RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 42 EXPANSION AND EXTENSION IN HAKKA SOCIETY GÖRAN AIJMER* Introduction The following pages are devoted to a broad outline of economic and social change in a remote valley in a mountainous part of the New Territories, Hong Kong.1 The valley has its mouth on the east side of Tide Cove, and stretches about two miles in a southeasterly direction between the Ma On Shan and Turret Hill areas. The valley is fairly well-watered and there is a main stream at the bottom, which has plenty of water even during the dry autumn and winter months. Several small streams run down the steep surrounding mountain sides. This valley was once well-forested but little of this remains. Some groves of old trees can still be seen around the villages, and in the uppermost area, there are still patches of dense forest. The hillsides are now mainly covered with shrubs, and where not, on the upper slopes, there is poor grassland. The former woodlands of the valley were dwelling places for small barking deer and wild boars, but the animals have disappeared with the trees. Three settlements of Hakka-speaking people are to be found here. Together they consist of some 320 persons. There are no recent immigrants from China. Each settlement is inhabited by a patrilineal kin group with one common surname. One of these localities is a composite village situated at the mouth of the valley, where formerly two big streams jointly had their outlet into Tide Cove. The name of this place, Big Stream Village (Tai Shui Hang), is derived from one of these that comes down the northeastern hillside above the village and separates it into two parts. It is nowadays emptied of its water, which is led away for the use of the mining sites at Ma On Shan. There is a comparatively large area of flat land here, well suited for agriculture. However, during high tide, salt water soaks the lower areas and also runs up the mid-valley stream. * Dr. Aijmer is Assistant Professor in the Department of Ethnography and Social Anthropology at the University of Stockholm. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d 74 BEING CAUGHT BY A FISHNET ON FENGSHUI IN SOUTHEASTERN CHINA GÖRAN AIJMER Big Stream Village is situated on the east shore of Tide Cove in Hong Kong's New Territories. It is a Hakka-speaking settlement exclusively inhabited by people of the surname of Zhang (*) all members of one major lineage. In 1964 there were 146 persons in the village and 33 members of the community working elsewhere. Big Stream Village is located at the mouth of a mountain valley. About one mile and a half further up this valley the small Plum Grove Village is picturesquely situated on the lower slopes of a cone-shaped mountain. It is inhabited by a localized major lineage of the surname of Wu (吳). In 1964 their number was 74 but over 20 members were then away.1 I was told a story about these two villages. Formerly, the story has it, the people of Plum Grove Village were living on the spot now occupied by the Zhang; and the Zhang were living where the Wu are now. Because of influences emanating from the natural surroundings the Wu were not too happy about their location at the mouth of the valley. It is said that the Zhang people pointed out to the Wu that the mountain on the other side of the fields in front of the village was a fishnet. This fact, it was pronounced, had a very special effect on the settlers there. The local Hakka pronunciation of Wu, their shared surname, is Ng. But ng in Hakka also means 'fish', and the Zhang assured the settlers at the mouth of the valley that they were, for certain, in the process of being caught by the net. The Wu seem to have agreed with this suggestion, and the result was that both communities exchanged their locations for their present-day situations. This story may need some comments. It deals with influences emanating from the natural surroundings, a believed-in order that in Chinese is designated fengshui – ‘wind — water'. It implies an aspect of ecological adjustment in that it is concerned with natural * Standard Chinese is given in pinyin form. Dr. Aijmer, whose article "Expansion and Extension in Hakka Society" appeared in Vol. VII of the Journal, is Assistant Professor in the University of Stockholm. ================================================================================ 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 59 part of further studies of militia, both within Kwangtung Province and elsewhere in China. It is possible that the approach to militia used in this article could be applied to other, more significant, military organizations as they existed in nineteenth century China. For example, recent studies of the regional