RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch RASHKB and author Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 18 BIRDS OF HONG KONG CAPTAIN A. M. MACFARLANE, R.A. Based on a lecture delivered on September 22, 1960, The birds of Hong Kong are notable for their variety. Over 330 different kinds of birds have been recorded here since 1860, and the list covers a wide range of types, with very few families found in China left unrepresented. I propose to cover the more common species, both residents and visitors, and to touch on a few of the rarities besides. I would normally hesitate to point out to residents of the Colony the geography of their surroundings, but a few features are worth remembering from a bird-watcher's point of view. First, Hong Kong is just inside the tropics, and therefore lies at the southern breeding limit of some of the typically northern birds such as the Black-capped Kingfisher, and at the northern breeding limit of some of the typically tropical or sub-tropical birds, such as the sunbirds and flowerpeckers. Secondly, the year is divided into quite definite seasons, some much longer than others, and so we get summer visitors who breed here, such as the Black-naped Oriole and Hair-crested Drongo; winter visitors such as certain ducks and many species of hawks and thrushes; and of course, passage migrants that pass through the Colony, sometimes in immense numbers, in spring and autumn to and from their breeding grounds in the far north. Examples of the more noticeable of these migrants are the waders, the swifts and the flycatchers. Thirdly, the Colony has a wide range of bird country within its small limits, from the top of Tai Mo Shan, over three thousand feet high, down through the wooded valleys such as the Lam Tsuen valley and the Tai Po Kau Forestry Reserve, across the open paddy-fields and marshes bordering Deep Bay to the rocky coasts and open sea off Hong Kong Island and Lantau. Therefore a bird-watcher can select different areas and hope to see different birds accordingly. Lastly, to the regret of all but bird-watchers, Hong Kong is subject to occasional fierce storms and even typhoons. If these last occur, then it is worth every effort to go out and brave the storm, for unusual birds are blown in, especially of marsh and coastal species. During the last few years, members of the Hong Kong Bird-Watching Society have found that just over 60 species nest regularly in the Colony. Despite the apparent scarcity of birds in the summer months, this number compares quite favourably with an area of English coastline of the same size. Although ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch ORASHKB and author Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 99 In general, lay Buddhists have been increasingly active here over the past twenty years, particularly in social welfare work. The Sangha, which had declined almost to the vanishing point by 1949, was restored in size and quality by an influx of refugee monks (estimated at 800-1,000) in the early 1950's. Most of these, however, gradually moved on to other areas. With one or two exceptions the monasteries now tend to be static and withdrawn. Though nunneries, like lay organizations, have taken an increasingly active role in social welfare, the initiative in many cases has come from laymen. Thus we may say that Buddhism in Hong Kong fits into the pattern of Chinese Buddhism as a whole over the past hundred years; revitalization of faith and practice among laymen, sparked by a few really able monks, whose talents stand in all the greater contrast to those of most of their brethren. II. ORGANIZATION OF THE SANGHA The monastic institutions of Hong Kong, like those of China proper, are individual entities, not subject to the authority of a patriarch or any other central organ of the school to which they belong. It is best, in fact, not to think of them as belonging to distinct and separate schools. In any given monastery one monk may "study Ch'an" while another "studies Pure Land". Monasteries are usually classified according to the school of the abbot and a change of abbot can mean a change of classification. Thus the Chuk Lam Monastery in Tsuen Wan was once Ch'an, is now Pure Land, but shelters monks of other schools, like the Esoteric disciple of the great T'aai Hui [T'ai Hsü], who was himself of the Idealist School. Generalizing, one might say that whereas religious tolerance in India and Tibet is usually based on an awareness of the difference between one's own doctrines and those of one's neighbour, tolerance in China is more often based on a desire to unify all religious doctrines and a belief that it can be done. That is why I spoke above of "3,400 purportedly Buddhist laymen." Some of them may be equally interested in or influenced by Taoism or one of the popular syncretistic sects in Hong Kong. This is not to assert that there is no awareness in Hong Kong that Buddhism is divided into schools. At the Tung Wah Hospitals Prayer Meeting, last held September 6-13, 1958, there were separate altars for Wah Yim [Hua Yen]; Pure Land; Mat Tsung [Mi Tsung or Esoteric School]; Faat Wah [Fa Hua]; while monks of other schools participated in prayers at three common altars. The place of honour in the entire meeting was given to the venerable abbot T'aam Huilt [Tan Hsü], whose school is T'in T’oi [T'ien T’ai or Fa Hua]. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch ORASHKB and author 100 Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 The atomization of the Sangha in Hong Kong, as in China proper, has caused a wide variation in the quality of institutions. One monastery, for example, is little better than a public house. It has a restaurant that serves wine; the sound of mahjong drowns out the crickets on summer evenings; there are ping pong tables in the monastery garden; rooms are available; and the abbot (if one can call him that) is said to have originally joined the Sangha in China to escape criminal prosecution. In another, not entirely dissimilar monastery, the abbot is unable to read and write. Yet in both cases, there is a Buddha Hall and worship is carried on. These are two of the monasteries most often visited by tourists. On the other hand, there are some institutions that really do credit to Chinese Buddhism. The members study the doctrine and, in many cases, do admirable welfare work, as we shall see below. The Vinaya is observed. The premises are well kept. There is an atmosphere that can make even the casual visitor think of taking refuge there from the dust of the world. The best example is probably the Po Lin Tsz on Lantao. Most Hong Kong monasteries are in the New Territories, built on hillsides, often with a fine view. They usually have an extensive set of buildings, capable of accommodating a much larger number of persons than are actually in residence (a reminder of greater prosperity in times past). Nuns and lay women devotees may be found in the same institution, living and worshipping separately from the monks. One reason for this type of "co-educational" arrangement is that only monks can be dharma masters, qualified to teach. In a nunnery, therefore, disciples must await their occasional visits. The largest of the Colony's monasteries is the Tung Po Toh* in Tsuen Wan, which has about 40 monks, 60 nuns and 30 lay women. The Chuk Lam Shim Yuen, also in Tsuen Wan, has 20 monks, 30 nuns, and 100 lay women. On the other hand, another of Tsuen Wan's well-known institutions, the Wang Faat Tsing She, has monks only, ten in number. These figures are representative for the Colony's larger monasteries. Actually, the only other large monastery is the Po Lin Tsz, which has 30 monks, 20 nuns, and 50 lay women.* * All these figures are approximate, partly because there is a certain amount of coming and going and partly because of the feeling on the part of informants that a round number is adequate The internal organization of Hong Kong monasteries (and the same would apply to nunneries) is generally as follows. All authority rests in the hands of the abbot. Under him there are, theoretically, four departments in charge of ================================================================================ 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-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r HONG KONG BEFORE THE CHINESE 53 where the terraces are constructed running down a spur from the top, whereas tin denotes valley land which is terraced from a water-course upwards and stops at the toe of the hill around which flows the highest of the irrigation channels. A study can be made in the Lam Tsuen valley and in Pat Heung of the two systems of terrace; and one is often corrected by the locals if describing che as tin, or tin as che, though both are terraced and irrigated land. Whether this truly represents a new meaning given to an old word, or whether the Chinese reference books are wrong in describing che as dry cultivation, is another of the gaps in my puzzle which I hope can be authoritatively filled. Other indicator words which appear to be non-Chinese, though I cannot identify them as Yao, are quoted in my introduction to Mr. Tregear's Gazetteer, already quoted. The commonest among them are chun, kau, lek, pok, ting, to, run, tung, wat and yuen. In a paper presented at the Jubilee Congress of Hong Kong University I suggested that wongchuk and wongmai in local place names stood for left and right respectively. Another interesting specimen is the raised valley Wat Lo Fu northeast of Silvermine Bay, which preserves the original order (attribute after noun) of words in most of the non-Han languages of south-western China. Regarding the other tribe which is described as inhabiting our hills, the Shan Lao, I have not been able to obtain any distinctive marks of identification. However one easily observed feature of our hills, about which most of the present villagers disclaim all knowledge, is the system of low walls made of graded uncut stones enclosing rectangular areas of hillside which are either not terraced or only roughly terraced, with terraces at an angle; and since those of my acquaintance who have worked and lived among the Yao people say they have seen nothing of the kind in the Yao system of cultivation, it may well be that these old stone walls are a "trade mark” of the Shan Lao people. If so, then the same people must also be responsible for a number of irrigation works, of which the two most conspicuous are the one that begins near Hau Tong and flows about half a mile, partly underground, to one of these walled enclosures about the village of Ko Tong on the west of Long Harbour; and another on the northwest coast of Lantao, part of which, owing to the tilt... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r 64 K. M. A. BARNETT Ng 103 Ngraahcrinn-chynn, 104 Ngrhtrung-shaann, N. L. 105 Ngrr-droi, £1 (+908—+959, with local variations). 0 106 Obliterated villages:- Nai Tong Kok,101 Pak Hok Tuns and the original Tai Pak,35 some way from the present site. P 107 Phuunniryh, #5. 108 Preangzhaw, , an island five miles west of the western tip of Hong Kong Island. 109 Preangzhaw, H, an island in the north-eastern part of Mirs Bay,41 110 Pre-Chinese languages: I should exempt from this stricture Professor Princeton S. Hsu,23 whose books, "History of the People of South China”72 and "A Study of the Thais, Chuangs and the Cantonese People"133 are of great interest and should be read by anyone anxious to learn more in this field. But I think he goes too far in suggesting a Malay origin for the Tanka-or is it a Tanka origin for the Malays? 111 Prengshaann, Ħ4. 112 Pruunn-gwuur, 1. R 113 River Capture. The break-through of the Kwun Yam Ho62 from the Lam Tsuen74 valley to Taipo:33 formerly it flowed through Fanling48 and Sheung Shui130 into Deep Bay;152 and that of the two streams which now flow into the sea at Sham Tseng,119 the headwaters of which used to flow through Tin Fu Tsai137 into Tai Lam.38 $ Sei-braak, see 35, 114 Shaahtraw-gok, YA★ · 115 Shaahtrinn, 3⁄4w. + 116 Shaahtrinn-xoe, , still better known to the local people as Lik Yuen Hoi. Shaamm-braak, E★ see 35, 117 shaann-ghoh, Hakka saan-go, L. 118 Shaannloo, #. 119 Shamm-zearng, ##. + 120 Shamm-zeon, . The second word means an artificial channel with earth banks and suggests that the present river was cut to drain the swamps to the east and south-east of the present town. 121 Shann Ngrrdroi-sir, ĦARK - Page 75 Page 76 ================================================================================ 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 81 The first ancestor came from Po Kat in Po On, then San On, district. He settled not far from the anchorage and the shops nearby, and the family flourished there for several generations, farming most of the cultivable land and planting an extensive forestry lot.29 But the position had changed for the worse by 1899. At the land settlement which followed the British lease, though the LUIs were credited with owning house land, four and a half acres of paddy fields, and nine and a half acres of dry cultivation and vegetable land on Peng Chau, all except their houses were mortgaged to different persons without hope of return.30 When my informant was a boy, the LUI houses were in a broken-down condition. They also owned a lot of land on the Lantau coast opposite Peng Chau, but much of this too was mortgaged by the end of the century.31 The CHUNG family are said to have been the next arrivals. According to old Mr. CHUNG, his great-grandfather, who was the family's first ancestor to live on the island, came together with his son, a boy of ten. Consultation of the grave tablet, which is dated 1834,32 shows that he probably arrived in Peng Chau in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, not long after the LUIs. He came from his parent village of Tin Liu Ha in the Lam Tsuen Valley near Tai Po in the present New Territories. In 1899, the family still owned very little land of its own on Peng Chau, having, besides houses, only one-third of an acre of dry cultivation, but they held the mortgages of nearly nine acres of the LUI land, including most of their paddy fields.33 The family farmed their own and the mortgaged land, but, as I have said above, fishing was their chief concern about ten years before the British lease, another seeming "irregularity" which warns against the assumption that our local communities have separate characteristics and perform distinct functions which do not overlap. It was very likely Mr. CHUNG's grandfather's success at sea which enabled him to loan money to the LUI family and so gradually obtain their land; and the lack of land which made this family concentrate on the sea in the first place. Another family of Hakka settlers are the LAM ✯ clan who came in the mid-nineteenth century. According to family tradition, three brothers who were operating a pawn-shop in Shum Chun Market were "squeezed" by yamen runners when a murder... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653 ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERY 11 found. The explanation for this is that this part of South China has been rising relative to sea level. This positive rise is connected with isostasy and eustatic movements of the oceans that cause cycles of submergence and emergence. Assuming a rise of one foot every hundred years then, Hong Kong in the last 2,500 years has risen 25 feet, Dr. Heanley and his friend Mr. Walter Schofield, a government administrator, gathered a large and varied collection of celts from Kowloon, Cheung Chau and Lantau Island. Examination of this collection by experts soon established that they were not just freaks of nature but definite human artifacts. Since Heanley's first notification, other workers have found them in practically every part of the Colony, and contrary to his belief that they were principally found on granite hills, they have been found often in abundance on every other rock outcrop represented in the area — especially volcanic rock. It may be that because of the extreme susceptibility of granite to erosion, which causes 'badland country' with thin or no vegetation cover, the celts can be seen more easily, Including the places mentioned by Dr. Heanley, celts can still be found in the fields, on raised beaches or on low hills at Tai Wan, Hung Shing Ye, Yung Shu Wan, Aberdeen, Tai Po, Castle Peak, San Hui, So Kun Wat, Tsun Wan, Shatin, Shataukok, Man Kok Tsui, Ha Tsuen, Sheung Shui, Shek Pik, Sai Kung, Lai Chi Chung, Sok Ku Wan, Fanling and Kau Sai Chau. Much is owed to Dr. Heanley, Mr. Schofield and Professor J. L. Shellshear, who was head of the Anatomy Department in the University of Hong Kong, for their conscientious and patient work in combing the Colony for other archaeological remains and sites after the celts had been identified. I have been told by our Vice-President, Sir Lindsay Ride, who knew all three intimately and often accompanied them on their field trips, that they were superbly energetic and covered tremendous distances in a day at great speed. Only fit and enthusiastic walkers could hope to last a whole day with them. They located several prehistoric sites, the most notable being So Kun Wat, Shek Pik and those at the northwest end of Lamma Island. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 26 T HUGH D. R. BAKER The five clans bear the surnames Tang2, Hau3, Pang, Liu,5 and Man. The Tangs were the first of the five to settle in the area as far as is known, coming in at the beginning of the Northern Sung Dynasty, probably in 973 A.D.,8 giving them a history of some thousand years of settlement. Their first village (and still one of their largest) was Kam Tin. Other major villages which are occupied by members of the Tang Clan are those of Ping Shan,10 Ha Tsuen,11 Tai Po Tau2 and Lung Kwat Tau,13 while these few names by no means complete the list. The Haus arrived towards the end of the twelfth century in the Southern Sung Dynasty.14 Their first settlement was at Ho Sheung Heung,15 the lineage later segmenting to form three branch-villages at Yin Kong,16 Kam Tsin17 and Ping Kong,18 Spatially there is quite a distance between these four villages, and while they still recognise that they are kin, recognise obligations of mutual aid, and appear to hold certain property in common, they are politically four distinct units under four leaderships, each of which is divorced from the others, so that they must be considered a clan. They themselves call the group either the 4 (Hau Clan) or the 5 (Hau Alliance). The Pangs claim to have arrived during the Sung Dynasty also, and are said to be in their twentieth generation at the moment. Freedman has pointed out that "poverty postponed marriage",19 and the Pangs were poor, so that we may allow thirty-five years per generation of this lineage, which would in fact date their arrival in the last years of the Sung Dynasty. The lineage village is called Fan Ling.? 20 The Lius of Sheung Shui have a history of approximately 630 years, their first ancestor arriving from Fukien Province towards the end of the Yuan Dynasty.22 They have not lost any branches through hiving-off, and the entire lineage still lives together in the one village-cluster. The Mans have two large groups of villages. The first is at San Tin, the second at Tai Hang.24 Each of these village groups is a separate lineage, separated by a great distance, apparently owning no property in common, and each under separate leadership. The two lineages together are spoken of as the ✯ (the Man Clan). Page 26 ... Page 20 ================================================================================ 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-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 30 HUGH D. R. BAKER village and lands and move over to the village of Tsung Pak Long64 in the inferior land area already partly occupied by the Haus. Nor is it possible now to discover what it was that enabled the Lius after only seven generations to drive out the Kans, while neither the Pangs nor the Haus had done so after a much longer period of settlement. The Mans were the last of the five to settle. The lineage of Tai Hang secured the lower end of the fertile valley of Lam Tsuen, and with double-cropping, mostly above-average land, were well off.65 The Mans of San Tin settled in an area of marginal land, with access to some quantity of poor quality land recently risen from the sea, which would grow one crop of brackish-water paddy.66 There is reason to suppose that the area of this land has increased considerably since they settled there,67 enabling the lineage to support a large number of members and expand without segmentation to any great extent. Thus the five clans occupied the majority of first-class land in the area. The possession of good land in quantity was one of the only ways perhaps in which a lineage of this area could rise to power, either on a local or a national basis. The best land of the New Territories was, and still mostly is, in the possession of these five clans, and certainly in the local situation it was these five clans which wielded power. The present-day situation plays down rather than emphasises the power which they formerly held; much of their land for instance being rented out to other lineages, so that the actual area of five-clan settlement is not a guide to the amount of land which they in fact own, while many of their old holdings have been allowed to lapse of recent years. The most powerful of all, and the wealthiest of all, was the Tang Clan, the clan which had settled on the most fertile and rewarding land. The rising of land from the sea near the Man village of San Tin, while not making the Mans wealthy, enabled them to support a large populace, which in turn led to their rise to a position of some power through sheer weight of numbers early in the last century. The acquisition of the Sheung Shui land enabled the Lius to expand as one undivided lineage. Shifts in land values have produced changes in wealth, as is particularly exemplified by the Pangs and their holdings of land which has turned out to be ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 32 HUGH D. R. BAKER able foodstuffs. On a more speculative level, however, it is worthy of note that relics of an old market called Kak Chun Hui7% are still turned up by the plough near Hang Tau Tsuen." Apparently this market disappeared some 300 years ago, possibly with the original rise of Shek Wu Hui. It is close to the Hau villages of Ho Sheung Heung and Yin Kong, and may have been controlled by them, in which case its demise may have been the result of rivalry between the Haus and the Lius. Obviously, with high rents coming in from markets, the two clans would have had reason to try to monopolise local buying and selling. In general, land-holdings may be equated with wealth. The possession of wealth meant changes in the life of a lineage. The leadership based on the age-hierarchy tended to lose its importance when there were wealthy men in the village, and this seems to have been the case in the five clans. With unequal wealth in a lineage, one or two men must be thrown up who are clearly richer than the rest, and it was these men who assumed unofficial leadership in the group. This situation has been dealt with at some length before and need not be gone into here:78 but it is worth stating that at the present time the leadership in lineage villages is of exactly the same kind. The age-hierarchy leadership still exists formally, but the actual leadership rests with men who are educated, and wealthy and powerful in their own right—though now they are dignified with an official title, 'Village Representative',79 by the British Government. A wealthy lineage could afford to educate its sons, and in nearly all of the villages of the five clans tutorial schools were run. Frequently these would be held in the ancestral halls, but some villages had special school-rooms-cum-libraries built, and these survive to the present day in Fan Ling, Kam Tin, Tai Po Tau, Lung Kwat Tau and several other places. Education was a means to consolidate wealth, for it was through education that men could enter official life up the steep path of the examination system. A scholar-official was in a position not only to make money, but also to advance the interests of his kin through his contacts with other officials. All the five clans have produced scholars, some of whom became officials, the Tangs being particularly noteworthy in this respect—a fact which accords well with their having superior wealth. During recent years the clans have ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 34 HUGH D. R. BAKER are usually situated at some distance from the villages; in some cases up to several miles away. It becomes an opportunity for the clans to display their wealth and numbers in public. The first and most important of the graves of the Tang Clan is on a hill behind the new, large, industrial town of Tsuen Wan,82 and the Tangs always turn out in their thousands at Chung Yeung, going to the grave in fleets of lorries, cars, and buses. The Lius' First Ancestor is buried behind the Hau village of Kam Tsin, and the Lius march round the Hau village in great numbers on their way to the grave. On the second day of Chung Yeung, the Lius go to the grave of their Second Ancestor, which takes them past the Pang village of Fan Ling and the Tang village of Lung Kwat Tau. The procession is always large, and banners and ceremonial foods are conspicuously displayed. The major clans are remarkable for the large number of ancestors which they worship on this and other occasions, some branches having a ceremony and feast nearly every day for several weeks at Chung Yeung as their various ancestors are worshipped. The cost of these ceremonies is very high, and is quite beyond the reach of smaller lineages and clans. The money comes in as rent from the fields with which the ancestral halls and other segments of the lineage are endowed. The proportion of lineage-controlled land which is owned by the lineage itself and by its segments (as opposed to that owned by individual members of the lineage) may be very high indeed, often well over 50 per cent.83 Thus, not only do the lineages control vast areas of land, but they also actually corporately own much of it, and have high incomes from which to finance ceremonies, public works, etc. Again, land is important. Being wealthy, the clans needed to resort to some form of protection from thieves. Each of the villages of the clans organised and ran its own village watch system.84 I am not sure whether the system was identical in each of the villages, but one practice was to allow lineage members to tender to the ancestral hall for the position of watchman. Those who tendered most were allowed to take the positions, the number of watchmen being pre-determined. These men recouped themselves by charging individual villagers for the property they were protecting according to a fixed rate (so much for a field of paddy, so much for a field of sweet potatoes, so much for a buffalo, etc.). If a buffalo were stolen or some other property made away with, it was the responsibility... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 38 HUGH D. R. BAKER men temples were built and dedicated to them in many parts of the effected area. In the New Territories there were three such temples - one at Sha Tau Kok,10 one built by the Kam Tin lineage of the Tang Clan,102 and a third in the market town of Shek Wu Hui known as the Chau Wong Yee Yuen,103 which was built by the five clans and endowed by them with land for its upkeep. It was not the five clans as clans which did this, but rather lineages of the five clans which came together and each purchased a share in the temple.104 The Man Clan took two shares in the temple, one purchased by each of the two lineages; as was the case with the eastern Tangs.105 The Pangs, Hau* and Lius each had one share. Not only was land purchased and a temple106 built with this money, but also a ferry boat was bought to assist all members of the five clans to cross the Sham Chun River107 to get to the large market town of Sham Chun, with which all had dealings. The share-holding lineages took part in an annual feast at which the business of the temple was discussed, the feast being paid for out of temple funds. As might be expected, however, the history of this temple association has not all been peaceful, and recently a major dispute has arisen, three members108 claiming complete control of the funds to the exclusion of the others.109 The matter quickly escalated to a point where both sides hired lawyers and placed vituperative advertisements in the Colony's newspapers. Eventually, after three years of argument, it was settled in 1963. The second example of cooperation between the clans is of the army which they raised between them to oppose the arrival of the British when they took control of the New Territories in 1899. Under the leadership of literati of the Tang Clan, working from the ancestral hall of the Ha Tsuen lineage,110 they mustered men, arms and supplies in quantity and attacked the British at their landing point in Tai Po. Unfortunately they lacked training and could do no more than fight an ignominious retreat back over the hills. Some records of the organisation of this force are still available through documents captured by the British at the time, and it is obvious that all the planning was done by and communications established at the level of the literati of the five clans. It seems that these men kept up some kind of informal contact, and there is mention of an organisation called the Tung P'ing Kuk112 in the first British reports on the area, which was said *Hau is the correct spelling, not "Haus". I've made the correction. Please let me know if you need further assistance. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 THE FIVE GREAT CLANS 39 to be a semi-official assembly of these very people. I have found only flimsy evidence that this did exist,113 but certainly the literati had contacts one with another, and when any two of the clans were in dispute, literati from a third clan appear to have been called in as arbitrators. Disputes were common, and all the clans were involved at one time or another. Alliances were made between clans against others, and sometimes smaller lineages from outside the five would be brought in. Causes of dispute were often trivial, setting aflame long-standing smouldering antagonisms between clans. Small incidents could very quickly escalate into full-scale battles. Frequently little was achieved by the disputes, and fights were stopped without either side gaining an advantage; but there must have been times when the fighting represented a serious attempt on the part of one clan to alter the balance of power or to establish a new relationship with another clan. Being wealthy and large, the five could always command arms and men, and, furthermore, by making use of the network of contacts to which their literati had the key, they could bring in on their side even more forces from the outside sphere, and perhaps even from Government. Smaller lineages could command neither wealth, nor arms, nor man-power, nor outside help based on literati-contacts, and as a consequence their disputes were of a much less serious nature. As one of the great clans 'face' (prestige) became important, and escalation resulted easily from minor incidents involving clan members. It might be illuminating if I closed this brief discussion of the clans with a few examples of some of the disputes which took place between them, giving in a little more detail two instances which are particularly illustrative. The Tangs, being the largest and most wealthy of the clans, were the most feared and there were many alliances against them. They were, however, split internally, and there is a history of fighting within the clan between different lineages, and particularly between the two large lineages of Ha Tsuen and Ping Shan. The Mans of Tai Hang joined with many other small lineages and villages and with the Pangs against the Tangs of Tai Po Tau and Lung Kwat Tau to set up the new market of Tai Po. Many small Hakka lineages formed the Pat Heung14 alliance against the Tangs of Kam Tin.15 The Lius were apparently associated with the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 THE FIVE GREAT CLANS 45 63 Ibid., In fact there was a second geomancer (of the eighth generation) cooperating in this plan, 64 松柏朗 65 Grant, op. cit., figs. VI(e) and (f). These figures also point to one of the mysteries of the New Territories—the settlement of the very rich upper half of the Lam Tsuen Valley by Hakka lineages, a phenomenon which denies the usual pattern of Punti monopoly of first-class land. 66 Ibid., fig. IV(a). 67 Ibid., fig. I(c), and p. 2. For a map see K.M.A. Barnett, "Hong Kong before the Chinese” in JHKBRAS, Vol. 4, 1964. 68. This moribund market was revived in 1925, and has thriven since 1949. 69 元朗儅爐. 70 大埔舊墟 71 See Robert G. Groves, “The Origins of Two Market Towns in the New Territories" in Aspects of Social Organisation in the New Territories, HKBRAS, Hong Kong, 1965, p. 17. 72 Ibid., p. 18. 73 For a brilliantly worked out study of marketing systems of this sort see G. William Skinner, “Marketing and Social Structure in Rural China” in The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. XXIV, Nos. 1-3, 1964-5. 74 For some other ways in which they made the markets pay, see Groves, op. cit., page 18. 75 See J. W. Hayes, "The Pattern of Life in the New Territories in 1898", JHKBRAS, Vol. 2, 1962, for an incomplete list of markets operative at the time. Sha Tau Kok and Shek Wu Hui are notable omissions. 76. 77 坑頭村- 78 See, for example, Freedman, op. cit., pp. 66ff, 79***. But they are often more in the nature of 'leaders' than 'representatives', a fact which is recognised in the title by which the villagers more commonly address them HE. 80 The festival of Chung Yeung. 81 Called ch'i l'ong. 82 荃灣. 83 See J. M. Potter, Ping Shan: the Changing Economy of a Chinese Village in Hong Kong, micro-filmed thesis for the degree of Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1964. 84 or T. 85 As witness an incident a few years ago in San Tin, where, in an adultery case, a man was condemned by the villagers to drowning in a pig-basket in the pond. Timely intervention by the police was all that saved him, 86 Rightly or wrongly the view persists in the rural areas that no contact with authority is good contact. 