RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n
“LITTLE FUJIAN (FUKIEN)”

119

North Point to explore that other aspect of the "ethnic neighborhood": the sense of community.

Little Fujian as Community: Organized Ethnicity

Formal associations are not a major aspect of Fujianese ethnicity in Hong Kong; few Fujianese belong to traditional clan or district organizations in Hong Kong. Considering the extensive literature on the importance of such organizations on Chinese social life at home and abroad (Amyot 1973; McBeath 1973; Freedman 1958; Li 1970; Skinner 1958) this phenomenon is surprising. Yet a careful consideration of Little Fujian's demographic profile would cause us to be severely shocked if such organizations did exist in Hong Kong in full flower, for the bulk of Little Fujian's population has always consisted of women and their children. With the wealthiest, most prestigious and greatest numbers of adult-aged men residing not in Hong Kong but the Philippines and elsewhere where such organizations do indeed exist in the proper forms,* few Fujianese think it necessary to establish Hong Kong branches of these male-dominated structures in the essentially "domestic" community of Little Fujian.

Other organizations, moreover, do meet the needs of Little Fujian, both as a local community and as the hub of Fujian-Nanyang connections. The two most important such organizations, the Fujian Province Association and the Fujian Commercial Association, cater to the two-tiered demands of Fujianese in Hong Kong and abroad and are by nature more universalist in appeal and function than clan and district associations. Politically aligned with the People's Republic, these "patriotic" associations also serve as a sort of semi-official "Liaison Office” or “Consulate" to link the Overseas Fujianese of Hong Kong and the Nanyang to the home province.

The most widely known Fujianese organization, the Fujian Province Association, was originally located in Hong Kong's first Fujianese sub-neighborhood, Sai Ying Poon. The Association, however, followed the Fujianese move to North Point in the early 1960s and has since become the public focus of Fujianese organized

* For instance, the Hon. Editor of this Journal has informed me of a special publication commemorating the 60th anniversary (1901-1961) of the Fuchow association of Sibu, Sarawak (#**#£#*+0+K&#).

Page 135

Page 136
================================================================================
RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n
120

GREGORY E. GULDIN

ethnicity in North Point. Primarily concerned with community and social welfare projects, the Association sponsors performances of Fujianese provincial operas, folk dances and songs; organizes film showings and outings to the countryside, operates health clinics, a Guangdongese language program and a Fujianese discount grocery; and arranges for inexpensive trips back home to Fujian (Zheng Yi 1974:2-4).

With all these services and activities the Fujian Province Association is a genuinely popular and community-wide organization among North Point's Fujianese. All Fujianese are familiar with at least some of its services and activities whether or not they have ever personally visited its offices or benefited from its services. They know that the Association is there to help Fujianese, and especially Southern Fujianese, with the problems of housing, jobs, travel to Fujian and access to Fujianese products. With its 3000 active members (2.3% of the 1975 Fujianese Hong Kong population) the Association serves as the main organizational terminal through which many of little Fujian's ethnic and social currents are strengthened and channeled.

Although not physically located in North Point, but in the old Sheung Wan district of Fujianese and other trading corporations, the Fujian Commercial Association has exerted a guiding force in the Fujianese community's development. In addition to facilitating PRC trade with the Overseas Fujianese of Southeast Asia and Hong Kong, the Association has acted as the unofficial coordinator of the other pro-PRC Fujianese organizations in Hong Kong.11 Composed of the wealthy, influential and active members of an already unusually depleted older male population, the Commercial Association is usually the prime mover in the few community activities that do occur.

One such activity, and one in which the Commercial Association's role is most conspicuous, is in the organization and direction of the annual "All-Fujianese National Day Banquet." Although the Fujian Province Association, the Fujian Middle School and the Fujianese Physical Education Association all co-sponsor this "patriotic" affair, it is the Commercial Association that foots the bill for the evening and which handles all questions of etiquette and policy. If anything in Hong Kong comes close to being a "center of Fujianese power," the Commercial Association does, diffuse and
================================================================================
RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n
"LITTLE FUJIAN (Fukien)"

121

indirect though that power may be. In general, though, and especially when compared to other Chinese "overseas" communities, neither the Commercial nor the Province Association dominates the Fujianese community.

Little Fujian as Community: The Social Networks

Ethnicity and community are also expressed in less formally structured ways than associations and organizations. Informal patterns of economic, religious and social behavior have arisen and guide life in Little Fujian to a significant degree. Of these three areas perhaps it is the economic and business aspects of Little Fujian that are most visible to outsiders, more visible because they are public.

