RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d CHINESE DESCENT SYSTEM 121 of the two should in fact have proportionately more empty houses than its poorer neighbour22; it is not impossible that the sort of inefficiencies in the descent system that I have described whereby the swelling of a descent line in one generation may leave the next with more house-property than it needs or can redistribute — may account for this anomaly.* H. G. H. NELSON. NOTES 1. Göran Aijmer, "Being Caught by a Fishnet: On Fengshui in South-eastern China", J.H.K.B.R.A.S., Vol. 8, 1968, pp. 74-81. 2. Field data drawn on in this paper are derived from a period of work in Sheung Tsuen, Pat Heung, from June 1967 to October 1968. I was employed as a Research Officer of the London School of Economics, on a project financed by a grant made to Professor Maurice Freedman by the Social Science Research Council. Much of the information from the Hong Kong Government's land records was collected by my wife, whose fare to Hong Kong was provided by the London-Cornell Project for East and South-East Asian Studies, financed jointly by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Nuffield Foundation. I am very glad to acknowledge their generosity. 3. See for example J. E. Spenser, "The Houses of the Chinese", Geographical Review, Vol. XXXVII, 1947, pp. 254-273. 4. Cf. J. W. Hayes, ‘A Chinese Village on Hong Kong Island Fifty Years Ago Tai Tam Tuk, Village Under the Water', in I.C. Jarvie and Joseph Agassi, eds., Hong Kong: A Society in Transition, London, 1969, p. 33. 5. Block Crown Lease, Demarcation Districts Nos. 112 and 114, 1905; various Memorials in Yuen Long District Office; and ‘A-Roll' volume X.14. I am most grateful to the New Territories Administration for their courtesy in allowing me access to the invaluable information contained in their Land Records. 6. The current records conceal the difference between inhabited structures and "house-lots' (Crown Rent being assessed on the site rather than the structure) - a difference of which the villagers are aware. Many of them, when asked how many houses they own, will say, "so many houses and so many lots "(uk-tel_£)". It seems to me possible that some villagers may, in 1905, have been far-sighted ---or fortunate enough to register both their houses and their ruined lots, thereby avoiding the expense and complication of obtaining a New Grant Lot when they wanted to rebuild on an old site. * Groups of houses, bigger and more durable than usual, have also been built as a form of long-term investment (and prestige expenditure) by particularly wealthy men; but their hopes of producing enough sons and grandsons to justify this deliberate over-production of houses are often sadly unfulfilled. * On the subject of this article see also Mr. Hayes' note at pp. 158-160. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 174 BOOK REVIEWS tive or sub-administrative area?" So far as the Kowloon school was concerned it served the rural areas immediately east, west, north of and round Kowloon, whose principal villages were linked in yeuk (yueh) (#5) or 'compacts” — though whether the latter were self-organised or instituted by Government is still unknown to me. These villages used Kowloon as a market centre though there were small local markets in some of the yeuk. Together these yeuk do not appear to have constituted either an administrative or sub-administrative area of the county (1) save in the sense that the Kowloon sub-magistrate utilised their existence as a medium of contact and, no doubt, control. Again, whether they had any tuan lien is unknown - though village tradition at Nga Tsin Wai just in front of the Kowloon Walled City has it that, assisted by the Tin Hau goddess from the village temple, whose image glistened with her supreme effort, the villagers 'saved' the City from the Red Turban rebels in the 1850s and their leading elder was given a kung ming (1) by Government in recognition of their part in the defence. In short, the detailed picture remains unfilled but we stand greatly in Mr. Wakeman's debt for having set the scene in such a stimulating