage brethren in Tong Fong, Law Fong, Ping Yeung), as did the villages close to the road both in the Sha Tau Kok area (Shan Tsui, Yim Tso Ha, Yim Tin, Wo Hang, Nam Chung, Luk Keng, Wu Shek Kok and Sha Tau Kok Market) and in the Sham Tsun area (Sham Tsun Market, Lo Wu, and Wong Pui Ling). Shek Wu Hui from further away also donated. See Win Wen Wei Pao (SCHEW) of 17 September, 1991. U¿÷ 16 Detail from the tablets commemorating the departed leaders of the monastery, and from information given by the recently deceased resident nun. The tablet of Kuk Shan Kit reads: 羅浮山寶積古寺監裤正宗第上三代主持上谷下山潔老和尚莲座. The tablet Kuk Shan Kit placed to commemorate his deceased predecessors names the "ordained monks" HIBA · MAZA + J # and Ki£*, all of whom were dead by the date of erection + 1 of the tablet, and ✯, at that date still alive, as well as predecessors as rulers of this monastery" ALLKILMINER and "those monks who founded this monastery", A WILDFORIKA BAIMM- L 17 See P.H. Hase, “Notes on Rice Farming in Shatin', in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 21, 1981, pp. 196-206; D. Faure, The Rural Economy of Pre-Liberation China: Trade Increase and Peasant Livelihood in Jiangsu and Guangdong, Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, 1989, pp. 46-57 and 212; and Hong Kong Annual Report: Report by District Commissioner, New Territories for Year Ending 31st March, 1950, Noronha and Co., Hong Kong, 1950, p. 5. TH The Ho clan of Tsung Yuen Ha descends from Ho Chan, the Earl of Tung Kuan in the early Ming, and the Ho family history (CBMGKR — a manuscript volume in the University of Cambridge Library) suggests this area was in Ho Chan's hands before the end of the Ming. It was certainly in Ho family control before 1393 when Ho Chan's family were proscribed. The Tang family has occupied the Lung Yeuk Tau villages, Loi Tung and Tai Tong Wu since the fourteenth century at the latest. A Tang clan also occupies Au Ha (PUF Aoxia) and Wang Kong Ha (Huanggangxia). I have not been able to discover if these two villagers are genealogically connected with the Loi Tung and Lung Yeuk Tau clan, although this is unlikely. The Man family has occupied Ping Che for **18 generations", according to village elders, i.e. probably from the fourteenth century. The same family occupies Tong Fong, Heung Yuen Wai, and Lin Tong, Liantang), and a branch of it was resident at Man Uk Pin (**Man Family Houses") before the present residents, the Chung (鍾) clan moved there in the early eighteenth century. The To clan has been resident at Chau Tin village for **500 years". Local villagers consider that the Lei family has been resident at Lei Uk for as long as the To and Man clans have been at Chau Tin and Ping Che. All these clans are Punti, although sections of the Man clan at Tong Fong, and those at Heung Yuen Wai and Lin Tong, now speak Hakka. Shan Kai Wat (Lam surname, 林), Fung Wong Wu (Yip surname, 葉), and Law Fong (Law surname, 羅), are all included in the list of villages in existence in 1661 included in the 1688 Hsin An County Gazetteer, along with Au Ha, Tsung Yuen Ha, Ping Che (Ping Yuen 平遠), and perhaps Ping Yeung (坪洋) (Gazetteer, Ch. 3, f 12-13). Other Punti clans in the Ta Kwu Ling area (Wong, 黃, Chan, 陳, and Law, 羅, at Kan Tau Wai, and Hau, 侯) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 154 19 , at Law Fong) are believed to have entered the area after 1700. See Map of Ta Kwu Ling. It is interesting to note that, of the 21 villages in the Ta Kwu Ling area, seven are purely Punti, nine are purely Hakka (including two of originally Punti but now Hakka speaking Mans), but five are of mixed Punti and Hakka residents, including the large village of Chau Tin (which has only a tiny handful of Hakka residents), Fung Wong Wu, Kan Tau Wai, and Law Fong, and Tong Fong which consists partly of Punti speaking Mans, and partly of Hakka speaking Mans. + 1 Yeung, and Ng, at Fong Wong Wu; Siu, and Ho, at Chau Tin; Wong, at Kan Tau Wai; Pang, and Au, at Tai Po Tin; Fu Lau, (and others) at Wo Keng Shan; Yiut, at Chuk Yuen; Chan, and Yiu, at Law Fong (Luofang); Chau at Wang Kong Ha; Yeung, and Kwu, at Sai Ling Ha (Xilingxia), and others. 21 The temple bell, of Chien Lung 21 (1756) was donated by "all the faithful people of the Ping Yuen Hap Heung... ...to stand for ever before the altar of the Lady Tin Hau*. Faure, Luk, Ng, op. cit., Vol. 3, p. 670. The only earlier dated item in the temple, a Cloud Gong of 1727, was donated by a single family from Ping Che, Faure, Luk, Ng, op. cit., Vol. 3, p. 661. The temple continued to be owned and controlled by this group of villages. Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society: Lineage and Village in the Eastern New Territories, Oxford Univ. Press, Hong Kong, 1986, p. 104 is incorrect in saying that the temple was owned by Ping Yeung. In the Block Crown Lease, the Manager of the temple was Man Shan-fung, of Ping Che. The Tong Fong people, although closely related genealogically to the Ping Che people, were not part of the Ping Yuen Hap Heung, and did not take part in the Ta Tsiu.22 Faure, op. cit., p. 103. + + 23 The four managers at the time of the Block Crown Lease were Tang Hung-wai (a houseowner of Loi Tung), Chan Shing-pong, called a houseowner of Ping Yeung in a District Office report of 1979), Man Ying-shau (probably a villager of Ping Che, a relative of the houseowners Man Ying-kei, Man Ying-wai, and Man Ying-fat), and Chung Choi-wah (a houseowner of Man Uk Pin). These died in 1938, 1926, 1925, and 1942 respectively, according to a report made to the District Office in 1979. The abbess, Wong Tik-yuen, was appointed a manager in 1926, but she died in 1931. After the War, the lack of managers caused trouble on a number of occasions. A temporary manager was appointed in 1968. In 1979 the Chairman of the Sha Tau Kok Rural Committee and others were appointed as managers, although he, as a Lin Ma Hang villager, had no connection with the nunnery. This seems to have been with a view to rebuilding the nunnery. This proposal has led to a string of vigorous complaints from the elders of the six villages with shares during the last three years, but the situation remains, at present (1991), unresolved. 24 See Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society, op. cit., pp. 100-127, for a discussion of the Yeuk. 25 The only alternative was a dangerous, difficult, and often impassable waist-deep ford, as the 1896 Kwong Fuk bridge tablet makes clear. See Faure, Luk and Ng, Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 298. 26 See Robert G. Groves, "The Origins of Two Market Towns in the New Territories", Aspects of Social Organisation in the New Territories, Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, Symposium Report, 1964, pp. 16-20, and Alice Ng Lun Ngai-ha, "Xianggang Xinjie xushi zhi xingqi yu shuailao: Dabuxu yanjiu" [The Foundation and Decay of Market Towns in the New Territories of Hong Kong: A Study of Tai Po], in Chinese Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2, 1985, pp. 633-655. The very widespread support for the Tsat Yeuk can be gathered from the list of donors shown on the Kwong Fuk bridge tablet, Faure, Luk and Ng, loc. cit. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 18 children with skill and patience. Being a teacher, he was dutiful to his parents and respectful to the elders, thereby setting a good example to his fellow villagers. Thus, being virtuous himself he caused others to establish their virtue also. **35 The inscription ends on this note: "It was little expected that Mr. Chan should die from an illness last year. Upon hearing the news of his death, many persons expressed their condolences. Being sincere and virtuous, he should have enjoyed a long life. It is deeply regretted that we have lost such an honourable leader. In order to sustain the traditional morals, and to commemorate his virtuous acts, I have composed this elegy." Notice here how the traditional morals are to be maintained through recording the virtuous conduct and attainments of a revered public figure. The only other public memorial of such a character seen to date in Tsuen Wan is that to Yeung Kwok-shui of Yeung Uk Village (1871-1940), Ch'ing dynasty scholar of the hsiu tsai degree, graduate of the Kwangtung Senior Teacher's Training College, village teacher, leading prewar elder and a founder member of the Heung Yee Kuk. His photo-memorial, which hangs in the office of the Tsuen Wan Rural Committee, was composed and written by another surviving hsiu tsai and senior rural leader of his day, the late Li Chung-chong of Kuk Po, North District. It is recorded that one of his funeral elegies contained the phrase, "He deserved to be called The Perfect Man of the New Territories" **36 Other reminders of how deeply the Confucian virtues were esteemed and honoured, illustrating how obligations to the family and the community were keenly felt and sometimes fully honoured, are to be found in a few of the inscribed tablets at the older ancestral graves of the District. One of these, located in the Shing Mun area on the slopes of Tai Mo Shan, is of special interest in the context of virtuous reputation and its ongoing influence among descendants. The person buried there had been born about 1710 and the reburial in 1884 was carried out by all three branches of the family then living. However, retained on the new tablet, were the names of the elder brothers of the deceased who had been responsible for the initial burial at this site 37 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 G. Knapp, The Chinese House: Craft Symbol, and the Folk Tradition (Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1990). Knapp does not cover the paintings and stucco work that were a marked feature of the Kwangtung architectural style. For examples of this fine traditional decorative work, see Rural Architecture in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, Government Information Services Department, 1979). In the Hakka villages of the Tsuen Wan district, this "animal" was always a unicorn. In Cantonese villages the lion was usual. However, their purpose and motivation was clearly the same. Informants said there were differences in the dance performances of lions and unicorns; unicorns "crept, bobbed and weaved", whereas lions would "stand up and prance". The musical accompaniment, drums and gongs, was the same, and previously firecrackers had been an indispensable part of any performance by lions or unicorns. Hugh Baker mentions that the Liaos of Sheung Shui were known throughout the New Territories for their unicorn dance team. See the interesting information given in his Sheung Shui, A Chinese Lineage Village (London, Frank Cass & Co., Ltd., 1968), p. 193. See my "Notes on Temples and Shrines on Hong Kong Island" in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 27 (1987), p. 287. Monlin Chiang, Tides from the West (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1947), p. 9. John Francis Davis, The Chinese, A General Description of the Empire of China and its Inhabitants (London, Charles Knight, 1836) Vol. 2, pp. 29-30. From the memorial tablet to Mr. Chan Wing-on, Chairman of the Tsuen Wan Rural Committee and Chairman of the 18th Term, New Territories Heung Yee Kuk 1950-52, at the Wing On Pavilion, Fu Yung Shan, Tsuen Wan. Mr. Chan died on 15 October 1956; see Annual Departmental Reports, District Commissioner, New Territories, (1953-54 para. 56, and 1956-57 para. 119). From a “Short History of Yeung Uk Village" (in Chinese), published at the time of the village resiting in 1965 and written by Yeung's eldest grandson, Mr Yeung Cho-ling. According to the commemorative tablet, the grave was repaired on a lucky day in the middle month of the autumn season in the 10th year of Kuang Hsu, that is in September-October 1884. 