87 A. 88 FA. They are mentioned under the name of Sia-wu in Chen Han-seng, Agrarian Problems in Southernmost China, 1936. 89 Quite what brought about the disappearance of this institution is not clear to me. Certainly it was not interference from the Government of Hong Kong, as witness the report by J. Russell dated 18th July 1886 and appended ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g BOOK REVIEWS 173 and its raison d'être: why we find rows of burial urns placed on the hill-sides of the "Territories, and why more permanent omega-shaped graves are scattered rather than in neat burial grounds. The individualism and competition of geomancy in relation to the ancestors is to some extent balanced in another aspect of ancestral care with which the author deals: ancestor worship itself. But even so, at every level of a complex lineage, it seems, segments may be in competition with each other in ancestor worship. Differences in social status and ambition are shown in the way the very ancestors are admitted to the ancestral halls (through their tablets) and in the performance of the grand rites for such lineage forbears. Two other sections, again well illustrated by New Territories material, should be of particular interest to people here. One is on social status, power and government, and the other on relationships between lineages. We are told of the rivalries between powerful higher-order groups, with illustrations taken from the Tang and the Man groups which have a history of mastery of large parts of the county from which the New Territories were cut out. Most of us know of the Tang lineage in Hong Kong; if not by name, at least by one of its villages in Kam Tin — the walled village often visited by tourists to the Colony. The large Man community at San Tin, near the border, is also becoming popular with visitors. The strength of such lineages was not only in their man and fire power, as the author says, but in the command also of economic resources and call on political influence through scholarly ties with the traditional bureaucracy. But smaller communities might also combine with other weaker groups to form more powerful organizations to stand up to high-order lineages. These groups are what the author calls "yeuk combinations". In Cantonese yeuk (*) popularly means a pact, but it appears the term might have deeper political associations — a question Freedman goes into. Several yeuk combinations existed here: one at Taipo, and others at Tsuen Wan, Sai Kung and Sha Tin. Some of the armed resistance to the British when they first arrived in the 'Territories was bound up with such complexes. The author warns us that this book does not represent the end of the story. I would say, however, that his skill in drawing on Page 180 Page 181 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 40 R. G. GROVES mediate marketing systems schedules are so distributed that one of the possibilities is normally monopolized by the intermediate market. Such a distribution may ... be taken as circumstantial evidence of the systematic genuineness of a given cluster of markets."44 The marketing areas were not equally endowed with arable land. This was reflected not only in the size of the populations supported, but also in the types of political association formed and the extent of lineage organization. Three local lineages in the Yuen Long marketing area played a particularly active part in the resistance movement. These were the Tang (Mandarin: Teng) lineages of Ping Shan, Ha Tsuen, and Kam Tin. The Tangs of Kam Tin owned the land upon which the original Yuen Long market had been built. San Tin, within the Sham Chun standard marketing area, was the home of a lineage of the Man (Mandarin: Wen) clan. At Sheung Shui, near Shek Wu Hui, was the Liu (Mandarin: Liao) lineage, which owned the land upon which this market was built.45 There were two further Tang lineages at Lung Yeuk Tau and Tai Po Tau, near the Tai Po markets. The five Tang lineages comprised a higher-order lineage. The Tangs of Lung Yeuk Tau had founded the original Tai Po market and owned the land upon which it was built. The Man lineage of Tai Hang was the chief rival to the political and economic ascendency of the Tai Po Tangs. In 1893 the Mans succeeded in uniting over seventy villages in an association known as the Ts'at Yeuk (seven Yüeh).46 The association established a new market at Tai Po which rapidly supplanted the original one. These lineages owned some of the best agricultural land in the territory. Their walled and moated villages occupied strategic positions throughout the area, dominating not only the most productive land, but also the major footpath systems. The warlike architecture of the villages suggests the social ingredients which derive from the control of basic agrarian resources; wealth, numbers, complex kinship organization, political influence, and parochial military prowess. It remains to consider the indigenous system of “local government" described by Stewart Lockhart. "If a person is arrested by a village constable, he is taken before the gentry and elders of the village, who assemble in a place specially appointed for the pur- ================================================================================ 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 43 bad informal connections with Hong Kong's officialdom and that its activities were a foretaste of the future. By March of 1899, British officials began to appear in the territory. A party was busy near the Sham Chun river, marking out the frontier with China. Meanwhile, the officer in charge of the Hong Kong police was touring the territory, considering alternative locations for police stations. This official—Captain Superintendent F. H. May arrived at Ping Shan on 27th March. His first action was to post a proclamation saying that the Hong Kong government would not interfere with the land, buildings, or customs of the people. He then designated a hill behind Ping Shan as the site for a police station. A crowd gathered and the argument began. “It says that land, buildings, and customs will not be interfered with but will remain the same as before. Why should they, therefore, when they first come into the leased area, wish to erect a police station on the hill behind our village? When has China ever erected a police station just where people live? The proclamation says that things will be as before. Are not these words untrue?” 54 The Resistance Movement -- 28th March to 18th April, 1899. The day after May's visit to Ping Shan, discussions were held in the ancestral halls of Ping Shan and Kam Tin. In both instances, agreement was reached that resistance should be offered to the British. Following the two meetings, a third took place in an ancestral hall at Ha Tsuen. Representatives of all three Tang lineages were present and previous decisions to offer resistance were ratified. Messages were sent to leaders throughout the marketing area, asking them to attend a meeting at Yuen Long market the next day. Steward Lockhart later argued that the resistance leaders feared for their positions of power and privilege. At the Ha Tsuen meeting, a wider range of anxieties were expressed: “... that under English law a poll tax would be collected; that houses would be numbered and a charge made therefor; that fishing and wood-cutting would be prohibited; that women and girls would be outraged; that births and deaths would be registered; that cattle and pigs would be destroyed; that police stations would be erected, which would ruin the Fung Shui [Mandarin: Feng Shui] of the place. In short, that the evils that would arise would be so great ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 44 R. G. GROVES that one could not bear to think of them."55 These apprehensions represent the core of arguments which were developed and embellished as the campaign to mount the resistance movement continued. They reached their highest point in a petition sent to the San On Magistrate some two weeks later. This alleged that, in an effort to control cholera, the Hong Kong Sanitary Board murdered Chinese who were ill by poisoning them with arsenic and then burned their houses down. The inflammatory potentialities of these charges — which appear to have been widely believed — are obvious. They were used frequently by leaders of the resistance in subsequent weeks. As requested, leaders of the various districts within the Yuen Long marketing area assembled the next day at Yuen Long market. Pat Heung, Shap Pat Heung, and Kam Tin were each represented by four people. Ping Shan sent six representatives, Ha Tsuen three, and Tun Mun (Castle Peak), one. Of the twenty-two people who attended the meeting, thirteen were members of one or another of the three Tang lineages. Once again, a decision was taken in favour of resistance, although not without disagreement. Two days later, on 31st March, leaders from throughout the area convened again at Yuen Long. The previous decision to resist was reaffirmed and letters were sent to leaders within the Sheung U Division, asking them to attend a general meeting at Yuen Long the next day.56 On 1st April leaders from the northern part of the Sheung U Division made their way to Yuen Long. In addition to the Yuen Long leaders, representatives of the following Sheung U lineages were present: Liu (Sheung Shui), Pang (Mandarin: P’eng, Fan Leng), Tang (Tai Po Tau), and Man (San Tin). The ensuing meeting was characterised by long and heated debate. It ended with a decision to offer resistance on an inter-divisional basis. Whatever the others did, the Tangs were clearly determined that the occupation would be opposed. While the Yuen Long meeting was in progress a copy of a placard issued by the Yuk-on Hin ("wish for peace" library) of Ping Shan reached the Governor in Hong Kong. Its message was direct and to the point: We hate the English barbarians, who are about to enter our boundaries and take our land, and will cause us endless evil. Day and night we fear the approaching ================================================================================ 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 47 When the party regained their boat May sent the civilians back to Hong Kong. He took the remainder of his men to the matshed hill, where he intended to spend the night. As May deployed his men on the hillside, men from Fan Leng took the card of Man Cham-tsun—leader of the Man lineage of Tai Hang—to villages throughout the area, asking for help in an assault on his position. When darkness fell, May could see lights in the five villages nearest the hill and more lights moving along the footpaths to the rear of his position. Bombs were exploded in the adjacent valley and parties whistled and signalled as they moved forward. Realising that he could not hold the hill, May withdrew to an adjacent one and from there watched the attack. A signal drum sounded and there was a concerted rush from all sides to the crest of the hill. The matsheds were fired and a search begun for the British party. May and his men hid in a thicket of rushes and cactus until early the next morning, when they were able to escape unobserved. + - + Enquiries made the next day, by Stewart Lockhart and General Gascoigne, showed that the assault had been made by villages from within the Ts'at Yeuk. Of the seven yeuk, only one—Ting Kok Yeuk—appears not to have participated. In retrospect, May estimated that between 100 and 200 men had been involved. He concluded: "what struck me most was the evidently organized manner in which members from the surrounding villages concentrated to take part in the attack... This is no doubt a method... adopted both for offence and defence."60 The Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Henry Blake, took a detached view of the affair. “I am not disposed to attach much importance to this attack upon Mr. May and his party. Such a sudden access of militant irritability is not uncommon in Ireland, and subsides as rapidly as it rises."61 The next ten days were busy ones for the resistance leaders, particularly those of Ha Tsuen and Kam Tin. They visited villages throughout the area and exhorted people to oppose the occupation. Ammunition was purchased in bulk. Captured account books, associated with an ancestral hall at Ha Tsuen, show that gunpowder, ball, and percussion caps were being ordered throughout the earlier part of April. For example, the section for ================================================================================ 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 49 The resistance movement had now reached a state of readiness. Further subscriptions of silver were obtained and responsibility for provision of rations allocated. On 13th April Ping Shan supplied pigs as food for the militia. By 14th April an advance force was in position on the hills overlooking Tai Po. It was composed of units from Fan Leng, Kam Tin, the Lam Tsuen valley, and Pat Heung. A British party making preparations for the flag raising saw about 150 men on the hills to the northwest. Four or five standards were seen, and the Chinese "kept up an incessant yelling, beating of gongs, and firing of crackers, or guns, probably jingals ..." 64 When the Governor heard of these events at Tai Po he decided to station a force there immediately. On the morning of 15th April, two units were dispatched from Hong Kong. Captain Superintendent May, in charge of 22 policemen, left by launch for Tai Po. A company of the Hong Kong Regiment* — comprising 125 officers and men — set off overland from Kowloon, with orders to rendezvous with the police that afternoon. When the police landed near the matshed hill they were fired upon by forces from the Lam Tsuen valley, Tai Hang, Pat Heung, and Kam Tin. The militia of Ha Tsuen and Ping Shan had not been committed, although Ha Tsuen was, on this day, responsible for rations. By this time the infantry company was only a short march from Tai Po. Its commanding officer, Captain E. L. C. Berger, could see that the hills were crowded with several thousand militia, displaying six or seven different banners. As they approached the market he noted that the Chinese were uniformed and that the units nearest him occupied good tactical positions. The soldiers joined the police on the matshed hill and found their situation difficult. The hills to the west and northwest were occupied by militia. To the east was Tolo Harbour. Twelve pieces of light artillery — probably jingals and mortars — kept up a steady fire on them from two positions. There was also continuous musketry fire. If the aim of the militia had been better, the casualties would have been heavy. Shortly thereafter the militia began an advance but were driven back by volley fire. This was the situation when H.M.S. "Fame" arrived late that afternoon. * A regiment of the Indian Army, with British officers and Indian (Pathan) other ranks, not to be confused with the volunteer unit of this name in present day Hong Kong. ================================================================================ 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 51 A third letter explains the reasons for posting forces to Castle Peak and to Sha Kong, near Deep Bay. "A strong force must be posted at Tai Po in order to resist with our full force. The two posts at Castle Peak and Sha Kong should have many flags flying in order to mislead the enemy. A force of the stronger men of your district should be detached to take part in the engagement [at Tai Po]. Sixty per cent should be retained for self protection. If troops arrive from Ngan Tin [Pan Tin] they should all be sent to Tai Po."66 Monday, 17th April, began quietly for the British at Tai Po. H.M.S. "Humber" and H.M.S. "Peacock" arrived during the morning and anchored off-shore. A conference was held on the mat-shed hill and General Gascoigne indicated that he hoped to establish a new base camp, in the Lam Tsuen valley, by Tuesday evening. These leisurely plans were not realized. Shortly after three o'clock Chinese forces moved onto a hill some 3,000 yards away and commenced firing. The British artillery returned fire and 250 men from the Hong Kong Regiment moved off in an attempt to dislodge the militia. The British force — Indian troops commanded by British officers — entered the Lam Tsuen valley and began to work to the southwest. The valley is about half a mile wide and two miles long. A narrow path ran down its centre and much of the level ground was devoted to rice. The militia of Kam Tin, Pat Heung, and Shap Pat Heung had taken up positions on the higher, wooded slopes. When the British moved into the valley, the militia opened fire. According to one British participant, they had "chosen their positions well, and if they had fired well, the British troops would have fared badly." The Chinese had assumed their opponents would advance along the path down the valley and placed their guns accordingly. But immediately they came under fire, the soldiers abandoned the path for the hillsides and "drove back the enemy from hill to hill and working admirably, like true Indian Frontier fighting men, took full advantage of cover." 68 In spite of their initial mistake, the militia fought well and vigorously. They "fired almost incessantly for one and a half hours, pouring in round shot 3.4 inches in diameter from muzzle loaders and dropping musketry fire all about our men. Fortunately ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 56 R. G. GROVES Kinship ties played a large part in the organization of the resistance. In the Yuen Long area, leadership and probably manpower were overwhelmingly supplied by the three Tang lineages of Ping Shan, Ha Tsuen, and Kam Tin. In the Shek Wu Hui district, it was a matter of cooperation between a number of lineages of roughly equal status. At Tai Po, the Man lineage of Tai Hang provided leadership, within the Ts'at Yeuk, for a large number of smaller lineages. Ties of clanship enabled the Tangs of Yuen Long to enlist the help of the Tangs of Pan T'in. They, in turn, received support from agnates living in Tung-kuan City. The Tang higher-order lineage of the New Territory did not act as a unified lineage during the resistance movement. The leaders of Ping Shan, Ha Tsuen, and Kam Tin were concerned, first and foremost, to consolidate plans for resistance within the Yuen Long area. Leaders of the Tang lineages of Lung Yeuk Tau and Tai Po Tau only subsequently became formally involved with preparations for resistance, along with other leaders from their respective marketing areas. The leaders of the three Yuen Long lineages carefully coordinated their plans. There is no evidence that representatives of Lung Yeuk Tau and Tai Po Tau were similarly consulted. Moreover, the Lung Yeuk Tau settlement, along with others in the Shek Wu Hui area, was threatened with attack by the Tangs of Yuen Long. There is insufficient evidence to materially advance the discussion concerning the relationship between hsiang and marketing areas. However, the data strongly suggest that, for the purposes of resistance, the highest order of effective inter-lineage cooperation among the Tangs of the New Territory was achieved within the Yuen Long marketing community. There is also the possibility that long- or short-standing disputes between the various local lineages of the Tang higher-order lineage inhibited their cooperation across the boundaries of marketing areas during the resistance movement. But this would not necessarily weaken the argument that the standard marketing community was the optimum unit for inter-lineage cooperation. Wakeman, in his discussion of militia, has stressed the importance of gentry leadership. The documents concerning the resistance name 63 people as active in the movement, in that they: (i) took part in the meetings which organized it; and/or, (ii) acted ================================================================================ 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-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 210 BOOK REVIEWS by prolonged contact with the urban environment. Excellent material for comparison with the Plover Cove situation exists in the Tai Lam Chung (1956) and Shek Pik (1960) removals. Like the Plover Cove villages, they were agricultural villages which were removed to urban Tsuen Wan to allow the construction of reservoirs. They have been resettled for a number of years, however, and a brief survey of their religious practices would provide the Christian Study Centre with a most interesting supplement to its information on the Plover Cove villages. Hong Kong, 1970. ELIZABETH L. JOHNSON NOTES 1 p. vii of the book under review. 2 More information on this village removal can be found in M. I. Berkowitz, "Plover Cove to Tai Po Market: A Study in Forced Migration." Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Volume 8, 1968, pp. 96-108. 3 p. 142. * V. R. Burkhardt, Chinese Creeds and Customs. 3 vols. Hong Kong: South China Morning Post, 1955, and Wolfram Eberhard, Chinese Festivals. New York: Henry Shuman, 1952. 3 p. 100. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid. 9 See, for example, pp. 14-15, 116-117. TRADITIONAL CHINESE PLAYS, translated, described and annotated by A.C. Scott, Ssu Lang visits his mother, Ssu Lang T’an Mu, The Butterfly Dream, Hu Tieh Meng, The University of Wisconsin Press, 1967, Madison, Milwaukee, and London, pp. ix, 165, 13 photos hors-texte. A. C. Scott, the best Western specialist of Chinese and Japanese theatre, here gives us a translation of two Peking operas. The first, Ssu Lang visits his mother, is a tragedy which takes place in the second half of the tenth century, under the reign of the Sung. The son of a famous general has been taken prisoner by the barbarians, but, because of his fine looks, he is married ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 CHAN TSUEN TƯỞNG CƯ HẢI P I SHEK KI PEARL RIVER DELTA MACAU НАМ ТАЏ تي PAD-AN HSIEN ĮPRESENT. KOWLOON. AWELSHIN MAVEN T TAM SHUI TAI PANG x GHUM CHUN ISHA TAG KOK AHAS PAY Таг YUEN LONG * KAM TIN PING SHAN CASTLE PEAK TSUẸN WAN SHA TINKUNGA SAI L KOWLNOW CITY TING CHEUNG x נל SHA WAMLINE LINGAU TAU KOK SHA LÓ WANTE TRUNG CHUNG LANTAU ISLAND PUI 01 PENG CHAJ „MUT WO ISLAND ITẠI TAM TUK SHEK PIK ABERDEEN. (CHEUNG CHAU LAMMA, ISLAND AP LET CHAU BELŞ BAY до +2 110 LO MAN SHAR TAM VON SHAN (LEMA ISLANDS) MAP OF HONG KONG REGION JAMES HAYES ================================================================================ 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 The Hong Kong Region 129 the Kam Tin and Ping Shan branches of the Tang lineage, mediated by the Tai Po and Yuen Long branches of the same clan.1 The chronic warfare inside Hsin-an and other districts of Kwangtung was perhaps not too well known to the Hong Kong authorities, but was all too plain to the mandarins. The Viceroy of Liang-kuang, commenting on representations from the British about the alleged help given by the provincial military forces to the village bands that were opposing the occupation of the New Territories, wrote: The Governor of Hong Kong suspected that they were regular troops from the fact that they had guns, cannon and uniforms. He was not aware that the villagers of Kwangtung, in their constant fights with each other, are always erecting forts, and use guns and cannon, and wear uniforms. This is a matter of common notoriety.2 The less populated parts of the district do not seem to have experienced trouble on this scale, probably because pressure on the land was less great and there were no large lineages competing for power and struggling to retain or improve their position. However, disputes did occur and are remembered by older villagers. On Lantau, fighting between Shek Pik people and villagers from Sha Lo Wan over a grave has been mentioned to me; relations between Tong Fuk and its neighbour Shui Hau were never very good; and a fight between Pui O villagers from San Tsuen and adjoining Lo Wai took place pre-war over the mining of kaolin in a spot behind the two villages that the Lo Wai people held was disturbing the local feng shui3 It appears that in days when communications were poor and the officials at a distance, such disputes would not always come to the attention of the authorities, even if deaths occurred. This must often have been the case in the 19th century. It was thus not without good reason that the Hsin-an magistrate of 1847, quoted at the beginning of this article, considered that his difficulties were many and real, and that they were not always appreciated as such by his colleagues and superiors. 1 ARDONT, 1921, J2; with some background at J2 of his 1920 Report. 2 Quoted by Groves, p. 63, note 65. Balfour shows 23 Punti villages with outer walls at Plate 16 in JHKBRAS, 10, 1970. Many other villages, including Hakka ones, had lesser defences, as at Pui O (Lo Wai), Lantau, pp. 14-15 above. * Information secured from local elders. Page 130 is missing, directly followed by Page 135 Page 136 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 130 JAMES HAYES However, despite the foregoing recital of disturbances over the years, many old persons in the Hong Kong region who were born between 1875 and 1900 have told me that their early years were very peaceful. This serves as a reminder not to telescope time and place too readily; and not to confuse occasional excitements with the regular rhythm of rural life. Nor too readily to deduce from them that there was a deterioration in institutions at the local level, as at the centre, in the later 19th century—a point made by Rhoads Murphey in his study of China's modernization.1 POSTSCRIPT There are two other happenings that must be mentioned in this survey of events. One, the establishment and rise of Hong Kong from 1841 on, and its effect on the surrounding and adjacent territory, I do not intend to treat with here.2 The second, rural depopulation, though it might appear to have some connection with the first, is in fact a separate phenomenon. Linked to over-population, malnutrition and disease, it is important enough to warrant a concluding notice.* The problem of depopulation early intruded itself into my village studies through the preoccupation with feng-shui noted in many places, so much of it linked to a reported decline in the numbers of local populations. I have encountered this in many villages on Lantau Island3 and in other parts of the old Southern District, in places as far distant from Lantau as Pak Lap on High Island in the Sai Kung District, and Ho Pui with Muk Min Ha in Tsuen Wan. These have also claimed depopulation in the 19th century and after. In the northern New Territories the well-known Tang clan of Kam Tin records a similar loss of population;4 whilst at Lin Ma Hang, a large village on the present Sino-British frontier,5 a stone tablet dated in 1893 was erected to detail the geomantic 1 Murphey: 27-30. 2 The first is well-documented, the second scarcely at all, though discussed in Potter 1968. 3 See JHKBRAS 3, 1963: 143-144; JHKBRAS 9, 1969: 156-158 and Hayes 1967:22-30. 4 Sung in HKN, VII, Dec. 1936:256. 5 See Gazetteer: 214. Especially as, in Hsin-an, it is not to be linked with devastating Taiping campaigns and official retribution, nor with Hakka-Punti wars on the scale that occurred in some parts of the province, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 HONG KONG PLACE NAMES 137 Tan Ka175, three kinds of Hakka137 and Hoklo138, Pun Yue Cantonese is widely understood but less widely spoken, particularly among the old men and women whom one consults for place-names. To this difficulty, combined with a simple misprint, is to be attributed the map name of the mountain north of the Lam Tsuen140 Valley. It is Tai To Yan1—Razor Cliff. The Nam Tau dialect pronounces this Tai Tau Yang, which became Tai Tan Yang by misreading the final letter of Tau. Even with field workers who are fluent in the local languages, it is not easy to keep the record straight. Country people the world over take a delight in mystifying strangers. Add to this the Chinese convention against direct question and answer, and it will be seen that the chances of a surveyor, working against time, getting a correct list of the names of topographical features, or even of the chief villages, are not good. The wonder is not that there are so many mistakes, but that any of the names are right. Finally, the best maps (such as they are) are not readily available even to many public servants, and the mountaineer and hiker, from whom corrections might come, often has to content himself with an old battered copy of an extinct edition.* For all these reasons I welcome Mr. Tregear's gazetteer as I welcomed his map. As far as I can see from a careful check of the draft, all the important names are there, and they are down correctly. Such omissions as there are result from the fact that some features have an English name but no Chinese one—or if they have, nobody can be found who remembers it. One thing which has not been included is a translation or explanation of each name. The reason will become clear to anybody who cares to read the second part of this paper, in which I have listed the principal elements of local place-names, for the understanding of some of which we have to extend our inquiries back to the days before the Chinese came to these parts. Before the Chinese In a talk to the Rotary Club130 of Hong Kong on 8th November, 1955, I said: 'Under our very noses, and separated from our time by not more than 600 years, we have a linguistic problem which no one has * The position is now greatly improved as a result of new and extensive re-mapping of the Colony. See JHKBRAS 9, 1969: 131-140. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 HONG KONG PLACE NAMES 157 word. The word Ngau (54) in local place names is often interchanged with Yau (122) and once with Lau (30). It is possible that this is the word from which the Chinese Yao79 was derived. The word Pak (63) in some local names interchanges with Pui (76). There was a people called the Pak158 in South China, and Pak (63), Pui (76) and perhaps Pa (60) and Pai (61) may be a version of this name. If these people cultivated salt paddy that would explain the term pak-tin (65). Many of the village names that make little sense contain two of these elements, e.g. Ma (42) Niu (58); Ma (42) Liu (35) Shui166; Ma (42) Yau181 Tong (98); Pak (63) Ngau (54) Shek (81); Yau180 Ma145 Tei; Pak (63) Tam172 Au (2). These would mean places where, by agreement, the two peoples could meet peaceably to exchange goods, to draw water, etc., or where cultivated land was shared. The name Shan-lao165, preserved in Chang Wei-yen's134 petition may be that which we have in Sha Lo Tung163 and Sha Lo Wan164. And the name Lung Kwu143 (also Tung Kwu178) and Lung Kwu Tan144 may come from another name for the boat-people mentioned by Mr. Ch'en Hsü-ching135, víz, Lung-hu142 which he says is also pronounced with initial D. NOTES AND CHARACTER INDEX 130 See South China Morning Post, Hong Kong, 9 November 1955. 131 The Reverend W. Stott kindly lent me a copy of his unpublished M.A. thesis on the Nanchao Kingdom with extracts from a fuller text of the Man-shu, I believe from the Library of Congress, U.S.A. No text I could obtain in Hong Kong had half as much material. 132 Cham zram (129 Rem.), 133 Chan crann p. 156. 134 Chang Wei-yen Zheonq Wrayjrann ✯✯✯ pp. 138, 157. 135 Ch'en Hsü-ching Crann Zreoighenq pp. 139, 157. 136 Ching crenq p. 156. 137 Hakka xaakghaahx #, possibly a corruption of a Yao79 word for mountain-dwellers. P. 136 and passim. 138 Hoklo xrokloo ## or ##, a name used by Punti160 and Hakka137 speakers to describe users of MinM dialects from Eastern Kwangtung and from Fukien, who pronounce # something like the Hakka pronunciation of. P. 136 and passim. 139 Hsin-an-chih Shannghonn-zi pp. 138, 150. 140 Lam Tsuen Lrammchynn p. 137. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 LEGENDS & STORIES OF THE NEW TERRITORIES 175 found in Wing Lung Wai where his portrait in military officer's uniform is to be seen. Tang Ming Luen, the son of Tang Kuen Hin, was another military officer. He was a very powerful man with exceptional strength in his arms. When he was young and before he studied the military arts, he came across, one day, two water buffaloes fighting in a road. The people standing by were unable to pass and yet could do nothing to separate the animals. Tang Ming Luen, seeing this, seized each buffalo by the horn, wrenched them apart, and stopped the fight. It happened that a newly passed Kui Yan named Tang T'in K'ei, who came from Tung Kwun district, was visiting Kam T'in to worship at the ancestral hall, and, according to old Chinese custom, to report the good news of his degree to his ancestors. He witnessed Tang Ming Luen's feat of strength and greatly admiring him, he encouraged him to study for the army, giving him ten taels of pure silver sycee as a reward. Tang Ming Luen passed his Mo Sau Tsoi in the 25th year of Ka Hing, A.D. 1820, and the Mo Kui Yan in the following year. There is another story that Tang Ming Luen dug up some hidden treasure in his orchard, which was near Sui T'au Ts'un. To the North of the garden, there was a large banyan tree and close by it a rock covered with creeping plants. On dark days, it was said that a light used to shine near this rock and at a distance, it appeared like a big white horse. One day, Tang told a labourer to dig a hole for planting a fruit tree in a corner of the garden where a lot of long grass was growing. In doing so, the man dug up a large earthenware jar with a lid on it, which was full of silver sycee. He seized a handful of them and started to carry them home, but at once, his eyes became dim-sighted and he was unable to see his way. Thinking that it must be a punishment for trying to take money that did not belong to him, the man put the coins back in the ground, and his sight recovered at once. When he told Tang of his discovery, Tang had the ground thoroughly dug, and many more jars, each full of silver coins, were found. Tang Kuen Hin was born in the 20th year of Kin Lung, A.D. 1755, and he built a school called So Lau Yuen in Shui Tau Tsuen, one of the Kam T'in villages. This building has a curious carving inside, rather like the face of a clock with Roman lettering on it, the origin of it being unknown. Another building called Ch'eung Tsun Yuen was built by one of his descendants. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 230 NOTES AND QUERIES Government to the representatives of the community for a Chinese school in 1847. (See "Notes on Chinese Temples" in the 1973 Journal of Hong Kong Branch, Royal Asiatic Society). Thus the roots of the College goes back to the first community-organised effort of the Chinese in urban Hong Kong to provide education. (5) VISIT TO CERAMIC FACTORY AND SAM TUNG UK (NEW TERRITORIES) On 16th November 1974, members of the Oriental Ceramics Society and of the Royal Asiatic Society visited the ceramic factory, Cerrarts, at Hung Shui Kiu in the New Territories and the village of Sam Tung Uk at Tsuen Wan. Cerrarts Mr. Lam, the owner, possibly one of the most experienced ceramists in Hong Kong, was a former student of St. John's University, Shanghai studying civil engineering. He was the first ceramist in Hong Kong to produce ceramics for the local and overseas market. He learnt his basic skill more than 30 years ago in China, continued making ceramics as a hobby, becoming more and more involved and eventually turned professional about 12 years ago. His interest has also influenced his son and daughter, who are now lecturers in ceramic and pottery in overseas universities. 44 'Any clay can be made into a fine piece of ceramic, given the correct treatment,” he said as he gently put down a freshly-painted Tang horse. He gets his clay from the hillsides around Hong Kong and adds chemicals to them e.g. refined powder cement. Through the addition of chemicals to the clay, the properties of the clay are changed. The type of chemical added also depends on the form required; e.g. for a Tang horse, dark clay and sand are used. Firstly, a mould is made. The form is shaped from clay and covered with plaster. When the plaster dries, it is removed from the form. It then gives an excellent imprint of the form and is used as the mould. An opening is produced on the mould and water-diluted clay is poured into it. The mould is then left to stand, with the opening at the lowest position. Any clay not sticking to the side of the mould is then drained through the opening. When the clay is dried, the mould is opened, and the bare body is taken out of the mould. Pieces are then pasted to the body to produce the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q CONTENTS Page PRESIDENT'S REPORT TREASURER'S REPORT THE LIBRARY ARTICLES: · Reflections on the Comparative Study of Modernization in China and Japan - RICHARD J. SMITH · The Teochiu: Ethnicity in Urban Hong Kong - Douglas W. SPARKS · Interethnic Interaction-a matter of Definition: Ethnicity in a Housing Estate in Hong Kong DOUGLAS W. SPARKS · "Patterned Bands" in the New Territories of Hong Kong - ELIZABETH L. JOHNSON · A Hawaiian King Visits Hong Kong, 1881 - TIN-YUKE CHAR · In Search of the Chinese Name for "Li Sun"-TIN-YUKE CHAR · Chan Lai-sun and his Family: a 19th Century China Coast Family - CARL T. SMITH · Notes on Friends and Relatives of Taiping Leaders - CARL T. SMITH with Additional Notes by JEN YU-WEN · Operation and Maintenance of a Road Transport System in West China 1942-46 — W. A. REYNOLDS · Land and River Routes to West China - A. D. BLUE · In the Path of the Ancient Mon: Pagan, Pegu and Nakom Pathom - MICHAEL SMITHIES REPORT: · A Report on Social Research in the New Territories of Hong Kong, 1963 - MAURICE FREEDMAN NOTES AND QUERIES: · Visit to Tung Wah Group of Hospitals' Museum, 2 October 1976 — CARL Smith and JAMES HAYES · Political and Pugilistic Freemasonry? - Y. F. LAM · Sandal Wood Mills at Tsuen Wan - JAMES HAYES · Chinese in the Volunteer Forces of Hong Kong — James HAYES · A Missing Chinese Library? - JAMES HAYES · Notes on Ho Chung-a 19th Century Artist in Kwangtung - CHUANG SHEN · Chinese Preserved Monks - KEITH STEVENS · Preliminary List of the Baker Collection of New Territories Genealogies in The British Library — H.G.H. NELSON · The Occurrence of Troides Helena (Linn.) in Hong Kong - J. CAREY-HUGHES AND J. B. PICKFORD Page 1 6 10 12 25 57 81 92 107 112 117 135 162 179 191 262 281 282 283 284 285 292 297 301 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q ETHNICITY IN A HOUSING ESTATE IN HONG KONG 67 to clearly demarcate the two groups, Organizations, ritual differences and stereotypes will be discussed shortly. The number of Hoi Luk Fung in the housing estate is not more than one-tenth of the number of Teochiu, and there are only several hundred people from the Kap Jih area. The latter are sufficiently large in number, however, to be considered socially significant by local Teochiu, and for the label "Kap Jih" to have meaning within the local area. The primary concern of this paper is that the label has different meaning for different people, and some are not at all sure of the appropriate meaning. The largest, most active and organized Teochiu association within the housing estate maintains an office and a small temple, which has been recently expanded, and is primarily concerned with the organization of public rituals. The latter are almost entirely supported by the local Teochiu population with very little participation by other ethnic groups. The other registered Teochiu association is organized around a spirit medium and his public presentations, and has recently built a tiny concrete temple (which is not in the immediate local area). The third Teochiu association is informal in that it is not registered with the government and is only active during a period of several months each year during preparations for the major Teochiu religious festival, the Hungry Ghost Festival. Most of the members of these associations are Teochiu, primarily from the district of Hui Lai, a few members are Kap Jih, and there are no Hoi Luk Fung members. There are a number of other Teochiu associations within Tsuen Wan, the industrial town within which the housing estate is located, as well as a large number of temples and temple organizations. The Teochiu associations discussed above have no formal contact with most of these; formal contacts between associations tend to follow the personal networks of the members. Thus, there are close formal ties between the three associations in the estate and other Teochiu associations in nearby housing estates in South Kwai Chung. These ties are very clearly a function of the extension of friendship and kinship networks from the one estate into the other estates, where fellow villagers, kinsmen, and old friends reside. There is only one informal Hoi Luk Fung association within the housing estate, whose sole function is the organization of a five-day religious festival which in most respects is similar to the Teochiu Hungry Ghost Festival. The only substantive difference ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963 201 the Man and their allies rallied local support to form a new market on the other side of what in British times has come to be known as the Kwun Yam River. This was the beginning of the market town of Tai Po in its present form. (The story up to this point is told by Sung Hok-p'ang, 'Legends and Stories of the New Territories. I. Tai Po', The Hong Kong Naturalist, vol. VI, no. 1, May 1935. The stone slab recording the magistrate's decision no longer stands in the temple; when the temple was recently rebuilt the stone was cast into the yard where it now lies, often encumbered with rubbish, a neglected minor monument of late Ch'ing history). 19. The new market in a short time consigned the old one to a decrepitude familiar to anyone who has walked behind the Jockey Club Clinic which now stands next to the Tin Hau Temple. Soon the founder of the new market put up the first of the bridges to span the Kwun Yam River; the subscription list for the bridge is recorded on two stone plaques set into the wall of the Man Mo Temple which had been built as a centre for the new market. A room in the temple still houses the public weighing scales from which the founders and their successors have derived an income. 20. The story goes that the Man who led the revolt against the Tang monopoly called a meeting of the leaders of seven yeuk around Tai Po, each of these taking a share in the new market in the form of shops. The land on which the market was built appears to have been for the most part the property of the Man. Now it is probable that the Ts'at Yeuk dates from this point in time. My informants take this view. And there is one piece of information which tends to confirm it: one of the constituent yeuk is Cheung Shue Tan which, according to what I was told in Sha Tin, was previously a member of a yeuk-complex in this latter area; so that it may well have changed its allegiance at the time of the founding of the new market at Tai Po. But even if the Ts'at Yeuk came into being so recently, the yeuk themselves can hardly have done so for they appear to have been the material out of which the complex was formed. Many locals assert that the yeuk did not antedate the Ts'at Yeuk, but I am inclined to think that we are dealing here with a very old form of grouping, as comparative evidence will suggest. The seven yeuk were Lam Tsuen, Cheung Shue Tan, Ting Kok, Shuen Wan, Hap Wo, Tai Hang, and Fan Leng. Together they had over seventy villages, but the yeuk were of unequal size, so that while, for example, the Man settlement at Tai Hang formed a yeuk ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 202 MAURICE FREEDMAN on its own, Lam Tsuen consisted of twenty-six villages. When the constituent villages of the seven yeuk are plotted on a map they can be seen to form a more or less continuous arc around Tai Po, but there are two striking irregularities in the distribution. First, the three villages making up the yeuk of Fan Leng stand away to the north, being in fact so much out of the immediate Tai Po area that today they fall administratively into a different sub-district and are not involved in local Tai Po affairs except in so far as they remain responsible for the market. Second, about twenty villages in the area of the arc are not members of any yeuk. Some of these are settlements which have come into being since the 1890s, but a few certainly existed at the time the market was planned and were deliberately excluded, or excluded themselves, from the union. Naturally, the Tang settlement at Tai Po Tau is one of them; they were the general enemy. Others were probably clients of the Tang and unable, or unwilling, to participate in the revolutionary move. Were they previously members of yeuk who fell out when these were combined to form the seven? 21. The Tang and the Man are Punti, the former being members of the dominant clan group in the New Territories, and the latter a branch of a clan group whose most important settlement is at San Tin. The Man had for long intermarried with the local Tang (their genealogy book shows that the Tang gave them many women), were rich, and had produced some scholars. (Their main ancestral hall, now in ruins, must have been a splendid building). Their rivalry with the Tang at Lung Yeuk Tau and Tai Po Tau had had a long history. As the story of the market demonstrates, the rivalry was in part commercial; the Tang at Tai Po Tau tell jokingly of the leading Tang and his Man counterpart competing to see who could lay the longer line of silver dollars along the path leading north from their settlement. But the area in which the contest was fought out was predominantly Hakka, and it was necessary for the Man to find their support in Hakka villages. Second in importance to the Man in the founding of the new market were the Hakka Ma of Wun Yiu. They appear to have been a small but well-to-do settlement. (The only crockery kiln in the whole region was in their area, and a Roman Catholic chapel had stood there for at least thirty years before the founding of the new market; they were clearly in a centre of some importance). The last flickers to be seen today of the hostility to the Tang in Ts'at Yeuk circles fail to ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q NOTES AND QUERIES POLITICAL AND PUGILISTIC FREEMASONRY?* CHINESE FREEMASONS 281 Door front of a house in a Chicago China Town street. The Chinese inscription on the glass panel: +##NR% (literally: China Hung Mun Peoples' Governing Party). "Hung Mun" is a branch of Chinese martial art (kung fu); "Peoples' Governing Party" is probably what Freemasons are known to be by this organisation in Chicago. This photograph was taken by Y. F. Lam, P.M. 428 and 493, S.C. during his U.S.A. tour in May, 1976. Mr. Lam continues: I am indebted to my good friend, James W. Hayes, M.A., Ph.D., currently Town Manager and District Officer, Tsuen Wan, N.T. and Editor of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch, who provided me with a relevant and interesting excerpt from a book entitled Ex-Chief Inspector Kenneth Andrew, Hong Kong Detective, published by John Long, London 1962. It runs: * Reprinted, with permission, from the "1975-1976 Year Book and Proceedings of the District Grand Lodge of the Far East". Mr. Y. F. Lam is, of course, our Member and Printer. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 298 NOTES AND QUERIES 14. Sheung Shui Wa Shan (p. 206) # Liu 廖 15. Lung Yeuk Tau (p. 209) MEDA Chau Wong Yee Yuen Temple Accounts. 周王二院廟恨 16. Liu Clan Association Handbook. (Hong Kong Branch) 香港廖氏宗親會特刊 17 18. San Tin (p. 203) Lung Yeuk Tau. 龍躍頭 Chau Wong Yee Yuen Temple Accounts. 周王二院廟帳 Nga Tsin Wai (p. 123) #E Man 文 19. Ng 吳 20. Sheung Shui (p. 206) Ek Liu 廖 21. Liu Pok (p. 205) # Fung 馮 22. Nga Tsin Wai (p. 123) B Ng 吳 [N.B. this is another copy of the last 3rd of No. 19.] 23. Ho Sheung Heung (p. 205) ** Hau 侯 24. Chuk Yuen (p. 123) Lam 林 25. Ha Tsuen (p. 164) # Tang 鄧 26. Kam Tin (p. 172) Tang 鄧 27. Lung Yeuk Tau (p. 209) N Tang 鄧 28. Ho Chung (p. 139) Wan 溫 29. Unidentified Tang 鄧 30. Unidentified Tang 鄧 31. Tai Hang (p. 200) Man 文 32. and Tong Fuk (p. 78) Tang 鄧 34. 33. Fan Pui (p. 73) # 35. San Shek Wan (p. 80) ** ̄* Fung 馮 Mo 莫 36. Pak Sha Tsuen (p. 166) ✩** Lau 劉 37. Ma On Kong (p. 172) Wu 吳 38. Kai Kuk Shue Ha (p. 218) SHT Chue 朱 39. Ngau Pei Sha (p. 145) Liu 廖 Wu Kai Sha (p. 182) *** 40. Luk Keng Chan Uk (p. 218) **A Chan 陳 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q NOTES AND QUERIES Vol. No. Village (and Gazetteer reference) 299 Surname 41. Tong To (p. 217) Yau 余 42. Shek Pik (p. 73) Tsui 徐 43. Tap Mun Sheung Wai (p. 244) Lai 黎 44. Ha Yau Tin (p. 167) Tsui 徐 45. Sham Chung (p. 192) Lei 李 46. Sham Chung (p. 192) Lei 李 47. Chung Mei (p. 193) Lei 李 48. 49. Kei Ling Ha San Wai (p.183) 企嶺下新村 Ho 何 50. Kei Ling Ha San Wai (p.183) 企嶺下新 Ho 何 51. Pak Sha O Ha Yeung (p.189) 白沙澳下洋 52. Lo Uk Tsuen (p. 171) 羅屋村 Chuk Hang (p. 170) Yung 翁 Lo 羅 Tang 鄧 53. Shek Po Tsuen (p. 163) 石壆村 (2 vols.) Lam 林 54. 55. 56. 57. Kan Tay Tsuen (p. 212) 簡堤村 So Lo Pun (p. 219) 莽魯半 Mong Tseng Wai (p. 165) 輞井圍 Lo Shue Ling (p. 215) 羅樹嶺 Wong 黃 Tang 鄧 To 陶 Lau 劉 58. (Tai Po Tau (p. 174)) ✯ Tang 鄧 (Tai Po Shui Wai (p. 174)) ***@ [Not a genealogy: listing of ritual forms etc.] 59. Kau Tam Tso (p. 194) Lei 李 60. Heung Sai (not in New Territories) Cheung 張 61. Lung Kwu Tan (p. 160) Ho 何 Lau 劉 62. San Tin (p. 203) Man 文 63. Lau Clan Association Handbook Lau 劉 (Hong Kong Branch) 香港劉氏宗親會特刊 64. Sam A (p. 221) Tsang 曾 (4 vols.) 65. Che Ha (p. 183) Lei 李 66. She Shan (p. 200) Chan 陳 67. Kat O (p. 221) Lau 劉 68. Yung Shue Au (p. 219) Wan 溫 69. Hang Ha Po (p. 200) Lam 林 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 300 Vol. No. NOTES AND QUERIES Village (and Gazetteer reference) Surname 70. Fan Leng (p. 208) # 71. Fan Leng (p. 208) 72. Wai Tau Tsuen (p. 200) Pang 彭 Pang Cheung 張 73. Tai Kei Leng (p. 167) #4 Chung 鐘 74. Tin Sam (p. 171) Tsoi 蔡 75. Ha Wo Hang (p. 216) F** Lei 李 75.* [Duplicate] 76. Kwu Tung (p. 205) Lei 李 moved from Sham Chun area. 77. 78. Sha Lo Tung Lo Wei (p. 198) ***ŁE Lei # Lin O (Map ref. 070854) Lei 李 79. Ha Tsuen (p. 164) Tang 鄧 80. Kat Hing Wai (p. 172) N Tang 鄧 81. 82. Kat O Au Pui Tong (p. 221) *** Sheung Tsuen (p. 171) # Lam 林 Tse 謝 83. Nai Wai (p. 162) 84. 85. Later additions 86. Man 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. a 1st generation Cheng group now living in Hong Kong City. 92. 賴氏族譜 (mainland China) 93. 94. (2 vols.) Ng Uk Tsuen (p. 169) A** Ping Yeung (p. 214) ** of San Tin (p. 203) Pro- vided by Dr. James L. Watson 廣東番禺潭山許氏族誌 Unidentified: surname Taam possibly from Kwan Mun Hau, Tsuen Wan. 四必堂陳氏族譜誌 (the same as 89). [***] Sheung Tsuen (p. 171) Graham E. Johnson, Courtesy of Dr. U.B.C. Received from Dr. H. D. R. Baker Census of Lin Fa Tei village (p. | From Mr. 171) drawn up for the Ta Chiu of | H. G. H. Nelson 1967. To Ng 吳 Chan 陳 謝陶 Page 315 Page 316 ================================================================================ 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 NOTES AND QUERIES 159 rocks that are the product of rapid cooling at close to atmospheric pressure. The minerals composing the rocks have a high content of silica and are said, therefore, to be acid (as opposed to basic rocks that contain comparatively small amounts of silica). Acid rocks are inherently more viscous in the molten state than are basic rocks, and so volcanoes containing acid material are particularly liable to explosions. The peak of Tai Mo Shan, and the high ridges that fan out from it, are composed of coarse tuff - material that was blown from a volcano in solid particles and then cemented together. By contrast, the lower slopes on the southern and eastern sides are formed from material that was blown from the volcano in a viscous condition; this material is also cemented together but its texture is fine because it solidified at atmospheric pressure. On the northern slopes, running down to the Lam Tsuen valley, the rocks are essentially the same except where they have been altered by intrusions of more coarse-grained materials. Probably the most important practical aspect is that the rocks, like most others in Hong Kong, are high in silica. Consequently they contain only low concentrations of the important plant nutrients and so yield soils of low fertility. According to Grant (1960) the two main types of soil in Hong Kong have fairly well-defined distributions: (i) red-yellow podzol: is formed from granitic rocks at all altitudes, and on other rocks above 450 metres; (ii) krasnozem: is never formed from granite, but is formed from other rock types below about 400-450 metres. The best way to study a soil is by means of a pit which reveals a profile of the soil from the surface downward. Road cuttings and the like are convenient for this purpose. On this basis, the two main types of soil may be described briefly as follows: (i) Red-yellow podzol. The layer of soil proper is usually quite shallow, about 30-45 cm. above the parent rock. Three or four layers are usually visible: a greyish-yellow or greyish-red top layer, then a paler greyish layer, and then a red, yellowish-red or yellow layer above the parent material. (ii) Krasnozem. The layer of decomposed rock is usually very thick, from 2 to 12 metres. The color is a shade of reddish ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 160 NOTES AND QUERIES brown and, apart from being somewhat darker at the surface, there is no sign of layers. Vegetation: The kind of vegetation on different parts of Tai Mo Shan depends on a variety of factors: altitude, soil conditions, exposure, and frequency of fires. Furthermore, trees have been planted on a considerable scale upon the upper slopes by the Agriculture and Fisheries Department; the main species are Acacia confusa (native), Pinus elliottii (from Caribbean region) and Tristania conferta (related to Eucalyptus sp., from Australia). Briefly, in sheltered sites where the soil is reasonably deep, with adequate moisture, but which have not experienced a fire for, say, twenty years a natural woodland will probably be present. Elsewhere, either grassland or scrubland will exist. Even where fires occur every few years, belts of natural woodland may survive beside water-courses—a situation that is analogous to the "gallery forest" of East Africa. Definitions of the kinds of vegetation have been compiled by the Hong Kong Government (1968), and the possible inter-relationship of the vegetation types have been discussed by Thrower (1975). The Route in Outline: 1. Route Twisk to Tai Mo Shan Road a) The starting point was in Tsuen Wan, which is situated at approximately sea level and has a rainfall of about 200 cm. b) Beyond the outskirts of Tsuen Wan, note: — beside road on left-hand side is a border of Casuarina equisetifolia trees, which have some resemblance to pine trees; they are widely planted in Hong Kong and the western Pacific. — on right-hand side are constructed terraces with cultivation (including bananas), and burial urns, kam taap (金塔). c) As the 'bus climbs higher, note the hillside directly ahead: the plantation of Tristania conferta has been badly burnt. Many more examples of serious fires will be seen. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n NOTES AND QUERIES Plate 4. A-Lichen Aspicilia sp. (ca. natural size) B-Lichen Xanthoparmelia sp. (ca. natural size) C The grasshoppers Gastrimargus sp. and Patanga sp. The body of Patanga (r.h.s.) is about 6.5 cm long; the yellow and black pattern on the hind-wing of Gastrimargus (l.h.s.) is characteristic of the genus. Plate 5. A-terraces on slopes above the Kadoorie Experimental and Extension Farm. B-view of the stone retaining walls; note that the terrace is not flat but slopes from rear to front and from one side to the other. Yuen Long Shek Kong Air Strip & Camp Old Shek Kong Camp Kadoorie Exp. & Ext. Farm 1958 300 900 800 0480 700 + 600 500 Points visible from Stop Deep Bay old S.K. Summit of Kadoorie Airstrip Camp & Exp. & Ext. Farm, and Terraced Hill-sides Lan Tau Island Tsing Yi Island Castle Peak Tsing Yi Island ·Route Twisk Tsuen Нап Town/ -Tarık Farm 300. P Tai Po via Lam Tsuen Valley Kowloon Kn. + N Figure 1. Sketch map of Tai Mo Shan complex, showing the contours in metres. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n NOTES AND QUERIES 171 Higher up the mountain, there were those who were content with more modest quarters. Pre-war, Heywood found such a retreat beside some large rocks high on the mountain. Keeping always to the west of the stream, you will reach a secluded upper valley where there is a Buddhist settlement. Two of the charming and courteous people of this place once showed me round their home, which consisted of a cave under a huge overhanging boulder. A thatched porch shaded the wayfarer as he sat drank tea (and how very refreshing Chinese tea can be when you are out walking). Inside was the living room with beds and a table and a little shrine, all kept spotlessly clean, and down below was an underground kitchen, supplied with a clear trickle of water through a chink in the rocks." In contrast to these newer institutions there is at least one very old Buddhist nunnery, the Ling Wan Chi (†). This is stated to be a fifteen-century foundation, associated with the powerful family of Tang of Kam Tin in the New Territories (JHKBRAS 13 (1973): 128-9). 10. On all sides of the mountain, these earlier institutions have now been joined by a large number of smaller, more modest foundations, some in their own houses, others in rented accommodation. These, on the Tsuen Wan side, are largely Buddhist and most of them are intended for women, many of whom are retired domestic servants ending their lives in quiet. The outside and refugee origin of some of these persons is reflected in the names of their halls. A modest temporary structure in Lo Wai is named for the famous old Wing Ning hall (永寧堂) in Toi Shan city (台山城), in existence long before it became a county seat, as the owner told me proudly, whilst a larger pre-war hall is named Tung Po To, the 'Po To isle in the East' (=Kwangtung) after its founder's home monastery in Po To Island in the Yangtse, one of the homes of Chinese Buddhism.* Myths and Legends 11. An account of this region written nearly 120 years ago by Rudolf Krone, a German protestant missionary of the Rhenish Mission, states, * For a more famous sister, the 'Po To in the South' situated at Amoy in the Fukien province see Pitcher: 78 and illustration at 161. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n NOTES AND QUERIES 177 26. Water was, of course, Tai Mo Shan's greatest natural resource. Before the construction of the Shing Mun catchwaters pre-war, and those for the Tai Lam Chung reservoir post-war, a tremendous flow of water ran down the mountain. It assisted in the gradual formation of land for houses and cultivation at its two main stream mouths in Tsuen Wan,* and was also used for industrial purposes. Water power drove the 24 incense mills located on the various streams of Tsuen Wan between 1900-1910 and before. (JHKBRAS 16 (1976):282-283). Stream water was also essential to the manufacture of bean curd and bean stick, another very old Tsuen Wan local industry, in which the quality of the product was directly related to the availability of a continually available pure water supply (see pp. 216-218 of this Journal). Public Works 27. In any hill area in which streams abound and become fast-flowing torrents in wet weather, there is a need for bridges across which travellers and villagers carrying heavy loads can proceed in safety. Tai Mo Shan has its share of such streams, and there are surviving bridges here and there in the hills and on its lower slopes. Among those known to me the largest is the Po Chai Bridge at Chung Hang, a few minutes' walk from my office in Tsuen Wan. Beside it is a battered slate-like tablet commemorating its repair in the 4609th year of the Yellow Emperor, a curious titling which owes its inspiration to the overthrow of the Ch'ing dynasty in the same year as its reconstruction (see Dingle: 89 for a similar dating that gave me the clue to this one and illustrates the wave of Chinese feeling that linked places as far apart in these two cases as Hankow and Tsuen Wan). The subscribers were the leading villagers and shopkeepers of Tsuen Wan and places linked to it by social and business ties. 28. Another bridge, further up the same valley at a place called Ngo Tei (#) or Goose Land—probably its geomantic name—has no tablet. However it is also an old bridge, and an elderly villager of Pak Shek Kiu, an abandoned hill village higher up, credits its repair fifty years ago by a city merchant from Hong Kong as the 'price' paid to the villages to allow burial of one of his relatives there. * The old name for Tsuen Wan was Chin Wan (**) or Shallow Bay which directly reflects the effect of the mountain on the bay. It was in use until the late 19th century, being replaced first by Tsuen Wan and then... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 180 NOTES AND QUERIES A visit will be made by coach to five of the oldest graves belonging to the family and, in addition, to a school in Kat Hing Wai at Kam Tin to see some of its heirlooms. Quite a bit of walking is involved and lady members are advised to wear flat shoes for comfort and ease of movement over hill paths. The visit will start from the Tsuen Wan Ferry Pier at 11 a.m. Members are advised to catch the regular ferry from the Central Terminus, Hong Kong (35 minutes by ordinary ferry, 20 by hover ferry). Please check ferry times with HK Yaumatei Ferry Co. (Tel. 5-220393) and make your own arrangements. Otherwise, come by car and park locally, allowing plenty of time to find parking space (try the western end of Yeung Uk Road, in the area of the Yeung Uk Road Sports Ground, in the same road as the pier). Members are advised to bring a picnic lunch. The visit should end between 5--6 p.m., back at the Tsuen Wan Ferry Pier. The tour will be limited to two buses and members and their friends are invited on a first-come-first-served basis. Please telephone names to Mrs. Kam at 12-403396 (District Office, Tsuen Wan). Programme notes will be available on the day. DAVID LIU and JAMES HAYES Joint Organizers 29.11.76 THE TANG (4) CLAN IN THE NEW TERRITORIES AND ITS OLDEST GRAVES According to the genealogical record kept by the Tang clan at Kam Tin, it originated from a branch settled in Kut Shui County (*) of Kiangsi Province during the northern Sung period (960-1126).* It all started when one of the ancestors by the name of TANG Fu-hip (###) passed through this part of Kwangtung on his way to his new official assignment as the magistrate of Yeung Chun County () after he had successfully passed the imperial examination and was awarded the chin-shih degree during the reign of Hsi Ning (1068-1077). * With the exception of "Kiangsi” romanizations used in this Note are in Cantonese. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n NOTES AND QUERIES 181 He must have come by boat as the record states that "he left his boat at Tuen Mun - the present-day Castle Peak Bay - and rambled through the woods of the New Territories and visited many mountains. He fell in love with the scenery, and found many excellent grave sites for he was an accomplished geomancer." After he finished his official tour of duty in Yeung Chun County, he returned to his native home at Kiangsi and brought down the exhumed remains of his great grandfather TANG Hon-fat (#) and his great grandmother and those of his grandfather TANG Kun () and his grandmother to this area for reburial, presently the New Territories of Hong Kong. He buried his great grandfather and great grandmother in a grave at a site called Yuk Nui Pai Tong (#), meaning "the newly married girl is presented to her in-laws", at a small hill near Wang Chau (#), Yuen Long. He also buried his grandfather TANG Kun and his grandmother in a grave the site of which is called Kam Chung Fook Fo (4ƒƒX), “the golden bell covers the flame”, on a small hill behind the present Pok Oi Hospital on the main road from Kam Tin to Yuen Long. Both sites were considered auspicious. We do not know whether TANG Fu-hip's father TANG Yuk (e) was brought here dead or alive. He and his two wives were buried in a grave on a small hill not far from the Tsuen Wan District Office. The name of the site is called Pun Yuet Chiu Tam (*AR), “a half moon is shining over the water pond”. Owing to the proximity to the urban area and its easy accessibility, the Tang clan led by their elders come here every year on the 19th day of the Tenth Moon (lunar calendar) to pay homage to this ancestor. The record does not tell us how TANG Fu-hip brought the bones of his ancestors from Kiangsi, whether by boat or by the overland route. When TANG Fu-hip died, he was buried in a grave he had chosen himself. The name of the site is called Sin Yan Tai Tso (^) “the grand seat of the fairy", and it is located not very far from where he buried his great grandfather and great grandmother. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 182 NOTES AND QUERIES TANG Fu-hip must have lived to a venerable old age because during his lifetime he established a famous school not far from present-day Kam Tin and had close contacts with the officials and gentry of his day. After the death of TANG Fu-hip, the Sung dynasty was much in decline. Plagued by official corruption from within, the dynasty was also hard-pressed by the Mongols without. When the pressure became too great, the emperors would buy temporary relief by giving up more territory to the enemy. In one of the customary evacuations before the advancing Mongols, 160 persons of the royal court, mostly women and children, were either drowned or scattered with fate unknown. TANG Yuen-leung (††), the great-grandson of TANG Fu-hip, was garrison commander of the northern Kiangsi town of Kim Chau (M). The situation was very tense: the imperial army fell back constantly and refugees were streaming south. He did his utmost to alleviate the suffering of the refugees and spared no efforts to repatriate those who wanted to go back to their homes in the north. In one of the flood tides of refugees, he came across a teenage girl on whom he took pity. He adopted her, and the girl did much to hide her true identity. Afterward, he retired from the army and returned to his native Kam Tin, bringing the refugee girl with him. Only at that time was he told the refugee girl was one of the princesses of the royal family of Sung. He married her to his son TANG Wai-kap (x). By this marriage, four sons were born, whose descendants founded most of the Tang clan's branch settlements in Ha Tsuen, Yuen Long, Tai Po Tau, and Lung Yeuk Tau, all in the N.T. When TANG Wai-kap died, he was buried on a small knoll just to the left of the present Au Tau crossroads leading from Yuen Long to Fanling. The site of the grave is named Wu Lei Kuo Shui (£), “the fox is swimming the river”, because there is indeed a small creek in front of the knoll to the present day. The princess was not buried in the same grave as her husband. She was buried in a grave on Lion's Hill near Shek Tseng (G&#) in Tung Kwun County (✯) to the north of Hong Kong. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n NOTES AND QUERIES The five graves may be summed up chronologically as follows: (1) TANG Hon-fat (2) TANG Kun (3) TANG Yuk (4) TANG Fu-hip (5) TANG Wai-kap Hong Kong, Nov. 1976 183 (Yuk Nui Pai Tong) near Wang Chau. Yuen Long. (Kam Chung Fook Fo) on a small hill behind Pok Oi Hospital. (Pun Yuet Chiu Tam) Tsuen Wan on Castle Peak Road. (Sin Yan Tai Tso) near Wang Chau, Yuen Long. (Wu Lei Kuo Shui) near Au Tau cross- roads. DAVID LIU ACCOUNT OF THE VISIT On Saturday, 11th December, 1976 some thirty members of the Society visited the five main graves of the Tang family of Kam Tin and other old established villages in the New Territories (see the programme notes above). We first visited grave No. 3 in Tsuen Wan which is located on a small hill that was bought by the family in 1927 to protect the grave in the face of various encroachments. In addition to the grave, there exist two round granite pillars (similar to those at graves 1 and 4 but without their lion-dog tops). These are situated each at a distance of 132 feet and angles of 125 and 217 degrees from the centre of the grave, as measured standing at the main table with the compass pointing north.