and authoritative manner. Hong Kong, 1969, JAMES HAYES HONG KONG: A SOCIETY IN TRANSITION. CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE STUDY OF HONG KONG SOCIETY, ed. I. C. Jarvie, in consultation with Joseph Agassi, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1969, pp xxix, 378, illustrated. A symposium such as this might be approached from one of two angles: its theme could be either an exploration of the conflicts within Hong Kong society, or a comparison between the problems of Hong Kong and those of other areas in a similar situation of rapid and profound change. None of the papers in this volume attempts the latter; and those which attempt the former are noticeably more stimulating and more valuable than those which attempt neither. Hong Kong is a place in which a number of almost totally disparate groups, their interests sometimes diametrically opposed (e.g. the indigenous people and the immigrants in the New Territories), coexist in an exceedingly small compass: an opportunity to survey the relationships, often Page 180 Page 181 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 HONG KONG CADETS, 1862-1941 H. J. LETHBRIDGE* The British Civil Service contains administrative, executive and clerical classes. The administrative class in Britain and the colonies was an elite generally recruited directly from the universities. The term 'cadet officer' denotes the administrative grade of officer in the Hong Kong Government Service in the period under review. It remained in official use for almost a century, until 1960. Altogether 85 cadets were appointed in the period 1862-1941. 9 died in office, 12 transferred or were seconded, and four resigned or retired on medical grounds. Three became governors of Hong Kong - Sir Francis Henry May (1912-18), Sir Cecil Clementi (1925-30), and Sir Alexander Grantham (1947-1957); and five became Governors or High Commissioners of other territories - Sir Cecil Clementi Smith (Straits Settlements), Sir James Haldane Stewart Lockhart (Weihaiwei), Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston (Weihaiwei), Sir George Murchison Fletcher (Fiji, Western Pacific, Trinidad) and Sir Alexander Grantham (Fiji, Western Pacific). Two became Chief Justices of Hong Kong - Sir James Russell (1888-92) and Sir Joseph Horsford Kemp (1930-33). Four others attained the rank of Colonial Secretary, Hong Kong before retirement - Norman Lockhart Smith (1936-41), David Mercer MacDougall (1946-49), Claude Bramall Burgess (1958-63) and Edmund Brinsley Teesdale (1963-66). The number of cadets on the establishment in any one year was never large: only 7 in 1880, 13 in 1900, 31 in 1920, and 37 in 1941. Even these figures are deceptive: they report the strength on the books but not the strength in the field. We must deduct from such totals the number of 'unpassed' cadets2 (cadets engaged in the full-time study of the Chinese language) * Mr. Lethbridge is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, University of Hong Kong. He is the author of several articles on Hong Kong subjects. His "Hong Kong under Japanese Occupation: Changes in Social Structure" appeared in I. C. Jarvie and Joseph Agassi, Hong Kong, A Society in Transition — contributions to the study of Hong Kong Society (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969) pp. 77-127. Another article, on the Tung Wah Hospitals 1870-1970, will appear in a second volume edited by I. C. Jarvie and Marjorie Topley to be published soon. Ed. ================================================================================ 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: 'THE CHINESE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL OF HONG KONG H. J. LETHBRIDGE* An American political scientist, Lennox Mills, concluded after a period of research in Hong Kong that the District Watch Committee was 'in reality the Chinese Executive Council of Hong Kong'. Yet ‘legally', he continued, it is merely a committee of fifteen Chinese who meet under the chairmanship of the Secretary for Chinese Affairs to manage the District Watch Force" — in 1941 a body of some 120 Chinese