1736; but in fact the ping-san year is the 1st year of Ch'ien Lung's long reign. There was probably another, less altruistic factor at work here too: since it was believed that the graves of good people have a beneficial effect on the fortunes of their family for generations to come. It is implicit in this case that the good influences of the grave were not yet spent. For a more recent example from Tsing Yi Island, see my Rural Communities, op. cit., p. 143. Contents more than values, I suggest? Wolfram Eberhard, Cantonese Ballads (Munich State Library Collection) (Taipei, The Orient Cultural Service, 1972), p.2. R. David Arkush, "Orthodoxy and heterodoxy in Twentieth-Century Chinese Peasant Proverbs" at pp. 310-335 of Kwang-Ching Liu (ed.) Orthodoxy in Late Imperial China (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1990). Helen Kwok and Mini Chan, Fossils From a Rural Past, A Study of Extant Cantonese Children's Songs (Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press, 1990), pp. 17, 29. Lucien Bianco, Origins of the Chinese Revolution, 1915-1949, (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1971), successively pp.126, 94-95. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 281 See P.H. Hase “The Cheung Shan Kwu Ts'un: an Ancient Buddhist Nunnery in the New Territories, and its Place in Local Society”, in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 29, 1989, pp. 121-157. Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 7, 1967, pp. 104-137, reprinted from Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 6, 1859, pp. 71-105. Der Evangelische Heidenbote, Jan. 1862. See also P.H. Hase "Ta Kwu Ling, Wong Pui Ling, and the Kim Hau Bridges" elsewhere in this issue. Krone, loc. cit. says that missionaries were usually treated as neutral and ignored in fighting. Der Evangelische Heidenbote, Feb. 1906. SHA TAU KOK IN 1853 The Rev. Carl Smith drew my attention some time ago to the wealth of material available in the Basel Mission Archive on Sha Tau Kok in the middle of the nineteenth century. Through the courtesy of the Mission Archive, photostats of a number of documents were received and studied. Among them was a most interesting general description of the District and Market at Sha Tau Kok dating from 1853. Given its general interest, a translation of this document is printed below. Comments in square brackets are editorial clarifications. "Tungfo. Tungfo* | Tung Wo, 41, the formal name of Sha Tau Kok Market station is situated in the Province of Quang-tung [Kwangtung], in the District of Sinon [San On #1. The southern border of this District is formed by the China Sea, whereas, to the east and west, the borders are formed by inlets of this sea. The western inlet is the larger, although it is too small to be called a gulf. The English call it the "Canton River". The city of Canton is situated on this estuary. Because of the Canton River, traffic between Canton and Hong Kong is very easy, and * All placenames in this document are given in the original Hakka transcription. Placenames in Hong Kong are also given in square brackets according to the Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories; placenames in China are also given in square brackets in Cantonese transcription and characters. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 the second half of the journey, through Mirs Bay, where The station is to be found on the western coast. With a favourable wind and a good boat the trip can be completed in a day. Should the conditions be unfavourable, however, it is very difficult to estimate the time. In addition, you have to consider that Chinese waters are very often unsafe because of pirates, and travelling this route you are continuously exposed to danger. Use of small boats is perhaps safer. If using the other route, you first of all cross to Kaulung, which lies immediately opposite the island of Hong Kong. From there you cross the mountains until you cross the first range running west from Mirs Bay. At the village of Saten [Sha Tin] you can get a passenger ferry, or hire a boat, in order to reach Wo-Ang-Tschung (Wo Ang Chung, Wan, today called Chung Mei) to the north. Now you have a strenuous hike over the mountains before you reach that arm of Mirs Bay (Sha Tau Kok Hoi) which stretches to the west. Having reached the village of Kiuk-pu [Kuk Po] you have to take another boat. In about 20 or 25 minutes the sea has been crossed and you have arrived at Tunglo. This journey can be completed, if all goes well, in a day. It is a difficult journey, but avoids the perils of the sea. But where in China is there a route free of difficulties and dangers? If you look down on Tungfo from a high place, you can see, in the first place, the sea to the south and east, whereas to the north and west you see a narrow strip of cultivable land, while, further away, the horizon is limited in all directions by mountains. The range to the north stretches from the east to the west and bends round in a bow shape to the south. This mountain range forms the border of the strip of cultivable land to the north and west, with the other sides being open to the sea. This range has no collective name, whereas the individual mountains that appear within it carry names, which it can be of very little interest to mention here. The highest of them, which is also the highest point in the Sinon District, is called Ng Thung San [Ng Tung Shan, #1]. Its height is, according to the measurements of English technicians, 3095 feet. It is Page 283 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 11 that all men must die and not knowing when I may be called away, I deem it right while still in bodily health and full possession of mental faculties to make my will. Wei A Kwong, the father of Wei Yuk, had a typical story of success. He was a Zhongshan native; he left his hometown and worked in Macau as a teenager. His father was a comprador to two American merchants, Benjamin Chew Wilcocks and Oliver H. Gordon. It was known that Wei was forsaken by his family and had to resort to begging on the streets of Macau. He was later sent to Singapore where he studied under the auspices of the Morrison Education Society in a school of the American Board of Commission for Foreign Missions. This changed his life. He returned to Hong Kong and began his career. He served as comprador in Bowra & Co. and then in the Mercantile Bank of India, London and China until his death. Wei wrote his will in 1866. He prefaced it with a brief account of his life, particularly mentioning that he was the first student of the Morrison Education Society and that he first came to Hong Kong in 1843. He had "ever since lived under the just and equitable rule of the British Government." Though we cannot prove to what extent his exposure to Western culture was related to his Christian education, he succeeded in becoming a leading member of Chinese society in Hong Kong. This contrasts with the will of Sung Chin Tseung, which reads. Sung Chin Tseung, otherwise literary appellation Sung Ching, otherwise Ngok Shan, native of Kat Tai village, of Kong Sheung Division, Heung Shan District. I followed my deceased father, Mr. Shau U, to Hong Kong in 1842 to trade in foreign business as compradore. Further, in 1854, thanks to the kind support of Mr. Ryrie and others of Messrs. Turner and Co., Hongkong, I took over the office of compradore and up to the present thirty odd years. Both Wei and Sung were natives of Zhongshan. They came to Hong Kong for business in the early 1840s when Hong Kong was already a British colony. Though they lived in Hong Kong, they maintained connections with their hometown, as Sung's father, Soong Ke, stated in his will written in 1864: In the 21st year of Tao Kwong (1841), I came to Hong Kong and employed myself in business all the time with foreigners, always being diligent and making little profit sufficient to ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 52 Zang Yungtang (1767-1811) had studied in Suzhou in 1793, the centre of Han Learning at that time, and was invited by Ruan Yuan to edit the classical dictionary, Jing ji zhuan gu. In 1800 he was asked again by Ruan Yuan to collate the Thirteen Classics. He stayed on Ruan Yuan's personal staff until 1802. After failing the Metropolitan Examination, he went into business; then joined the personal staff of Yi Bingshou (1754-1815), who was then the Prefect of Yangzhou, in 1804, to write about the topography of Yangzhou. From 1807 onwards, he went back on Ruan Yuan's payroll, compiling Wu Dai shi [History of the Five Dynasties] at the behest of Liu Fengao (1761-1830). Qian Taxin (1728-1804) came from a scholarly tradition, a grandson and son of noted men of learning. After obtaining his first degree at the age of 17 sui, he became residential tutor in a family with an excellent library which he used extensively. After attaining the jinshi degree in 1754, he remained in Beijing where he became friends with Dai Zhen and Ji Yun (1724-1805) who later became chief editor of the Si ku chuan shu. He directed the Chong shan Academy in Nanjing, and joined Ruan Yuan on the dictionary project in Hangzhou. He was the author of the critical notes on Er shi er shi kao yi [Twenty-two dynastic histories], 100 juan, 1782. Ruan Yuan's subordinate wife, Liu Wenru (1777-1849) was to compile the same for Er shi si shi [Twenty-four dynastic histories]. Chen Shouchi (1777-1834) of Minxian, Fujian had started his career with Zhu Gui. Afterwards he joined the faculty of Gu jing jing she and the Fu Wen Academy. He was recruited to work on Jing fu and Hai tang zhi by Ruan Yuan. At a later date, he served as editor-in-chief of Fujian tong zhi [Provincial gazetteer of Fujian] and Li xian fang zhi [Local gazetteer of the Li District of Jiangsu]. His own essays on the Classics, with several letters from Ruan Yuan, were printed in Zuo hai wen ji [Essays by Chen Shouchi]. Chen Wenxu (1775-1845) of Hangzhou was a “student” of Zhu Gui, who introduced him to Ruan Yuan. Ruan considered Chen one of the foremost poets of the province, and appointed him to his personal staff. He gained expertise in sea transport, salt administration, grain transport and flood control. He helped Ruan Yuan establish a humanitarian social welfare policy, including famine relief. He collected a large number of women students. Both his subordinate wives were acknowledged poets. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 194 Kang district of Chia I county where his grave is flanked by a pair of stone civil and military guardians and stone horses. Wang was created an Earl, granted the posthumous name Kuo-min, "Determined and Beneficial", and the posthumous title of T'ai-tzu T'ai-pao, the Grand Guardian of the Heir Apparent. Votive tablets bearing the name Wang Te-lu can be seen in a number of temples in Taiwan, including the Lung-shan Ssu in Taipei, reflecting the importance with which he is held within the island. His paternal grandfather was a lieutenant in the force sent to Taiwan to put down the revolt by Chu I-kuei against the Manchu Ch'ing dynasty in 1721. He was killed in battle in Feng-shan county, and was followed to Taiwan by his sons and grandsons who settled in the area now known as T'ai-pao village in T'ai-pao district of Chia I county, places bearing Wang's posthumous honour of Grand Guardian, T'ai-pao. According to folk memory Wang Te-lu was a feckless youth causing his parents to fear humiliation. They took the extreme step of constructing a secure area within the home where he was incarcerated and fed three meals a day by his elder brother's wife who perceived that his face bore the fateful signs of a formidable future. One day she failed to follow the instructions of her parents-in-law, left open the door to the secure area which permitted Te-lu to escape. He was ever beholden to his sister-in-law, and after she died and was buried in Pai-ho district of Tainan county, he memorialised the throne requesting she be raised posthumously to the "Lady of the first official grade”. In 1786 Lin Shuang-wen led a revolt in Taiwan against the Manchu Ch'ing dynasty in support of the campaign to "Restore the Ming”. Although Wang Te-lu was a mere youth at the time, he would have been 15, he nevertheless became involved in the struggle to suppress the revolt and after the troubles were over was awarded Hung-ting Hua-ling: (the red button and the peacock's feather), mandarin's rank and an imperial honour. Local history maintains that in 1821 Wang was transferred to be the staff of the provincial military commander of the two provinces of Chekiang and Kiangsi, and in 1828, during the siege of Chia I led by Chang Ping, Wang Te-lu's service with the imperial force protecting the town and building up the town's walls resulted in him being awarded the honour of the Imperial Grand Guardian of the Apparent. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 168 generation. However, retained on the new tablet were the names of the elder brothers of the deceased who had been responsible for the initial burial at this site and also, it would seem, much of the wording of the original record. The inscription reads: The deceased was the fourth son of Ancestor Kau-yuen. He died early. Afterwards [we] his three elder brothers [only the names of two are given] took up the bones [from a coffin burial] and on an auspicious day in an autumn month in Chien Lung 4th or ping-san year [1736: but in fact the ping-san year is the 1st year of Chien Lung's long reign] buried them above the cross roads at Pak Kung Au on Tai Mo Shan (the geomantic details follow]. During his life, the deceased was polite and ceremonious, he managed his family frugally and industriously, and he was straightforward and upright in his dealings with others. We his brothers and descendants flourish [on account of his exemplary conduct and character]. We had hoped that he would have a long life, but his virtue is ever fragrant and he is deserving of his descendant's offerings for ever. For ten thousand years his memory will not be forgotten. Confucian hyperbole, one might ask? Perhaps it was, though I have not come across too much of the kind in the local grave tablets. Certainly, the memory of this good man must have remained alive in the Chung family for generations after his death and burial in 1738; for it was nearly 150 years after that the repair commemorated by this tablet took place. There was probably another factor at work here, since it was believed that the graves of good people would have a beneficial effect on the fortunes of the family for generations to come. Clearly, it was considered that the good influences from this grave were not yet spent. Ancestral Graves and Lineage Prosperity One cannot stress too strongly this particular aspect of ancestral burial, and the great importance attached to ancestral graves by descendants for this reason. One short letter sent to the District Office in 1975 by two village representatives of the same village and lineage (Yeungs of Yeung Uk, Tsuen Wan) states outright the strong connection traced between ancestral graves in good locations and the continuing flourishing of the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 150 It is scarcely surprising, therefore, that the Hakka villages of this area combined into a number of village self-defence and support alliance groups in the eighteenth century, and under the leadership of the wealthier villages, formed a district association in the early nineteenth, the Shap Yeuk (+) or "Alliance of Ten" (so called from the ten or eleven village alliance groups of which it was formed). The Shap Yeuk's prime aim was local self-government. They sought, therefore, to remove from the area the political dominance of the older Punti clans from the west, which had been a feature of the area in the earlier period: this was successfully achieved in the early nineteenth century. The area had previously marketed at Sham Chun, which was a market dominated by the old Punti clans. The population of the Mirs Bay area, which had been very low in the early eighteenth century, had risen sharply, and, by the early nineteenth century, had reached the point where it could support a market of its own. The Shap Yeuk accordingly founded a market, probably in the period 1825-1835, at Sha Tau Kok, partly on reclaimed land. The successful foundation of this market was a clear public statement of the success of the Shap Yeuk in ridding themselves of the influence of the Punti clans of the Sham Chun area. In the genealogy of the Chan clan of Nam Chung village it states that Chan Hip-tsun (B) (1792-1864) of that clan was the leader in the market project: "The foundation of Tung Wo Market was undertaken at his initiative. He got all the people of various Yeuk together, and secured unanimity." Immediately west of the new town, various wealthy local villagers also joined forces to reclaim a 21 acre island of salt-pans, connected with the new town by tidal fords passable at low water. This reclamation may have been undertaken a little after the foundation of the market. Salt production remained an important part of the town's economy until the 1920s. 10 In the early nineteenth century there were three temples in the area near the new town. One was the Tin Hau Temple at Am King (Anjing, ), which was the community temple of the Luk Heung (Luxiang, A), the area immediately east of the new town. This temple was of early Ch'ing date the latest." Only half a mile from the new market was the Kwan Tai Temple at Shan Tsui, the community temple of the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 156 becoming "import" or "export", and subject to all these controls. Villagers from Wo Hang or Nam Chung buying a new plough animal, or seed-pig, were "exporting live animals"; if they bought a new plough, or reaping knife, they were "exporting ironwork"; if they took cloth to market to be made into a pair of trousers, or to be dyed, then they were "importing cloth" - duty in all these cases had to be paid. Traditionally, sugar was grown in this area, carried as cane to Sham Chun, pressed and refined there, and then carried back for sale in the New Territories markets. This now became “importing sugar” in the first instance, and “exporting sugar" in the second.28 In the 1930s, the Chinese Government imposed a heavy import duty on fish, causing the very important carrying trade in fish from Sha Tau Kok to Sham Chun to face the same problems.29 As soon as the new frontier was established, the Kowloon Customs (the local division of the Imperial Maritime Customs) moved to control it. The Kowloon Customs was headquartered in Hong Kong, but established its new operational headquarters at Sham Chun. Below this, work was initially conducted through three Divisions: Duty Collection, Border Patrol, and Sea Patrol. The Border Patrol duties were conducted from Patrol Stations, which were arranged in Districts, with a Patrol District Headquarters in each District. Duty was collected at only a relatively few Duty Stations, which were the only places where dutiable imports and exports could legally be handled. The Kowloon Customs also had half a dozen steam launches as gun-boats: each had a Sea Patrol District to control, centred on a Sea Patrol District Headquarters. Sha Tau Kok was chosen as the Patrol District Headquarters for the Patrol District running from Lin Ma Hang to Siu Mui Sha (Xiaomeisha), with sub-stations at Yim Tin (Yantian) and Chan Hang (Chenkeng). It was the Duty Station for the north-west quadrant of Mirs Bay. It was also the Sea Patrol District Headquarters for the Mirs Bay Sea Patrol District. It was one of the centres of the Mounted Horse Patrols which, from 1932, patrolled the area behind the zone covered by the foot patrols of the Border Patrol staff. After 1934 it was one of the centres of the new Automobile Patrol, which patrolled the newly completed motor road along the frontier. The Customs Station at Sha Tau Kok was headed by an expatriate Assistant Superintendent of Customs. For most of the time, there were between 70 and 100 customs staff working in Sha Tau Kok.30 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 176 'From Fanling also, there runs a narrow gauge line down the other coast at Sha Tau Kok. Sha Tau Kok itself is a fishing town, walled, and of a type, with two loopholed buildings [the gun towers] sticking up out of it. These serve as watch-towers and are common to all Chinese towns. Usually they are the pawnshops or safe deposits. Doubtless they were necessary and useful enough in unsettled times, before modern rifles and artillery were added to China's domestic problems. Narrow dirty streets shorten the foreigner's stay in Sha Tau Kok, and he is content to leave the place to its poi-bellied pigs and contented citizens.' 