* Lower down, a little off the main road there is also part of an entrance, built of inscribed rectangular granite pillars, erected in the 4 year which the Tang elders say is, in this case, 1894. Mr. Peplow was Land Bailiff, Southern District at the time the Tangs purchased the land in 1927, and his account,† quoting from a silk scroll given to him by one of the Tangs, is as follows: † S. H. Peplow Hong Kong About and Around (Hong Kong Commercial Press 1930) pp. 148-149. * I have since learned from the Tangs that the two pillars stood further to the front of the grave, nearer the former shore line, and that they were moved to their present location when the first Castle Peak motor road was constructed about 1917-1919. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n NOTES AND QUERIES 185 dogs. We observed those at the first but actually visited those at the second, which were close to our path back to Wang Chau. The first of these sites is particularly well placed and the outlook and general air of peace and perpetuity on a most beautiful sunny winter day were unforgettable. Alas for permanence! Though not itself in danger, the land to the rear of the second grave is threatened by a plan to establish a borrow area for development projects requiring soft fill. This would cut into the hills and remove features that are considered by the Tangs to threaten the good geomantic qualities of the grave. Consequently, a number of the persons who had earlier met us at Kam Tin were waiting there patiently to explain the position to us, obviously hoping for our support, and several members of the party walked with them to the ridge behind to see the land and hear their views, as courtesy required. All told, this visit was a memorable one. The Society is most grateful to the elders of the Tang family for their courtesy, hospitality and assistance with the day's arrangements. Hong Kong, 1978. JAMES HAYES Grave No. 3 is Plate 50 of LO Hsiang-lin and others' Hong Kong and its External Communications before 1842 (Chinese version, 1959) and Plate 35 of the English version (1963). Grave No. 5 is at Plates 51-53 of the Chinese version and Plates 36-37 of the English. ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY VISIT TO TSUEN WAN SATURDAY, 10TH DEC., 1977 ‘A VILLAGE WAR' A. NOTE ON THE VISIT In the 1860's, an ill-natured three-year struggle took place between villagers of Shing Mun, where the Jubilee Reservoir now is, and of Tsuen Wan. A good deal of damage was caused on each side, and many lives were lost. Fortunately, the descendants of the combatants are still living in this area, and it is possible to reconstruct the details of the struggle and to view some interesting relics ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 186 NOTES AND QUERIES relating to it. The tour will include a visit to the Tin Hau Temple at Miu Kong, Tsuen Wan, where there is a memorial to the war and a tablet to the Tsuen Wan villagers who were killed. Also to the Kwan Tei Temple at Kam Tin, where part of the Shing Mun villagers were resettled in 1928, which contains a tablet to the Shing Mun villagers killed in the struggle. From the Tsuen Wan ferry pier, the party went first by coach to the Shing Mun reservoir, sometimes called the Jubilee Reservoir because of its completion at the time of King George V's jubilee year (1935). A picnic lunch on one of the vantage points with barbecue and sitting out facilities was followed by a talk by Dr. James Hayes, Tour Leader, on the history and livelihood of the former villagers who lived in the valley for nearly 300 years before their removal in 1928 for the reservoir project. After lunch, the party moved to Kam Tin where the main body of the Shing Mun people moved in 1928. Here our intrepid and helpful bus driver got into difficulties in a confined space between a USD refuse trailer and the gate to the school compound. He was rescued by the action of a group of Members who dismantled a tied up, projecting hawker cart whilst, with characteristic energy and flair, Professor Tony Reynolds directed the driver, conjuring up visions of problems expertly handled many years ago in far Yenan!* After this episode, we were welcomed by the village representative Mr. Cheng Siu-fong (*) and the Headmaster of the Shing Mun New Village School, Mr. Cheung Sze-man (X). We were entertained to tea in the school which has an interesting history. It bears the same name as the old school at Shing Mun Tai Wai built for the villagers by their leaders very many years before their removal in 1928. After the move to Kam Tin it was reprovisioned in the ancestral halls and in 1958, under a subsidized village school building programme supported by the Education Department and New Territories Administration, it transferred to the present six classroomed school building. Over tea our hosts told us something of the village history after the move to Kam Tin. The main difference was in livelihood, because their agricultural holdings by purchase and rent were only a fraction of those held at Shing Mun, inevitably since Kam Tin had been long densely settled by the Tang clan and later inhabitants. * See his article at pp 43-54 of this Journal. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n NOTES AND QUERIES 191 spot in the fields near Kam Tin, beside one of the new villages built by the Shing Mun people with funds provided by the Hong Kong Government. This temple (Plate 40) contains a tablet bearing the names of 17 Shing Mun villagers who died in the struggle.16 (Plate 41). (b) Tsuen Wan The Tin Hau Temple, which likewise is the community temple for the Tsuen Wan villagers, also contains a tablet to the 17 Tsuen Wan villagers who died in the war. (Plate 42). We shall also see the memorial recording the war according to the Tsuen Wan viewpoint. (c) One of the local weapons, estimated to be over 100 years old, and likely to have been in use at the time, is preserved in Muk Min Ha Village, one of the Tsuen Wan group, and I have permission to bring it with me on the visit. In the quaint phraseology of the past it is of the type known locally as 'Little Duck-bill', no doubt on account of its shape. (Plate 43),17 7. Comment This episode in local history is interesting for several reasons: (a) It took place between persons of the same language group. (b) All the contesting villages were small and their inhabitants closely related by intermarriage and other links over the preceding one to two hundred years of local settlement. (c) The Shing Mun villages were known locally as the Pak Heung18 or 8 Villages. Their one major and several minor lineages banded together to oppose Tsuen Wan. The latter, even more diversely settled than Shing Mun, also closed ranks to deal with the enemy. (d) It was purely a local struggle: no outside factors or participants were seemingly involved, other than the group from the other Pat Heung. (e) The district magistrate and local military forces apparently did not interpose themselves between the contestants: at least not on the local memory of these events. (f) Such incidents throw light on the war-like nature of local villagers, and the obligations of lineage groups to each other in offence and defence: they are typical of the Hong Kong region and other areas of S.E. China at this time. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 200 NOTES AND QUERIES vided useful suggestions concerning possible lines of enquiry; their assistance promised to complement the substantial resources Government placed at our disposal. Most significant of all was the enthusiasm displayed by the village representatives and elders of Kam Tin. The Kam Tin area, populated chiefly by members of the Tang clan, has a long and rich history; we decided, therefore, to concentrate our efforts in this area. On 25 June, Government hired Chan Sin-wai, a fourth-year history student at Chinese University and longtime resident of Kam Tin, to assist in carrying out the project. Another unpaid co-worker, Chen Ka-won, a graduate of C.U.H.K. and a resident of Ping Shan, joined the project in late July. An examination of available knowledge and questions of methodology absorbed the next few days. A field headquarters was established in Ng Ka Tsuen, and the long process of “introduction” was begun. On 11 July, Mr. Paul Wong, liaison officer attached to your Office, arranged a meeting of interested elders from the Tang villages of Kam Tin. During the meeting, we explained the goals of the project, and their warm reception assured us of every cooperation. The success of this "mass meeting" prompted a series of formal interviews which have been taking place over the last six weeks and will continue into September. We have interviewed nearly twenty-five elders possessing knowledge of Kam Tin's history and traditions. Several have proved to be exceptionally valuable informants, and closer, more "informal" relationships have developed. We have made a number of tape recordings of important tales ranging over a variety of topics. One collection of stories centers around the resistance by the Tangs to British occupation. We are especially hopeful that these tales and personal remembrances will shed light on the events of 1898-99 and subsequent land disputes, and will lead to the solution of certain perplexing questions regarding land tenure and rural class structure (the 'Sai Man' question). We have been granted access to clan and fong genealogies, and have received permission to make photo-copies. Documents, paintings, and plaques dating from Ming and Ch'ing have also come to light. Field trips were undertaken to every village in the Kam Tin area, and we have been guided through the major temples, tsz tong, and graves of historical interest. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 202 NOTES AND QUERIES in the shuffle. As a consequence, phenomena of this order are hardly understood. In my opinion, as large corporate groups continue to disintegrate in the New Territories, a complex structure of social life will emerge to fill the vacuum. This structure will be composed of 'popular' elements, previously considered 'incongruities' by most theoreticians, which are no less traditional than the Confucian ideal, yet more resilient. It is precisely within the corpus of oral tradition that the historical basis of this structure comes to light. Aside from these reasons, the project would provide useful materials for the study of Hong Kong history in the lower and middle schools, while being of general scholastic worth to advanced research. The initial project would hopefully be attached to the District Office, its scope of research encompassing the villages and townships of a single Administrative District. I estimate that a staff of three or four researchers working for a minimum of two years would complete an adequate history of Yuen Long. At this time, I would like to thank the New Territories Administration, and most especially your office, for the assistance and encouragement offered the pilot project over the last few months. I look forward to a further exchange of opinions on the points touched on above. Yours, [Signed] JOHN THOMAS Kamm FIELD NOTES ON THE SOCIAL HISTORY AND FUNG-SHUI OF KAM TIN* 1. Kam Tin is properly the name of a community; it is a generic term applied to a number of settlements (walled and unwalled villages - respectively wai (圍) and tsuen (村)) clustered together to form a heung (鄉). Until recent times (mid-1930's), with the notable exceptions of servile families (sai-man (世民) and ha-fu (下夫)) and tenants, this heung was inhabited exclusively by members of the large and powerful Tang (鄧) clan. Indeed, Kam Tin, * As such, these notes should be read in conjunction with the various papers to which reference is made in the text. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 204 NOTES AND QUERIES as "land-holding corporations" and are treated as such, descent data being regarded essentially as secondary particulars. 6. Although the implications of this statement for the general theory of unilineal descent groups have largely been ignored, the observation is borne out by a study of the ethnographic and historical data concerning the Kam Tin Tangs. The elders classify no fewer than four ancestors as hoi chuk cho, and, according to them, honor all four with essentially the same ritual obligations. These ancestors [1) Tang Hon Fat (**), 2) Tang Foo (##), 3) Tang Yuen Leung (*), 4) Tang Hung Yee (###)] are central pivots around which much of the oral and written history revolve; yet, as an investigation of the genealogy (##) kept by the elders reveals, long spells of "historical time" and interrupted residence separate them one from another, a disturbing fact which has, in the past, generated considerable debate on their individual legitimacies. 7. Sung Hok Pang* mentions a debate, recorded in an early Kam Tin genealogy during the Shing Fa () years of the Ming dynasty, concerning whether Tang Hon Fat ever actually visited Kam Tin at all. Elders maintain that this debate is still very much alive. 8. The debate concerning the founding of Sham Tin, i.e., whether Tang Hon Fat or Tang Foo founded the Tang settlement, is perhaps understandable when we realize the striking similarities in the biographies of the two men. Tang Hon Fat settled, it is said, in the vicinity of Sham Tin at a place called Kwai Kok Shan (± A L), some time towards the end of the tenth century A.D. There is speculation that he constructed the Hung Shing Kung (†), a temple still intact in Pak Pin (at) Village. He was a government officer, shing mo long (#4), from Kiangsi (31), Kat Shui Yuen (##), Pak Sha Tsuen village (#). The Nam Yeung Tang genealogy (✯✯✯✯✯), held by the Ping Shan Tangs, credits him with being the first settler. The Kam Tin Tangs disagree, placing most of the credit on his great-grandson, Tang Foo. 9. Tang Foo was also a high official of the Sung Dynasty (holder of the chin shih (+) degree and county magistrate of Yeung Chun (**)). He, too, is supposed to have settled at Kwai... See Mr. Kamm's Essay I, f.n. 20 and Essay II, f.n. 21. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n NOTES AND QUERIES 205 Kok Shan. In general, the significance of Tang Foo is two-fold: 1) by establishing a famous school or study (Lik Ying Tsai #) near Kam Tin, he linked his name with scholarly achievement in San On and Canton, 2) by recognizing the qualities of the area's Fung-shui (風水) and locating his ancestors' graves accordingly, he assured future benefits for his descendents. 10. With reference to the former point, Tang expansion was undoubtedly assisted by the largely fictive "kinship" bonds established within the scholarly civil-service tradition. 11. It will be noted that in the two accounts of Fung-shui appended to these notes,* the landmarks recognized by Tang Foo correspond generally to the boundaries of territory claimed by the Kam Tin— Ping Shan- Ha Tsuen Tangs. Also notice the conflicting tales recorded by Sung and O'Dwyer,† particularly concerning whether Tang Foo was an official prior to examining the Fung-shui. An excellent example of how oral "tales” contradict orthodox doctrine. 12. There is considerable doubt that, after Tang Foo, the Tangs continued to be a force in Sham Tin; but, two generations later, ancestors reappear, and with them mention, for the first time, of the popular territorial division of Kam Tin. Two cousins (grandchildren of Tang Foo), Kwai (#) and Sui (*) settled respectively in Nam Pin (南邊) and Pak Pin (北邊) Villages. 13. The dispersal of their children, known as 'the Five Yuen (五遠)' is the first major migration or fission of the Tangs from Sham Tin. The descendents of the Five Yuen considered together form the highest order grouping of the Tang clan. Kwai (癸) gave birth to Yuen-hei (元喜) who settled in Tung Kwun City (東莞縣城) and Pak Wai (北圍), and Yuen-ying (元英) who settled in Fuk Lung (福隆) of Tung Kwun county. Sui (遂) gave birth to Yuen-ching (元貞) who remained in San On, establishing the branch of the clan at Ping Shan (坪山), Yuen-leung (元亮) who remained in Sham Tin, and Yuen-woh (元禾) who moved to Wai Tak (懷德) of Tung Kwun. These together made up the five great branches of the Tung Kwun San On Tangs. In the K'ang Hsi years of Ch'ing, their descendents established the To Hing Tong (蹈興堂), which built * pp. 214-216. Only one has been printed. † K. O'Dwyer, "Kam Tin, Memories and Legends" The Rock (a Hong Kong Catholic Journal) April 1940. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 206 NOTES AND QUERIES a temple outside Tung Kwun city whose upkeep and ritual observances were financed by large joint landed estates. 14. Yeung-leung's son, Tsz-ming (8) was married off, albeit unwittingly, to a princess of the Sung Dynasty. I have little to add here that Sung and O'Dwyer do not mention, but I believe it is important to stress that this tale (popularly known as the Wong Ku (*) story) served the important function, at least prior to the 1930's, of defining Tangs relative to outsiders (the powers-that-be) and locals (especially surrounding great and small lineages). 14. a. The San On gazetteer (a rare copy of which exists in the Fung Ping Shan Library of Hong Kong University), compiled in 1819, gives the tale in complete detail. 14. b. The Rev. Krone's "A Notice of the Sanon District," published in the Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1859, contains the following passage: "The inhabitants of a pretty little village on Deep Bay called “Kam-Tin”... also trace their origin up to the Sung dynasty. A high mandarin, they say, of the name of Tung, came to San On from the interior of China, and was so much pleased with the county around Deep Bay, that he settled down and made himself very popular, by giving gratuitous instruction. The grandson of this man having done some meritorious service to the State, the emperor Ko-tsung of the Sung dynasty, gave him his daughter in marriage.' 14. c. It will also be noted that the plaque commemorating the return of the iron gates to Kat Hing Wai makes especial reference to the tale. Several elders of neighboring villages, when asked why the Tangs were so powerful as to be able to concentrate five wais (walled villages) in the district, cited this imperial kinship link. 15. The second major migratory movement of the Tangs occurred during the generation of Wong Ku's sons. Lam (*) settled at Lung Kwat Tau (##), Kei (*) settled in Tung Kwun at Shek Tseng &✯✯, Wai (*) established the Tang branch-settlement at Tai Po Tau (†). Chi (#) remained in Sham Tin. [Chi's grandson Chu-on (₫) established the Ha Tsuen lineage-village.] * Reprinted in JHKBRAS 7(1967). See p.134. † See P. Wesley-Smith's article in JHKBRAS 13, 1973: 41-44. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n NOTES AND QUERIES 207 16. The fourth generation of Sham Tin Tangs after Chi witness the events of the two brothers Hung-chih (*) and Hung-yi (*). The Hung Yi Kung tale is, of course, highlighted by the marriage between Hung Yi and an adopted daughter of the rich businessman Chan. One of the most interesting finds of the project was the ascendancy of this tale to a position of dominance, at least at the oral level. 16. a. Several "native" reasons are given for this ascendancy. The head nun of the Ling Wan Tsz (†††) maintains that the Wong woman was really Hung-yi's mother, and that it was she who established the temple from which countless blessings have been distributed [this corresponds well with the current "official" Kam Tin history at para 20 below]. All scholastic achievements of the Tangs have been attributed to the virtues of the Wong woman. 16. b. Mr. Tang Ying-kai, one of the prominent younger men, attributes the popularity of this tale to the fact that it establishes an "intimate" relationship between the first and fourth fongs. [For it was the first son of Hung-yi who offered a son to Wong to raise, initiating the fourth fong.] 16. c. The key to the mystery of why this tale is dominant is somehow related to the evermore blurred Hakka/Punti distinction. The surrounding settlements are predominantly Hakka, and all Hakka villages in Stewart Lockhart's original 'census' are in the Un Long (=Yuen Long) Division and in the vicinity of Kam Tin. [The 1966 census for San Tin, Kam Tin and Pat Heung gives the Punti (Cantonese) population as 10,600 and the Hakka population as 13,000. This is a surprisingly large figure.] The oral tradition of these Hakka communities, in particular their “tales of origin” show striking structural similarities to the Hung-yi tale. 17. The Hung-yi tale contains two references to a local marriage custom known as "yap nao" (x), adoption of a male into a family for the purposes of marriage or perpetuation of the line. There are specific Tang prohibitions against this custom mentioned in the genealogy, as it is considered ‘demeaning"—a custom practised by "sai chuk” or “sai man”—so it is all the more surprising to find arrangements of this nature in the tale. The Ngs and Wongs of Sha Po Tsuen claim a similar relationship to each other. * Report by Mr. Stewart Lockhart on the Extension of the Colony of Hong Kong in Eastern No. 66, Colonial Office, London, 1900. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n NOTES AND QUERIES 211 Village, p. 41, the K'ang Hsi evacuation "may well have helped the Liao lineage to consolidate its position as a major power and landowner in the area." This undoubtedly extends to the Tangs as well, though for quite different reason. The Liaos increased their local power by means of the formation of a Hakka/Punti alliance to finance the local school built to honor the two official Chou Yu-te () and Wang Loi-jen (). The Kam Tin Tangs also participated in the "deification campaign" (The two officials petitioned the emperor to allow the re-population of the coastal strip), and similarly constructed the school, the ruins of which are still to be seen in Pak Wai Tsuen. However, the school was never given official recognition [i.e. it was not listed, with the other schools, in the gazetteer], perhaps because of, again, the "special relationship” enjoyed by the Tangs and San On magistrates. The Tangs claim that these officials were eventually to suffer at the hands of the imperial government because of their loyalty to the Tang family! [I have been unable to verify this, though I expect that it is true. How else can one explain the subsequent favors bestowed on the Tangs immediately after their (at least implicit) support of the Cheung Ta-yuk and Lei Man-wing rebellions?] 23. c. The To Hing Tong () was constructed in 1707 by the five branches of the Tangs residing in San On and Tung Kwun. This followed shortly after the re-location of the Tangs in San On. The large number of Tang settlements in Tung Kwun no doubt facilitated the smooth re-location into Kam Tin, Ha Tsuen, Ping Shan, Tai Po Tau and Lung Kwat Tau. Several tales concerning this relocation are still told, some of which cast doubt on the existing theory that there was a total evacuation. The ceremonies held twice yearly at the To Hing Tong (continued into the early years of the Republic) served greatly to consolidate the consciousness of Tang unity. 24. By far the most popular topics of conversation among Tang elders concern the nature and extent of their land holdings prior to 1898, and how subsequent events stripped them of much of these estates. It is probably impossible for us now to reconstruct, from records available, the exact amount and number of their holdings. However, some evidence exists: * After the Evacuation of the Coast 1662-69 by the Ch'ing authorities to deny supplies and assistance to Ming loyalists on Taiwan. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n NOTES AND QUERIES 213 dation of the Land Court, the Governor decided that 14 elders of the Northern District should be compensated for certain "tax-lord" rights claimed by them to have existed before the convention, but not compatible with the principles of British administration, by the grant of 252.33 acres of Crown land in the Northern District, to be selected by each "tax-lord" in proportion to the value of the right claimed by him." Also, see Enclosure 7, no. 172 mentioned above, to the effect that Kam Tin collected taxes in the Pat Heung Valley on land it didn't own. Much more is to be learned on this tax-lord system; I expect to glean more information from the records of the debate before the Land Court, 1904, which may be contained in the CSO reports.* 28. The Tangs of Kam Tin existed as a power often beyond the reach of the local magistracy. There is evidence of widespread non-payment of land-taxes and squeeze. On the former point, see the San On Letters appended below. Squeeze was collected primarily from the Tai Ping Kuk and similar organizations of Structure B type. The Tangs of Kam Tin were apparently not members of this Sham Chun group [see Petition to Lockhart in Extension Papers.] Also, note Sung's tale regarding the use of the Wong Ku relationship in the successful refusal to paying squeeze, the major source of revenue in San On county. 29. In summary, then, the Tangs were land-lords and tax-lords who existed and operated as a power unto themselves, dominating the local scene and ignoring the tendons of local government whenever possible. 30. Two statements regarding the status of sai-man (*R,): “We give them cows, we give them houses, we even give them women”. Also, "When the bridal procession passed through Kam Tin on its way to Pat Heung or Sap Pat Heung, the bride and groom were forced to descend and kow-tow." There is general agreement among Tangs and non-Tangs in the Kam Tin area that sai-man and sai-chuk (clans "with same name") were constantly reminded of their "place". 31. We uncovered a great deal of smouldering resentment and bitterness in Kam Tin, directed against the Ha Tsuen and Ping Shan branches of the clan. One tale concerns a "war" with Ping Shan over tax-collection rights in the vicinity of Shun Fung Wai. * Kept in the Public Records Office, Hong Kong. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 214 NOTES AND QUERIES [This is perhaps the feud Lockhart mentions on page 51 of his Report.] There is also the case of the Ha Tsuen Tang who sold the Cheung Sha Wan clan land [see appendices]. The first murder case heard in the New Territories is thought to have some connection with this dispute. Tang Cheung, a Ha Tsuen Tang, was captured during the resistance and "executed" for posting British petitions. This event, in turn, is cited by Kam Tin Tangs as further evidence of treason on the part of their clan brothers. 32. One question that came up was the relationship between the local Tangs and the Tung Kwun Tangs. We have assembled a great deal of documentary evidence which illustrates the broad range of defense activities performed by braves from Tung Kwun (Intelligence reports at the time of the resistance estimate over 1000 braves from Tung Kwun were stationed in Yuen Long). Behind a nunnery near Sha Po (9), a well-kept grave bears witness to the memory of those troops killed in the fighting who were buried secretly by the Kam Tin Tangs. The nuns still perform ta chiu ceremonies for their spirits, at intervals of 10 years. 33. A biography of Ng Ki-Cheung, or Ng Sing-chi ({✯✯) would illuminate the transitional period 1898-1930. On the one hand he is considered, by the Sha Po villagers, as being "The Hero of the New Territories,” a literatus (Sau Tsoi) who led the revolt of 1898 against the British and, in later years, against Tang efforts to reassert land rights. His name figures prominently in the Extension Papers, in which he is implicated in the Tang Cheung murders and other related resistance events. His confession is particularly interesting, as it implicates many Tangs in the crime. He received a sentence of life-imprisonment, which was later commuted "to still the hearts of the loyal natives." 34. The 1930's were particularly eventful years in and around Kam Tin. The Chengs (i) moved in, after being relocated due to the building of the Shing Mun Reservoir at Tsuen Wan by the Hong Kong Government. The villas (1) built in Pat Heung with Overseas Chinese and Warlord support, became nuclei for non-Tang settlements unbound by the traditional system.* The last tax-revolt against the Tangs was successfully carried out by Sha Po villagers, an event which coincided with the disappearance of sai-man and mui-chai. e.g. Ng Ka Tsuen immediately south of Kam Tin which is populated by descendants and relatives of a wealthy Overseas Chinese. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n NOTES AND QUERIES THE FUNG-SHUI OF KAM TIN 215 (A short explanatory introduction on the fung-shui of Kam Tin is here attached. The ancestral hall of the Tang clan, Ching Lok Tso Tong (#), which is situated at Pak Wai Tsuen of Kam Tin, has its Fung-shui main branch near Tai Mo Shan (*). It curls its way through the valley of Kwun Yam Shan ( ). From Wang Toi Shan (#) rises the "dragon". Its uprising, so to speak, is very magnificent. The Dragon then starts to serpent up and down, passing through Chiu Keng (£) with more strength. Forging forward vigorously to the left, there comes the Kei Lun Shan (t) to protect it. On the right, a branch stretches out from Tai Mo Shan to Shek Wu Tong () and Ma On Kong (4), to pave its way forward. A short distance from Au Tau (1ƒƒ) see the circling round of all these ranges. It is from this setting that the Dragon threads its way out, with various small and big ranges on all sides. Here, the Dragon once again finds its way via Kai Kung Shan (A) with Kwai Kok Shan (圭角山) on the right and Chat Sing Ngor (七星崗) on the left. The Dragon surges up and then down, turning left and right, like thousands of horses racing together, and when it comes to Tai Kong ( j ), the land slopes down gradually. Ngor Nar Lan (A) on the left leaves space for its soaring down and the Cheung Shan (✯ J.) on the right blocks any obstacles that would harm it. This range then dips into the water, passes through the grasslands and comes up to Gau Gan (i). Here it stretches out its wings to protect the Dragon to settle on the cave. The naturally formed reservoirs on both sides of Gau Gan (4) resemble the Food Store (4) and the Wealth Store (✯). The place where the Dragon settles is the ancestral hall of Ching Lok Tso (##). The Dragon dives down into the water and the surface becomes peaceful. So now the Dragon is hiding here. With this setting, the place is bound to be very prosperous. To begin with, the green carpet of grass just in front of the hall means the outcome of a big "esteemed clan" (†) Furthermore, with all the water from nearby fields flowing towards the hall, and the streams from Tai Kong Po (which follow the Dragon and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n NOTES AND QUERIES 217 is formed on top. Then pick out the thin layer with a bamboo stick, upon which it is allowed to dry. The end-product will be the delicious and nourishing bean skim. Being performed entirely by hand in the past, the whole process was not so simple as this brief description suggests. Over eighty years ago, my great-grandfather with his two sons and their wives fled from famine-stricken Chi Kam hsien in Wai Chau prefecture, Kwangtung, and reached Pun Shan Village, Chai Wan Kok, Tsuen Wan where they started their occupation of bean skim making. At that time, there was no highway linking Tsuen Wan with Kowloon. In order to sell the bean skim and buy more yellow beans, my ancestors had to climb over rugged hills every day. In those days, the yellow beans were first exposed under hot sun (or heated in a pot in case of dull weather). The impurities such as sand and stalks were carefully picked out from the beans, then the beans were crushed by manual labour until the husks were separated from the beans. Beans and husks were then poured into a bamboo container which was tossed up and down with both hands so as to cast out the husks. The pure beans were then put into a tank and soaked in water for four hours (six hours in winter). Then the beans were ground into a paste by pushing hard at the stone-grinder. The amount of beans could not be in excess of forty catties if the whole process was to be finished within one day, and one had to rise about 2 a.m. to start grinding. This paste was then wrapped inside a cloth bag and the fluid squeezed out. The refuse was then filtered off, while the pasty fluid was poured into twelve flat-bottomed metal pans and boiled, using grass as fuel. (The smoke as emitted from the fluid and the burning grass is not unlike tear gas, giving one a suffocating feeling.) The surface foam was removed, and the fluid kept at a temperature that kept it near boiling. A thin layer of membrane formed on the surface, which was taken off with a bamboo stick and allowed to dry. This process of heating, layer-forming and taking off was repeated again and again, until the paste in all the twelve pans became membrane i.e. bean skim. This process must have required the longest working-hours of the world, for one had to work at it twenty-one hours on end every day, from 2 a.m. to 11 p.m. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 4 Hong Kong Museum of History invited members to the screening of three Korean films at the City Hall. The films concerned the art and archeology of important sites in Korea. In September we were again concerned with Hong Kong History when Dr. Alan Birch, Reader in History at Hong Kong University, spoke on Hong Kong 1937-45: Conquest and Liberation. Also in September Dr. Marilyn Grayburn, lecturer in Indian Archeology, University of Cleveland Museum, spoke on 5,000 years of the Indus Valley Civilization, and in October Mr. Lawrence Tam, Curator of the Hong Kong Museum of Art, and himself also an artist of repute and teacher of Chinese Art History, spoke on the Shek Wan Pottery of Kwangtung Province in connection with an exhibition current at the City Hall Museum. In December Mr. Henri Vetch, a long standing member of the Society, spoke of his experiences in Peking where he worked as publisher between 1920-1951, when he was imprisoned for three years by the Communists. In January an interesting talk was given by Dr. Wen Hsiang-lai, a neurologist and neurosurgeon as well as authority on acupuncture. He spoke of his recent experiments at the Tung Wah Hospital in the use of electrical stimulation using acupuncture points and needles in connection with drug addiction. And finally Dr. William Parish gave a talk in February on "Status and Power in Kwangtung Villages under the People's Republic." Dr. Parish is associate professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago. Both local excursions and overseas trips are a regular feature of our activities and in December Dr. James Hayes arranged a visit to Tsuen Wan where he talked about local temples, rural organization and traditional inter-village feuding. The Society is continuing its programme of cultural tours abroad with a ten-day visit to Kashmir and Kathmandu starting later this week. The trip has been arranged by Dr. Brian Shaw. Where possible we deal directly with hoteliers and pass on group discounts and commissions directly to members travelling. Your Council has been investigating the feasibility of mounting future tours to Afghanistan; the Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, Taxila sites; Ladakh Darjeeling, Sikkim and Bhutan; Dr. Shaw will again be looking into this possibility. Dr. Leigh Wright is also looking at the possibility of a tour to the old Straits Settlements. Now that the Chinese authorities are encouraging travel with. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 NOTES AND QUERIES 209 The original temple thus belongs outside Hong Kong, though admittedly not far off: but it would not have been established here unless Pok Law people with a reverence for the goddess (and a firm belief in her efficacy) had settled locally and decided they must establish a local shrine. (c) Temporary Structure at San Tsuen Pai (***) serving as a shrine and meeting hall for disciples of the Chun Hung Kau (††*). The Chun Hung Kau was founded by the great teacher, Liu Tae-ping (*) of Chin Wu (44), Kiangsi (žr&). Liu was born in 1827. He was married, but his wife died a few years later. When he was 31 years of age, he decided to become a Buddhist monk. Reportedly, in a trance he learnt the Truth, quitted the Buddhists and founded the Chun Hung Kau in 1862. Early followers Liu founded a church in Chin Wu, and passed on his teachings to his brothers, Liu Taei-chor (†), and Liu Taei-chiu (★*). Later he had 3 disciples, Lai Yan-cheung (M1-‡), Ling Pong-pik (凌邦璧), and Cheung Sing-kin (張聲見), Death of Liu In 1892, Liu was arrested by the prefectural authorities on the ground that he was a heretic. Two of his disciples, Cheung and Lai, were also arrested. Liu died in prison in 1893 when he was 66 years of age. Early Propagation and Distribution in China Disciple Cheung started preaching in various places in China in 1890. However, the most effective preachers were disciples Lai and Ling, who were freed from prison in 1894. They managed to obtain some followers from among the intelligentsia and officials. This section comprises a summary of Professor Lo Hsiang-lin's book on THE ORIGIN AND DOCTRINES OF THE CHUN HUNG KAU AND ITS PROPAGATION IN SOUTH CHINA AND OVERSEAS. I owe this section to my colleague Mr. Valentine Yim (KA) who painstakingly (and very kindly) produced this summary instead of the two paragraphs I had requested! ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 to be a particular casualty, and regret that I did not get round to acknowledging his work, which I now have pleasure in doing. By the same token, I wish to thank Ed Wickberg for very kindly proof-reading much of the 1979 Journal during his sabbatical year at the Centre of Asian Studies. After my 1978 experience, I hardly dared to acknowledge his help, but am glad to do so now! One regret is that I hardly managed to get a good book review section going during the whole period, and never did get down to producing a local publications section. It shows up the weakness of my "one man approach" to the work. This was occasioned partly by the scrappy way in which I got the work done as time and energy left from my labours in Tsuen Wan and elsewhere allowed, and partly by my own liking for doing the whole job. Taking a broader and more impersonal view of the Journal over this period, and indeed since its inception twenty-one years ago, it has made its own unique contribution to the research and recording of Hong Kong history and society. In this sense, it has surely helped what one might call the Hong Kong balance sheet. Despite the devoted intentions of the Hong Kong Heritage Society and other bodies, it is simply not possible for Hong Kong to keep many of its historic buildings, given the rights attached to private ownership, the exceedingly high value of land, and the formidable cost of running a business enterprise. The recording work done by the Society and others of its kind helps in some measure to offset the losses that occur through the destruction and replacement of old buildings.* Beside being my final Journal, this is also the last for our Honorary Life Member and printer, Mr. Y. F. Lam (***) of Ye Olde Printerie. It is fitting that he and I finish our joint association with the Journal together. I cannot imagine editing and producing it for all these years without his enthusiastic persistence, patience, and, above all, friendship. Finally, I have handed over to David Faure, whose knowledge, energy, zeal and efficiency are of a high order. He has proved this by getting out the 1981 issue before I had finished this one! The Society is fortunate to have enlisted his interest and services. September 1982 JAMES HAYES * Our published work includes Hong Kong, Going and Gone, 1980. ix ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 CHINESE MONASTERIES, TEMPLES, SHRINES, ALTARS 11 There are a dozen or so temples in Hong Kong the titles of which should leave one in no doubt that they are Buddhist. To highlight the problem of classifying temples by their religious affiliation, let us examine one in Lo Wai above Tsuen Wan which has a typically Buddhist name followed by the characters for "Buddhist temple". The staff consists of three laymen who run the vegetarian restaurant below the temple and the deities on the altar from senior to junior are Guan Di, Guan Yin, Lu Dong Bin, Dou Mu and Yao Shi Fo. Guan Yin and Yao Shi Fo are Buddhist, whilst the other three are Daoist folk religion deities. Opposite the main altar, on a secondary altar, are a Kitchen God and a Protector of the Law, both represented by framed prints; the first is a folk religion deity and the second Buddhist. And finally, on the table before the main altar is a red wooden rice bucket containing a peck of uncooked rice in which stand numerous items which have without doubt Daoist and not Buddhist origins. Despite the mixture, the three laymen were surprised that there was any doubt that their temple was Buddhist. Confucian and Daoist temples In Hong Kong and Macau there are no Confucian temples as there were in China and still are in Taiwan. There are, however, Confucian Halls such as the one in a school sponsored by the Confucian Society at Caroline Hill, Hong Kong Island. Several Chinese societies in Hong Kong are understood to have private altars dedicated solely to Confucius. The official state religion had its own rites and deities and involved the official bureaucracy and the gentry only. The nearest thing to a State temple in our two territories is the rural school at Fanling where an image of the Yellow Emperor (*) stands on an altar in the main hall, and the side hall of a Macau temple in which a school is held where on an altar there are full-size images of the inventors of ink and writing. "Pure" Daoist temples are rare, there appearing to be none in Macau and some two dozen in Hong Kong of which two are branches of two of the others. These two dozen contain distinct Daoist deities, are run by Daoist bodies represented by a committee, whilst Daoist lay priests and priestesses perform Daoist ceremonies. * Peng Lai Ge (**M**) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 40 JIANN HSIEH or the reorganization of existing ones. However, contrary to this view, in the Waichow case both kinship and locality as abstract concepts are still effective for organizing new associations or reorganizing existing associations. C. A Historical Sketch of the Development of Waichow Associations in Hong Kong* 7 The development of the Waichow associations in Hong Kong did not take place before the Second World War, even though Liao Hsin-chi, a Hakka from Waichow, had joined with others to establish the Tsung Tsin Association in 1920 (CCCHS, 1950: H-16), a headquarters for all the Hakka people. To my knowledge, the first effective Waichow voluntary association in Hong Kong was the Tung Kong Sports Club, established in June 1946. With an increase in the number of its members, a simple sports club could no longer cater for all their demands, so it changed its title to the Waichow Merchants' Mutual Aid Association and its purposes were expanded to include education, and provide assistance for obtaining employment, medical welfare, etc. In March 1948, with still more Waichow Hakka having come to Hong Kong because of the political situation in China, and the Hong Kong Residents of Waichow Ten Districts Countrymen's Association was set up in order to replace the Mutual Aid Association (HTSCT, 1978: 58). In 1956 this Association was registered under a new name as the Waichow Clansmen General Association. This core organization of the Waichow Hakka, nominally representing all Waichow people in Hong Kong, has developed considerably in the past twenty years, and has set up branches in Sheung-shui (1956), Tai-po (1956), Yuen-long (1956), Tsuen-wan (1965), Peng-chau (1966), and Lam-ma (1977), as well as a series of subsidiary organizations: Waichow Music Society (1965), Waichow Lion Dancing Club (1967), Waichow Sports Association (1968), Kindergarten in Tsuen-wan (1965) and two Waichow public schools in Yuen-long (1965) and Kwai-chung (1968). In addition to their headquarters and their subsidiary organizations, the Waichow Hakka have also set up several district level * The romanization used for the names of associations is taken from the form in which they have been registered with the Hong Kong government. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 42 Fig. 1. J1ANN HSIEH Association Clusters of the Waichows in Hong Kong, 1979, C D E F I T B I. M A. + formal relationship association cluster Walchow Clansmen General Association in Hong Kong B. Ten-Districts of Waichow Association in Hong Kong C. Walchow Union Sheung Shui Branch, Hong Kong D: Walchow Un Long Residents Association Ltd. E: Walchow Union Hong Kong Tai Po Branch, N.T. F: Waichow Main Union Tsuen Wan Branch G. Waichow Clansmen General Association (Hong Kong) Ltd., Peng Chau Branch H: Walchow Clansmen General Association of Hong Kong, Lamma Island Branch I: Ha Foon District Association J: Lu Foon District Association K: Loong Chuen Native Association L: Tze Kam District Countrymen's Association Limited M: Hong Kong Residents of Pok Law District Association N: Ho Yuen Clansmen Association ed, consider these associations as "gangplanks” which help rural immigrants across pitfalls in their transition to new urban ways of life. Nevertheless, emphases are different among various researches. Little (1974:89-90) and Banton (1968: XVI, 360), arguing from urbanization studies in West Africa, stressed the creation of voluntary associations by the natives anxious to learn the life pattern of the Europeans. Fallers (1967:12), however, focused his attention on the awkward position of the new immigrants - sandwiched between the rulers and the autochthonous. In his excellent introduction to Immigrants and Associations, he wrote: Clearly, then, one reason why the immigrant trading community is so productive of associations is that, lacking satisfying and reliable moral ties with the indigenous local community, it must ================================================================================ 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 53 CHTCH 1970 Chiao-kang Huei-chow tung-hsiang-huei Ch'üan-wan fên-huei t'e-kan (A Special Publication of the Waichow Main Union, Tsuen Wan Branch). CHTH 1964 CHTPC 1973 СРТНН 1976 CTTH Chiao-kang Huei-chow tung-hsiang tsung-huei huei-kan (Journal of the Waichow Clansmen General Association, Hong Kong, Ltd.). Chiao-kang Huei-chow tung-hsiang tsung-huei Ping-chow fên-huei t'e-kan (A Special Publication of the Waichow Clansmen General Association, Hong Kong, Ltd., Peng-Chau Branch). Chiao-kang Po-lo tung-hsiang-huei huei-kan (A Publication of the Pok-law District Association). 1969 Chiao-kang Tzu-chen tung-hsiang-huei huei-kan (A Publication of the Tze-kam District Countrymen's Association, Ltd.). HKCCTH 1971 Ch'ung-chêng tsung-huei chin-hsi ta-ch'ing t'e-kan (A Publication in Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary, Tsung Tsin Association). HSKOCT 1973 HTSCT 1978 SSHTTL 1978 STTCCS 1978 STTCCY 1976 YHTTL 1969 Huei-chow shih-shu kong-huei chêng-li chi-nien t'e-kan (A Publication in Commemoration of the Grand Opening of the Ten-Districts of Waichow Association). Huei-chow tung-hsiang tsung-huei san-shih ch'ou-nien chi-nien t'e-kan (A Publication in Commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of the Waichow Clansmen's General Association). Hsin-chiai Shang-shui Huei-chow tung-hsiang-huei ti-êrh-chiai li-chien-shi chiu-chih t'ien-li t'e-kan (A Publication in honor of the Second-Term Members of the Executive and Supervisory Committees, the Waichow Union Sheung Shui Branch, Hong Kong). Shih-chieh Tsêng-shih tsung-ch'in-huei Chiu-lung fên-huei chêng-li san-ch'ou-nien chi-nien t'e-kan (A Publication in Commemoration of the Third Anniversary, the Kowloon Branch of Tsang Clansmen Association, Ltd.). Shih-chieh Tsêng-shih tsung-ch'in-huei Chiu-lung-fên-huei chêng-li san-ch'ou-nien chi-nien t'e-kan (A Publication in Commemoration of the First Anniversary, the Kowloon Branch of Tsang Clansmen Association, Ltd.). Yi-lan-lang Huei-chou t'ung-hsiang-huei ti-san-chiai li-chien-shi chiu-chih t'ien-li chi huei-yüan lien-huan ta-hui t'e-kan (A Publication in Honor of the Third-Term Members of the Executive and Supervisory Committees and the General Meeting, Waichow Un Long Residents Association). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 SOCIAL & CULTURAL HERITAGE IN N.T. 119 chau community in Tsuen Wan; another on Tsuen Wan's political structure; an exceedingly painstaking and careful study of the Ta Chiu in Kam Tin in 1975; an enlightening analysis of the societal roles of women based on a study in Ha Tsuen; two complementary studies of land tenure before and after the arrival of the British, and, hopefully before too long, my own work on the so-called Tanka communities in and around the eastern side of the Territories. But all that is only a small part of the published record. A really very large number of articles and papers has appeared in many different places. Some of them, in particular Marjorie Topley's brilliant work on aspects of the economics of rice and vegetable farming, Maurice Freedman's seminal papers on kinship, clan organisation, ancestor worship, and fung shui, and perhaps one or two of my own, are and will be of lasting importance for theoretical as well as descriptive reasons. That point brings me to the third matter I want to make clear to you tonight, which is that it is not widely enough known that a great deal of the anthropological work that has been done in the New Territories is immensely valuable not only because of its unique contribution to the descriptive record of this local area but also for the light it has helped to throw on Chinese society in general in the so-called traditional and transitional periods and, even more widely, for its contribution to the growing pool of understanding about human social life (and that means all human life) in general. That is a proud claim, but I can assure you that it can be made with complete confidence. The social anthropological work that has been done in the New Territories and in Taiwan since 1950 is some of the most important that has been done anywhere, and I am not alone in thinking that its importance will increase and be increasingly recognised in the future. —— This is not the place to discuss social science theory, but it is (I think) relevant to mention here as my fourth point of significance - some of the more practical reasons why the work done in the New Territories has been, is, and will be so significant. They are these: Before about 1920, studies of Chinese society (like the studies of most other societies) were mainly concerned with the elite -- the so-called gentry or literati - or as some anthropologists have named it the Great Tradition of the society as a whole. Neither ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 124 BARBARA E. WARD Last year the Pang clan village of Fanling held its great ta chiu. It happens once every ten years. The film you saw at the beginning was taken there, and many of the photographs on display too. I was lucky enough to be able to spend nearly all the days of the ta chiu in Fanling. To my surprise, I found myself constantly being greeted and spoken to in English -- not in Hong Kong English, but in the different local dialects of different geographical regions in the United Kingdom. The speakers ranged in age from 3 to 25 years. All were children of the restaurant emigration which has taken place since about 1953. With their parents, they had come back for the occasion. To this village of less than 3,000 inhabitants, more than 500 people had come back by air at great personal expense. Asked why they had spent so much money, the parents all gave the same reply: "We want our children to know our customs and traditions"; "We want our children to know...." A similar thing happened in Ho Chung in December, and this year the villages of the Lam Tsuen valley expect the same. These people understand about personal identity; they know the immense value of the intangible; and they can still experience their cultural heritage. But whether the future will allow them to continue to do so we cannot tell. Even if it does (which I think rather unlikely) there are already far, far larger numbers of young (and older) people in our towns who have no chance at all of experiencing the intangibles of their cultural heritage at first hand. The only way they can be given even a small part of what is, after all, their right to their own past is through the kind of work that historians and anthropologists have done and are still for a short time able to do in the New Territories. Most of you will not know that I am both the oldest and the pioneer social anthropologist in Hong Kong. It is a fact—now I suppose an historical fact—that I started the whole thing off, way back in 1950; and I have spent most of my academic life teaching, reading, researching, and writing about it. It is my hope and intention to continue this kind of work and, in cooperation with my historian friends, help to see it through to a triumphant conclusion sometime before the year 1990. That is why I accepted an invitation to come to the Chinese University, and, to answer the question I set at the beginning, that is also my justification for daring to speak to such an audience as this on the cultural heritage of the New Territories. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 142 NOTES AND QUERIES During the early Tang Dynasty, the importance of Tuen Mun increased. Thus a garrison of two thousand men was posted1, and Tuen Mun became known as the Tuen Mun Military Zone19 5. The garrison was led by a commander known as Sau-Chuk-Si 守捉使 belonging to the Annam Military Zone 安南都護府. Its headquarters were at Nam Tau, later the district city of San On. The area of present day Hong Kong, including the islands, the Kowloon Peninsula and the New Territories, was under the protection of this garrison. In the Sung Dynasty, the Tuen Mun Military Zone was turned into the Tuen Mun Ngam19. However, the number of soldiers and the rank of the officer in charge are not certain. During the early Ming Dynasty, the Tuen Mun Ngam was turned into the Nam Tau Walled City, and the garrison was commanded by a Cham-Cheung or Brigadier. Later, in the 17th year of the Hung Wu Reign (1384), Fa Mau✯✯, Commander of the Nam Tau Walled City, asked the Imperial Court to strengthen the garrison of the coastal area. Tuen Mun lay between the areas protected by the Tung Kwun Battalion and the Tai Pang Battalion. Thus, a watch-post was built, and a guard-station under a Pa-Tsung(4) was established. In the 9th year of the Chia Ching reign (1514), the Portuguese entered the Tuen Mun Bay. They took over the adjacent lands and built forts. They even established a monument. However, in the 16th year of Chia Ching, Wong Wang, Commander-in-chief of the Kwangtung naval forces, defeated the Portuguese at Sai Tso Wan8. After that, no Portuguese was found in the Tuen Mun area.9 At that time, there were villages like Lung Kwu Tsuen, Lang Shui Tsuen✯k††, Tuen Mun Tsuen19#, So Kwun Wat Tsuen 掃桿笏村, and Siu Lam Chung Tsuen 小欖涌村.10 During the early Ch'ing Dynasty, the Coastal Evacuation✯✯ caused the abandonment of the area close to the sea. Tuen Mun thus lay barren until, in the 7th year of the K'ang Hsi reign (1668), people were permitted to return to the coastal strip. The Tuen Mun Watch-post was re-established with a garrison of fifty men under a Tsin-Tsung. In the 21st year of K'ang Hsi (1682), the Tuen Mun Watch-post was turned into the Tuen Mun Walled City19 with a garrison of thirty men under a Tsin-tsung11. During ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 NOTES AND QUERIES the Chien Lung period, it was turned into a guard-station 143 Villages rebuilt at that time were Tze Tuen Tsuen, Tuen Mun Tsuen, Siu Hang Tsuen, Po Tong Ha Tsuen, So Kwun Wat Tsuen and San Tsuen Wai.12 In the 16th year of the Chia Ching reign (1811), the Tuen Mun guard-station was strengthened. Besides the original garrison, a Pa-Tsung was posted to be the assistant. Five guard-stations, each under a Ngai-Wai with four men, were erected at Shing Mun, Wang Chau, Kwun Chung, Tsiu Keng and Ma Tseuk Leng. They were all under the command of the Tsin-Tsung of the Tuen Mun Guard Station. At that time, villages in that area were all under the charge of the Kwun-Fu-Shi TO: namely: Tuen Mun Tsuen, Tsing Chuen Wai, Tsz Tuen Wai, Siu Hang Tsuen, Po Tong Ha Tsuen, Sun Fung Wai, Chung Uk Tsuen, Nai Wai Tsz Tsuen, San Tsuen, So Kwun Wat Tsuen, Tai Lam Tsuen, Tin Fu Tsai Tsuen and Un Tan Tau Tsuen.4 During the early years of the Tao Kuang reign, a Pa-Tsung and a Ngai-Wai with sixteen men were posted at the Tuen Mun Guard-station, sixty men were placed in the following six guard-stations which were all under the command of the Tuen Mun Guard Station. These guard stations were at Mong Tseng, Wang Chau (ten men), Kwun Chung (five men), Tai Po Tau (fifteen men), Shing Mun Au (fifteen men) and Tsiu Keng (five men).15 This continued until the 24th year of the Kuang Hsü reign (1898), when the Ch'ing Government leased the New Territories and the adjacent islands to the British, after which these guard-stations were abandoned.16 In 1899, the area was divided into the three sub-districts of Tuen Mun, Tai Lam Chung and Lung Ku Tan belonging to the Un Long District. Villages in these sub-districts were as follows:17 Tuen Mun Sub-district:- Chung Uk Tsun, Shun Fung Wai, Tsing Chun Wai, Tsz Tin Wai, Nai Wai, Tun Tsz Wai, Po Tong Ha, Siu Hang, Lam Ti and San Tsuen. ================================================================================ 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-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m 38 EDGAR WICKBERG halls to see what I could learn about Tang influence on the one hand and local solidarities and influence on the other. I expected to find a pattern of declining Tang landholdings as one moved away from Kam Tin towards the east end of the Basin. In fact, what I found was solid owned-holdings and mortgage holdings by the Kam Tin Tangs in the area immediately to the east of the lineage stronghold itself, but a complete drop-off thereafter: no Kam Tin Tang holdings beyond a mile or two east of Kam Tin. Instead, what is most noticeable is the widespread land ownership influence of a different set of Tangs - the Hakka Tangs of Wang Toi Shan, a large village of several hamlets in the Northeastern portion of the Pat Heung area. Indeed, it is Wang Toi Shan ownership that follows my presumed pattern of solidity nearby trailing off to smaller amounts over distance. Wang Toi Shan people owned lands at considerable distances from their village well beyond their ability to walk to them and cultivate them themselves and right up to the area where Kam Tin Tang ownership began. Interestingly enough, Wang Toi Shan Tang holdings were mostly those of clan trusts. Where the lands were near to Wang Toi Shan itself, they were both individually-owned and clan-owned; more distant lands were almost all clan-owned. Parenthetically, this seems to resemble an observation made by J. T. Kamm about the holdings of the Kam Tin Tangs: that their individual holdings were close by and their clan holdings were often distant. The Tangs of Wang Toi Shan may or may not be related in some way to the Tangs of Kam Tin. The Wang Toi Shan Tangs were Hakkas, of course, and the Kam Tin Tangs are usually thought of as Punti. But there is a Kam Tin tradition that someone of the Punti Tang branches of Ping Shan or Ha Tsuen married a Hakka woman of Waichow and that her male offspring settled in Wang Toi Shan, thereby founding the Tang name and fortune there. And the genealogy of the Hakka Tangs of Shui Lau Tin, who claim affiliation with the Wong Toi Shan Tangs, shows some possible links between themselves and the Kam Tin Tangs. The Wang Toi Shan Tangs with whom I have spoken deny kinship, but their genealogy appears to show a common place of origin in North China with the Kam Tin Tangs. Lo Hsiang-lin, however, finds no modern connection. V. Localities Let us look individually at the villages in the area east of Kam Tin, starting with Sheung Tsuen village, the farthest away at the east end ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m ANOTHER LOOK AT LAND AND UNEAGE IN THE N T. c 1900 39 of the Kam Tin Basin. Sheung Tsuen was a large Punti village of several hamlets. Although no single lineage was dominant, the Lais owned almost 30 percent of the land in the area of the village. The Hakka Tangs of Wang Toi Shan village, not far to the north of Sheung Tsuen, owned an equal amount of land. Among the Wang Toi Shan Tangs there was only one individual owner of note; all the rest of their land was corporately owned. Another 25 percent of the land was owned by individuals and corporations of three Sheung Tsuen surnames: Tsang, Cheung and Tse. Thus 55 percent of the cultivated land was owned by four local surnames, and 30 percent by the Tangs of Wang Toi Shan, considered, it appears, as outsiders but near neighbours. Of 62 Sheung Tsuen-based corporations owning land in the area, 34 were either exclusively Lai organizations or ones with a Lai as trustee. More than half of the lineage trusts were those of the Lais. But there were 22 land-owning lineage trusts belonging to the Tangs of Wang Toi Shan, only a few less than the 28 of the Lais. As for house ownership, it is impossible to be precise, because the house records for this area are incomplete, or seem to be. From what is available, it appears that Lai house ownership was in proportion to their land ownership, but that the Tangs of Wang Toi Shan owned few houses. Associations of all kinds, judging by the ownership record, flourished in Sheung Tsuen. I was struck by not only the number of lineage organizations, temples and the like, but other associations as well—devoted, for example, to education, mutual benefit, and, perhaps, investment. There was also, in this area as elsewhere in the Pat Heung, a branch of the Tong Yick Tong, the community organization for the Pat Heung as a whole. The next village to the west, Lin Fa Tei, was also large — perhaps, 700 persons in 1900. No surname could be called predominant, although one surname (Lei) owned about 22 percent of the cultivated land. None of the other four leading local surnames owned more than 15 percent, and the total of the holdings of these five local surnames was about 60 percent of the cultivated land in this area. House ownerships roughly followed the pattern of land ownership. Although there were lineage schools and religious associations and temples, there were few lineage trusts (10–15) and not a great deal of corporate land. Although only 60 per cent of the lands around the village were owned by the five leading surname groups of the village, there was not a great deal of outside ownership. The Tangs of Wang Toi Shan owned some land, but most of the remainder was scattered among various minor surnames of Lin Fa Tei. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m 40 EDGAR WICKBERG The small Hakka village of Shui Lau Tin was quite different. This was essentially a two-lineage village. The Tsois was the more numerous and owned most of the houses. But the one Tang lineage was quite prosperous as were many of the Tsois. Yet, while the largest landowners among both Tsois and Tangs owned much of their lands away from the village, and more to the west near Yuen Kong, other lineages and other villages owned land right up to the walls, so to speak, of Shui Lau Tin. Without tracing the affiliations of each of these surname groups it would be difficult to classify Shui Lau Tin in any typology of New Territories lineage villages. Finally, the large village of Yuen Kong, a mixed Hakka-Punti village nearest to Kam Tin of any I have looked at. Here, the Leung surname was preeminent, since Leungs owned almost 30 percent of the houses in the village, twice as many as any other of the major surnames of the village, and they also owned 26 percent of the cultivated land in the village area. There were seven lineage trusts - one for each of the major surnames and five religious associations. 75 percent of the cultivated land around the village was locally-owned, but there were important enclaves of ownership by the Kam Tin Tangs, the Wang Toi Shan Tangs, and individuals from Shui Lau Tin, Lin Fa Tei and Sheung Tsuen. Having surveyed the area in this way, I find myself puzzled by what appears to have been an absence of Kam Tin influence east of Kam Tin, other than in the way we know about: that is, the earlier overlordship. Is it possible they never held land in the Pat Heung other than within a mile or two of their own gates? To the west of Kam Tin there were Tang branches, large-scale land ownership, market control, and overlordship over ha-lu. It would seem that the Kam Tin Tangs expanded to the west, but not much to the east. If so, why? Surely, the Pat Heung, a fertile area, was attractive. I can think of some possibilities. One might be united local opposition. We know that, strong though they are, Tang branches could be successfully opposed when several groups united. The Pat Heung opposition to overlordship discussed above is one instance; the Taipo Market case is another. Was there a united Pat Heung organization well before 1900 and well before the opposition to Tang overlordship, perhaps centering on the Tong Yick Tong, or something like it, that could prevent sales of land to Kam Tin? A second possibility: were there, perhaps, village-level agreements not to sell land to Kam Tin, but rather, if one must sell, to sell to another surname in the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 26 JANET LEE SCOTT NOTES It might be mentioned that the adult population of Hong Kong was, at the time of Mutual Aid Committee formation, already well acquainted with the idea and work of urban organizations. While the Mutual Aid Committees had (and still retain) their own unique design, their structure (and their functions) were not unfamiliar and they were not viewed as mysterious committees having no resemblances to other, more traditional, Chinese organizations. * The other five subdivisions are: Kam Kwok Mansion, Luen Hop Building, Mei Tung Estate, Pui Man Tsuen Cottage Area, and Pok Oi Village (Wong Tai Sin District Report 1982:271). * The exact total, provided by the office of the Housing Manager of Lok Fu Estate, was 21,221 at the end of February, 1983. • At the end of 1982, the exact figure was 523,927. * The Mark I blocks include Blocks #1-5, #9, #10, and #12, and the Mark II group is made up of Blocks #13-20 and Blocks #22 and #23. The remaining blocks (#6-8, #11, and #21), already rebuilt, are now referred to as Converted Buildings (Wong Tai Sin District Report 1982:272). • This information was provided by the office of the Housing Manager of Lok Fu Estate. * At the end of February, 1983, there were 26 Mutual Aid Committees in the Lok Fu Area and 286 Mutual Aid Committees for the entire Wong Tai Sin District. * The selection of male members is because all but one of the chairmen of the Lok Fu Estate Mutual Aid Committees interviewed were male. In addition, the opinions of female members towards participation were investigated during the research period of 1976-1978. * Block #23 of Tung Tau Estate is still divided into floors for the purpose of MAC formation. In early 1983, it had five MACs, one for each three floors. 10 In 1982 the old titles of City District Commissioner and City District Officer were changed to District Officer and Assistant District Officer respectively. At the same time the old Home Affairs Department and New Territories Administration were amalgamated into a new department known as the City and New Territories Administration. 11 The official certificates of registration are framed and prominently displayed in the committee's office, or if the committee lacks an office, are kept by an officer, most often the chairman. 19 However, given the apathy of many residents and the low attendance at many MAC meetings, one might wonder if any committee has been dissolved by popular action, the second alternative. 10 This is the schedule as described by the Wong Tai Sin District Office, Tung Tau Sub-office. The office of the Housing Manager, Lok Fu Estate, explained that the conversion has already been completed and that 114 families (the figure as of March, 1983) had already moved in. "These figures have been provided by the office of the Housing Manager of Lok Fu Estate, and are accurate as to the end of March, 1983. 