armies of Tseng Kuo-fan and Li Hung-chang indicate that they were, initially, amalgamations of local militia forces.78 A more detailed analysis of these militia could contribute to a greater understanding of the particularistic relationships which appear to have been important in maintaining regional armies as viable organizations over relatively long periods of time. NOTES This article is based upon research in Hong Kong between 1963 and 1965. I am grateful for the financial support provided by the London-Cornell Project for East and South-East Asian Studies. A number of colleagues have commented upon the subject matter of the article during its various stages of preparation. I would particularly like to thank the following for their advice: Dr. Christopher Turner, Dr. George C. Bond, Mr. James Hayes, Professor Maurice Freedman, and Professor Göran Aijmer. A draft of the paper was read to the Sociology Seminar, School of Social Studies, University of East Anglia. I am grateful to my colleagues in this context for their comments. Place names will be rendered according to A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon, and the New Territories, Hong Kong Government Printer, Hong Kong, n.d., but published 1960. 2 Brine, Lindesay. The Taeping Rebellion in China: A Narrative of its Rise and Progress. London, 1862, pp. 11-12. 3 Krone, [R]. “A Notice of the Sanon District", Article V, Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, pt. VI, Hong Kong, 1859, p. 71. 4 Freedman, Maurice. Chinese Lineage and Society: Fukien and Kwangtung. London, 1966, p. 115. 5 The Governor of Hong Kong, commenting upon robbery and piracy during the year 1903, said: "they are the most common offences in the Southern provinces ... the Provincial Authorities do not attempt to deal with such cases until some village is reported as being specially notorious as harbouring robbers, when, if the authorities do not consider them too strong, a force is sent out and as many as possible arrested or the village destroyed." Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, 1903, Hong Kong, 1904, pp. 348 ff. Freedman, op. cit., p. 112, quotes an account of such an expedition which took place in "about 1870" and resulted in the beheading of more than a thousand people. 6 Hsiao Kung-chuan, Rural China, Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century, Seattle, 1960, p. 503. 7 For a detailed account of these events, see: Wakeman, Jr., Frederic, Strangers at the Gate: Social Disorder in South China, 1839-1861. Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1966. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 113 THE CHINESE DESCENT SYSTEM AND THE OCCUPANCY LEVEL OF VILLAGE HOUSES H. G. H. NELSON* Dr. Göran Aijmer, in an article in the last issue of this Journal, touches on the problem of the occupancy level of Chinese village houses at the time when the British took over the New Territories. Discussing the relative wealth of two neighbouring communities in 1905, he assumes (footnote 10) that "at one time all house-units were inhabited by one household each ....”, and expresses surprise that his calculations reveal an average of only 1.7 and 2.2 persons per house instead of the five or so that he would have expected (footnote 7). He suggests that there must have been a drastic reduction in the population to produce such a low level of occupancy. I believe, however, that his figures reveal a perfectly normal situation, which does not need to be explained in terms of large-scale out-migration. The purpose of this article is to point out certain features of Chinese social structure, and of the physical nature of New Territories villages, which make inevitable such low ratios of people to houses. At the same time, Aijmer has indirectly raised the much more fundamental issue of the relation between the kinship structure of the Chinese and their domestic architecture. I shall touch briefly on the problem of understanding what is meant by the term 'village house' in the context of Hong Kong, and hope to give further consideration elsewhere to the light thrown on the Chinese understanding of family development by the way they build and distribute their house-property. It should be pointed out here, however, that the local pattern of building single domestic units in terraced rows finds few, if any, parallels in other parts of China. In Taiwan, for example, the dominant pattern in rural domestic architecture is that of the L or U shaped homestead. Village Houses: The Problem of Definition What, then, is a village house? I myself recently came up against the problem of deciding just what is meant by the term * Mr. Howard Nelson of the London School of Economics was engaged on social research in the New Territories in 1967-68. His review article of Jack Potter's recent book Capitalism and the Chinese Peasant; Social and Economic Change in a Chinese Village (University of California Press, 1968) appeared at pp. 119-127 of last year's Journal. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 158 NOTES AND QUERIES they were moving further away from the seashore where their boats and fishing equipment were stored on the beach when not in use. In short, these and other removals of entire village communities in the area during the first three decades of this century should be seen as a triumph of mind over matter, demonstrating the strength of traditional beliefs at that time. Hong Kong, 1968. JAMES HAYES THE OCCUPANCY LEVEL OF VILLAGE HOUSES IN THE HONG KONG REGION In note 7 to his article "Being Caught by a Fishnet: on Fung Shui in South-eastern China ”(JHKBRAS Vol. 8, 1968, pp. 74-81) Dr. Aijmer, quoting averages of 1.7 and 2.2 persons per house-unit in two Hakka villages in Tide Cove in 1911 speaks of this "amazingly low figure" and expects "something around five or more as an average". In doing so, he has touched upon an interesting subject: the occupancy level of village houses in the Hong Kong region in the early 20th century. Elsewhere in this number (pp. 113-123) Mr. Howard Nelson takes up this subject and explains that a low level of occupancy of persons per 'house' is not unusual but normal, and that occupancy should be seen rather in terms of the number of 'houses' per household than the number of persons per 'house'. His definition of 'house' is given at pp. 113-115. During my discussions and investigations in New Territories and Kowloon villages over a number of years I have collected descriptive material from various informants that relates to this interesting topic. What follows is taken from my notes. The term 'house' is used in the sense used by Nelson i.e. a one-roomed dwelling with kitchen in front. First, let me quote a general statement of the occupation position. This is dated 1936 and occurs in a written representation to Government which came from the former Tsuen Wan villages of the New Territories: Most of the houses of the inhabitants of the New Territories are for owners' occupation. Some of these houses were left by ancestors, so even though he is of ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 160 NOTES AND QUERIES At the two villages of Old and New Heung Kong Wai near Aberdeen a group of villagers had to come before a Squatter Board in 1893 to help determine and register legitimate holdings. From the information then recorded, and happily preserved, the following facts emerge: (a) the New Village was built entirely by inhabitants of the Old Village; (b) two of the houses in the New Village were built 1860-70 and some earlier, some later; (c) many families owned houses in each village; (d) many families owned 2 or 3 houses; (e) none of the cultivated land in the valley was (1893) owned by outsiders. Elsewhere on the island I obtained and wrote down the following account of house occupation in the small Hakka village of Tai Tam Tuk for the period before this village was removed to make way for a reservoir in 1914: Some of the houses were in a ruinous condition in 1914, which is usually the case in the smaller and poorer villages in South China where frequent typhoons and heavy rains combine to shorten the life of these simply-constructed dwellings. Perhaps in consequence, most families in the village had several houses. For instance, one of my informants, her husband, his parents and his younger unmarried brother shared three houses and one shed, but ate together as one household. These examples seem to bear out Mr. Nelson's reinterpretation of Dr. Aijmer's figures i.e. that at that time (1911) there were about 35 households in Big Stream Village, owning on average 2.2 houses each; and that Plum Grove contained 12 households with 3 houses each.* Hong Kong 1969, JAMES HAYES * Since writing the above I also recall a case at Law Uk, Pui O where, speaking of her early married life there well before 1900, a very old village woman said theirs was "a three table household" with something over 20 persons eating together. It was also a multi-house one. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 168 BOOK REVIEWS tributed to the resolution of an outstanding problem of understanding by presenting this detailed analysis. This could now lead very profitably to a systematic analysis of the informal social system of Chinese lineage villages which operates this formal structure. Baker himself provides some hints that the formal organization and its informal operation are by no means identical. Other studies of formal organization would of course support this contention." The next step would be to identify the methods by which villagers adapt their formal organization to the demands of everyday life. In short, what Baker has done is open up a whole new series of problems which he himself (quite properly) has not talked to. His work is most promising because it is problem-oriented and is not, in itself, an end point of investigation. It is more or less a stopping-off point on the road to a better understanding of the Chinese village (as dangerous as that concept might be) and as a consequence is far more fruitful than the standard ethnographic works which describe individual Chinese villages. These works, of course, are valuable in that they provide interesting data about human behavior and social organization. But they lose part of their value in that they tend to be final and complete products, leading not to further research but at best to use as a base for comparative studies. Much of the recent work in Hong Kong villages has been of this problem-oriented type and some fruitful comparisons can be made. Bracey in her study of a poor Hakka village focuses on the problem of the migration of laborers out of the village and the impact that this has on village social structure.10 It would be highly profitable to reexamine Dr. Bracey's data to find out what can be said about lineage organization in a situation where enough men are not available to fulfill the necessary ritual and social functions, and try to compare lineage organization as it actually operates in a poor Hakka village with the "ideal structure" which Baker had described.* The potential usefulness to the social science... 9 Part of Baker's problem in effectively introducing behavioral data is his insufficient differentiation between formal and informal organization, between ideal patterns of organization and the informal arrangements which, in fact, allow formal structures to function in the daily routines of life. 10 Dorothy H. Bracey, The Effects of Migration on a Hakka Village. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation: Harvard University Library, 1967. * See also Göran Aijmer's article “Expansion and Extension in Hakka Society" in JHKBRAS, Vol. 7 (1967), between pp. 42-79, Ed. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h CONTENTS PRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR 1971 · HON. TREASURER's ReporT FOR 1971 - THE LIBRARY, 1971 - - TRANSACTIONS OF THE BRANCH Chinese Medicine and its Contribution to Modern Medical Science (A Lecture given on 16th November, 1971) DR. F. I. TSEUNG - Some Nineteenth Century Water Colours of Canton and the Far East (A Lecture given on 15th December, 1971) P. H. COLLIN - Raja James Brooke and Sarawak: An Anomaly in the 19th Century British Colonial Scene (A Lecture given on 18th January 1972) -DR. L. R. WRIGHT ARTICLES: The Establishment of the Tsungli Yamen: A Translation of the Memorial and Edict of 1861 — J. L. CRANMER-BYNG Sir James Haldane Stewart Lockhart: Colonial Civil Servant and Scholar- HENRY JAMES LETHBRIDGE A Historical Review of Housing Conditions in Hong Kong DR. E. G. PRYOR Traditional Chinese Regional Architecture: Chinese Houses LINDA F. SULLIVAN · - Page 1 6 9 12 20 29 41 - - 55 89 130 The Origins of Hong Kong's Central Market and the Tarrant Affair Dafydd Emrys Evans Archaeology in Hong Kong and South China (1938) — W. SCHOFIELD ― Three Chinese Deities: Variations on a Theme KEITH STEVENS NOTES AND QUERIES - Who Hoisted the Union Jack? DR. J. R. JONES China's Earliest Printing—a Note a Note L. CARRINGTON GOODRICH - - Unusual Trees in Hong Kong: the Canton Water Pine SHEN DZE-CHIA A Note on Agricultural Change in Hong Kong AIJMER - Letting Go the Wooden Goose JAMES HAYES 150 - · 161 169 196 - 197 - 198 GORAN - 201 207 - 207 - 213 Programme Notes for the Visit to Pokfulam, Hong Kong Island, 29th July, 1972 - JAMES HAYES - BOOK REVIEWS - ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 90 ELIZABETH L. JOHNSON loom does not appear to have been part of the inventory of Han Chinese material culture, this leads one to speculate that the Hakka may have learned the technique through contact with pre-Han people in the hill areas of Kwangtung where they settled. This is, at least, one possible explanation for their use of this technique. NOTES 1 The research reported here was done in Kwan Mun Hau Village, Tsuen Wan, during 1975-76, following my dissertation research which was done in the same village in 1968-70. The work was supported by the Joint Centre on Modern East Asia, at York University in Toronto. 