67 Social and Economic Life There are three tablets which include lists of shops in Sha Tau Kok: the 1894 tablet recording donations to the rebuilding of the temple at Shan Tsui; the 1906 tablet recording donations to the building of a bridge at Bride's Pool, and the 1920 wooden tablet recording donations to the repairs of the monastery at Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz. 68 Of these, the last is the fullest and most significant, listing 39 shops specifically as being from Sha Tau Kok. These lists have been discussed with elders of surrounding villages, and, as a result, some 84 shops or workshops have been recorded as operating in the market before 1925. Some of these 84 are somewhat doubtful. At the same time, the elders say that there were more shops than they can now remember anything of - numbers of very small shops, selling sweets and such like, existed which the elders cannot now remember in any detail. It seems likely that there were about 90-100 shops in operation in the market during this period. In addition to these 90-100 shops, there were 18 functioning saltworks, between 10 and 12 prostitutes, and a number of full-time hawkers working both in the market, and from the market through the surrounding district. Many of the shops employed one or two people as well as family of the owner. The market may have been responsible for providing work for 400-500 people. Of the shops remembered by the elders, five were general household stores. Two rattan dealers made and dealt in sieves and baskets. A silversmith provided for the finger-rings, ear-rings, and bracelets so important in Hakka culture. Eight were general groceries, some of which were, in addition, grain wholesalers, pig slaughterers, or winemakers. There were nine fishmongers - five were fish wholesalers only, while four had a retail business as well. Other food dealers included three bakers, * See Appendix 2 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 185 high standards, and took care to employ good teachers. The school must always have had several teachers - the building is just too big to have been feasible for just one. In 1923 there were five teachers. Three were Shap Yeuk area people. One, Chan Kan-cheung, from Luk Keng, was a returned student from USA - he taught English and Physical Education. Another teacher from Luk Keng was Chan Ping-long, a graduate from Canton. He taught "the new books". The third teacher from the Shap Yeuk area was Lau Woon-kwong, from Keng Hau (Jinghou) in the Chinese part of the Shap Yeuk area. He taught classical Chinese and Music. The other two teachers were outsiders: Lei Wai-lau was a Sau Tsoi from near Yuen Long, a Punti speaker - he taught classical Chinese. The fifth teacher, Wu Fan-ng, was from Shaoguan in the north of Guangdong. He had lived for many years in Sha Tau Kok, and spoke and taught in Hakka. He, like Chan Ping-long, was a graduate from Canton, and taught "the new books". Right down to the 1930s, the desire to keep their school one of the best and most advanced in the region was a major aim of the elders of the Shap Yeuk. In the 1920s, the standard of the school was as advanced as the Government schools which the Hong Kong Government had started to open in the major centres of the New Territories. By having this group of well-educated and cultured men living in the market, the elders of the Shap Yeuk demonstrated that their town and district comprised a full and viable community - not only having artisans and labourers and merchants, but scholars and gentry as well. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 186 # APPENDIX I ## Calendar of Disturbances in the Border Area, 1899-1940 (Orme = Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hongkong, 1912, (Sessional Papers 1912, printed by Noronha and Co, Government Printers), No 11 of 1912. "Report on the New Territories, 1899-1912” (The Orme Report), pp 43-63, SP = Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hongkong (Sessional Papers), STJLS = Shatinjiade Lishe, op cit. AP = Administrative Reports, "Report by the District Officer New Territories", JLHG = Judonghaiguan Baoguan Dashiji op cit. Note JUHO is limited in material for 1921-1927, and AP has little to say on the border 1931-1938, except to comment on the levels of smuggling) Year Event Source 1900 Abortive Rebellion in Wai Chan Sham Chun valley in turmoil Sam Chau Ti in revolt 5 piracies in Hong Kong waters SP 1901 STJLS Orme 1901 Chinese military patrol formed on frontier SP 1902 1905 Most serious crime in New Territories caused by cross-border gangs these impeded by new blockhouses at Ta Kwu Ling Second rebellion at Sam Chau Tin Orme STJLS 1906 Market strike at Sha Tau Kok STJLS 1907 Riot against Customs at Sha Tau Kok STJLS 1911 Law Fong, Chor Uk Wai, Shu Tau Customs Stations sacked by bandits Law Fong Customs Station destroyed by bandits JLHG 1912 Fighting in area near border Increase in banditry and piracy In Hong Kong, military assistance needed by Police Law Fong, Lin Tong, Sha Tau Customs Stations sacked by bandits, at Law Fong claiming to be "new revolutionaries" Situation confused Executions in Sham Chun SP 1912 AR JLHG 1913 Nam O, Yun To Customs Stations sacked by bandits JLHG 1914 Nam O attacked and sacked by night Tai Chan, Chek Wan Customs Stations sacked by bandits JLHG 1915 Chan Hang (Siu Mui Sha) Customs Station sacked by bandits 1916 Increase in smuggling opium into China Bad outbreak of cross-border crime, due to "lack of any reasonable system of policing" on the Chinese side Yum Tin (3 times), Kai Chung, Lung Tsun Hui Customs Stations sacked by bandits (40 men attack Kai Chung, up to 200 Yum Tin, and 150 at Lung Tsun Hui) All Customs firearms removed to Hong Kong for safe-keeping (until 1932) JLHG AR JLHG 1917 Hakkas fleeing disturbances in Waichau arrive in New Territories Outbreak of crime in New Territories by "undesirables" from across border Kai Chung, Lung Tsun Hui, Sha Tau Customs Stations sacked by bandits AR JLHG 1918 Times "very disturbed" on border Outbreak of cross-border crime "half the offenders come from Chinese territory" Kai Chung, Tip Fuk, Ha Sha JLHG Customs Stations forced to close (April) Sha Yue Chung and Kai Miu Customs Stations sacked by bandits and forced to close (August) AR JLHG ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 Year Event Source 1919 8 serious cross-border armed robberies. The Customs Stations closed in 1918 re-opened (August). AR JLHG 1920 Refugees flee to New Territories from communal fighting in border area. Assisted cross-border crimes increase. Sha Yue Chung Customs Station sacked by bandits. AR 1921 Increase in smuggling native tobacco from China. 4 piracies (including of the Sha Yue Chung Ferry). Further armed cross-border banditry. AR 1922 2 piracies on the Sha Yue Chung Ferry. Fighting between pirate bands in Mirs Bay. AR 1923 Large increase in smuggling, due to disturbances in the border area. Serious cross-border armed raids, an execution in China as a result. AR 1924 Unsettled conditions, due to continuous fighting between Sun and Chen Faction armies for control of district. Upsurge in cross-border crime, including 8 armed raids, some mounted by Chinese irregular soldiers. AR 1925 Boycott causes considerable trouble in Sha Tau Kok. Huge crime wave of cross-border crime. "Quite 90% of crimes committed in the New Territories could be traced to persons coming from over the border". Sinkers enter and terrorise New Territories villages. British troops sent to Sha Tau Kok to restore order. Hoi Luk Fung Soviet rebellion affects Mirs Bay area. JLHG 1926 Conditions better, but disturbed conditions across the border lead to boom in New Territories because of the number of refugees seeking houses. Many matsheds erected for refugees. Heavier border policing needed. Mirs Bay fishermen unable to fish except close inshore because of "disturbed conditions". AR 1927 Conditions better, but still troubled near border. Attempted piracy of Tolo Harbour ferry junk. Heavier policing of Sha Tau Kok border area reduces cross-border crime. Border patrol constructed in New Territories. AR 1928 Increase in smuggling. Violence against recent refugee arrivals in New Territories. Chinese irregulars replaced by regulars and disciplined at Sha Tau Kok – Major piracy in Mirs Bay ("Fean" case). Hoi Luk Fung Soviet rebellion affects Mirs Bay area. ASR 1929 Customs seek major increase in staff because of increased smuggling (every year until late 1910s). Much better conditions on border because of better policing on Chinese side of border. AR 1930 Increase in smuggling. Kai Miu Customs Station sacked by bandits. AR, JLHG 1931 Increase in smuggling, especially sugar. Sha Tau Customs Station sacked by bandits. 2 Battles with smugglers off entrance to Pearl River ("Loser Maru" case). Inadequate customs staff members leads to problems. AR JLHG 1932 Increase in smuggling, especially sugar and cloth. Smuggling on Railway a growing problem. Smuggling through Lok Ma Chau and Sheung Shui a growing problem. Smuggling on Shan Chun River a growing problem. Kai Chung Customs Station sacked by bandits. Gun battles with smugglers at Law Fong (twice), Chek Mei, Man Kam To. AR, JLHG 187 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 188 Year Event Source 1933 Mounted Horse Patrols instituted to control smuggling. Guerrillas active in Bias Bay area Gunbattle with "uniformed smugglers" off Tai Mu Sha AJ, JLHG 1934 Increase in smuggling Gunbattle with smugglers in Hong Kong waters Automobile Anti-smuggling Patrol instituted AR 1935 Continuing influx into the New Territories of poor Hakkas, refugees from neighbouring districts, living in matsheds Chinese erect steel fence from Sham Chun to Sha Tau Kok Guerrillas active in Bias Bay area Gunbattle in Mirs Bay with smugglers. In gunbattle at Sha Tau Kok, an innocent bystander is killed JLHG 1936 1937 Increase in smuggling after slight drop in 1935 (District Officer) Customs revenues rise as smuggling is "brought under control” (Customs) Increase in immigration into the New Territories of poor Hakkas Guerrillas active in Bias Bay area AR JLHG 1938 Increase in smuggling Destitute refugees in New Territories Gang crime wave there "Abnormal conditions" in China cause more refugees to arrive Cross-border thieves set on and beaten to death by New Territories villagers AR JLHG 1979 1940 Refugees from Japanese increase population of New Territories by 1/2 Many squatter matsheds, but no increase in New Territories crime, except that some cross-border gangs cause trouble. Kai Wong, Tip Fuk, Customs Stations closed. – Kai Miu Customs Stations destroyed in Japanese attack Japanese enter Sham Chun and all Customs Stations closed Japanese attack Sha Tau Kok, Sham Chun, Mirs Bay and Deep Bay, damaging all Customs Stations, then relieve Customs stations reopen at end of year Fishing, other than inshore, greatly hampered by Japanese attacks. Many refugees in the New Territories die of starvation AR JLHG Increase in smuggling and piracy, due to confused situation in border area Guerrillas come to agreement with Customs on operation of Sha Yue Chung Customs Station - goods for guerrillas to be duty-free Japanese take Nam Tau, attack Sham Chun, then enter Sham Chun - all Customs Stations except Sha Yue Chung close Japanese retire, and all Customs Stations reopen battle with smugglers off Yau Tam JLHG Japanese re-enter Sham Chun All Customs Stations close, then the Japanese retire, and Mirs Bay Customs Station re-open with assistance of guerrillas All Stations damaged Heavy smuggling of strategic goods to Sha Yue Chung, Mui Sha, Chan Hang Japanese again invade Sham Chun, and attack Mirs Bay Mirs Bay Customs Station able to operate at night only Sha Tau Kok captured by Japanese JLHG ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 