constables and detectives recruited and paid for by the Committee for the purpose of patrolling predominantly Chinese districts of urban Hong Kong Island and Urban Kowloon. The 1941 Committee contained the five names of the Chinese unofficial members of the Legislative and Executive Councils as well as a number of extremely rich and influential Chinese, all of whom sat on various interlocking committees and boards. The Committee, needless to say, because of its prestigious membership, exercised political power within the Chinese community: it was, therefore, a group listened to and cosseted by the government. The purpose of this paper is to trace the development of the District Watchmen Force, a constabulary body, from its inception in 1866 and to show how its Committee of Management acquired over time prestige, status and power so that it became, as Lennox Mills wrote, 'the Chinese Executive Council of Hong Kong'. When the Island of Hong Kong was ceded to Britain in 1842, some Englishmen assumed its Chinese inhabitants were a chance collocation of poor peasants, piratical fishermen and unkempt * Mr. Lethbridge is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, University of Hong Kong. He is the author of several articles on Hong Kong subjects. His "Hong Kong under Japanese Occupation: Changes in Social Structure" appeared in I. C. Jarvie and Joseph Agassi, Hong Kong, A Society in Transition — contributions to the study of Hong Kong Society (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969) pp. 77-127. Another article, on the Tung Wah Hospitals 1870-1970, will appear in Contributions to Asian Studies, Vol. I, 1971. His "Hong Kong Cadets, 1862-1941" appeared in the 1970 Journal, Ed. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 IS FACE THE SAME AS LI? A CRITICAL NOTE ON AGASSI AND JARVIE, 'A STUDY IN WESTERNIZATION' MARGARET N. NG* The Claim that Face is the Same as Li This paper has a very simple aim: to point out and explain a confusion made by Joseph Agassi and I.C. Jarvie in their controversial paper, 'A Study in Westernization'. In this paper, the authors raise the question, how far is Hong Kong westernized, and answer, Hong Kong is superficially westernized but deeply Chinese, because the Chinese in Hong Kong are dominated by the concern for face, which, being Confucian, is deeply Chinese. In the present note I shall not address myself to the central question of how westernized Hong Kong is; I shall concentrate on criticizing the subsidiary theory that face is Confucian. My contention is that Agassi and Jarvie have erroneously confused face with li (translated as propriety, courtesy, rites, all of which are notoriously inadequate). This is perhaps a minor error, but as no one seems to have noticed it I think I should give my own criticism of it, for what it is worth. Agassi and Jarvie claim that face is Confucian; this claim is made directly on p. 140 of their paper. The authors are explaining that the reason why it is difficult to change the Chinese preoccupation is because there is a narrow 'traditional view that the Chinese way of doing things is not simply the best, or the right, way of doing things, but the only way of doing things'; they allege that Confucius can be sympathetically read to say that causing others to lose face is the worst way to lose face, and that 'Men are human because they have face to care--without it they lose human dignity'. From this it is clear that the authors think that li, fundamental in the teachings of Confucius, is the same as face. * Dr. Margaret Ng has BA and Ph.D. degrees in Psychology from the Universities of Hong Kong and Minnesota, and until recently was on the administrative staff of the Centre of Asian Studies, University of 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 IS FACE THE SAME AS LI? 57 sible. The fact is, the Chinese cultural superiority lies in the loyalty to li; and if I am right that li is not the same as face, and li is deeper than face, and the Chinese will shamefacedly admit the silliness of face but will be shocked to attack li, then the optimistic thesis of the authors is mistaken. It would be, moreover, amply clear that to argue the Chinese into relinquishing their sense of cultural superiority, we do not so much need a critical examination of face, as a critical examination of li NOTES 1 Joseph Agassi and I. C. Jarvie, 'A Study in Westernization', in Hong Kong, A Society in Transition, edited by I. C. Jarvie in consultation with Joseph Agassi, Routledge, Praeger, London and New York, 1969, pp. 129-163. 