In the retail "Fujianese markets" of Chun Yeung and Mercury Streets, Little Fujian as a sub-neighborhood intersects with Little Fujian as social community. Each market street is located along an artery of the Fujianese sub-neighborhood and caters to Fujianese tastes in everything from food to jewellery to clothes. Non-Fujianese (Guangdongese, Chau Zhou and/or Shanghaiese) markets adjoin these Fujianese business areas but are socially as well as physically distinct; most Fujianese women prefer to shop on Chun Yeung or Mercury Street where they can be sure of finding people who sell Fujianese specialties prepared in the right manner and who will bargain with them in a familiar tongue. To younger Fujianese, though, language is not so great a barrier and they will often just as comfortably shop on the adjoining but “Fujianese-less” markets of Marble Road or elsewhere in search of a bargain. Yet even for these frugal shoppers the buying habits of childhood and the chance to meet Fujianese friends pulls them repeatedly back to Chun Yeung and Mercury Streets to buy things Fujianese style.

As with business, so too has religion developed along ethnic lines in North Point.12 Twenty years ago there were no specifically Fujianese Buddhist temples in North Point and early arrivals frequented the one convenient temple in the area: the predominantly Guangdongese Yuet Fei temple on Electric Road.* During the first decade of Fujianese settlement in North Point the percentage

* The origins of this temple are given in a Hong Kong Government file (Secretariat for Chinese Affairs 1/631/1948) which contains a minute dated 3rd April 1948 by the then Secretary for Chinese Affairs, Mr. R. R. Todd:
================================================================================
RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n
126

GREGORY E. GULDIN

for community organizations, both formal and informal, to develop to promote and protect the community's interests. Although this may very well occur at times, or even perhaps is the usual occurrence, we should not therefore make the assumption that a shared sense of solidarity, of community, is always dependent on formal organization; indeed, what is striking about North Point's Little Fujian is the generally minor role that formal institutions and organizations play. Associations are not the major aspect of Fujianese community in Hong Kong: kin, quasi-kin (i.e. “tong-xiang” and fictive kin relations), and friendship ties also carry the burdens of ethnicity and community in Little Fujian.

In great contrast to North Point's majority Guangdongese who regard the area as "nothing special — it's just a convenient place to live," Fujianese are quick to tell you they live in North Point "because it's Little Fujian." Fujianese regard North Point as their "capital" in Hong Kong and it is through Little Fujian that most business and friendship networks meander. While most Fujianese admit that North Point is "most likely" predominantly Guangdongese, this does not stop Fujianese from all but ignoring that majority proportion; to those Fujianese living in North Point, it's in Little Fujian that much of their lives are spent and not “North Point” in general.

Little Fujian as a sub-neighborhood could be said to physically exist in the narrow band of streets, shops and buildings in North Point that are peopled and frequented by high percentages of Fujianese. Equally significant though, it exists as a community in those specifically Fujianese social relationships or patterns of activities that appear like currents in the ebb and flow of North Point life. Sub-neighborhood and community may overlap, but they don't have to. Little Fujian can thus be found in the offices of the Fujian Province Association, in the homes of Fujianese, in the Chun Yeung Market, between two Fujianese friends on King's Road, or in the many other public and semi-public Fujianese and non-Fujianese places of North Point,

When sub-neighborhood and community do overlap, however, it is a powerful combination. To North Point's Fujianese it is often seemingly small things like walking down a “Fujianese” street with friends from the home county and hearing a Southern Fujianese folk song broadcast from a Fujianese shop that makes life in Hong
================================================================================
RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n
McBeath, Gerald A.

“LITTLE FUJIAN (FUKIEN)”

129

1973 Political Integration of the Philippine Chinese. Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies. Research Monograph No. 8. Berkeley, Calif.

Neville, W. H.

1962 Treacherous River. Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press.

Skinner, William G.

1958 Leadership and Power in the Chinese Community of Thailand,

New York: Cornell University Press.

Southall, Aidan W.

1973 "Density of Role-Relationships as a Universal Index of Urbanization.” In A. Southall, (ed.), Urban Anthropology. Pp. 71-106. New York: Oxford University Press.

Wai Bik-Ho

1957 The North Point District. Unpublished B.A. Thesis, Department

of Geography, Hong Kong University: Hong Kong.

Zheng Yi Qing

1974 Celebrate the 35th Anniversary of the Association. Fujian Province Association Special 35th Anniversary Journal. Hong Kong. (in Chinese)
================================================================================