193 H Details of the early Hakka examination successes are known from a recently recovered genealogy, of the Chan (陳) lineage of Nam Chung. It is understood that a copy of this genealogy will be deposited with the Hong Kong Museum of History. I am indebted to Mr Chan Wing-hot for drawing my attention to the information in this genealogy. Q Seen 8 At the time of the Block Crown Lease (1905), 12.68 acres of saltpans were recorded. However, the serious inadequacies of the first survey here led to another being conducted in 1912, when 17.11 acres were recorded. However, in 1912 two areas were left unclaimed, probably because storms had breached their bunds and ruined them. These two areas totalled about 3.3 acres. In addition, there were about 0.6 acres of houses, huts, and waste within the saltpan reclamation, which, therefore, totalled about 21.2 acres. The saltpans were very valuable property in the nineteenth century - the Basel missionaries (see below, n. 17) record the sale of a share by a Tam Shui Hang villager in 1882 for "several hundreds of dollars" (Basel Mission archive, doc. AT-16, Nr. 45). In the 1920s, however, and still more in the 1930s, cheap imported salt caused ever-growing problems, which led to the closure of the saltworks before the War. A bridge was built to the saltpans in 1934 (Administrative Reports for the Year 1934, App. J, "Report on the New Territories for 1934", p. J17). After the War, the abandoned saltworks became the site of a major squatter settlement, recently cleared. Today, the saltpan area has disappeared under new reclamation, and all that remains is a new Tin Hau Temple, replacing the old one previously on the saltpans, built on a new site on the new waterfront. For details of the history of the temples in the area, on the settlement of the Hakka in the area, the reclamation projects they undertook, the founding and management of the market at Sha Tau Kok, and the functioning of the Shap Yeuk as the district management body, see P.H. Hase, "The Alliance of Ten Settlements and Polities in the Sha Tau Kok Area", in D. Faure and H.S. Siu, eds., Down to Earth: The Territorial Bond in South China, Stanford University Press, 1995. 12. No details on the earlier history of the temple survived the very full restoration of 1894, but Shan Tsun elders believe it to be very old. 13. In the 1688 Gazetteer (Ch. 3) a ferry “along the coast” is mentioned called the "Ma Tseuk Ling Ferry". There can be no doubt that this is the ferry to Sha Yue Chung (Shayuchong, etc.), 12 miles down the coast. Ma Tseuk Ling, at the head of Starling Inlet, is the nearest old village to the Wu Shek Kok Temple (Wu Shek Kok village - probably a foundation of the early nineteenth century). The coasts of Starling Inlet within two or three miles of Ma Tseuk Ling were blocked with mudflats and mangrove everywhere except at Wu Shek Kok, where alone a hill falls steeply into the sea. Wu Shek Kok is, therefore, the only possible site for a "Ma Tseuk Ling Ferry" landing place. The Ma Tseuk Ling villagers owned the Wu Shek Kok Temple, and the Ma Tseuk Ling military post (1688 Gazetteer, ch. 7), was at Shek Chung Au, just a few hundred yards from Wu Shek Kok. These Ma Tseuk Ling connections with the Wu Shek Kok area strongly suggest that the Wu Shek Kok hill was regarded as forming part of the Ma Tseuk Ling area. Later, Wu Shek Kok formed part of the Ma Tseuk Ling Yeuk of the Shap Yeuk. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 198 commodities + The boat-building and repair sheds at Sha Tau Kok had entirely disappeared, with great loss of life. Special encouragement [from a relief fund] was given to the boat-builders at Sha Tau Kok to start all over again. "The Customs Station at Sha Tau Kok was destroyed in this typhoon - see Jiulonghaiguan Bamen Dashiji, op. cit., sub anno. In the 1945 aerial photograph, it can be seen that far fewer than half of the buildings in the old market were still standing; the site had been, effectively, abandoned even for residential purposes. Since the War, all vestiges of the old market have been removed for development, and nothing whatsoever now survives of it. - 47 Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hongkong, printed by Noronha & Co, Government Printers (Sessional Papers), 1900, "Report on the First Year of Brush Administration of the New Territory, Laid Before the Legislative Council by Command of His Excellency the Governor” (No 15 of 1900), p. 257; 1901, "Report for the New Territory for 1900, Laid before the Legislative Council by Command of His Excellency the Governor" (no 28 of 1901), p. 6; Administrative Reports for the Year 1933, App. J, "Report on the New Territories for 1933", p. J3. In 1937, the Coronation was celebrated with electric light displays in Sha Tau Kok. Administrative Reports for the Year 1937, App. J, "Report on the New Territories for the Year 1937", p. J11. 49 A party from the Basel Mission stayed in a "totally comfortless guesthouse" in the town in 1859, Jahresberichte der Basler Mission, 1859, and a noodle shop "at the entrance to the market" is mentioned in 1882 (Basel Mission Archive, Doct. A1-16, Nr. 45). 49 Basel Mission Archive, Doct. A1-2, Nr. 46 (1853), Doct. A1-16, Nr. 45 (1882), Jahresberichte der Basler Mission, 1859. "I do not like taking a house in a market, for you always find wicked types there - thieves, opium smokers, gamblers - festering together and leading to predictable outcomes." In 1859, Sha Tau Kok was the only market where the Basel missionaries had attempted to set up a station. Between 1899 and 1902, the District Officer was very concerned about the huge amount of gambling going on at Yim Liu Ha, with over 300 arrests in 1901, but this dropped away to "almost nothing" later, after the gambling house became available in Sha Tau Kok. Paper Land Before the Legislative Council of Hongkong, printed by Noronha & Co, Government Printers, (Sessional Papers), 1901, "Report on the New Territory for 1901, Laid Before the Legislative Council by Command of His Excellency the Governor", App. 6, p. 20; 1902, App. 2, p. 342-344; Orme's Report, op. cit., para. 41, p. 49. 50 The route is described in 1848 (Der Evangelische Heidenbote, March 1848); 1853 (Basel Mission Archive, Doct. A1-2, Nr. 44; see P.H. Hase, "Sha Tau Kok in 1853", op. cit.); 1858-1859 (Basel Mission Archive, Doct. A1-4, Nr. 11; Jahresberichte der Basler Mission, 1859; and Jahresberichte der Rheinischen Missionsgesellschaft, 1859); 1863 (Basel Mission Archive, Doct. A1-5, Nr. 5); 1884 (Basel Mission Archive, Doct. A1-19, Nr. 35); and 1893 (Basel Mission Archive, Doct. A1-27). * 1688 Gazetteer, ch. 3 passim; 1819 Gazetteer, ch. 4, Chung Lap Pao edition, 1879, p. 51. The 1688 Gazetteer specifically mentions several of the roads over the shoulders of Ng Tung Shan (b. 1); the road from Sha Tau Kok to Shu Yue Chung (this is probably the implication of the mentioned there) - this is the "official road" from which the village of Kwun Lo Ha (Guanlouxia, "Below the Official Road") takes ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 150 studies, they uncovered huge volumes of local historical materials - genealogies, land deeds, books, stone inscriptions, and oral history. Ethnographic material obtained through the observation of rituals, artifacts and dress, architecture, economic activities, language, symbols and everyday behaviour added further dimensions to their knowledge and highlighted vital links between the present and the past. These scholars might be more interested in using the materials to either discourse about Chinese culture, social organization, social status, power and government, gender issues, inter-lineage relations and so on, but their work nevertheless became invaluable ingredients for reconstructing the unique history of each locality. The Scholar-Officials The New Territories was the happy hunting ground of another group. These were District Officers of the Hong Kong government who were responsible for governing rural Hong Kong. Scholars of the sinologist tradition, they were particularly well placed to collect large amounts of oral and documentary materials while working among villagers in the New Territories. Prominent among them were K.M.A. Barnett, David Akers-Jones, and James Hayes, who was to become Hong Kong's leading historian. His major works, which combine scholarship, administrative experience and personal insights, are now classic studies. 6 This group, known as the "scholar-officials", was later joined, and greatly strengthened, by Patrick Hase in the 1970s. It should be noted that to these scholar-officials, the study of 'traditional' Chinese society is more than a purely intellectual exercise. To govern the New Territories, the Hong Kong government needs a working knowledge of the customs and culture of the indigenous inhabitants, especially in relation to land, family, lineage relations etc., and relies heavily on District Officers who are 'on the spot', as it were. For judicial purposes, too, when disputes over land and inheritance arose, 'sinologists' - academics and civil servants - are frequently called in, even flown in, to act as expert witnesses at court. A recent Ph.D thesis by Selina Ching Chan for the Oxford University analyses how in the New Territories, traditions are interpreted differently by the rulers and the ruled, each group in the way most expedient to them; thus she offers rare insights into the intricate relations between power and scholarship. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 166 Hai Journal, no 12 | August 1981, pp 191-201) 1 Lo Hsiang-lin, Hong Kong and Its External Communications Before 1842 The History of Hong Kong Prior to British Arrival (Hong Kong Institute of Chinese Culture, 1963) Barbara Ward, "Rediscovering our social and cultural heritage", Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, (JHKBRAS) 20, pp 116-124, p 124 See Jack Potter Capitalism and the Chinese Peasant. Social and Economic Change in a Hong Kong Village (Berkeley, Calif University of California Press, 1968) He contradicts the theory that the industry and commerce of the treaty ports were the principal reasons for the bankruptcy of the Chinese countryside by showing how in Ping Shan, the effects of capitalism were beneficial to peasants. James Hayes, The Hong Kong Region 1850-1911. Institutions and Leadership in Town and Countryside (Hamden, Connecticut Archon Books, 1972), The Rural Communities of Hong Kong Studies and Themes (Hong Kong Oxford University Press, 1983), Tsuen Wan Growth of a New Town and Its People (Hong Kong Oxford University Press, 1993) 7 For the special nature of the District Officer's duties, see Austin Coates, Myself a Mandarin Memoirs of a Special Magistrate (Hong Kong Heinemann, 1975) Selina Ching Chan, "Tradition Inherited, Traditional Reinterpreted. A Chinese Lineage in the 1990s", (Unpublished Ph D thesis, Oxford University, 1995) Alan Birch and Martin Cole, Captive Years the Occupation of Hong Kong 1941-45 (Hong Kong Heinemann, 1982) and Captive Christmas (Hong Kong. Heinemann, 1979) 10 Most of the Rev Smith's work was published in articles in various, often obscure, journals, but more recently they have been collected in anthologies - Chinese Christians, Middlemen and the Church in Hong Kong (Hong Kong Oxford University Press, 1985) and A Sense of History Studies in the Social and Urban History of Hong Kong (Hong Kong Educational Publishing Co, 1995) See especially, DJ Dwyer (ed) The Changing Face of Hong Kong. Proceedings of a Weekend Symposium of the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch (Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. 