RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d 76 GORAN AIJMER 4 If we return to the story about the two villages we find that it is concerned with two localized groups and their dependence on the natural surroundings. The mountain is a fishnet — a symbol in the set constituting the fêngshui language. The people were in a similar way classified as fishes, and a fishnet is obviously something to be avoided by fish. Now, the grammar of fêngshui is structured on the concepts of the two fundamental systems of wuxing and yinyang. Wuxing implies a correlation and classification into five categories of the features of the universe. Yinyang is a classification of the universe into binary oppositions. In the actual story we may, I think, substitute fish for water and yin — the female, passive and negative cosmic force. Fishnet may be substituted by mountain and yang — the male, active and positive force. In the locality under discussion yang influences dominated, and the people, by virtue of their shared surname affiliated with yin, had better escape a situation that was for them negative and out-of-balance. Wu lineage bad luck mountain fish yin destroying fishnet dominating ◄ yang If we turn to the content of the story, it will be recalled that the essential thing expressed is that the two populations in the villages had exchanged their abodes at one time. Yet if we scrutinize what can be reconstructed of the history of the two settlements we will find no evidence whatsoever that such an exchange has ever taken place. From a historian's point of view the story is a poor document. But the sociologist may still have something to learn by comparing its content with other data of the past. A glance in the 1911 Census Report reveals that at that time the population of Big Stream Village amounted to 173 persons and that of Plum Grove Village to 59. Already in this period it is known from other sources that the former community had several overseas members while Plum Grove Village had few, if any.5 The population actually present in Big Stream Village in 1911 was 2.9 times as large as that of Plum Grove Village. If we then turn our attention to the District Demarcation Maps, drawn soon after the British take-over in 1899, we will find that the area of arable land available around Big Stream Village was nearly the same as that ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d 78 GORAN AIJMER on Dabu Jiuxu (Tai Po Old Market), dominated by a single mighty Cantonese lineage, who tried their best to harass market visitors. This rather tedious exercise provides us with evidence enough to justify an assumption that the people of Plum Grove Village were better off than their neighbours of Big Stream Village.10 A key factor for the understanding of social change in this area is the rapid urbanization on the Kowloon Peninsula after 1875. For the villages in question this process implied a set of new choices, e.g. the use of a new, comparatively lucrative market developing at Youmadi (Yau Ma Tei). Here they came to sell firewood, and once in town they encountered new possibilities. The demand from overseas for Chinese labour had led to the establishment of labour-recruiting bureaux and agencies. The expanding shipping trade in the Hong Kong harbour offered opportunities for jobs on board transoceanic steamers. At the same time the appearance of new industrial products on the market drastically reduced traditionally complementary incomes from home industries. The men of Big Stream Village soon jumped at the new opportunities that were displayed in Kowloon. Many of them ended up in the United States, Canada, and the West Indies. Through their remittances the home community now had access to an inflow of external incomes. As time passed considerable accumulation of capital brought about changes in the economic status of the village. Before the Pacific War several large and spacious houses were constructed by a handful of very successful emigrés. Conditions had improved, although economic differentiation within the community now was more marked than in the traditional situation. The general location of the village will also have become more favourable as the Kowloon-Canton Railway and a modern road were constructed on the other side of Tide Cove in the opening years of the 20th century. The possibilities displayed in Kowloon did not have the same attraction for the people in Plum Grove Village. Land was still sufficient, the yield in normal years will have been reckoned as satisfying, and the firewood cutting, charcoal burning, and other home industries could for a long time bridge the slowly emerging gap between increasing population and static means of production. Part of the land that in 1906 belonged to outsiders seems to have been bought back by local people, but such expansion of produc- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d 80 GORAN ALMER position of their ancestral hall into which the dragon of the hill behind is 'crashing' all the time. By way of summing up, we may say that social and economic differentiation is projected on the natural surroundings. The