16 The C.C.C. number is a code number found on the Hong Kong Identification Card and is written under the Chinese characters of the individual's name. 10 According to the Tung Tau Sub-office of the Wong Tai Sin District Office, there are no instances of the mishandling of MAC funds known in ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p BOOK REVIEWS 329 Augustus K. K. Siu and Anthony K. K. Siu, Studies on Chinese Genealogies and the History of the Hong Kong Region, Fung Chin Institute, Hong Kong, 1982. This book consists of eleven essays on the Hong Kong region (Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, the New Territories, and neighbouring areas). Four of them deal with genealogies, six principally with the history of the New Territories, and the last with boat people's songs. The central theme is that genealogies are valuable source materials for writing the history of this area, and this theme is illustrated with numerous examples. There should be no dispute on the central theme: the question is how to put it into practice. The essay on migration into the Hong Kong region (chapter 5), despite the misleading reference in the title to all immigrant lineages as "guest lineages", is a useful example. In this essay, the authors list the time periods during which fifty-three surname groups first settled here from evidence recorded in their genealogies. The Tangs of Kam Tin, Lung Yeuk Tau, etc., and the P'aangs of Fan Ling came at the end of the Sung dynasty, the Lams of Shek Po Tsuen, and the Lius of Wu Kai Sha came in the Ming, and so on. The list is a useful first approximation, but obviously much more needs to be done. Another interesting essay (chapter 4) describes ten historical “events” recorded in the genealogies. They include the marriage of the Sung princess to the ancestor of the Tangs, several famines and piratical attacks, the coastal evacuation from 1662 to 1668, the establishment of Tai Po New Market, the burial of a Chinese Christian at a Protestant cemetery on Hong Kong Island in 1854, the establishment of charity schools by philanthropist Fung Ping Shan, and flooding in Tsuen Wan in 1954. Similar "events" are discussed in greater detail in four other chapters (6, 8, 9 and 10), i.e., the establishment of the "five great clans" of the New Territories, the legend often referred to as "letting go of the wooden goose", the experience of the Southern Sung court in Kowloon, and the Tsuen Wan village feud of 1862 to 1864. Quite a few of these events have been discussed by other authors, notably Lo Hsiang-lin and James Hayes. These later chapters make use of stone tablets and oral ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v Aquilaria Sinensis is by no means rare in Hong Kong. In Dunn and Tutcher's Flora of Kwangtung and Hong Kong which was published in 1912, it was stated that in a one-acre plot of fung shui woodland in the lower ground of Hong Kong, 31 out of 125 trees enumerated were Aquilaria sinensis (then known as Aquilaria grandiflora). Even today it would not be difficult to find this tree in various parts of Hong Kong. They usually occur in natural woodland on lower hill slopes and in fung shui woods behind villages. There are good specimens in Tai Po Kau Nature Reserve, Ng Tung Chai in Lam Tsuen, and Pak Tam Chung, Sai Kung. The publication of Professor Lo's book generated some local interest in the Incense Tree. In the 1960's and 1970's, both the Urban Services and Agriculture & Fisheries Departments planted a number of these trees in public gardens and on hill slopes. Seed supply is in abundance and there is no difficulty in raising young trees in the nursery. However, when planted out in open sites, the survival rate is disappointingly low. Moreover, the tree is quite slow-growing and is rather susceptible to wind damage. A seedling of half a metre high planted in Kowloon Tsai Park in 1974 reached a height of only 3.2 metre in 10 years. Even when planted in mixture with other tree species in plantation conditions the species fared little better. On this basis, A. sinensis is unlikely ever to rival the more robust and fast growing species which now commonly occur in our parks and countryside. Notwithstanding its growth habits, the local historical significance of the Incense Tree has been well recognised. As a matter of interest, the cultivation of the Incense Tree has been used as the main theme in the information displays in the Aberdeen Country Park Visitor Centre. Visitors to the centre, in addition to learning of the interesting historical events concerning this tree, can take the opportunity to have a close look at several live specimens growing by the side of the entrance. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 270 P.H. HASE, J.W. HAYES AND K.C. IU In the 1970s when District Officer and Town Manager, Tsuen Wan, my contacts with local village people established that there were families in Lo Wai which had tea bushes on the mountain slopes of Tai Mo Shan. The Hui (4) family of Lo Wai village collected tea from wild bushes near the present radar station at the very top of Tai Mo Shan. One old man, born in 1896, used to collect ten catties a week during the season, commenting that the best time for plucking the leaves was in the third lunar month: the leaves become older and coarser thereafter. This type of tea was described as wan mo (雲霧) ("cloud mist"). He began doing this when he was about 10 years old, selling to other villagers and not to shops or teahouses. He also collected medicinal herbs on the mountain. Another favourable location for wild tea trees on this mountain, he said, was Nam Tong To (南塘肚) where the Shing Mun villagers collected leaves from wild tea bushes there of the same type. Such trees could not be replanted and grown elsewhere, he stated. Separately, old Shing Mun villagers living in Kam Tin since their removal there in 1928 for construction of the Jubilee Reservoir, themselves confirmed their taking of leaves from trees in this locality. In the foothills west of Tsuen Wan, villagers of Yau Kam Tau also collected leaves from wild tea bushes.12 Lantau island possessed a rather special type of red "tea", with a brilliant red infusion, known as tsz pooi tin kwai (紫背天葵). Tsz pooi tin kwai was described to me as being “half herb half tea”. It was used as a kind of cooling tea (清熱茶) for “over-heating” from food or drink, sore throats and the like. The leaves came from a plant growing between cracks in rocks and stones in high gulleys where there was much moisture. The people of Tong Fuk village on south Lantau, at the foot of the Fung Wong mountain, used to collect these from upper slopes. It was also collected by the women inmates of the religious houses of Ngong Ping and others living at the Po Lin monastery there. Some of the produce found its way to shops in Tai O market where one of the leading shopkeepers, chairman of the Rural Committee, gave me some at intervals. According to Shiu-ying's Hu's An Enumeration of Chinese Materia Medica (Hong Kong, Chinese University Press, 1980) page 153, it is to be described in English as the Tea Begonia (Begonia fimbristipula) and in Chinese as (紅天葵/紫背天葵).13 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 198 荃灣文獻: 第一册 PETER YEUNG 光緒拾肆年歲次戊子孟秋月立各款聯書 子達氏訂 [帖式] From Tai Uk Wai, Tsuen Wan (until 1956 at Kwan Uk Tei - site of Tai Lam Chung Reservoir) 第二册 [陳氏族譜](Chan of Yim Tin Kok, Tsing Yi Island) 第三册 站式 光緒貳拾貳歲次丙申仲秋月念貳日立著原著人會昭南 民國六拾伍年十一月十八日會憲榮覆抄 第四册 酬世錦囊 邱寶生 (Kwan Mun Hau, Tsuen Wan Dec., 1981) 姻親眷屬便覽(Lo Uk Tsing Yi, N.T. Dec. 1981) 第五册 光緒拾五年四月廿日站式對聯同訂 一九八二年二月八日訂第1-4集 Handbook in possession of Mr. Hui King Tai, Lo Wai, Tsuen Wan 傅氏族譜 傅元裕二九七六年 + 五月 日抄錄 丙 辰 九 十四 Shum Cheng Village, Tsuen Wan 荃灣老圍張氏族譜 公元一九七五年十二月一日補記 敉田部及鋪頭買賣契 荃灣老圍村許瓊泰先生借出 [ 荃灣村落源起 ] 荃灣柴灣角村温仲仁先生借出之族譜簡編一張 Yeung Kwok Shui's calligraphy. In Mr. Hui King Tai's possession 何氏家譜 荃灣河背村 [何氏聖公譜表] 荃灣河背村 光緒貳拾九年癸卯秋月建造屋宇支[數?] 萬古流芳 海壩村邱東海先生藏 Walter Schofield's Collection of Cantonese Songs 祭四聖廟 東莞萃英 (新出男女對答)淡水歌 香江原本 至閒齋註 上、下卷 (新出時款對答)淡水歌 與別不同 上、下卷 (新出時款對答)鹹水歌 與別不同 上、下卷 周氏反嫁 東莞 萃英樓 新出龍舟歌唱鯉魚古人 內附拆古人字眼 東莞萃英樓 [蛋家歌雜錄] ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 203 第二冊 [伏以拜請 + + + ] Copied from a reprint made for James Hayes by a priest who practised from a room in a housing estate in Tsuen Wan 茅山來源 張法能傳 張子興書] 迎聖科 道安堂宣統貳年吉立 Copied by Prof. Tanaka Issei at the Lam Tsuen ta-tsiu 1981 第三册 洪聖廟 宰西年 月號 (洪聖廟釋氏借出之大悲懺[孔嶺村]1982年7月20日) 仙巷庵 蓮花經 (仙悲庵藏書) 早晚課誦 蓮花經 (孔嶺洪聖廟釋氏借出 一九八二年七月二十日) 第四册 調朝書 民國十四年抄 林道常置 (林培先生藏 元宵洪朝文獻) 晋今洒口神水蕩穢天尊...This is a text that the naam-mo priest 陳九先生 used in the 襬 斗 ceremony at the ta-tsiu in Lam Tsuen on 1/12/81 引福堂蓮惜 This is a text that the naam-mo priest Mr. 陳九 used in the ji ceremony in the Lam Tsuen ta-tsiu on 1/ 12/81. I was told afterwards that the original belongs to Mr. 謝貴 北斗經 引福堂 深圳文獻: 第一册 (以下各目皆為向西張子英先生藏) 西溪家乘 扯年五月重修 廣東城西湖街張瑞元堂鐫 張氏述善堂藏版 (Mr. Cheung said this was presented to him by an American scholar, but confirmed this is their genealogy) 契尼 光緒十六年 稅契 民國十九年 第二冊 羅湖袁氏家譜 上卷 ·中華民國八年歲次乙未孟秋重鐫 (Copied through kindness of Dr. James Hayes) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 204 九龍文獻: 第一册 PETER YEUNG 吳氏家乘 民國廿六年丁丑裔孫煥琪子美畧述 英琪子齡重修 (衙前圍村吳揚森先生藏) 吳氏族譜 翟家族部庚午年立 第二册 關於九龍城衙前圍立村之事跡 (衙前圍村李富村長藏) 論延陵堂來歷詩一首 (沙莆村的吳世明先生傳 現住鳳凰新村) [吳氏族譜] 吳氏重修族譜 民國七年戊午歲孟秋月吉日 廣東第五軍副司令裔孫鏡如敬送 新界文獻補編: [厦村鄧氏族譜] (Genealogy of the Tang lineage at Ha Tsuen) [歌書,廖潤琛藏] (Song book, held by Mr. Liu Yun Sam, J.P., Sheung Shui, collected by Chan Wing Hoi) 幼學信札 廖康雞 (Letter formats, held by Mr. Liu Yun Sam, J.P., Sheung Shui) [對聯集錄] (Village handbook, held by Mr. Liu Yun Sam, J.P., Sheung Shui) [西貢地契,許舒收集] (Land documents collected by James Hayes from Sai Kung) 廿元月會會友芳名 孔聖誕派肉部 辛巳(一九四一年)八月初八立 (元朗新墟合益公司辦事處藏) 厦村鄉十年例醮功德部 民國六十三年歲次甲寅二月吉立 廈村鄉鄧鈞澤先生借出 (Handbook used in the Ha Tsuen ta-tsiu, copied by Segawa from manuscript, winter 1984 [Masahisa Segawa, 瀨川昌久]) [丙崗侯氏族譜] (Genealogy of the Hau lineage at Ping Kong; copied by Lee Lai Mui from manuscript held by a member of the village) (Deeds of Mr. 新界白沙澳海下村翁朝先生地契與地契目錄 Yung Sz-chiu of Pak Sha O Ha Yeung Village New Territories with index) 迎聖科禁垴科 (Two religious texts used in the Lung Yeuk Tau ta-tsiu in winter 1983, copied by David Faure) 魷魚灣村地契 (Land deeds from Yau Yu Wan given to James Hayes) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 鍾氏系譜(萬屋邊村鍾國材先生藏) [帖式](元朗南邊圍陳濤先生藏) 205 呈報田地口峈總册 侯紹箕堂名字列 大英---千九百年正月日立 (Account book from the Hau lineage at Ping Kong copied by Lee Lai Mui from manuscript held by a member of the village) 錦田鄧氏族譜(錦田泰康圍鄧滿堂先生) 容川祖進支數部 大振家聲 光緒三十三年正月吉日 (錦田泰康圍鄧滿堂先生贈) 帖式(錦田泰康圍鄧滿堂先生贈) [帖式] (Village handbook, Lung Yeuk Tau) Guide to microfilm locations: Rolls 1 to 3 Historical Literature of Sha Tin, vols. 1 to 9, 11 Rolls 4 to 6 Roll 7 Roll 8 and 12 沙田文獻第一至九、十一至十二册 Historical Literature of Fan Ling, vols. 1 to 13 粉嶺文獻第一至十三册 Historical Literature of Tsuen Wan, vols. 1 to 3, 荃灣文獻第一至三册 and Walter Schofield's Collection of Cantonese Songs Historical Literature of Sai Kung HAXH, and Historical Literature of Sheung Shui, vol. 1 上水文獻第一册, Historical Literature of Kam Tin, vol. 1 錦田文獻第一册,and Oral History Records of Kam Tin 錦田區口述歷史資料. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 206 Rolls 9 to 10 Roll 11 Roll 12 Roll 13 Roll 14 Roll 15 PETER YEUNG Historical Literature of North District vols. 1 to 7 北區文獻第一至七册 Historical Literature of Tsuen Wan, vols. 4 and 5 荃灣文獻第四、五册 Historical Literature of Tai Po, vols. 1 to 4 大埔文獻第一至四册 Historical Literature of Sha Tin, vols. 10, 13 to 17 沙田文獻第十、十三至十七册 Religious Literature of the New Territories, vols. 1 to 4 新界宗教文獻第一至四册 Historical Literature of Sham Chun, vols. 1 to 2 深圳文獻第一、二册, and Historical Literature of Kowloon vols. 1 to 2 九龍文獻第一、二册 Historical Literature of Sheung Shui, vols. 2 to 6 上水文獻第二至六册 and Historical Literature of Kam Tin, vols. 2 and 3 錦田文獻第二、三册 Supplementary Supplement to New Territories Historical Literature 新界文獻補編 roll Page 225 Page 226 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 23 March Dr. Elizabeth Sinn "Management of the Chinese in 19th Century Hong Kong and the Role of the Tung Wah Hospital” The following Visits were made: 29 April 6 May 24 June 1 July Anita Wilson and Dr. James Hayes Visit to the Pottery Kiln at Tuen Mun, Ha Tsuen Tang Ancestral Hall and Old Market, Ling Wan Monastery (with vegetarian lunch), Lai Family Study Hall and Mansion at Sheung Tsuen, Hakka Mansion at Sham Ka Wai, and Yuen Long Old Market Dr. James Hayes and Ted Brown Visit to Kowloon Walled City, Again! Phillip Bruce Visit to Old Marine Police Headquarters at Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon Phillip Bruce Repeat of the Visit of 24 June 14 September Dr. Patrick Hase and Lee Man-yip Visit to Wo Hang for the Hot Air Balloon release at Mid Autumn Festival 25 November Dr. James Hayes 9 December Visit to places of interest on Hong Kong Island, including Waterfall Bay, the Aberdeen Country Park Management Centre, Chung Hom Kok, Shek O Village and Lei Yu Mun Barracks and Leisure Centre Rosemary Lee and Richard Gee Repeat of the N.T. Visit of 29 April 13-14 January Anita Wilson, Dr. Dan Waters, Rev. Carl Smith and Dr. Joseph Ting 22 January 18 February Week End Visit to Macao Phillip Bruce Visit to some interesting Naval and Military Graves in the Colonial Cemetery Phillip Bruce and Dr. Anthony Siu Visit to the Tung Chung Area, the site of Hong Kong's Future Replacement Airport This varied and interesting programme has again been due to the Activities Committee, which has worked hard under Dr. Elizabeth Sinn's ================================================================================ 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 114 of a large piece of cheap land for the drying of the joss sticks. Thirty-nine out of the 60 factories interviewed in 1987 explicitly declared that the availability of a drying place was of prime importance as a determinant of factory location. In general, the space needed for drying is twice the size of the workshed. Space is essential for drying as joss sticks have to be spread widely apart to allow an even drying speed. An outstanding example can be provided by a factory which is operated by a single man. The total area consumed is only around 70 m2 and two-thirds of the land has to be devoted for drying purposes. The remaining one-third of the land has to accommodate the use of working place and storage shed as well as the residence of the man. However, for a typical factory employing 1-3 workers, 200-300 m2 of land is the norm. To quote the other extreme, 3 factories which produce a variety of incense products extend to well over 3,000 m2 in area, the largest being approximately 3,782 m2. As a result of this space requirement, the joss stick industry tends to be on the outskirts of the urbanized area, where the rent is lower. As a result of the high land price in Hong Kong, factories of the joss stick industry make use of every possible location in the territory. Joss stick factories can be found in Shaukiwan, Wanchai and Western District. They can also be found in Yaumati, Mongkok, Taikoktsui, Sham Shui Po, Ngau Chi Wan, Diamond Hill and Tsz Wan Shan. But the majority of the factories are located in the New Territories, in Tsuen Wan, Tuen Mun, Yuen Long, Kam Tin, Shek Kong, Sha Tin, Tai Po, Fanling, Sheung Shui and even Ta Kwu Ling. Generally speaking, a pattern can be discerned on the basis of the method of operation. The majority (61.4%) of the factories in the New Territories are devoted to the Lin-hsiang Method and the Winding Method, though a number of them are also engaged in the production by Nuo-hsiang Method or Winding Method at the same time. This is usually the case as the mass production strategy in Lin-hsiang Method produces joss sticks bucket by bucket, so a proportionately larger piece of drying area, available only in the New Territories, is needed. In contrast, most of the Nuo-hsiang and Moulding processes are done within residential districts. In the interview, all the 13 factories specializing in Nuo-hsiang Method are located in residential tenements. They are tolerated in domestic premises as Nuo-hsiang, unlike Lin-hsiang which produces a very dusty atmosphere, is much neater and tidier, and demands a small drying area. However, similar to the marginal situation of the other factories, these Nuo-hsiang factories have tended to move to the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 118 0 Then Mun Source: Fieldwork, Hong Kong 1987, Appendix III Distribution of Joss Stick Factories 1987 + Sheung Shui Fanling Yuen Long Kam Tin Tai Po · + Shek Kong Tsuen Wan Shatin Tai Kwun Ling Sham Shui Po To Wan Shan Diamond Hill, Ngau Chi Wan Mongkok wing « 0 1 2 seak A Legend Joss Stick Factory Incense Wood Mill ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 147 The Magistrate's influence seems to have deferred the success of the Tsat Yeuk in by-passing the Tai Po ferry from about 1840 to 1892, but otherwise it does not seem to have played any significant part. The Magistrate seems to have played absolutely no role at all in the dispute between the Luk Yeuk and Wong Pui Ling. The main gentry organisations in the area were the Po Tak Temple Old Alliance and the Community School (1) in Sham Tsun, which was managed by the Tung Ping Kuk (T5, "Council for Peace in the East"), consisting of all the Punti degree holders in the Sham Tsun area, who sat in the school in rotation to adjudicate disputes. The political effectiveness (as opposed to their effectiveness in settling inter-personal disputes) of these gentry bodies in ordinary times was slight. The predominant membership of the Community School rota was from Sheung Shui, Lung Yeuk Tau, Wong Pui Ling and Sham Tsun itself, and their mutual enmities rendered it helpless in most major local political crises. The Po Tak Temple was similarly divided. The Sham Tsun Community School was, furthermore, ignored by the Hakka degree-holders, who had a similar, but weaker, body connected with the school in Sha Tau Kok, and known as the Tung Wo Kuk (†1⁄2, “Council for Peace in the East”). 41 The Nuns and Their Background The nuns of the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz were local Punti girls. This was a common feature of the pre-British Buddhist institutions in the area. The Ta Kwu Ling villagers believe that all the nuns, at all dates, were Punti. They were "women who refused to marry". This was the same at all the indigenous nunneries in the New Territories. The Tang lineage owned three nunneries: the Ling To nunnery being owned by the Ha Tsuen branch of the lineage, the Ling Wan nunnery by the Kam Tin branch, and the Lung Kai nunnery by the Lung Yeuk Tau branch. Village elders of all three villages say that, before they were taken over by immigrant monks (or, in the case of the Lung Kai nunnery, became ruined), they were all houses of nuns, and that, while girls from other places were not debarred from becoming nuns there, effectively all the nuns were Tang girls from the branch of the lineage owning the monastery in question, girls, that is, who “refused to marry". Similarly, the nuns of the Kim Ho monastery at the Law Fong bridge were, according to Law Fong village elders, girls from Punti ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 303 THE DANGS AS A LINEAGE Although a survey on occupations and land ownership was not part of the brief project on which this report is based, some of my interviews bear on the economic aspects of life in Kam Tin. While the Dangs of Kam Tin are well known as a wealthy lineage that has produced many imperial degree holders, in fact very few of the lineage were landlords/scholars. The vast majority of the Dangs earned their living as farmers, and most of them did not own much farm land. There seems to have been a large gap between the rich and the poor amongst the Dangs. Replying to my questions about ha-fu, or hereditary servants to the Dangs, a Mrs. Dang added her observations on the inequality among the Dangs themselves. The majority, the poor Dangs, were at the beck and call of the minority of the wealthy Dangs. She cited the example of her father-in-law, who worked on rice fields rented from a rich Dang as well as his own. He also took risks to hide the valuables of the rich man during the Japanese war. When asked why he did all this, she explained that obviously this was done in case he needed to borrow rice from the rich man in the future, which he actually did. The family of another Mrs. Dang I interviewed had rented farm land from the same rich man, Dang Baak-Kau. She took care to lower her voice when saying this, and added: “Villagers of Tsi Tong Tsuen, Kat Hing Wai, and Tai Hong Wai — actually, all over Kam Tin people had rented his farm land”. Dang Baak-Kau had been a major leader of the Dangs of Kam Tin during his time. He represented the Dangs of Kam Tin in 1925 to petition the Hong Kong government to return the iron gates of one of the main Kam Tin villages taken away in 1899 when the British took over the New Territories. He was also one of the two Dangs named after the formal head of the lineage in a 1941 petition to the New Territories administration against the division and sale of an ancestral trust property. The dominance of the segment descended from him in lineage affairs is evident in the Ching Lok Ancestral Hall ritual manual, to which has been added, after entries giving two or one and a half catties of ritual pork to descendants of the six Dangs responsible for the initial building and rebuilding of the hall, an entry giving two catties of roast pork to his descendants in the Spring and Autumn rites. Before this Dang died some 30 years ago, he was awarded a "higher medal" in about 1933 by the British administration, according to a genealogy he commissioned. One can see at the same ancestral hall a ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 305 Faat, who was an official of the Song Dynasty. His great-grandson Fu-Hip was the first to settle in Kam Tin. One of his two sons moved to Dongguan county and the other, named Seui, stayed. The two had a total of five sons whose descendants were known as the “five main branches”. In a time of chaos, a grandson of Seui married a daughter of the Song Emperor Gaozong. This member of the royal family was better known by her descendants as Wong-gu because her brother later became the Emperor Guangzong. Her husband was called the Gwan-ma. The Wong-gu sent one of their sons to see the Emperor, who granted official titles to her husband and sons and gave her some farm land as a gift. Present-day Dangs attribute their wealth to this event. Her descendants moved to different parts of Dongguan and Xin'an counties, including Lung Yeuk Tau, and Tai Po Tau in the New Territories. The nearest common ancestor of the present-day Dangs of Kam Tin, Hung-Yi, was a seventh-generation descendant of the youngest son of the Wong-gu. Hung-Yi's brother Hung-Ji was the ancestor of some of the Dangs of Ha Tsuen. Hung-Yi did not leave much property, and there is no ancestral hall dedicated to his worship. We do not know much about Hung-Yi. Oral tradition has it that in 1393 he was sent on penal servitude on behalf of his younger brother Hung-Ji. Before that, he had married a Miss Jeung and had three sons Yam, Jan, and Yeui. He survived the (unknown) period of servitude and obtained a teaching job in a wealthy family. His employer married him to a servant girl of the surname Wong. Miss Wong bore him a son by the name of Gyun. Upon his death, she brought his ashes and the son to Kam Tin. The son Gyun died soon afterwards, and subsequently Yam gave one of his sons as Gyun's heir. Yau-Leun Tong in the present Kam Tin Shi was the hall in honour of Hung-Yi. But there was no tablet for him in the tong. To explain the absence of a spirit tablet, one elder said, "Because Hung-Yi did not have much property, the fund was small. There was no spirit tablet for him in the tong. His spirit tablet was housed in the ancestral hall of his grandson, [i.e., the ancestral hall for Ching-Lok, see below.]" Another provided a different explanation. It was because the Fung Sheui was poor for the purpose. Whatever the reason, Yau-Leun Tong was not a place for setting up a spirit tablet. It was a place for gatherings only. Some younger villagers told me that the hall was once rented out, and once used as a kindergarten. Page 330 Page 331 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h Long Old Marker Kam Pin Wai Ng Ling Yuen Long New Kam Tin and its vicinity Gwai Gok Shaan Bay Tin Hau Temple Shu Mei Ching Lok Ancestral Halls Mau Ging Tong Ancestral Hall Hung Sing Temple Jau & Wong Temple Around Sire Swamp Kam Hing/Wa Sa Bui Tai Hong Leng Wai Ng Ling Gwong San Wai Tsuen Market Ko SHAP PAT HEUNG Shop Per Heung Tin Hau Temple Kat Hing Wai Tong Ancestral Hall PAT HEUNG Pa Heung Temple Yuen Kong Temple Ling Wan Monastery Approximate boundaries of Kam Tin (Map taken from Tanaka 1989) 319 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 320 Yeuk and Shap Pat Heung the Ha Tsuen Yeuk. Kam Tin never joined a yeuk, because its collective strength was great enough on its own. One of the causes of conflict was disputes over land ownership. Anecdotes are still remembered of an early case that involved the Lais of Sheung Che or Ha Che. The site of one of the earlier temples of the Dangs of Kam Tin is the Hung Sing Temple, the site of which is also known as Lai Ga Dei (“Lai family land” or “Lai family grave”). There used to be a grave of the Lais there but the Dangs had moved it away to build the temple. The Lais sued the Dangs. The Dangs won the lawsuit by citing the following: hung-jeuk (peacock the Hung bird) was not a bird owned by the Hungs. 18 Another major cause of conflict was farm rents. The relationship between the Kam Tin Dangs and many other communities in the area, especially those of Pat Heung, was one of landlords and tenants. Many elders mention the village of Tsiu Keng as an example: the name originally meant “recruit to cultivate”. These tenant villages were not on a par with the Kam Tin Dangs. This distinction found its expression in marriages. A Dang in his 60s made an observation about marriage partners. The Dangs of Kam Tin never married Pat Heung people until his generation, nor did they marry members of other "minor" (tenant) villages such as Pok Wai. Many Dangs elders have similar ideas. The relationship between the Dangs and the other tenant communities in Pat Heung and Shap Pat Heung was difficult. The problems involved included rents as well as irrigation rights. A. Pat Heung The Dang elders I talked to generally knew about some serious fighting with Pat Heung, but none of them remembered any detail. What they could describe at some length were lawsuits rather than fighting. One of the elders remembered the case of a Lam Ngau-Jai who was illiterate but very good at verbal skills. He took a case to court. He accused the Kam Tin Dangs of being barbarous and despotic. Some parts of the accusation were still remembered. “In daytime they wanted chicken, goose and duck, at night they wanted pretty women in their bed”. “They used extra-large grain sorters, measures that were 80% larger than the designated volume, and for pushing the excess grain off the heap in the measure they used a crooked stick so that the surplus would remain”. Page 345 Page 346 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 325 In the nearby Pat Heung region, according to a genealogy dated about 1933, the rent the Dangs used to collect from the portion of their farm land holding lost in the land re-registration in the 1900s amounted to more than 2,000 taels. The Dang elders explained to me that the lost land included both individual and corporate holdings. They were lost to Pat Heung people, i.e. the villagers of Yuen Kong, Sheung Tsuen, Wang Toi Shan and Lin Fa Tei. The Dangs lost the land because the government's policy was to ask those who claimed a piece of land to say where the land was rather than to say who the tenants were. In many cases the Dangs knew the tenants but not the land, and were unable to sustain their claim. Dang Wing-Sau was told by his mother that a certain Lam Ngau-Jai of Yuen Kong had claimed the land he rented from Wing-Sau's father. Wing-Sau's father took the case to court and won the lawsuit. Subsequently Lam Ngau-Jai changed his name to Lam Jyu-Jai so as to avoid possible prosecution. I learned of a similar case from an anecdote about Ng Sing-Chi. A son of the Ng of Nam Pin Wai in the 1873 dispute, he was a prominent figure of the period around 1898 who was instrumental in opening a new market in Yuen Long in opposition to the Dangs.* A Mr. Dang of the Gwong-Yu Tong told me of Ng Sing-Chi's role in putting an end to the rent payments to the tong. On each Chinese New Year Eve each household in Nam Pin Wai had to pay the Gwong-Yu Tong Dangs a small sum of money, which, he said, was rent for their house land. The Dangs used to do the collecting themselves. But soon after Ng's release by the British officials from imprisonment for his involvement in the fighting against the British in 1898 he played a trick against the Dangs. He offered to them that to save their trouble he would do the collecting for them, if they would give him a receipt. This the Dangs did, and with the receipt Ng reported the case to the government. It was illegal. Since then the Gwong-Yu Tong Dangs dared not collect the rent from Nam Pin Wai any more. ## COMMUNITY AND WORSHIP ### III. THE COMMUNITY #### A. Overview Many informants mentioned the expression "five wai and six tsuen” with regard to the Kam Tin Dangs, but none of them was able to list these walled and unwalled villages definitively. The villages of Kam Tin ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 326 were listed for me as follows: Wing Lung Wai, Tai Hong Wai, Kat Hing Wai, Shui Tau Tsuen, Shui Mei Tsuen, Tsi Tong Tsuen, Tai Hong Tsuen, Kam Hing Wai, Ko Po Tsuen, and Kam Tin Shi." Four wai, five tsuen (chyun) and one shi. It does not agree with the numbers of 5 wai and 6 chyun. The expression no longer corresponds to the present situation. Their explanation for the discrepancy was that some of the original villages did not exist anymore. One example they gave is the case of Pak Wai, which had become a tsuen (chyun) after its wall had fallen. Some of the villages have very small populations nowadays, and some of the eleven original villages are now missing. Another factor involved is that, to many of the villagers, Tsi Tong Tsuen and Tai Hong Tsuen were not quite distinct from one another, and sometimes the two names were used interchangeably. The name San Wai was quite often used by them to refer to Tai Hong Tsuen, sometimes both. Village 1895 1960 Kat Hing Wai 308 410 Shui Tau 416 655 Shui Mei 181 250 Tai Hong Wai 176 215 Wing Lung Wai 154 250 Tai Hong Tsuen 33 155 San Wai (Tsi Tong Tsuen) 28 Kam Hing Wai 69 Ko Po 64 205 Kam Tin Shi Total 1412 2140 As can be seen in the table above, the populations of the Kam Tin villages are very uneven. Five of them are often referred to by the local villagers as "the five main villages". They were Shui Tau, Shui Mei, Kat Hing Wai, Tai Hong Wai, and Wing Lung Wai. Among the smaller villages, Tai Hong Tsuen and Tsi Tong Tsuen are considered part of Tai Hong Wai. They take part in the dim-dang ceremony for the newborn at the shrine of the God of Earth and Grain at the Wai and join the jiu of the wai. On a higher level, the Kam Tin villages are divided into two groups: ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 327 Naam-Bin ("South Side") and Bak-Bin ("North Side"). Bak-Bin includes only two villages: Shui Tau and Shui Mei. Naam-Bin includes Kat Hing Wai, Tai Hong Wai, Wing Lung Wai, Ko Po, Kam Hing Wai, Tsi Tong Tsuen, Tai Hong Tsuen and Kam Tin Shi. The division into Naam-Bin and Bak-Bin corresponds to the geographic location of residence as well as to agricultural and ritual activities. The village patrol corps of Kam Tin were also organized in terms of Naam-Bin and Bak-Bin. B. The Village Guard System The village guard system continued well into the 1960s. It used to be called cheun-ding, but later was called ji-wai-deui. There was one for Naam-Bin and one for Bak-Bin. The Naam-Bin guards consisted, more or less, of two men from each of Tai Hong Wai, Wing Lung Wai, Kat Hing Wai and Ko Po. The Bak-Bin guards were from Shui Tau and Shui Mei. The guards worked in two shifts, the first from 8 p.m. to midnight and the second from midnight to about 5 a.m. The Naam-Bin village guards patrolled the area reaching Au Tau to the west, gwai-waan to the east, Wong Chuk bei to the south, and the river before Pak Wai chyun to the north. Sha Pui Leng (Sa Bui Leng) was within the scope of their protection. The villagers of this village paid levies to the corps, but none of them were members. The village corps was rewarded by levies on sweet potato and rice crops. They charged 10% on potato. Before harvest, one in ten rows (laar) of the potato had already been allocated to the village guards. The rate of the levy on rice was a prescribed amount some tens of catties on each mu of cultivation. When the villagers' paddy fields suffered loss from theft, they got compensation from the village corps responsible for its protection. The corps would compensate in full the estimated loss. In earlier times the head of each village corps was selected by bidding. Each candidate would offer a certain quantity of rice (guk) which he would give back to the member villages. But in the case of the head for the year 1954, who I interviewed, he was appointed by the elders. This was because few people wanted the post. Around 1954 there was government involvement in the village guard system. "The police station asked us to organize [village corps]”. There were more than ten guards, armed with 6 guns. The guards also had passes issued by the police. They were also given used uniforms for ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 329 Loi Tung, among other places, including some to Dongguan and Xiangshan counties. The cousins of Hung-Yi moved away to nearby Ha Tsuen and Xiangshan county, among other places. Hung-Yi's brother Hung-Ji moved to Ha Tsuen. Thereafter, all the remaining Dangs of Kam Tin were descendants of Hung-Yi. Casually asking the Dang elders about the relationship between lineage segmentation and settlement, one is given both concrete examples that suggest a correspondence as well as general observations that there is no correspondence. For example, one would be told that the descendants of the third branch (Yeui), which are very few in number, all live in Wing Lung Wai, and that all the others of that village were descendants of the first fong. Unless one asks about a particular segment, the answers would be in terms of the four branches of the lineage, and the conclusion will be that no single segment lives in a village of its own except in the case of Tai Hong Wai where all the villagers are descendants of Man-Wai and his brothers. Going down the level of segmentation, to the lineage divisions focussed upon ancestors of the 17th to 19th centuries, there is correspondence in the sense that members of these segments all live in the same village. As already mentioned, all the members of the third branch live in Wing Lung Wai. Similarly, all the Ji-Ga Tong people live in Shui Tau, all the descendants of Wan-Yu live in Wing Lung Wai, and all the descendants of Gwong Yu Tong and Lei Ging Tong live in Tai Hong Wai. Another example is the descendants of Wan-Gaan, who, according to one account, had three sons: Fau-Ng, Jan-Ting and Gai-Jau. Gai-Jau's segment live in Kat Hing Wai. Fau-Ng's descendants are divided into three sub-segments. One of the three lived in Ko Po, another in Kat Hing Wai, and the other in Kam Hing Wai. Some segments of the lineage settled elsewhere. The descendants of Hung-Yi's second son Jan had moved to Ying Lung Wai near the Yuen Long Old Market at a very early date. I was told by its head of branch that many more lived in Zhongshan county. Some of the descendants of San-Fung, a son of Wan-Guk, also had settled elsewhere. I was told that most of them live in Kat Hing Wai, but some had moved to Tong Fong near Ping Shan. The ritual handbook for Ching-Lok's ancestral hall had a special provision for the descendants of San-Fung, which said that they had moved to Naam Tau, in a street outside the city wall. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 332 Lung Wai. We know that Dang Man-Wai's period was 1627-1693. The move of his people to Tai Hong Wai, then, must have taken place in the 17th century. Various information suggests that the merger of Gau Ga Chyun into Wing Lung Wai took place in the same period. The only Dang genealogy (a Ha Tsuen one) that I found to have included Sa Bui Leng among the settlements of Hung-Yi's descendants named Gau Ga Chyun as well. The elder I talked to said that the residents moved to Wing Lung Wai more than ten generations ago, which was Gwok-Yin's time. Sung named Gwok-Yin as one of the two who walled Wing Lung Wai at the time when Man-Wai walled Tai Hong Wai. Probably it was Gwok-Yin himself who moved to Wing Lung Wai. 37 16 It is interesting that, if my guess is right, then the two mergers both took place during the period of the Coastal Evacuation, in which the Dangs of Kam Tin established their central temple as well as an ancestral hall for the three junior branches. Although the reasons given for the merger were in one case very vague and in the other supernatural (“fung-sheui"), they would, in effect, have been part of the Dang response to the disorders of the times. C. The development of Tai Hong Wai 38 At present, only the descendants of Dang Man-Wai and his brothers (known as Sung-Gok jou, after Dang Man-Wai's father) live in Tai Hong Wai. They all live in the village and its extension. But people from other segments used to live there. From the stone inscription for a bridge built by a filial son Dang Jeun-Yun we know that some descendants of Chung-Yut lived there around the end of the 17th century. It was Dang Jeun-Yun's grandfather Gaai-Yut who, together with Dang Man-Wai, walled Tai Hong Wai. Jeun-Yun named Shui Tau as his home. So probably the family had moved from Tai Hong Wai to Shui Tau in the time of his father. Tai Hong Wai became settled solely by the descendants of Dang Man-Wai and his brothers only from about 100 years ago. The head of the only household that is descended from the senior segment of the descendants of Gyun is remembered to have recalled moving when he was very small from Tai Hong Wai to Tsi Tong Tsuen, where his family now lives. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 333 D. Outsiders in the villages and the immediate vicinity Besides outsiders who rented houses from the Dangs for residence or workshops/factories in recent years, there are some non-Dangs who have lived in the Kam Tin villages for many generations. These "resident outsiders" were believed by the Dangs to have been ha-fu, a term which can be translated as hereditary servants. When a Mrs. Dang mentioned to me that some people of the surnames Man and Sam lived in Naam Bin Teng, a part of Tai Hong Tsuen, she added that they had been ha-fu. Her logic was that any non-Dang who lived in Kam Tin must have been ha-fu. The present Dangs applied the term to servants of the lineage, as well as to settlements of tenants of the Dangs. My general impression is that there was more than one usage of the term, and the status of some groups might have changed in the passage of time. The elders explained to me that ha-fu meant ha-yan, servants, and the fu in this term was the same fù as in kiu-fu (“sedan chair carriers”). Another term for ha-fu is sai-man. In this connection, one of them added that the villagers of Sha Po, Chuk Yuen and Pok Wai had been tenants of the Dangs of Kam Tin, and that ha-fu were not the same as tenants. At Wing Lung Wai and Tai Hong Wai, some elders still remembered some ha-fu in their village. A Wing Lung Wai elder remembered only one ha-fu in his village. The person belonged to the great grandfather of an elder, a Yeui jou descendant who had a large land holding. The ha-fu carried sedan chairs for his master, among other things. A ha-fu had lived in Tai Hong Wai until he died around the time of the Japanese occupation. His given name was Loi-Fu. His surname was probably Mak. He lived in a house in the north-east corner of the wai. The house, now broken, was still there. He had to serve the whole village. His work was to do errands on special occasions such as banquets. In the old days one invited guests to banquets by sending a ha-fu. This Loi-Fu did not have to work for the Dangs on ordinary days. He often fished using his nets at a pit (haang) where the children went to swim. He would scold the children when he saw them swimming. He also kept bees, and gave some of the honey to the children. One of the villagers remembered that his mother often gave this Uncle Loi-Fu food to eat. He left no descendants. He had had no wife. Near the centre of the Kam Tin Dang settlements is Sa Bui Leng, which has only three or four families now. According to an elder the Sa ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 337 The Jau and Wong Temple also used to house spirit tablets to "heroes". The tablets (three in total, without names) were moved to the Yau-Leun Tong from the side altar in the temple about 50 years ago because they were siu-yan (“small people”), and it was unseemly to house them in the same temple as the two great men (daai-yan). As mentioned before, villagers agreed that the “heroes” were those who had died in fighting (da-saat) between Kam Tin and its enemies. Kam Tin has quite a number of other temples. There are the Man-Cheung Temple and Hung-Sing Temple in Shui Tau, and the Tin-Hau Temple in Shui Mei. Many of the other villages, e.g. Kam Hing Wai, Tai Hong Wai, Kat Hing Wai, Tsi Tong Tsuen, and Wing Lung Wai, which do not have “standard” temples, have a san-teng, a house with an altar for a spirit tablet for about ten popular temple gods. The gods of some of the vanished temples, which include a Yeung-Hau Temple and a Bou-Dak Chi in Shui Mei, and the Hung-Fan Taam Temple of Shui Tau, are still worshipped in the jiu festival, as are the gods of two nunneries, in Shui Mei and Tai Hong Wai respectively, which no longer exist. These temples and nunneries hold tablets or images of some 20 different gods, if we are to include the Earth God for temples, and Wai-To for Buddhist establishments. The other 18 include the popular temple gods Yeung-Hau, Tin-Hau, Bak-Dai, Man-Cheung, Gwun-Yam, Gwaan-Dai, Hung-Sing, the God of Wealth, Gam-Fa, Taai-Seui, the Dragon King, and the Buddha. The Bou-Dak Chi housed spirit tablets for Jau and Wong. There is not much information about this other temple dedicated to Jau and Wong, but it was worshipped probably only by the villagers of Shui Tau, where it was situated. Fui-Sing, and Fa-Gung Fa-Mou are probably respectively responsible for success in imperial examinations and the health of children. Hoi-Saan Suk-Lou is a title found in some other local temples as well, and represents the earliest settlers of the place. Hong-Wong is a title that I have not seen elsewhere in the New Territories. The titles of localized gods found in most of the Kam Tin villages include the God of Earth and Grain, the Water God of wells, and the Earth God for the gates of the walled villages. There are, in some of the villages, a Tree God and Earth Gods for bridges and for the gate to a complex of houses. In addition, there are Ngau-Wong and Pun-Gu, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 339 but moved the Dei-Jong Wong inside the Buddhist hall instead."7 After the building of the Buddhist hall two of the nuns were added to the managers of the trust, and since then the Dangs did not have much to do with the nunnery except that the related ritual associations go annually to worship at the charitable grave. B. Household and village worship Everyday worship is local and is mainly performed by women. Such is the case of a family of Tsi Tong Tsuen who gave me information on this point. This family seldom worshipped in any temple. For weddings they worshipped at the Mau-Ging Tong ancestral hall, where the head of the family also went when he was small for the annual worship, and to get his shares of the ritual pork. This he no longer does, having stopped a few years ago. In some years he also joins the ancestral grave worship in Tsuen Wan. On Ching Ming and Chung Yeung his family went to worship their own near ancestors. On festivals his family worshipped at Tsi Tong Tsuen's shrines to the Earth God and the God of Earth and Grain and the place for the Well God. I was able to talk with some of the older women. One Tai Hong Wai woman born in the 1910s told me that ordinarily her family worshipped at home. They went to neither the Jau and Wong Temple nor the Hung-Sing Temple. They had no share in the Hung-Sing Temple. They did go to the Daai-Wong Temple at Yuen Long, early in the first month of the lunar calendar, but it is the business of their men only: the temple belonged to their distant ancestor. Similarly, an elderly Kat Hing Wai lady told me that Pak Wai Tsuen (i.e., Shui Tau and Shui Mei) people worshipped at the Hung Sing Temple. I have witnessed part of a waan-san (“thanksgiving”) ritual in Kat Hing Wai, which took place at the san-teng. I was told that for impromptu religious activities such as divination, some of the Kat Hing Wai women went to a temple at Tai Shue Ha [which is, as far as I know, not otherwise of interest to the Dangs of Kam-Tin] and some went to Ling-Wan Ji. They went to the Jau and Wong temple mainly during the jiu, and the temples at Shui Tau and Shui Mei were for their respective villagers alone. A san teng was probably considered to be of central importance to its village. When I walked with an elder to his house we passed the san-teng of Tai Hong Wai. He explained to me that it was the wai-jyu, and he compared its status in the village to that of the most senior and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 340 respected person in a family. I found in Wing Lung Wai that the households take their turn to take care of the incense and lamps of their san-teng. It probably plays an important part in major celebrations: in Tai Hong Wai I noticed that wedding deui-lyuns couplets had been put on both the san-teng doors and the village gate. Of a similar status were the places for the Gods of Earth and Grain, where communal worship (jou-se) is held once or twice a year. In addition, there is the hoi-dang ceremony for the new born children of the village. In the case of Tai Hong Wai, Kat Hing Wai, and Wing Lung Wai village-level collective worship includes a jiu. It is held once in seven years at Tai Hong Wai, once in five years, at Kat Hing Wai, and once in ten years at Wing Lung Wai. The Tai Hong Wai case is probably representative. The rituals are simpler than the one for Kam Tin as a whole, and lasted only two days and one evening. The main feature is the offering of paper clothing to hungry ghosts. 49 In some cases the social unit involved in the rites for the new born and other collective rites is a lineage segment in a village and in one case a main village and its associated smaller settlements. Some villages have more than one place for the God of Earth and Grain. Shui Tau has two. The one belongs to the whole village of Shui Tau while the other one belongs only to the descendants of Gam-Tin jou, who have their hoi-dang there. Similarly, there is more than one place for the God of Earth and Grain in Shui Mei. One of them is worshipped by the Git-Sau jou people alone, who make offerings of paper clothing there at the Yu-Laan Festival. In the case of Tai Hong Wai, its jiu, and the rite for the newly born include as participants the villagers of Tsi Tong Tsuen and Tai Hong Tsuen. The hoi-dang at the Ching-Lok ancestral hall is not precisely a lineage event: only his descendants living in Shui Tau and Shui Mei take part. Besides worship associated with membership in residential and sometimes partially lineage segment units, there is worship organized by ritual associations. There are quite a few ritual associations (san-wui) in Kam Tin. Each has its landed property, which ranges from one daam-jung (about 65 thousand square feet) to about 500 thousand square feet of farm land. A share was inherited by all the descendants of the original shareholders. In some cases, one share was actually shared by a few dozen people. Some of the shares were acquired by the present holder by purchase. Worship by these associations takes place once a year, and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 342 The festival was estimated to cost a total of more than one million dollars. The opera cost $357,000, paper images $150,000, temporary structures $150,000, and the puppet theatre $110,000. The opera was paid for, as is the tradition, from the funds of two lineage trusts, those of the Naam-Kai jou and Ching-Lok jou. Each contributes $180,000. For the other expenses, each of the villagers paid a subscription of $300, with the no. 1 to no. 15 ritual representatives each paying an extra $500, 50 The main participants were the Dang villagers of Kam Tin. For the purpose of organizing the jiu the villagers were divided into five gu sections. Each section corresponded to a village, except that the Tai Hong gu included, besides Tai Hong Wai, Ko Po, Kam Hing Wai, Tsi Tong Tsuen and Tai Hong Tsuen. Also taking part were the villagers of Ying Lung Wai, the settlement of the second branch of Hung-Yi's lineage outside the heung of Kam Tin. They paid half subscriptions and got the last three places among the 60 ritual representatives. Some of the non-Dang residents in the heung also participated. Those include the Sa Bui Leng villagers and post-War and later immigrants from China who operated farms and shops in Kam Tin. These "outsiders", however, could not become ritual representatives. The ritual representatives were to stand for all the villagers in the Taoist rites and in some of the rites the villagers performed on their own. There were also religious activities conducted by every household. At three points of the festival, i.e. the opening day, the main day, and the concluding day, every household came, family by family, to worship at the various ritual sites, and a priest visited each house on the last day to purify the family altar. In addition, each and every person was named in the ritual memorials which were read aloud and sent by fire to heaven, with a copy posted in the ritual area for all to read and check. Many other villagers in the area were also peripherally involved. They offered their congratulations by having fa-paai banners set up in the festival site, and by paying a formal visit to the site on the main day with their lion/unicorn dances. To wait to receive them the elders of Kam Tin lined up in cheung-saam, B. Ritual Area The festival site was beside the Jau and Wong Temple. A large paang temporary structure was erected. Outside the main structure were three small linked temporary structures for first-aid, the fire services, and the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 347 who were not allowed to compete for the other places among the 60 ritual representatives. The selection of ritual representatives, which I did not witness, took place on the fifth day of the first moon. It lasted twelve hours on this occasion, and I was told that in the past it took even longer. Several hundred men were present. In casting the bui every man in the chu could try his luck. Therefore those chu having more members had better chances of winning the first places. The men from each chu numbered from two to a few dozen. The first five places were filled before the others, and some of the participants avoided them because the first five places entail much work. Many people repeated the divination process several times for better results. In the festival memorial one can see that for the Dangs of Kam Tin, there were 60 ritual representatives entries and only 50 ordinary entries, and the number of members in each chu, as represented by an entry, ranged from a few to almost 100. It is obvious that for those who could get more people into their chu it would not be difficult to get a good place among the ritual representatives. Each of the 60 places was actually shared by all the male members of a chu, who took turns to attend the rites in their cheung-saam. There were different reasons why a person would be eager to compete for a good place in the group of ritual representatives. I know in some detail the case of a young man in Tsi Tong Tsuen. His deceased grandfather had had the position in many of the previous celebrations, and he had been pressed by his mother to compete for a place. To gain the favour of the gods by worship was one of the reasons why she would like him to be a ritual representative. Another important factor is that ritual representatives get better seats in the opera matshed than ordinary participants, and the higher one was in the list of ritual representatives, the better the seats one got. It is usual that a Kam Tin family invited their relatives to the opera. In the case of this young man, the family had invited his mother's brothers, among others, and the guests took up the six seats they received in the distribution. Seats were distributed to each chu, but the seats for ritual representatives were towards the front, while the other seats for the chu were towards the back. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 359 The offerings included fruits and cha-gwo pastries. In addition to these they burnt paper clothing for Jau and Wong, and a yellow piece of paper with the characters wing-bou-ping-on ("unremitting protection") and some yun-bou for the earth god. B. Setting up the ghost flags Early in the morning of the opening day, after the rite of Fetching Water, the ritual representatives on their own installed faan flag posts for the worship of ghosts. There were five of these posts, each set up by the ritual representatives of one gu. The ritual representatives took precautions in this rite, since it dealt with ghosts. They told each other the taboos to observe in installing the posts. One should avoid speaking people's names out loud while this was being done. It would be wise to be silent. It was said (by the ritual representatives) that those who posted a faan should be those to dismount it afterwards. Some of the ritual representatives complained about not getting red packets for doing the rite. It was not for the money, they said, but for the good fortune. These faan posts were initiated by the priests in the first Procession of Offerings. C. Inviting the gods Beside the temple gods and other localized gods of Kam Tin, gods were fetched from the Pat Heung Temple at Sheung Tsuen and the Yuen Kong Temple. These two places were included because the places, I was told by the villagers, originally belonged to Kam Tin. Also fetched was the portrait of the Heavenly Master from his altar inside the village gate of Tai Hong Wai. Generally the ritual representatives of each gu were responsible for fetching their own gods: e.g. the gods at the Hung-Sing Temple and Man-Cheung Temple were fetched by the ritual representatives of Shui Tau. There were special arrangements for the gods important to the Kam Tin Dangs as a whole, and gods from outside the heung: (1) Ritual representatives no. 1 to no. 5 went to Ling-Wan Ji, as well as to the temples of Yuen Kong and Sheung Tsuen; (2) All 60 ritual representatives went to fetch the Heavenly Master from Tai Hong Wai; (3) The Head ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 363 They now entered Tai Hong Tsuen. They first worshipped at the san-teng. The party worshipped at a well of Tsi Tong Tsuen. Next they worshipped at Lai-Gaan Tong, and then at an altar for the God of Earth and Grain. They made offerings at the spot where Gau Ga Chyun used to be. Then they proceeded to Wing Lung Wai, where they worshipped first at an altar of the God of Earth and Grain, then at the village gate, then the san-teng, and finally at the ancestral hall of Gwok-Yin Jou. The procession turned back and went to worship at the altar for the God of Earth and Grain of Shing Mun San Tsuen, a village of outsiders who moved to Kam Tin when their village, Shing Mun, was destroyed in the 1930s for the construction of the Shing Mun Reservoir. Then the procession entered Tai Hong Wai to worship at its san-teng, village gate, altar for the God of Earth and Grain and well. After this the procession went back to the festival site. The procession was received and treated to soft drinks and cakes at Shui Mei, Shui Tau, Sa Bui Leng, Ko Po, Kat Hing Wai, Wing Lung Wai and Tai Hong Wai by the local villagers. E. Procession of incense II This second procession took place on the day after the main day. It was to visit Ying Lung Wai, the village of Hung-Yi's descendants outside Kam Tin, as well as the Yuen Long Old Market and the villages in its vicinity. The other spots were included because the Yuen Long Market had once belonged to a segment of the Kam Tin Dang lineage, and they used to have landed property in the surrounding villages. The procession started at 12:40. The equipment involved was more or less the same as the previous day, but I also noticed something I had not seen before: two lanterns saying "to offer incense" and two banners saying "keep quiet" and "keep clear", and burning incense inside a "pavilion" on a table carried by poles. There were a very large number of people again, but less than the previous day. The same Dang Jik-Wai, and the headmaster of Mung Yeung School, originally from Ko Po, led the procession. 363 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 364 They left the festival site, passing Tai Hong Wai and Ko Po, where those who took part were offered drinks. They next reached Ying Lung Wai, where they were met by the lion dance of the village, and treated to soft drinks. They first worshipped at the altar of the God of Earth and Grain of Ying Lung Wai, then the san-teng and the village gate. They proceeded to Tung Tau Tsuen, where they worshipped at the Tin-Hau Temple and then the Gwun-Yam Temple. No one came to meet them. But nearby two elderly ladies exchanged these remarks among themselves, "The two temples belong to Kam Tin fellows, they wanted to repair them, but Tung Tau Tsuen would not let them". They proceeded to the Old Market. First they worshipped at the market gate then at the Bak-Dai Temple, and then at the Daai-Wong Temple. Then they moved on to Nam Pin Wai, where they worshipped at the altar of the God of Earth and Grain, the san-teng and the village gate. A man in his fifties sitting under a tree cursed the Dangs when he saw the Ambulance which was in attendance in case anyone was overcome by the heat. He said, "Right. Let this Ambulance carry these Kam Tin fellows". At the nearby Sai Pin Wai they worshipped at an altar for the God of Earth and Grain. There was a reception. They proceeded to a Lam Yi-Hing Tong” inside Sai Pin Wai, and then the village gate and an altar of the God of Earth and Grain. The procession finished with the Old Market and the surrounding villages, and went on to Yuen Long New Market. When they reached Sau Fu Street, they were offered soft drinks by people who had come from Kam Tin for that purpose. From there they walked back to the festival site at Kam Tin. F. The Procession with the King of Ghosts The procession with the King of Ghosts took place during the evening before the Great Offering to Ghosts. In the first stage the Bak-Bin villagers carried the huge image of the Daai-Si Wong through their villages. Their Naam-Bin counterparts waited near Kam Hing Wai to take over the paper image for the second part of the procession. These were 22 young men, many carrying long bamboo poles with metal ends ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 366 The procession soon turned back without entering the village. By now, I noticed, the team had grown to more than 100 young men. They moved towards Kat Hing Wai. On the way they turned the paper image to "shine on" an alley opposite the food stall at the market, and the paths leading from the main road to Tsi Tong Tsuen and Tai Hong Tsuen. Beside the alley was a shop, where a few women fled when they saw the King of Ghosts facing them. Then the same "shining on" procedure was repeated at the other spots they passed on the way to Wing Lung Wai: the path leading to Tai Hong Wai, the path leading to the Tung Tak School of Shing Mun San Tsuen and a place on the other side of the road. Partly for fun, the young men did the same to the two doors of the Jockey Club betting centre, "to influence the outcome of bets". The procedure was also applied to the village gate of Wing Lung Wai and a spot opposite the gate across the road. Then the procession turned back and proceeded to Tai Hong Wai, where some of the men in the team shouted, "tell people to keep clear and shut their doors". Some of the younger men added, "thank you for your co-operation". I had the impression that they were talking like that partly for the fun of being in command. The procession went back to the main ritual area after "shining on" the village gate of Tai Hong Wai. G. Renewal of the jiu This took place in the morning after the final main rite of Grand Offering to the ghosts, after the Taoist priests had performed the brief purification rites at the individual households. It took place at the temple of Jau and Wong, the two main gods of the festival. To their altar was escorted the image of Gwun-Yam, the other patron god of Kam Tin. In the preparation for the rite an elder explained to a younger ritual representative that this rite is to heui-ping-on, to beseech the gods for well-being, giving a promise that in ten years' time another celebration will be held. Only the no. 1 to no. 15 ritual representatives (which was in accordance with the traditional rule) and the priest participated. The priest chanted a eulogy and the invocation for blessing. H. Sending off the gods This took place after the end of the Opera performance period. I overheard previously the villagers telling one another that those who fetched a god should send them home afterwards in this rite. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h deui-lyun dim-dang Wif ding-hau T`LI Dongguan 東莞 dong-ji Dung Ping Guk 東本局 faan Fa-Gung Fa-Mou (EAEN fa-paai TEMP Fau-Ng ởH Fong 兒 fong fong-jeung Fu Qing (47 fu 伏 Fu-Hip gwan-ma 郡馬 Gwok-Yin Gwong-Yu K Gwong-Yu Tong Gwun-Yam #E Gyun 銷 Ha Tsuen 厦村 Ha Che 下崟 haang 坑 ha-fu F Hak-Sa ha-yan FA Hei-Ye 起野 heui-lok Heung heung Fui-Sing !! Fung Yuk-Daan MƒU!! Gaai-Yut gaam-sang Gai-Jau # heung-on Ho fil hoi-dang EH hou 號 Hung-Fan Taam gam-taap Gam-Tin Gaozong h Gau Ga Chyun **† hung-jeuk FL Hung-Ji 孔子 Hung-Ji 洪贄 Hung-Sing # Hung-Yi 洪儀 geui-yan git-jing #7 Git-Sau gu l Guangdong MAC Guangzong 光宗 guk 榖 gung-chou Y gung-sang Gwaan-Dai BNR Gwai-Ting gwai-waan (?) Gwai-Wong E gwan 棍 Gwan-Haak 7K Gwan-Leung R jaap-fo 雜貨 Jai Baak-Fu Jan 鈞 Jan-Ting Jau M Jau-Man B jau-tung 州同 Jeung Hoi Jeung 張 Jeung-Luk A jeun-si 進士 Jiangxi 江西 Ji-Ga Tong #18 2 Jik-Gin jiu BE Page 369 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 373 Many Dangs attributed the deceased worshipped in their Altar for Heroes (Ying-Hung Chi) and those buried in the big grave known as yi-chung to the battle with the British in 1898. We found that the number of "heroes" for whom paper clothing were ordered for the jiu of 1955 is only 2 more than the 1895 figure, i.e. only two can be attributed to the 1898 incident. See also Law and Lau (1985) about this dispute. 19 According to this informant the Dangs married villagers of Lam Tsuen, Tai Hang, Sheung Shui and places like Sha Tau across the border. Other Tangs who discussed the point included Tuen Mun and Gak Tin, a place of the Wong surname, also known as Fuk Tin, across the border. 20 Another stone inscription dated 1786 recorded a similar case. Although it has been cited by many scholars as another rent dispute case that involved the Dangs of Kam Tin as the landlords, I cannot find any of Dangs whose names appear in the inscription in other documents. 21 In Kam Tin Historical Documents, vol. 2. 11 The original expression is that the villagers were the diding of the Dangs. Diding refers to tax on land and persons. 73 See also Kamm (1977:213-214) on other similar disputes. 24 See Cheng (n.d.). 25 Besides the formal names that appear in local documents and present-day road signs and maps, many of these villages had other names that were used in everyday conversation. 10 Formal names Kam Hing Wai Kat Hing Wai Pak Wai Tai Hong Wai Wing Lung Wai According to the jiu festival record of the year. "Nickname" Gaak Seui Yun Fui Sa Wai Laan Bak Wai Taan Wai Sa Laan Mei 27 Tanaka (1985:935-7), quoting A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories, Hong Kong, pp. 172-173. The original expression was "Tai Hong Wai and Tsuen" and probably included only the part of Tai Hong Tsuen whose residents were considered Tai Hong Wai people. 20 Kam Tin Historical Documents vol. 2. 30 See the account dated 1966 in the Si Kim Tong genealogy. 31 According to a descendant of Fau-Ng. The genealogical relationships among the ancestors he gave may be wrong. 32 Ying Lung Wai is part of Shap Pat Heung, the group of villages which was involved in several disputes with the Kam Tin Tangs. It seems that the Ying Lung Wai Dangs join the Kam Tin Dangs only in the jiu festival and the worship at the Mau Ging Tong ancestral hall. I have not heard anything about its position in the disputes between Kam Tin and Shap Pat Heung. 33 Sung (1974:168) says Tai Hong Tsuen. This is my interpretation. 34 Ditto. 35 Siu-Geui, with his father and others, made a new stone inscription for the grave of the wong-gu in 1483. Kei-Fong's will is dated 1562. (See the genealogy in Kam Tin Historical Documents vol. 1 for both.) Kai-Wa was born in 1494 (See inside text of his spirit tablet, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 374 which has been copied in an untitled manuscript in the possession of Mr. Dang Yu-Hing).36 Dang Kei-faan Genealogy in the Baker Collection of New Territories genealogies in the British Library. 37 The elder was Dang Wing-Sau, the head of the lineage. I do not know which generation he was in. See Taga (1982:92). 38 Translated in Sung (1974:177-179). 39 40 See table above and the genealogy in Kam Tin Historical Documents, vol. 1. Probably Dang Hei-Seui. See Sung (1974:166-168) and a genealogy of his segment included in Hugh Baker's Collection of Genealogies. 41 Patrick Hase has drawn my attention to the importance of the monastery as central to the establishment Hung-Yi's descendants in Kam Tin, just as Ling To nunnery is to the Dangs of Ha Tsuen. The monastery and the earlier temple are a major element in the fung-seui of the Pat Heung valley and Kam Tin. The rivers important to irrigation in the area all flow from the mountain on which the monastery stands. 42 41 44 I have not tried to find further information on this man in gazetteers. See Sung (1973:112-113) for the Hung Sing Temple. This was one of two stories. They were thought of as alternatives although there is no contradiction between them. I shall relate the other one later. 45 I was told that the Juk-Yun Am used to be at the present site of the Gwaan-Dai Temple of Shing Mun San Tsuen, and San-Sin Fu near Shui Mei. 46 Two items in Kam Tin Historical Documents vol. 2 were probably intended for this very grave. These were among the papers of Dang Ting-sam from the year 1873. The first was a request for donations towards the establishment of a charitable grave. The second was intended for a stone inscription. There is strong evidence that the charitable grave was established before the British came, although many present-day Dangs believe that those buried in the grave were those who died fighting against the British. The jiu festival record for 1895 included the Dei-Jong Wong of Tung-Fuk Tong among the gods to be invited, and an elder in his nineties remembered seeing gam-taap jars for bones when he was very small. He deduced that those must have been the remains of people who died before 1898, because one had to wait for many years he suggested ten — until the bones could be extracted after a first burial. 47 A bin-ngaak (horizontal inscribed board) presented to the Buddhist altar at its completion included ten names who were believed to be the share-holders of the Tong. They were three Wan-Guk jiu descendants of Shui Mei: Baak-Cheung, Daat-Hung, and Jik-Hing; three brothers Yat-Wa, Seui-Chuen, Gam-Wa and two of their nephews, and Baak-Yi, all descendants of Wan-Gaan; and a Hin-Yiu of Kam Tin Shi. 48 Plus a inscribed stone on the ground saying Naam-mo O-Mei-To-Fat, set up to offset the bad influences that caused traffic accidents near the stone. 49 Hoi-dang for a village did not always take place at an altar for the God of Earth and Grain. In the Shui Mei case it took place at the Tin-Hau Temple. 50 The elders made it clear that gu here does not mean “shares". 