1971) 12 Editorial, JHKBRAS, vol 7(1967)pp 1-3,p 2 13 PH Hase and Elizabeth Sinn (eds) Beyond the Metropolis Villages in Hong Kong (Hong Kong Joint Publishing (HK) Ltd, 1995) 14 Marjorie Topley, (comp) "Anthropology and Sociology in Hong Kong Field Projects and Problems of Overseas Scholars" Proceedings of a Symposium, February 8-9, 1969 (Hong Kong Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong, 1969) See Ian Diamond, "The Paper Chase - Archives and the Public Records Office of Hong Kong" ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g 9 By their differences in dwellings and occupations, already observed, these four communities can be grouped into land-dwellers and sea-dwellers, the Cantonese and Hakka being the former and the Tanka and Hoklo the latter. 43 The Cantonese, or Punti as they are sometimes called, had their origins in North China and speak a Chinese dialect of the western section of the Yueh language which evidences their claim to be of pure Chinese stock. There is no record of their arriving in the province of Kwangtung, which they colonised, earlier than the Sung Dynasty (960-1278 A.D.). In the van were a clan surnamed Tang who settled in the Yuen Long district of the New Territories late in the 11th century. This clan became the largest landowners with their main centres at Kam T'in, P'ing Shan, Lung Yeuk Tau and Ha Tsuen. They exercised "a kind of feudal power, and the tradition they had brought with them was so strong that they not only became the founders of the Cantonese settlement but to this day exert a great influence in affairs. The Cantonese occupy most of the two principal plains in the northwest sector of the New Territories, and own a good deal of the best valley land in various other areas. Villages in the Tung Chung and Shek Pik valleys, on Lantau Island, date back to the early Yuan dynasty in the late thirteenth century. The livelihood of the Cantonese is dependent mainly on the cultivation of rice. The Hakka migrated originally also from North China and, moving gradually southwards through Fukien and Kiangsi in the 10th century, reached Kwangtung Province during the latter years of the Southern Sung Dynasty. They speak two dialects or sub-dialects of the eastern section of the same Yueh language that the Cantonese speak. Arriving after the Cantonese, the Hakka settled usually upstream of them, that is, on the poorer ground. They have, however, steadily over the centuries encroached on the land first occupied by the Cantonese. For example, after the Manchus in the 17th century had evacuated the entire population of the China Coast inland to guard against the fleet of the Ming Dynasty based on Formosa, the Hakka apparently took the opportunity of resettling in the abandoned coastal area. Again, Hong Kong island is said to have been originally occupied by the Tang clan but the British in the 19th century found it almost entirely inhabited by Hakka. A third example of Hakka encroachment is said to be Lantau Island which in recent times was depopulated by... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g 32 now s 5. Cap 4 10 The late Mr. G.E. Strickland in the penultimate paragraph of his Appendix I to the Committee Report, 1953 20 (1910) 6 HKLR 12, at p. 53 per Sir Francis Piggott, C.J. "Committee Report, 1953. Marriage by Chinese Law and Customs in Hong Kong, (1958) 7 International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 437 2 Chinese Marriages in Hong Kong, Government Printer, Hong Kong, 1960 * TANG CHOY HONG vs TANG SHING MO & OTHERS. (1949) 33 HKLR 58 (concerning succession to land see below), and CHAN PUI vs CHU YAN KIT (1950) 34 HKLR 297 (concerning agricultural tenancies) * Committee Report 1953. Chap II para 11 at pp 6-7, and Annual Departmental Report District Commissioner New Territories. 1954-55, para 72 (Hereinafter such reports are referred to as Report DCNT 19) Report, DCNT, 1950-51, para 26 and 1954-55, para 72 This attitude among the Chinese was always the reaction to litigation and possibly was born of a general distaste for their ancient judicial procedure, vide R.H. Van Gulik, T'ang-Yin-Pi-Shih "Parallel Cases from under the Pear-tree". Leiden. 1956, P. 58 "Report, DCNT, 1956-57, para 106 16 Report, DCNT, 1957-58, para 98 para 43 * CHEUNG Sau Tim vs CHEUNG Yo, Lam (1948) 32 HKLR 31 "vide Committee Report, 1953. Chap III, para 31 "ibid paras 34 and 40 Lik Memorandum of 20th March 1958, addressed to the Secretary for Chinese Affairs vide McAleavy's article "Certain Aspects of Chinese Customary Law in the Light of Japanese Scholarship." BSOAS, 1955, Vol XVII Part 3. p. 535 For the customs of the land-dwelling Cantonese and Hakka I have had recourse to notes ! ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g 59 # AN OUTLINE OF THE URBAN DEVELOPMENT OF SAI YING PUN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY ## ALFRED Y.K. LAU ### The Origin of Sai Ying Pun: A Pirate's Fortification or a British Military Encampment? There are a lot of controversies and debates regarding whether the name of the district, Sai Ying Pun, (literally means the Western Military camp) is derived from a fortification, which was established by the notorious pirate, Chang Po Tsai in 1806 or from an encampment which was set up by the British soldiers in 1841. The first hypothesis is held by a group of Chinese scholars. It was first put forward by Professor Hsu Ti Shan in his article, "On the Research into the History of Hong Kong and Kowloon.” He said: "Today's Sai Ying Pun was actually a name used by Chang Po-tsai for his fortification in those days. Originally there were two fortifications in those days, one in the east and one in the west. Tung Ying Pun, the one in the east, was situated around today's Tsat Tsze Mui while Sai Ying Pun, the one in the west, was situated around today's Sheung Wan. Unfortunately we now cannot point out where are the exact relic sites of these two fortifications.” (Lai, 1948, P.12) Professor Lo Hsiang Lin also supported this argument. He said: "Turning down Eastern Street across High Street to the level of Third Street and Second Street, we enter the district generally known as Sai Ying Pun (literally Western Camp), bounded by King George the Fifth Memorial Park on the east and the Sai Ying Pun Market on the west. This is the site where the celebrated pirate Chang Pao-tsai (of the middle years of the reign of Chia-ching 1806 - 1810) erected one of his headquarters. The actual habitation and fortification structures have long since been destroyed but it is still possible to get some idea of the suitability of the site, as regards the view and topographical features by surveying the district as a whole.” (Lo, 1963, P.60) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 10 - extreme north of the island, are omitted. It seems likely that the populations of these villages most of which are rather small were combined with the populations of the nearest market, port, or major village. In most cases the market, port, or major village was where the police post was from which the census was being conducted. Thus, the populations of the missing villages are probably buried in the figures recorded for Tai O, Sheung Ling Pei, Shap Long, Cheung Chau, and Ma Wan. This is certainly what happened at Tsuen Wan and Kowloon City. In Tsuen Wan, populations are recorded only for Tsing Yi, Tsuen Wan, Ma Wan, Chai Wan Kok, and Kwai Chung.1 Clearly, all the Tsing Yi villages are lumped together, as are all the Kwai Chung villages. Equally clearly, the Tsuen Wan villages - with the odd exception of Chai Wan Kok - are combined in a single entry with Tsuen Wan Market. In Kowloon City district, none of the central Kowloon villages (i.e. the very important villages of Nga Tsin Wai and Po Kong and the smaller villages such as Chuk Yuen) are entered separately - their populations are, clearly, subsumed under the entry for Kowloon City.1 In part, the lack of detail in the Kowloon City census may be due to the heavy rain which interfered with the first attempt to hold it. Thus, when conducting detailed analyses of the tables of statistics in the 1911 Census, it is necessary to bear in mind that the populations recorded for the towns and major villages in the south of the New Territories are inflated to some degree, and their social characteristics are likely to be obscured, at least in part. The villages still existing on Hong Kong Island and Old Kowloon in 1911 are separately recorded. Po Toi Island is included under the Hong Kong villages.1 The process of holding the house-to-house enumerator visits lasted “a few days” on Lamma, and three months in the bigger districts.3 Assuming Lamma was completed in five days, and the largest districts (Au Tau, Sha Tau Kok, Ping Shan, and Sai Kung) required 50-60 working days, the average population enumerated each day varied between 143 and 181, with between one and four villages being dealt with each day.1 This is clearly not excessive, and, again, suggests that the statistics produced should be treated as reasonably accurate. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 65 burners, who oral evidence suggests were common, are noted in the 1921 Census16 in Northern and 183 in Southern District, as also are the brick and tile makers, with 83 male and five female workers noted in Northern District in that year. The other traditional trades noted by the 1921 Census as present in numbers (vegetable oil pressers, shipbuilders, blacksmiths, carpenters) were mostly working within the market towns. In some places the “industrial” villages can be traced in the 1911 Census, even though the residents in them do not appear specifically in the "Occupations" Table. Thus, there was an area where incense wood was pounded into dust for manufacture into joss-sticks at Pak Kiu Tsuen outside Tai Po Market, and another at Tso Kung Tam outside Tsuen Wan. At the first, the census records the village of Wong Ka Uk, with 10 males but no females, and, at the second, the villages of Tso Kung Tam and Pak Shek Kiu, with 36 males and only nine females between them. These imbalanced populations strongly suggest that the villages in question were essentially industrial. Shek Tsai Po, outside Tai O - a centre for the drying of fish and the manufacture of shrimp paste - had a similarly imbalanced population of 71 males to 47 females. Villages next to important ferries - Liu Pok, Lo Wu, Yuen Chau Kok, Sha Kong, Ha Mei, Mui Wo - also tend to have recorded populations with more males than females, reflecting the boatmen and similar traders living at the ferry pier. Suburban industrial trades are probably the reason also why many of the villages on Hong Kong Island and the rural parts of Kowloon (especially Ma Kong, Chung Hom Kok, Lan Nai Wan, To Tei Wan, Tai Tam Tuk, Tong Po, Deep Water Bay, and the Quarry Bay villages on Hong Kong Island, and Ma Tau Kok, San Shan, Shek Shan, Lo Lung Hang, Wong Nai Yue, Fo Pang, Tai Shek Kwu, and Ho Man Tin in Kowloon)* show a significant excess of males over females. Suburban villages with significant excesses of males are also to be seen immediately outside most of the New Territories market towns in 1911. These villages had commercial market-gardens, industrial premises which required large areas (dyers, joss-stick makers, sawyers, etc.), and offensive trades (tanners, lime-burners, brick and tile works, etc.), and should be considered as part of the market town complex. The ring of villages with high male-female ratios around the city in 1911 should be seen in the same way, as subordinate to the commercial life of the City. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 72 Of course, in some cases the emigration was over a short distance, to the nearest market town. It is likely, as noted above, that the absent males of the Yuen Long plain villages were working in the Yuen Long markets, and possible that some at least of the Lam Tsuen males were in the Tai Po Market. Some Lamma villagers were probably working in Aberdeen, and from all over the New Territories there were villagers working in the city - so many that their return to the villages for the Ching Ming Festival in 1921 could bias the census in that year, as noted above. But much of the emigration, as the Basel missionaries, the temple donation tablets at Shan Tsui and Tsuen Wan, and oral evidence, all make clear, was to overseas. The implications of villages with surplus males are less easy to identify (see Appendix II and Table 32; these identify villages with more than 56% recorded males in their populations: villages with fewer than 35 total population are excluded, except where the surplus of males is extreme). In many cases, just as the villages with low male female ratios identify villages with significant temporary male emigration, so villages with high male: female ratios identify places with temporary male immigration. One group already discussed which stands out is the market towns, almost all of which have high male: female ratios. Nearly 82% of the recorded population of Yuen Long market was male, and almost 80% of that of Tai Po new market (Tai Wo Shi). Even Shek Wu Hui, Ha Tsuen and Tuen Mun San Hui had over two-thirds of their tiny populations male (Table 28). These figures need to be put into perspective. In 1911, within the City of Victoria (i.e., omitting the Peak and the Hong Kong Island villages) there were 151,303 males out of a total Chinese population of 217,668. Males represented, therefore, 69.5% of the total Chinese population.1 Thus, the male domination of the larger New Territories market towns was significantly more substantial in 1911 than that of the city, and even the smaller New Territories markets had at least as high a level of male domination. The only exceptions to this are Cheung Chau, and Tai O, in Southern District. While these towns have more males than females, the imbalance is less than in the Northern District towns or the city: however, it seems likely that small rural populations are included with those towns, and that this causes distortion in these cases. Most of the New Territories towns also, as noted above, had suburban villages which shared the male domination of the town itself. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 77 Appendix I Villages with Low Male: Female (Less than 47%) Population Ratios, 1911 District Village No. of males Total population Age of males N San Tong Po 15 47 31.9** N Ngau Ha 6 16 N Sam Tam Lo 1 6 33.3** N Mo To Hang 2 6 33.3** N Ko Tan 8 21 38.1** N Tsiu Keng 15 43 34.9** N Wo Hop Shek 21 48 43.8 N Sheung Tan Chuk Hang 43 102 42.2 N Ping Che Yuen Ha 27 61 44.3 N Tai Po Tin 25 56 44.6 N Fung Wong Wit 39 84 46.4 N Lo Shue Ling 98 209 46.9 N Lei Uk Tsuen 41 94 43.6 N Chuk Yuen 18 44 40.9* N Tsung Yuen Ha 39 85 45.9 N Muk Wu 81 174 46.6 N Luk Keng 182 484 37.6** N Yim Tso Ha 18 47 38.3** N Shek Kiu Tau 37 98 37.8** N Ma Tseuk Ling Tai Long N 47 125 37.6** N Ha Wo Hang 20 46 43.5 N Sheung Wo Hang 66 160 41.3 N Nam Chung 175 443 39.5* N Wu Kay Tang 152 348 43.7 N Lin Ma Hang 165 423 39.0** N Ha Wang Shan Keuk 199 516 38.2** N Ha That Muk Kiu 16 43 37.2** N Kau Tam Tso 27 76 35.5** N Kai Keuk Shue Ha 13 42 31.0** N Fung Hang 47 108 43.5 N Kuk Po San Wai 61 143 42.6* N Tong To 56 126 44.4 N Shan Tsui 47 104 45.2 N Kong Ha 162 367 44.1 N Pok Wai 63 135 46.7 N Tai Che 100 225 44.4 ST Ngau Kok Wo 7 18 38.9** ST Tsung Tau Ha 3 8 37.5* ST 3 9 33.3** The table has been reconstructed for better readability while maintaining the original content and order. The column headers have been inferred as "District", "Village", "No. of males", "Total population", and "Age of males" based on the content. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 Appendix II Villages with High Male: Female (More than 56% Male) Population Ratios 1911 81 Village District No. of males Total population Age of males Liu Pok Shek Wu Hui 136 237 57.4 Lo Wu 37 56 66.1** Tai Tau Tong 8 18 44.4* 100*1 5! 91 56.0 Tsung Pak Leng N 105 184 57.0 Yin Kong N 21 35 60.0+ Tiu Keng Wan N 38 56 67.6 Sau Hang N 25 42 59.5* Ma Wat Wan N 28 49 57.3 Wan Shan Ha N 38 66 57.6 Loi Tung N 107 191 56.0 Kuk Po Lo Wai N 140 247 56.7 Hung Shek Mun N 49 87 56.3 Wu Chau Tong N 28 48 58.3 Sha Tau Kok N 14 14 100** Yim Liu Ha N 29 47 61.7+ Ngong Ping ST 7 9 77.8** San Tun ST 77 109 70.0** Pak Tin ST 2 3 66.7** Wang Pok ST 8 9 88.9** Sheung Wo Che ST 70 100 70.0** Chek Mei Ping ST 70 122 57.2 Shek Wu Wai YL 37 56 66.1++ Tung Tau Yuen YL 26 38 68.4** Kak Hang Yuen YL 16 25 64.0** Lei Uk YL 32 48 66.7** Sha Kong Miu YL 5 6 77.4** Yuen Long Market YL 458 559 81.9** Tong Fong 83 148 56.1 Sha Kong YL 5 6 83.3** Kong Tau YL 26 46 56.5 Ha Tsuen Shi YL 120 178 67.4** Wang Che SK 4 5 80.0** Wu Lei Tau SK 6 9 66.7** Yau Ma Po SK 24 31 77.4** Uk Cheung SK 4 6 66.7** Hang Hau SK 262 387 67.8** Mau Fa Tsuen SK 28 47 59.6* ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 to his daughter, Mrs R. Woodcock, for donating these to our Society. Our Branch is always looking for donations and if anybody wishes to find a good home for some interesting and valuable items or artifacts we should be grateful if you would consider donating them to the RASHKB. The Public Records Office Although the RASHKB is apolitical and has no wish to be seen as a pressure group, it does make its views known when it has a case. You may remember that our Branch objected when the Hong Kong Government decided to move the Public Records Office from Central District into an industrial building in Tuen Mun. Besides writing letters and taking other action two Branch deputations appeared before the Legislative Council Panel on Information Policy in 1993. The outcome of our efforts was that a new, purpose-built Public Records Office was opened in Kwun Tong, in June 1997, shortly before the Handover. Our Branch played a major role in this achievement. The Council Several of the 14 posts which comprise our Council require a special expertise. These include the Treasurer, the Librarian and our Editors. But, in addition to these 14 posts, other persons are co-opted on to the Council. They include the Reverend Carl Smith, our Honorary Vice President, and our Assistant Secretary, Mrs Sarah Parnell. Each Council Member is expected to pull at his or her respective oar and to row in unison. It is a working council. In addition to the two co-opted persons named above, namely Carl Smith and Sarah Parnell, as well as the President, the following have sat on the Council during the past year: Doctors Elizabeth Sinn, Michael Lau, Patrick Hase, Joseph Ting, Peter Barker, Choi Chi-cheung and Anthony Siu, together with Robert Nield, Geoffrey Roper, Peter Halliday, Valery Garrett, Julia Chan, and Peter Rull. Also, although Anita Wilson stepped down from the Council at the last AGM, she was co-opted back on until she left the Territory last July. All those xvii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 226 1 NOTES Undated Minute made available by Mrs Margaret Leeds, formerly Research Officer with the Royal Hong Kong Police. 2 Henry J. Lethbridge, "The District Watch Committee: The Chinese Executive Council of Hong Kong?", in Hong Kong: Stability and Change, (Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1978). 3 This paper is based on a chapter of the author's PhD thesis, Private Security and Government: A Hong Kong Perspective, 1841-1941, awarded by the University of Hong Kong in 1999. In the interests of space, most of the end notes contained in the thesis have been omitted from this paper. 4 5 Kaifongs were local Chinese welfare associations. As early as 1857 a sworn mutual aid association known as the U-lan-shing is claimed to have united the four smaller kaifongs of the Tai-ping-shan, Sai-ying-pun, Sheung-wan and Chung-wan districts. Henry J. Lethbridge, op. cit., pp. 105-106. 6 China Mail, 8 February 1866; China Mail, 22 February 1866; J.W. Norton-Kyshe, The History of the Laws and Courts of Hong Kong, (Hong Kong, Vetch and Lee Ltd., 1971, first published 1898), 2, p. 86. 7 Annual Report of the Registrar General for 1867, Blue Book 1867, p. 248, §20 - §21. 8 The Baojia or Native Chinese Peace Officers scheme, which was introduced in 1844, was discontinued by 1861. 9 Trevor Bennett and Richard Wright, Burglars on burglary: prevention and the offender, (Aldershot, Gower, 1984), pp. 50-53. 10 Minute by Cecil C. Smith, 22 December 1871: CO129/156, pp. 117-118. 11 Hongkong Government Gazette, 6 January 1872, p. 2. Henceforth HKGG. 12 Report of the Police Commission, 27 June 1872: CO129/164, p. 290 (20, §60). 