phenomena of nature in their symbolic aspect project back the image of differentiation in the form of rational models concepts of systems of natural influences affecting man and social life. These models can be manipulated by their constructors. They also carry messages that can be communicated between individuals and between groups. NOTES 1 For a somewhat fuller description of the two villages, see Aijmer 1967. Big Stream Village (Dashuikeng) and Plum Grove Village (Meizilin) are in Hong Kong known under the Cantonese designations 'Tai Shui Hang' and 'Mui Tsz Lam'. Grass Field Village (Maoping) is 'Mau Ping'. They can be located with the help of Gazetteer 1960. Standard Chinese is given in pinyin form. Field work was financed by six Swedish funds; I gratefully acknowledge their support. Thanks are due to Mr. James Hayes, Hong Kong, and my wife for comments. 2 Freedman 1966, 118f; 1967; Baker 1965. 3 An alternative to, or perhaps rather a facet of, manipulating was fleeing. Examples of how people broke away from localities considered having bad fengshui have been given by Hayes (1963; 1967). 4 It may be of interest to point out that nets are instrumental in exorcistic ceremonies, when malevolent spirits may be caught or scared away with fishnets. I have this from a Buddhist monk whom I interviewed in Macau in 1965. 5 Census 1911, 103:27. 6 The sources classify Plum Grove land as third class land whereas Big Stream land is rated as second class. In the former place farming is done on terraced fields only. 7 In Plum Grove Village 35 houses were registered in 1906. If we compare this with the population figure of the Census of 1911, we will find that, if in use, each house unit was inhabited by 1.7 persons. This is an amazingly low figure, as we would have expected something around five or more as an average. Even if we allow for the ten men mentioned below, the figure would increase to just about two. The implication of these facts must be a reduction in population, perhaps by way of a lineage segment breaking away to settle elsewhere. In Big Stream Village 77 houses gave shelter to average families of 2.2 persons. Not even male absenteeism, discussed later, can explain this low figure to satisfaction. * Information obtained from the District Demarcation Maps and the 'New Territories Crown Leases of District No. 188' of 1906 and the 'New Territories Crown Leases of District No. 196' of the same year, to be seen at the Tai Po District Office, New Territories, Hong Kong. ================================================================================ 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-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 206 NOTES AND QUERIES the businessman's enterprise disguised as a rustic farmstead. The emergence of vegetable cultivation is a spill-over from the urban areas. What we deal with is the city's adjustment to the countryside rather than the adaptation of the rural husbandry to meet urban demands. This is not to say that rice peasants have not switched over to vegetable cultivation at all. Obviously this kind of person is not common in Sha Tin, but he occurs and there are a few native vegetable farmers in nearly every village. Still, it is a noteworthy fact that the present village gardeners did not give up their rice cultivation until they had precedent models for action in the form of immigrant garden enterprises. The example of the successful immigrant truck garden was something to be envied and reproduced, and thus a primary incentive for a new agricultural order. Paradoxically, the indigenous villagers have been able to remain in their traditional rice world by giving up rice cultivation. The main sources of change lie in the urban areas, in Hong Kong and overseas. New ideas flowing into the villages will not disrupt traditional notions concerning land, although land use may have changed in that land is rented to outsiders, abandoned or converted into building lots. The few native villagers who have engaged in horticulture did not venture the shift in land use until they had access to models in the form of outsider gardeners. I feel that the general lack of response to city needs for food in the Sha Tin valley is due to the proximity of the valley to the city, a feature which involved people directly in city life. On the other hand, we have found that city people have become involved in rural production. Thus, the change in land use in the New Territories is no simple process generated by the maximization of profits. Only our awareness of the social characteristics of the actors in the drama will allow us to gain some understanding of the complexity of the situation. University of Gothenburg, 1972. GORAN AijMER Footnote: This is an abstract from a report intended to form a chapter in a monograph on social life in the Sha Tin valley. Field work was conducted from June 1967 to February 1968, and in Summer 1969 for three months. The field work was supported by the Humanistic Foundation of Sweden. The writing of the report was carried out at the Harvard-Yenching Institute, Cambridge, Mass., with the support of Carl-Bertel Nathhorst Foundation and Stockholm University. I gratefully acknowledge the generosity of these institutions. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 54 DOUGLAS W. SPARKS TABLE VI Percentage of total Teochiu population speaking Cantonese and Hoklo in different age groups, males and females combined: Age Group Cantonese Hoklo 14 79% 18% 15-24 75% 21% 25-39 61.6% 40.54% 40-54 48.6% 32% 42.8% 55 and over 35.3% 52% Total 67% 27.6% Aijmer, L. Goran 1967 Anderson, E. 1967 Barnett, K. M. A. 1962 Barth, F. 1969 Blake, C. Fred Census & Statistics Dept., H.K. Govt. 1973 Commissioner of Census Report, H.K. Govt. 1968 Cohen, Myron 1968 BIBLIOGRAPHY "Expansion and Extension in Hakka Society” JHKBRAS, 7, 1967, pp. 42-79. ++ "Prejudice & ethnic stereotypes in Rural H.K.” Kroeber Anthropological Society Papers 37, pp. 90-107. Report on the 1961 Census. H.K.: Government Printer Ethnic Groups & Boundaries. Boston: Little, Brown, "Ethnolingustic Affiliation and Political Participation in the develop of a Chinese market town: Sai Kung in New Territories" Canton Delta Seminar Conference Paper, presented at Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong, April 28, 1973. Mimeograph. Negotiating Ethnolinguistic Symbols in a Chinese Market Town. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 1975. Hong Kong Population Housing Census, 1971 Main Report. Hong Kong: Government Printer. Report on the 1966 By-Census. Hong Kong: Government Printer. "The Hakka or 'Guest People': Dialect as a sociocultural variable in South East China". Ethnohistory, vol. 15, No. 3, 237-92. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 PERSISTENCE & PRESERVATION OF HAKKA CULTURE B. ENGLISH 51 Aijmer, G. 1967 "Expansion and Extension in Hakka Society." Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. 7:42-79. Anderson, R. T. 1971 "Voluntary Association in History." American Anthropologist, 73(1): 209-222. Banton, M. ++ 1968 "Voluntary Associations: Anthropological Aspects." In D. L. Sills, (ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. 16, pp.358-379. New York: Macmillan. Ch'en, T. 1939 Emigrant Communities in South China. Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh. Coser, L. A. 1956 The Functions of Social Conflict. Illinois: The Free Press of Glencoe. Davis, S. G. 1962 "The Rural-Urban Migration in Hong Kong and Its New Territories." Geographical Journal, 128(3): 328-333. Fallers, L. A. (ed.) 1967 Immigrant and Associations. The Hague: Mouton. Foster, G. M. et al (eds). 1978 Long-Term Field Research in Social Anthropology, Studies in Social Anthropology. New York: Academic Press. Freedman, M. ++ 1960 "Immigrations and Associations: Chinese in Nineteenth Century Singapore." Comparative Studies in Society and History, 3(1):25-49. 1961 "Overseas Chinese Association: A Comment." Comparative Studies in Society and History, 3(3):478-480. 1963 "A Chinese Phase in Social Anthropology." The British Journal of Sociology, 14(1), Gamble, S. D. 1929 Peking: A Social Survey. New York: George H. Doran. Hayes, J. 1977 The Hong Kong Region 1850-1911. Institutions and Leadership in Town and Countryside. Hamden, Conn., Archon-Dawson. Heidhues, M. F. S. 1974 Southeast Asia's Chinese Minorities. Hawthorn, Australia: Longman. Hodder, H. W. 1953 "Racial Groupings in Singapore." Malayan Journal of Tropical Geography 1:25-36. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 110 Bibliography Theses, Books and Journals, and Papers and Articles in Books and Journals Aimer, Goran, 'Being Caught by a Fishnet, On Fengshui in Southeastern China', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 8, 1968 Baker, Hugh, 'Burial, Geomancy and Ancestor Worship', Aspects of Social Organization in the New Territories, Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch, week-end symposium, 1964. 'Geomancer'. Ancestral Images, A Hong Kong Album, South China Morning Post, 1979 'Grave', More Ancestral Images, A Second Hong Kong Album, South China Morning Post, 1980 'Red', Ancestral Images Again, South China Morning Post, 1981 Ball, J Dyer, Things Chinese, Graham Brash, 1989 (first published 1903). Bard, Solomon, In Search of the Past: A Guide to the Antiquities of Hong Kong, the Urban Council Hong Kong, 1988 Block, Alex Ben, The Legend of Bruce Lee, Dell Publishing Co, 1974. Bloomfield, Frena, The Occult World of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Publishing Company Ltd, 1980 Burkhardt, V.R., Chinese Creeds and Customs, South China Morning Post Ltd., 1982 Chatwin, Bruce, The Songlines, Picador, 1987 Chinese Landscapes: The Village as a Place, University of Hawaii Press (c. 1992) Cumine, Eric, Hong Kong Ways and Byways, Belongers' Publications Ltd, 1981 Dudgeon, David and Richard Corlett, Hills and Streams, An Ecology of Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press, 1994 Edwards, W.H., An Introduction to Aboriginal Societies, 4 April 1990 ================================================================================ 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 ================================================================================