2 Recent research reports on Tsuen Wan include: Graham E. Johnson, "Leaders and Leadership in an Expanding New Territories Town", The China Quarterly, March 1977, pp. 109-125. Elizabeth L. Johnson, "Women and Childbearing in Kwan Mun Hau Village", in Women in Chinese Society, Margery Wolf and Roxane Witke, eds., Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1975. An exhibit of patterned bands, and Szechwan peasant embroideries, was held at the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology from April 15-June 15 of this year, with the title "Chinese Peasant Textile Arts: Kwangtung and Szechwan Provinces". The exhibit was prepared by the students of Anthropology 431. 3 I wish to express my gratitude to my informants in Kwan Mun Hau Village, who not only introduced me to the subject of patterned bands but were also very patient in supplying me with information about them. I should also like to thank my very able research assistant, Jennifer Woon Chi-yee. 4 Dr. James Hayes has raised the interesting question of whether the bands used on these occasions would be woven in the colour and style of the wife's or the husband's village or would always be red (a lucky colour). Unfortunately I cannot answer this question without further research. 5 Some of the mountain songs were learned while others were sung in a kind of spontaneous repartee between two groups, often of men and women. The form of the wedding and funeral songs was learned, but the content varied according to the feelings which the individual singer wished to express. 6 See: James Hayes, "Itinerant Hakka Weavers", Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch. Vol. 8, 1968, pp. 162-165. Aijmer, in his article "Expansion and Extension in Hakka Society” (Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, Vol. 7, 1967, pp. 42-79 (p.48)) mentions home weaving of fabrics, but this was apparently not done in Tsuen Wan, at least in recent memory. 7 For a general study of this phenomenon, see Aijmer, op. cit. 8 G. W. Skinner states that this was also true of Szechwan peasant embroideries. G. William Skinner, "Marketing and Social Structure in Rural China, Part I" The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. xxiv, no. 1, November 1964, pp. 3-44 (p.40) Page 105 Page 106 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g Göran Aijmer, is Professor Emeritus of Social Anthropology at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and is currently associated with the Gothenburg Research Institute of the University. His research focuses on symbolic expression and articulation in fields such as politics, economy and religion. His regional projects have concerned southern China, Southeast Asia and Melanesia. He has worked in many universities, more recently in the Research School of Asian and Pacific Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris, and the Sainsbury Research Unit, University of East Anglia, Norwich. His recent monographs are Ritual Dramas in the Duke of York Islands: Cantonese Society in a Time of Change (with Virgil K.Y. Ho) and New Year Celebrations in Central China in Late Imperial Times. Together with Jon Abbink, he has also edited Meanings of Violence (goran.aijmer@newyork.com). Sir David Akers-Jones, K.B.E., C.M.G., J.P., was a founding member of the reconstituted HKBRAS in 1960 and a former Chief Secretary of the Hong Kong Government. He is a noted sinophile (akersjon@pacific.net.hk). A.C. Bromfield, is an active member of HKBRAS. Chiu Hang Shi, is an active member of HKBRAS. Richard Garrett, M.A.(Cantab), C.Eng., F.I.C.E., F.I.Struct.E., F.H.K.I.E., is a director of an international firm of consulting engineers and has lived in Hong Kong since 1973. He has been a collector of antique arms and a member of the Arms and Armour Society of the U.K. for over 30 years. He has published a number of articles on the subject of early firearms. Valery Garrett, B.A., Post Grad. Dip. Des., is a Hon. Research Fellow at the Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong, and the author of six books on traditional Chinese clothing. She is a Council Member of the Royal Asiatic Society (vgarrett@hkucc.hku.hk). César Guillén-Nuñez, M.Phil., is a specialist in colonial Spanish and Portuguese art. He has degrees in the History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art, the University of Pennsylvania and University College, London. He is presently a research fellow at the Macau Ricci Institute (cgnunes@yahoo.com). Fr. Dr. Louis Ha, Ph.D., is the Archivist of the Catholic Diocesan archives and Chairman of the Hong Kong Archives Society. His Ph.D. was entitled The Foundation of the Catholic Mission in HK 1841-1894. Peter Halliday, M.A., Ph.D., is a former assistant commissioner of the Hong Kong xi ================================================================================