13 Brenda Yeoh, Contesting Space: Power Relations and the Urban Built Environment in Colonial Singapore, (Kuala Lumpur, Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 117; Under the heading 'Asian Counter-strategies against Municipal Sanitary ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x the whole area remained a Restricted District, and closed to civilian settlement. The earliest civilian settlement in the area that we know of dates from the middle-late twelfth century. The Lam clan settled in this period at Po Kong, and, as will be discussed further below, the Chan clan settled in the Nga Tsin Wai area at about the same date. The foundation date of Ma Tau Wai is probably middle-late twelfth century as well. It is noticeable that the Salt Intendancy moved at precisely this period (1163) to Tip Fuk, in the still unsettled Mirs Bay area: it is likely that a decision to allow civil settlement around Kowloon City was coupled with a decision to keep the Restricted District in place around the Mirs Bay salt-fields, and to move the Salt Intendant's yamen into this still secure part of its old district. The most significant event in the early history of the area was the visit to Kowloon City of the Sung boy-Emperor Ching and his brother Ping (himself Emperor from the Third Moon, 1278) in 1277. The boy-Emperor and his remnant Court were being pushed down to the south by the Mongol troops, and, from the 2nd Moon in 1277 until the final destruction of their forces and the death of the Emperor Ping in the 2nd Moon, 1279, they were unable to leave the area around the mouth of the Pearl River, which was all they were able to control. During this period they stayed at Kowloon for five months (4th to 9th Moons, 1277). It is likely that the Imperial family stayed in the Salt Intendant's yamen, but a wooden "Travelling Palace" was also built for the Court. This may well have been built at the site of the later village of Yi Wong Tin, E, "Palace of the Two Kings" - this name is clearly rather suggestive (this village stood under today's Tam Kung Road, near Mok Cheung Street). Yi Wong Tin village stood just below the Sacred Hill, which was crowned by the Sung Wong Toi Rock, which has commemorated the boy-Emperor's stay here since the Ming dynasty at least. The presence of the Sung remnant Court for this period must have had major implications for the residents of the area, although it is difficult now to discover details. Many villages in the area (including Nga Tsin Wai) claim to have been founded by remnants of the Sung Court left behind when the Court moved away in late 1277, but in many cases (including Nga Tsin Wai) it can be shown that this is unlikely. One nineteenth century clan of Ma Tau Wai, indeed, the Chius, claimed ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 94 'I don't go along with that for one moment. Village people have a long tradition of believing that cosmic harmony is required for the well-being of the living and the dead...' The Author agrees with Hayes that many Chinese do take feng shui and tun fu very seriously. This includes some of the western-educated. The fact that with some ceremonies villagers are prepared to put up with inconveniences, such as not being allowed to leave their village, demonstrates this. People spend large sums of their own money on some festivals, not just money that is given to them by the Government. Feng shui can even be a source of terror: if a grave of an ancestor is flooded, for example (Waters; 1997, 106). Taking remedial action and conducting ceremonies can have a therapeutic effect on the persons involved. The fervency with which these ceremonies are carried out, as described in this paper, are also indicators of 'serious intent'. Organisers and participants frequently put themselves to a great deal of trouble and inconvenience. On a lighter note a retired, English, Hong Kong senior police officer told the Author that, in the early 1960s when he was stationed in the Ping Shan district in the north-west of the New Territories, tun fu ceremonies were more common. The belief then among the police was that as long as there was money in Government's coffers to pay for them and to let off a few firecrackers, with a bit of cash left over for villagers including paying for a lunch, then everybody was happy. 13 West Rail representatives complained, at a government meeting that the Author attended in 1998, that New Territories' villagers were not always co-operative. In the case of the tunnel at Pat Heung, work has not been held up. Compensation, it seems, can sometimes help buy co-operation. This has not always been so. For instance, as previously mentioned, in the case of the Tang clan, they closed some of their buildings along the Ping Shan Heritage Trail in retaliation because the Government needed to move an ancestral grave (Cheung; 1999, 582). Nevertheless, even if many villagers do genuinely believe in tun fu, there are, it is agreed, inconsistencies in their beliefs even if, at times, the average Chinese does not act as though everything depends on such things as the pulsation of feng shui. Chinese not infrequently say that, when a baby is born, ‘it lands on the ground, cries three times ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 257 250 square feet, to be known as the Sung Him Tong Sung Chan Wui Kei Tuk Kau Fan Cheung (#*******) near Tsung Hom [sic] Tong in D.D. [Demarcation District] No.83 of the Northern District of the New Territories of Hong Kong, 142 Another Chinese Christian cemetery was also appointed in 1931. It was known as 'Cheung Chau Chinese Christian Cemetery' and contained about 10,000 square feet. 43 In the same year, the "Tao Fung Shan Christian Cemetery' was also in use. 144 In 1932, both a cemetery and an urn cemetery were approved in the coastal market town at Tai O on Lantau Island, which was called 'The Tai O Cemetery'. The cemetery contained about 250 acres. A tiny cemetery was appointed in Stanley in 1933, which was 'to be known as New Stanley Cemetery, the piece of land containing approximately 2.5 acres, situated to the south of St. Stephen's College at Stanley.' 146 This cemetery was extended to approximately 4.26 acres five years later. 147 A government notice 148 in 1933 ordered that a certain Telegraph Hill Urn Cemetery be closed, however, no other reference examined has anything about this cemetery. In the same year, with the closure of Kowloon Cemetery No.1 (European Protestant) at Fo Pang near Ho Man Tin, a new European Protestant cemetery was authorized in Kap Shek Mi Valley in substitution for the closed cemetery. 149 The new cemetery, containing an area of about 11 acres, was to be known as 'New Kowloon Cemetery No.6'. 150 However, no further information in regard to this cemetery has been found yet, though the boundary of the cemetery is shown in a 1954 map. 151 The next new cemetery, 'Sai Kung Catholic Cemetery,' in Lot No.1697 'in D.D.221 of the Northern District of the New Territories,' was approved in 1934. In 1935 a Chinese permanent cemetery in Tsuen Wan, similar in nature to the Chinese Permanent Cemetery in Aberdeen, was set apart for 'Chinese who shall have been permanently resident in the said Colony (of Hong Kong).' 153 Again, as with the Chinese Permanent Cemetery in Aberdeen, the care and management of the new cemetery ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 80 Appendix: A Failed Scholar By the late 1950s, degree men like Mr. Lo Sheung-fu were few, but it was still possible, by enquiry in the villages, to seek out some old men who, in the language of an earlier day, were failed scholars. By great good fortune, when District Officer, South, I was able to visit one of their number in Ho Chung, one of the larger villages of the Sai Kung area. Born in 1876, old Mr. Chan Min-yue was already 86 years old. His house was still older, and its interior, blackened with soot, had like its owner seen better days. The dwelling was one of several within a large courtyard, approached from the outer village street by an entrance gate, and situated within his own clan's section of the village. Bent and shuffling in his gait, Mr. Chan was rather deaf. He could not see very well, and his voice quavered, but he responded well to my enquiries and his memory was still good. His education had been long and ultimately expensive: first, at little cost, in his own village school for seven years, then in Canton for another six or seven at a considerable annual outlay to his father. One hundred silver dollars was the figure mentioned, though this was probably an approximation intended to convey the sense of expense. Board and lodging had been required, as well as tuition fees. All in all, he had taken the prescribed examinations leading to the first degree five or six times, but always without success. His father had become reluctant to spend even more money, and the young man had to return to the village. He then went into business with a herbal and Chinese medicine firm in a market town, which (he told me) provided him with a pension when he retired. Unlike many other failed scholars, Mr. Chan had never taught school, but his proficiency in writing scrolls and couplets had been recognized and utilized in the village and neighbourhood. He carried on with his calligraphy until old age and increasing debility obliged him to stop. Men of this type were accustomed to meeting together for literary pursuits. They composed poetry and discussed its merits, held literary competitions, and wrote scrolls and couplets, replicating at the local level the more prestigious gatherings of senior officials, gentry and literati of the kind to be found in all the district and prefectural cities of China, and in the provincial capitals, like Canton. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 340 and the 1967 Riots. The former were sparked by a five-cent increase on the lower deck of the Star Ferry. Nevertheless, the root cause was largely the community's displeasure with social conditions, shortage of schools, housing, and the like. It was reported that in 1966 in the district of Tsz Wan Shan, in Kowloon, with a population then of 70,000, there was not a single telephone. The Kai Fong Association requested that at least a few public phones be installed. Soldiers marched down Nathan Road with fixed bayonets during the 1966 Riots. The protracted 1967 riots were a spill-over from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China. Firecrackers were banned from then on. The military kept in the background during the 1967 Riots because of fear that China might react. The riots badly affected community stability and, in 1968, office space in Chung King Mansions, in Tsim Sha Tsui, was advertised at 60 cents a square foot. The 1966 and 1967 riots were really a watershed. From then on, the government started to listen to the populace more. Social conditions improved, and Hong Kong started a process of de-colonisation. In 1972, government servants were instructed to use the word 'territory' rather than 'colony', other than in a historical context. The Colonial Cemetery became the Hong Kong Cemetery, and so on. A Hong Kong identity and a larger middle class began to form. It is interesting to recall that the sparks which ignited the 1956, the 1966, and the 1967 riots all occurred in Kowloon. Hong Kong Island has generally been a more peaceful place. That was why, when I came to the colony in the mid-1950s and there was talk of building a cross-harbour tunnel or a bridge, some Hong Kong Island residents expressed fear, if this happened, of being 'swamped' by 'hordes' from Kowloon. Corruption Corruption had long been a serious concern in Hong Kong, and, as the Territory became richer, the problem became more serious. When a colleague of mine said there was a price for everything, our old boss soon shut him up. That was part of the trouble. Most Europeans did not appreciate the magnitude of the problem. I recall a Chinese girl telling me, in 1955, that her grandfather had been caught by a policeman smoking opium. The old man gave the copper $20, and the whole matter was conveniently forgotten about. Squeeze affected the Chinese ================================================================================