2 There is of course no consensus among the Chinese about face or even Confucianism. There was a time when the concern for face was open and considered unquestionably proper even though nothing lofty; the more old-fashioned still think there is something to be said about face, though they do not say it. There was a generation, in the early 1900's, during which Confucianism was fiercely attacked as obstruction to progress. 'Revolutionary' China still keeps the practice. Meantime, face as an art or even an expression is quite lost to the present younger generation of Chinese in Hong Kong, and Confucianism is no longer mentioned one way or the other. But the feelings for face and li, the cultural superiority, are there just beneath the surface, and emerges at scratch. 3 I prefer the fuller expression of 'pride-shame' to just 'shame' culture, as pride is often as prominent as, if not more so than, shame in a so-called shame culture. This is originally suggested by Margaret Mead in 'Guilt, Ritual, and Culture', in Roger W. Smith (ed.), Guilt, Man and Society, A Doubleday Anchor Original, 1970, pp. 117-134. Correspondingly I use 'guilt-saintliness' rather than just 'guilt' culture. 4 Margaret Mead, Co-operation and Competition among Primitive Peoples, New York, McGraw Hill, 1937, pp. 493-494. Ruth Benedict believes, in The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, London, Secker & Warburg, 1947, p.223, that shame is 'a reaction to other people's criticism'. 5 Analects, III, 3, Harvard-Yenching Institute Sinological Index Series, Supplement No. 16, A Concordance to the Analects of Confucius, Harvard-Yenching Institute, Peiping, 1940. Translations of quotations n. 5-19 are my own. Ibid., III, 4. 林放問禮之本。子曰:大哉問,禮與其奢也,寧儉;喪,與其易也,寧戚。 Ibid., III, 8, 予夏問曰:巧笑倩兮,美目盼兮,素以為绱兮,何謂也?子曰:繪事後素。曰:禮後乎。子曰:起予者商也。始可與言詩已矣。 Ibid., XII, 1. 子曰:非禮勿視,非禮勿聽,非禮勿言,非禮勿動。 9 Ibid., XIV, 30. 10 Ibid., XIV, 7. 11 Ibid., XII, 23, 24. 子貢問友。子曰:忠告而善道之,不可則止,毋自辱焉。 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 181 per-muing hia-pren, diffighi Vol 2 (Hong Kong Urban Council. 1986), pp. 395-402 * Interview of Lo Ch`uan, op cat Jun 22 1991 46 Interviews La P'o † # (surname Ho, age 70+), Ma Wan Chung, Jun 30, 1991, Ch'en Kuang-sheng P4144 (age 63) Fishermen's Village. Jul 8,1991 & by telephone, Aug 1,1991, 20 Mall, op cit 1 Anthony KK Sau “Distribution of Temples on Lantan Island as Recorded in 1979.** JHKBRAS, Vol 20(1980), p 138 ** Ch^en Po-Cao BR1MB "Touwang ku-mao sheng-shih per-chu,” (Kowloon: n.p., 1917) the Flouwang Temple Kowloon City For different opinions on the Houwang's identity, see Hsiao Kuo-chuen "Hstang-kang Hou-lung so ssu-feng chih 'Yang-hou-ta-wang' k'ao,” in Hstang-kang ch'inh-tai-shih huu-chu (Taipei: Taiwan Shang-wu yin-shu-kuan, 1985), pp 307, 313, Jao Tsung-yı "Yang-1'ai-hou chia-chih yu Chit-lung Yang-Houwang miao,' in Chu-hung vu Sung-chi shuh-hao (Hong Kong: Wan-yu t'u-shu kungssa, 1959), pp 84--92 * Ronald Ng. "Culture and Society of a Hakka Community on Lantau Island,” in I_C Jarvie, ed, A Society in Fransition. Contributions to the Study of Hong Kong Society (London: Butler & Tanmer Lid. 1969), pp. 55, 62 40 According to an interview at the Tung Chung Public School, Jun 24,1991, see also interviews. La P'o †% (age 63), upper Ling Per, Jun 15, 1991, Cheng Man-hung, op cit 1 5? Interview of 11 Chii-sheng PL/ (age_73), Lam Che. Jun 18,1991 * Interview of M. Huang (age 76), Wong Ka Wai, Jun 25, 1991 Brim, op eit, p. 100, N 10 ** Interview of Cheng Man-hung, op uit, upper Ling Per Aug. 11. 1991 Ho, op ett. p 13 Flayes, 1967, op eit, p 91 * Ho, op. cit, p9 5 lbid. p 13 * Brum op eit,p/103 ================================================================================