51 The subjects for these paper images were specified in the contract made with the craftsmen. The contract was included in the general record for the festival and was copied from the previous ones. But neither the organizers nor the contractor seem to have paid much attention to the details of the prescription. 52 The object is probably more commonly known by the name dong 'an and is more often installed over the central area of the Taoist altar rather than in the backstage room. See ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 394 NOTES See the map of the Kwangtung coast-line, Chapter 32 of Yuet Tai Kee, Wan Li edition 郭斐粵大記卷三十二 Shek Pai Wan is the old name of Aberdeen Harbour or Heung Kong Tsai Wan *** (which in Chinese means Little Hong Kong Harbour). 1 Some of the incense products were sent north to the Provinces of Kiangsu and Chekiang See Chapter 3 of Lin Tien-wai and Siu's Articles on the Early History of Hong Kong, the Commercial Press Ltd., Taiwan, R.O.C., 1985. See 'The Lime Kilns and Hong Kong's Early Historical Archaeology', Special Session, Volume 7, Journal of the Hong Kong Archaeological Society, 1876-78. 7 See note 1. It was said that Hong Kong Tsuen had been robbed by pirates in the time of the Lung Ching Reign in the Ming Dynasty. (See Hui Tei-shan's "A Brief Research on the History and Geography of Hong Kong and Kowloon" Chapter 6 of Kwangtung Wen Mu X, 1940). See Siu's "Nam Tau Chai: the Middle Defensive Military Zone of Kwangtung in the Ming Dynasty'' in Essays of Research into Ming-Ching History, Chu Hai College, 1984. 10 The Coastal Evacuation was carried out in the 1st year of the Kang Hsi Reign (1661). See the map of the Coastal Defence of Kwangtung, Chapter 3 of the Kwangtung Tung Chi, 1731 edition. See Chapter 2 of the San On Yuen Chi, 1819 edition 12 See Chapter 178 of the Kwangtung Tung Chi, 1822 edition. 13 See the Original Gazetteer and Census, May 15th, 1841. 14 See p. 15 of Lai Chun Wai's Hong Kong 100 Years. The English name given to Chik Chu is Stanley. 16 Notable political events in China after 1841 were the 2nd Opium War (the Anglo-Chinese War), the Tai Ping Rebellion, the Boxer Rebellion, the Revolution of 1911 and the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-45. These changes assisted the increase of population in Hong Kong. Also, another rapid increase of population occurred because of the change of government in China in 1949. TAI YU SHAN FROM CHINESE HISTORICAL RECORDS 1 In the past, Tai Yu Shan, known as Tai Hai Shan was also called Tai Kai Shan, Tai Yi Shan Mun Island. It lies to the west of Hong Kong Island. It has an area of 53.55 square miles, and is the largest island in Hong Kong. The name 'Tai Hai Shan' first appeared in Chapter 87 of Yu Ti Ji Shing, a book published in the Sung Dynasty. It records, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 Hase, Chek Lap Kok organized by Philip and Sharon Bruce, Fung Ping Shan Museum (x2) organized by Michael Lau, Parsee Building and Parsee Temple organized by Geoff Roper, Lam Tsuen Ta-Chiu festival organized by Dr. Patrick Hase. Shataukok visit (x2) organized by Dr. Patrick Hase, and a visit to the Chinese University of Hong Kong with its Arts Gallery organized by myself. Without detracting from the other lectures I would like to mention that we were very privileged to have Dr. Wang Gangwu, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong, to speak on the occasion of our 30th Anniversary, followed by a Chinese dinner at the City Hall restaurant.* I must confess it came as a surprise to find that it was 30 years since our rebirth. I think that all those who heard Dr. Wang's lecture on this occasion would agree that his lecture was as stimulating and thought provoking as you would ever wish to hear. It will, incidentally, we hope, be published in a future edition of our Journal. Overseas Tours From time to time members have asked us to organise tours overseas, and in response to this we have recently circulated a proposal for a visit to South Korea, where we would hope to meet up with the Royal Asiatic Society there. Unfortunately although many members have expressed interest, the final numbers who have definitely said they will go are below what we think is financially viable, and unless there is a strong interest in this trip within the next day we will be cancelling it. I am grateful to Dan Waters for all the hard work he has put into this, and I think we have learnt by this experience. We will continue to consider overseas tours but I think it will be a question of something closer and for shorter periods. Members' advice on this would be very much appreciated. Membership At the end of last year my predecessor reported to you that there were 638 local members and 80 overseas members, making a total of 718 Members. Mrs. Bruce reports that at the last count there were 596 local members (492 living on Hong Kong Island, 65 in Kowloon, and 39 in the New Territories) and again around 80 overseas members, making a total of 676 members. This decline in the total membership * See Plate 16 ix ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 village and its inhabitants. The dancing teams would perform at the opening of ancestral halls, schools and village offices, or when a wealthy villager built himself a new house. They were part of the ritual performances at the main festivals, at the re-installation of ancestral tablets after reconstruction of a lineage hall, or during the re-dedication of deities following a major repair to a local temple. They carried out other important functions, also. If plague menaced the village, in an old local customary practice, the lion or unicorn dancers were sent with Taoist priests in procession around the neighbourhood to dispel the threat. And if the village was threatened with attack, the strong and brave lion dancers under their respected instructors formed the core of the defence. Furthermore, the dance teams were a principal means for maintaining and extending a village's status and prestige. As part of the training, youths and boys would be instructed in how to carry out the dancing steps, and also how to perform some of the basic martial arts. In discussing unicorn dancing with two village friends from Tsuen Wan, it was emphasized that the beasts (meaning in practice their human performers) had to follow kwai kui. For instance, there was a correct way to enter a building, and how to worship at a temple, and how to behave when meeting another unicorn. If the right decorum and etiquette was not observed when this happened, it could lead to a fight. This aspect, that of lai or decorum, was the most important to be taken into account in training and performance. Boys learned the art of cooperating together, and discipline was imposed, especially self-control. This was needed during the tense excitement generated by the accompanying drumming and gonging during the dance sequences, and particularly on festival days when the element of competition was well to the fore. The dancing was exhausting for mind and body, and relays of boys took turns to dance inside the at times stifling mask and body of the "animal". Self-control was an important requirement for the participants. "We won't put up with uncontrolled temper”, a Kaifong friend said on one festival occasion when a dance team was performing, "If a lad can't keep it, he gets put out of the dance group"." Thus, in these various ways, the village dance team constituted one of the principal means of giving practical effect to Confucian teaching. To conclude this account of traditional instruction and entertainment, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 17 with its inculcation of “right thinking", the complete process has been summed up in a few well-chosen words by Dr. Monlin Chiang, one of the most prominent educationalists of the early Republican period: “These moral precepts came from the Confucian classics. Moral ideas were driven into the people by every possible means — temples, theatres, houses, toys, proverbs, schools, history and stories until they became habits in daily life, 233 The effect of both the legacy and the drilling was not lost on competent Western observers. Writing over 150 years ago, in his standard work on China first published in the 1830s, a future governor of Hong Kong, Sir John Davis, then only lately returned to England from many years' membership of the Honourable East India Company's Select Committee at Canton, had this to say: "The Chinese lower classes are better educated or at least better trained than in most other countries”. PART THREE: “Right Thinking" in Action in Tsuen Wan 134 + Tsuen Wan District (like all the rest) provides plenty of evidence for the effectiveness of the indoctrination, as well as occasional examples of emulation and performance. People knew what to think and what to do, and recognized the attainment of the prescribed high standards of conduct and behaviour even if they themselves did not measure up. Men who did so were greatly respected, to the point of veneration. It is the general opinion among Tsuen Wan natives, then and now, that such a one was the late Mr. Chan Wing-on, a former Tsuen Wan Rural Committee leader and also Chairman of the New Territories Heung Yee Kuk. Mr. Chan, who unfortunately died comparatively young, left a fine reputation behind him. He is commemorated by a tablet in a traditional-style pavilion, named for him, which was erected the year after his death near the entrance to the Chuk Lam Sim Yuen, one of the large religious houses located above the town. The memorial tablet records his life and achievements as a teacher and as a public figure; with an emphasis on his virtuous conduct and character and how it had influenced others for good: "Entering the teaching profession, he taught the village ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 26 STUDIES ON HONG KONG JIAO FESTIVALS CHI CHEUNG CHOI I. Introduction According to Liu Zhi-wan, there are various types of Jiao festivals which are celebrated regularly in the south and irregularly in the north of Taiwan.1 In Hong Kong, many Jiao festivals are "Tai Ping Qing Jiao" [literal meaning "the Purest Sacrifice celebrated for Great Peace'], which are a type of "Qi An Jiao" which pleads for peace. There are many such festivals in the agrarian communities in the New Territories of Hong Kong, often celebrated in a once-in-a-decade cycle. The festival has different ritual and symbolic meanings as well as different social and economic significance for the different groups of participants, namely the priests, the organizing committee members, the villagers and outsiders like the hawkers, the beggars and the researcher. For the villagers themselves, the Jiao festival is the most important community-wide event. Often millions of dollars are poured into the celebration. For example, in the Lam Tsuen Jiao in 1990, about HK$2,000,000 was spent, of which HK$260,000 was used for the construction of temporary mat-sheds, HK$150,000 for the engagement of Taoist priests, and $460,000 was paid to the opera troupe.2 It is not at all uncommon for villagers who have emigrated to charter flights to return to Hong Kong for the celebration. Emigrant villagers of Fanling, a single lineage community, chartered three flights from England for the Jiao celebration in 1990. No villager would disagree that the Jiao is the most important religious activity in their community. The significance of the Jiao festival is not only enhanced by complicated rituals performed by the Taoist priests during the festival, but also by the extensive social activities that bond members and alliances of the community together. However, systematic study of the event did not begin until the 1960s. Even then, cross-community comparative studies of the festival are extremely rare. This paper will review previous studies of Hong Kong Jiao festivals. I will show what we can learn of the various local traditions by a synchronic study comparing the Jiao festival celebrated by different communities and also by studying the social and organizational changes within a particular community over a period of time by a diachronic study comparing the Jiao of one single community over that period of time. 2 11 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 30 26 festivals in the New Territories. Besides Faure's 1986 book The Structure of Chinese Rural Society which touched on the festival, printed work by local scholars arising from these studies is yet to appear. 27 Two museums, first the History Museum of Hong Kong, and later the Sam Tung Uk Regional Council Museum, have taken photos and videos of the festivals since 1983, following Mr. Hugh Gibb's film of the Ha Tsuen Jiao, taken in 1974. However, only the Jiao festival in Cheung Chau and the 1985 Kam Tin festival have been fully recorded. These are not as yet available in print. Following the sad deaths of Prof. Ward and Dr. Lu, the 1980s also saw the quick decline in interest in Jiao festivals in Hong Kong. This is, perhaps, due to two not completely unrelated reasons: firstly, Jiao festivals in Hong Kong are studied only for their contribution towards the understanding of rural society. Therefore, when a researcher changes his interest to societies of another locality, study of Jiao festivals in Hong Kong becomes irrelevant. Another reason perhaps is a matter of "time". Whether it is a diachronic or synchronic study, or even an independent ethnographical report, the physical demands of observing a Jiao are often considerable. Planning for a Jiao festival may take one whole year, starting from fixing the date and selection of representative worshippers to the final purification of the community and households rituals. Moreover, if one intends to observe Jiao festivals held at different times, a long term commitment and interest is necessary since many Jiao festivals in the New Territories are celebrated only once in ten years. A comprehensive study of Jiao festivals cannot be done by a short term survey. During my visits to two Jiao celebrations in 1990 (Lam Tsuen and Fanling), the only other researchers I met were a scholar from the Music department of the CUHK, and some members of an amateur research group. b. Sources 24 +4 - Schipper noted that [Jiao festival] simply was ignored in the writings of the bureaucracy, and remained an immensely important factor in the lives of the common people ....29 Studies of Jiao festivals in Hong Kong have so far depended heavily on ethnography ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 32 committee's meetings provide details of the preparations for the festival. The minutes of the 1972 Lam Tsuen Jiao festival recorded details of nine meetings from March 11 to December 9 including information on the following: (1) establishment of an organizing committee, (2) choosing representative worshippers, (3) regulations and methods for collecting contributions, (4) methods for registration of members, (5) choice of auspicious dates, (6) contracts with Taoist priests, opera troupes, and for construction and supply of utilities, (7) security measures, food, control of hawkers during the celebration, (8) a list of those who will be invited to participate in the ceremony on the main day, and (9) schedule of daily worship by different member villages. As these documents are either kept by individuals or as common property of the whole community, they are seldom available to outsiders. 36 The third type of local documents are special memorial bulletins published for each festival by the organizing committee. Systematic collection of such bulletins is not being done. They are not included in the collection of New Territories Historical Literature mentioned above. However, these bulletins provide important information about the changes in social networks and values of a community. Table 1 is a comparison of three memorial bulletins published respectively for the 1963, 1972 and 1990 Lam Tsuen Jiao festivals. It shows that the role of recreational operas to attract villagers is gradually being replaced by an emphasis on participation and contribution to community affairs. Local leadership is impressed on readers through photos of leaders in the bulletins, and essays on their role in community activities. The 1990 issue also included a record of the Lam Tsuen Fellow Villagers' Association (Lin Cun [Lam Tsuen] Tongxianghui) which was established in Manchester, England in 1983, and details of donations from emigrant fellow villagers. This indicates the importance of the emigrants' contribution to the maintenance of traditional values through donation and participation. The history of the Jiao festival is recorded in the bulletins. Members of the organizing committee are also listed. However, not one of the three issues provided information on rituals performed at the festival. Rituals, though essential to the Jiao, are formalities that are the sole responsibilities of the priests and those chosen to represent the villages as worshippers. The organizational recreational elements of a Jiao are, at least to the villagers, as important as its ritual and symbolic aspects. T ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 Table | Comparison of three Lam Tsuen Jiao Bulletins 1963 1972 1990 Total no. of pages 20 20 64 Colour black & white [b/w] b/w colour Content (columns relating to) 1 3 6 the community the opera 1 5 6 greetings from: 1 1 9 commercial organizations 7 6 2 the community 2 4 other communities 4 individuals Government officials Advertisements 21 Committee members Photos: other community members 3 3 43 guests 4 3 community opera performers 4 9 20 Sources: Lin Cun [Lam Tsuen] Xiang Taiping Qingjiao Shenghui Tekan (Lam Tsuen, 1963) Renzhi nien Lin Cun Xiang Taiping Qingjiao (Lam Tsuen, 1972) Gengwu nien Lin Cun Xiang Shinien Yijie Taiping Qingjiao (Lam Tsuen, 1990) c. Approaches to the study of Hong Kong Jiao Festivals In general, Saso's "cosmic renewal" is the view most commonly accepted by researchers of Hong Kong Jiao festivals. Instead of looking at the rituals, there is a strong tendency to study the social and organizational aspects of the festival. Tanaka recorded more than 14 different Jiao festivals in his three comprehensive volumes on Chinese ritual theatre.* Starting from the quest to uncover the origin and the route of diffusion of Chinese ritual theatre, Tanaka gradually moved his focus to social and structural complexities of the Jiao festival. This shift in focus is likely to have resulted from his expanding his scope from immigrant ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 36 Table 2: Some Jiao Festivals celebrated in Hong Kong in the 1980s Community A B C D E F G H Cheung Chau 1 3 M H V גון 1989,1990 E Cheung Lung Wai 10 5?(*2) A P V S 1988 Fanling 10 3 A P VC S 1980, 1990 E Ha Tsuen 10 5 A P a sm 1984 E Ho Chung 10 5 A P vc m 1980, 1990 E Kam Tin 10 5 Kat O 7 in th A P vc sd 1985 E 57 F T V מן 1980,1986 E Kau Sai 1 — F T V M 1981 E Kau Lau Wan 7 فرا 3 F T V In 1980,1987 E Lai Chi Wo 10 5? A Р vc sm 1983 E Lam Tsuen 10(*1) 5 A P а sm 1981, 1990 E Leung Shuen Wan 2 1 F P? ve m 1980 E Lin Fa Tei 5 3? Lung Yeuk Tau 10 5 in Nam Luk Yeuk 10 رکرا 5 > > > A Р ve m 1982,1987 T A Р VC s 1983 E A P А sm 1983 E Pak Kong 10 ? A P V m 1980 E Sha Kong Wai 7 ? A P v Π 1981, 1988 T Shek O 10 3 A H/P a m 1986 01 Sha Tin 10 4 A P а sm 1985 E Tai Hang 5 3 A P VC S 1985,1990 E Tai O 30 ? A/F/M T ve m T/03 Tai Po Tau 10 5 A P VC s 1983 E Tai Wai 10 4 A P vc sm 1987 02 Tap Mun Alliance 10 3(*3) F T а M 1980,1990 03 Tin Sam 10 4 A P vc sm 1986 02 Tuen Tsz Wai 10 3 A P vc sd 1986 02 Wang Chau 7 ? A P vc sm 1981,1988 T Wang Chau Yuen Long از هم 3 ? F T V m 1986,1989 T 10 5 M P V M 1983 E ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 38 48 festivals in the nineteen eighties. These communities are of different occupational (agricultural, fishery, market town), ethnic (Punti Cantonese, Hakka), territorial (a village, village cluster, local territorial alliance) and descent (single-lineage, dominated, multi-lineage) natures. Diachronic and synchronic comparative studies of Jiao festivals celebrated by communities of different natures in Hong Kong before and after 1997 will show how local traditional values and customs are preserved and modified in changing social and political environments. Moreover, such studies can also pinpoint which elements are essential to the lives of the villagers. IV. Jiao Festivals after 1997 As Dean suggested, the impact Jiao festivals have on the communist mainland can only be observed through a comparative study of the same Jiao (celebrated by the same community) over different time periods. A different situation exists in Hong Kong where the approach of 1997 threatens the survival of the Jiao. Scholars like Segawa, asked an essential question as to whether or not the festival will continue to be celebrated after 1997 when Hong Kong is officially returned to China." A villager in Fanling told me that they certainly would continue to celebrate the Jiao festival once every ten years even after 1997. “However, he said, "the magnitude of the celebration may be more restrained unless the Chinese government is totally 'open"”. To terminate a religious activity like the Jiao festival is not an easy thing, for no villager would like to bear the sole responsibility. After the 1981 celebration, rumours spread that committee members of Lam Tsuen had decided not to celebrate the Jiao festival any more. On Dec. 1 1990 when I arrived at the Jiao area of Lam Tsuen, I saw rituals and decorations not very much different from the 1981 one. The only notable difference was that the priests were replaced by some younger ones. Mr. Cheung [Zhang] the JP and senior elder of Lam Tsuen told me that in fact not one of the villagers dared to speak out about discontinuation of the festival, We do not have sufficient evidence to prove that every village in the New Territories celebrated the Jiao festival, as an independent community or as a member of an alliance at one time or another. We know however, that Jiao festivals developed differently from one community to another. Some communities, such as Ping Shan and Pat Heung, have completely abandoned the festival. Others like ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 39 Kat Hing Wai and Wing Lung Wai terminated their own independent Jiao but continue to participate actively in the Jiao of the whole Kam Tin community. Still others, like Tai Wai and Tin Sam, celebrate their own Jiao festivals on the one hand but also participate as members in the Jiao celebrated by the Sha Tin Kau Yeuk (Sha Tin Village alliance). Reasons such as the Japanese occupation or economic recession given by villagers themselves cannot explain the diversities found in the New Territories. All villages experienced the Japanese occupation. With regard to economic constraints, a community like Ping Shan, though as prosperous and powerful as Kam Tin and Ha Tsuen, stopped the celebration for some unknown reason. Therefore, the continuity or discontinuity of the Jiao festival depends on the effectiveness of the festival's communal structure and organization. In Lam Tsuen, the Jiao festival is a means to reconfirm the roles of its alliances (the Luk Hap Tong [Lui He Tang] “Hall of the Six [Sc. Village Clusters] United"). In Kam Tin and other single lineage communities, the Jiao plays an essential role in re-establishing the structure of the segmented lineage as well as in re-confirming membership in the branches. The question of whether Jiao festivals will survive after the 1997 take-over is in fact a question of whether or not there is a need to preserve such a tradition in the community. NOTES Liu Zhi-wan, "Taiwan Taibeixian Zhonghexiang Jianjiao Jidian" Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica 33 (1972): 135-64. Tanaka, Issei, Chugoku Kyoshon Saishi Kenkyu: Chihogeki no Kankyo [Village Festival in China: Background of Local Theatres] (Tokyo: Tokyo Univ. Press, 1989), 799. Some fishing villages in Hong Kong like Kau Lau Wan, Tap Mun and Kat O name their Jiao festivals "An Long Qing Jiao" meaning the Jiao celebrated to pacify the earth dragon. Tanaka claimed that originally "Qi An Jiao" was celebrated only when there was need to pray for peace (Ibid., 799). However, evidence in Hong Kong, at least, shows that the festival is celebrated in a regular cycle. The shortest cycle is the Jiao of Cheung Chau where it is celebrated yearly. The longest is Sheung Shui and Shuen Wan where the Jiao is said to be celebrated once every 60 years. In some fishing villages in the New Territories, it is celebrated once every two or seven years. A five-year cycle is also practised in some agrarian communities like Tai Hang. However, a ten year cycle is the most popular in agrarian communities. Nonetheless, the method of counting also differs from one community to another. For instance, Lam Tsuen claims to celebrate the Jiao once every ten years but they actually celebrate it once in nine years. Their Jiao festival was celebrated in the following years: 1963, 1972, 1981, 1990. Mr. Cheung Chi-fan (Zhang Zhi-fan), JP, and Mr. Chung Chi-leung (Zhong Ji-liang), interviewed by author, Lam Tsuen, Dec. 1, 1990. According to Dean, about 80,000 Chinese yuan was spent on the Jiao in a village in Zhangzhou, Fujian in 1986. See ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 42 disasters. the second is for those who died because of plague. The final reason is to thank the benevolent governors Wang Lai-ren and Zhou You-de of the beginning of the Qing dynasty. In my opinion, all these reasons can be integrated into the first one. (d) Chan Wing-hoi "The Tangs of Kam Tin and their Jiu festival", Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 29 (1989) 302-375, a rich and detailed account of the lineage, its temples and villages, and the festival which draws them together. Dr. Faure gradually switched his interest to the Pearl River Delta while Prof. Tanaka, as I was told, is now looking at Sichuan province. Talk on publishing a book on Hong Kong Jiao festivals has been going on for years by members of the "Research Circle of the Regional Society of Southern China''. In 1990, the editorial board of the society set up a schedule to compile a book focusing on the Jiao festival. It is expected that papers on various aspects will be completed by the end of April 1991. (Correspondence from the society dated 28.12.1990) Schipper, Kristofer M., "The Written Memorial in Taoist Ceremonies" in Wolf, Arthur P. (ed.) Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974), 324, For example, according to Chan Wing-hoi, villagers of Shek O celebrated their 16th Jiao in 1986 (Chan, 78). The Dengs in Kam Tin claimed to have celebrated their Jiao since 1684 (Tanaka, 918). See for instance Basel Mission Archives, doct. Al-6, No. 51 (1869), and doct. Al-7, No. 51 (1870) and Der Evangelische Heidenbote, July 1867, in which a missionary describes how he was forced to go to the Magistrate to get his support before he could avoid having to pay his share of the Jiao expenses. All these cases are from Hsin An County. The Sha Tin poem will, it is hoped, shortly be published by Dr. P.H. Hase. These two series are part of the 15 series of historical documents collected by Dr. D. Faure and others in the New Territories. Copies of the collections are kept in the libraries of CUHK, Hong Kong University, Sha Tin Regional Council Library, and Institute of Oriental Culture, Tokyo University. 31 Tanaka Chugoku no Sozoku to Engeki [Lineage and Theatre in China] (Tokyo Univ. Press 1985), 608. Jiao festivals celebrated by the powerful communities in Hong Kong like Kam Tin, Ha Tsuen, Lung Yeuk Tau etc., were all performed by the Zhengyi Taoist group, led first by the late Master Lin Pei and now by Master Chan Kau. Another Zhengyi Taoist group is led by Master Chan Wah. However, many Taoist priests work for both groups. There are also other Taoist groups who performed for the Jiao festivals, like a Cantonese group which performed for Ho Chung and a Heklo group for Cheung Chau. In 1983, four out of five Jiao festivals were performed by monastery Taoists. It is not clear whether it was because of tradition or out of economic reasons. A comparison of the two Taoist groups has yet to be made. 14 Choi Chi-cheung **Sho matsuri no jinmei risuto ni mirareru shinzoku ban'i” [Kinship as seen in the name lists of Jiao festival] Bunka Jinnú Gaku 5 (1988): 131, table L. 35 **Shinshi men" [Section of Believers] in Fanling Wenxian (Historical Literature of Fanling) vol. 8. This brief account records details of the arrangement of the Jiao area, including the contents of couplets, names of deities invited, location and direction of matshed stages, and the sacrifices prepared etc.. See n. 32 for the depositories of Fanling Wenxian. 36 See (1972) Lin Chuan [Lam Tsuen] Xiang Taiping Qingjiao huiyi jilubu in Dapu [Tai Po] Wenzian [Historical Literature of Tai Po] vol. 1. (see n. 32 for depositories) 37 Tanaka Issei's three books, all published by the Tokyo Univ. Press are: Chugoku Saishi Engeki Kenkyu [Ritual Theatres in China] (1981), Chugoku no Sozoku to Engeki [Lineage and Theatre in China) (1985), and Chugoku Kyoson Saishi Kenkyu: Chihogeki ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 no Kankyo [Village Festival in China: Background of Local Theatres] (1989). The Jiao festivals studied by Tanaka are as follows: Communities Year Cheung Chau 1979 1979, 1983 Recorded in 1981:74-99 1985:227-302 Ha Tsuen 1981 1985:199-226 Hung Hom, Kowloon *1 1978-80 1981:771-780 Kam Tin 1985 1989:915-996 Lam Tsuen 1981 1985:359-528 Leung Shuen Wan, Sai Kung 1980 1981:99-113 Lin Fa Tei *2 1967 1985:558-572 Lung Yeuk Tau 1983 1985:609-720 Sha Tin, Kau Yeuk 1985 1989:1041-1112 Sha Tin, Tai Wai 1987 1989:977-1040 Sha Tin, Tin Sam 1986 1989:1040 Tai Po Tau 1985 1985:121.131-138 Tuen Tsz Wai 1986 1989:817-913 Yuen Long 1983 1985:139-198 43 *1: From the context, this festival, held on the 14th of the seventh moon, can be best seen as a ghost festival organized by the Hoklo dialect group. *2: Tanaka did not attend this festival. Analysis of the festival was mostly based on the 1967 account collected by H. Baker. See map for the location of places. JH Tanaka, Ritual Theatres, 5. 班 Tanaka, Lineage and Theatre, 11. 40 fbid., i-ii. 41 Tanaka, Village Festival, i-iij. 42 Faure, David, The Structure of Chinese Society: Lineage and Village in the Eastern New Territories, Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Oxford Univ. Press, 1986), 81. 4.3 Segawa, Masahisa, "Daa Chiu: matsuri ni arawareru Hon Kon no mura no sugao” [Da Jiao: facets of villages in Hong Kong as shown in the festivals] Kikan Minzoku Gaku Ethnography Quarterly 33 (1985): 21-35. 14 Segawa, Masahisa "Ta-tsiu [Da-Jiao], feuds, and village alliances: the case of Pat Heung" (unpublished manuscript, 1991). 45 Choi, Chi-cheung, “Chi o urai ekibyo o harau taihei shinsho" [Jiao festival: to wash: the land and remove illness] Kikan Minzoku Gaku 40 (1987): 90-105. 4 40 Choi, Jiao festival", 1046. 47 Choi, "Kinship", 147-149. 4# Though Tanaka wrote that only a few communities in the New Territories celebrated the festival during his seven and a half years' observation (Tanaka, Lineage and Theatre, 608), we are still unclear as to how many communities continue to celebrate it. For instance, the Cheung Long Wai case was not mentioned by any informants. It was known only by an occasional visit to the village. A likely source is the Police since theoretically every festival celebrated in Hong Kong has to receive permission from the police for security measures. The district offices in the New Territories are another source of information. Certainly there were in the past other celebrations which have now ceased for one reason or another (e.g. at Sha Tau Kok, Shuen Wan and Ta Kwu Leng). 49 Segawa, "Daa Chiu', 35. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 TABLE 1: VILLAGE WARS IN THE HONG KONG AREA 279 Antagonist Lo Wu Antagonist Tsoi Uk Wai Date Source Comment 18.36 Above Over control of landing place Lo Wu Wong Pui Ling 1856-75 Ahove Ta Kwu Ling Wong Pui Ling TRGON Hase 1989 Sheung Shui Wong Pui Ling VERSOS Baker 1967 1979 Sheung Shui Ho Sheung Heng long-term Baker 1966 Over control of landing place Over control of river-crossings. 23 dead on TKL side alone. Hero shrine. Over control of irrigation systems San Tin Ping Kong 1851 Kam Tsin Baker 1966 1968 San Tin Ping Shan 1851 Baker 1968 Hero Shrine Shup Pat Heung San Tim Ping Shan 1851 Watson 1982 Over control of ferries Ha Tsuen Baker 1968 Sha Tseng Pok Tau Kong 185.3 Krone (above) Po Kat neighbours 1853- Above Sheung Shun Fanling long-term Ping Kong Fanling Baker 1966 Over control of market Earthwall on border Ho Sheung Heung Long Yeak Tho Fanling long-term Oral Par Fleung ?Kam Tia Tinid 19 Hero Shrine Sheung Tsuen Wang Tei Shan 2nud (19 Oral Lam Tsuen Hero Shrine Tsuen Wan Shing Mun Tsim Sha Tsui neighbours Tai Wai Cheung Sha Wan Keng tam 1862-4 1862 mid-late c19 Haves 1983 Hero Shrines Hayes 1983 Paure 1986 Hero Shrine Kak Tin Shek Pik Sha Lo Wan נִי Hayes 1983 Pui O San Tsuen Pui O La Wai 1930 Hayes 1983 Kam Tin Ping Shan Chan 1989 Heroes worshipped Pat Heung Kam Tiu Ping Shan long-term mid c19 Chan 1989 # [Baker 1966 = "The Five Great Clans of the New Territories", H.D.R. Baker, Journal. Vol. 6, 1966, pp. 25-49; Baker 1968 = H.D.R. Baker, Sheung Shui: A Chinese Lineage Village, London, 1968; Baker 1979 H.D.R. Baker, Chinese Family and Kinship, London 1979; Faure 1986 = D. Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society: Lineage and Village in the Eastern New Territories, Hong Kong, 1986; Hayes 1983 = J.W Hayes. The Rural Communities of Hong Kong: Studies anet Themes, Hong Kong. 1983; Watson 1982 = Rubic S. Watson "The Creation of a Chinese Lineage: The Teng of Ha Tsuen, 1669-1751", Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 16(1). 1982 pp 69-108; Chan 1989 = "The Tangs of Kam Tin and their Jio Festival", Chan Wing-hoi, Journal, Vol 29, 1989. pp. 302-376.] ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 302 NOTES L This same carver also referred to the Fukienese Pestilence Wang Yeh as "pan-shen pan-kuei" (Note 1: Page 59 of Vol 29: 1989 Journal) as they too are neither gods nor demons, but 'humans of the other world'. See Plates 7-9. THE MAKING OF A HUSK-GRINDER Mr Chung Yick Ming, the Chairman of Tai Po Rural Committee took me to see Mr Chung Koon Tai (#) who is a villager of Chung Uk Village in Lam Tsuen Valley in Tai Po, New Territories. Mr Chung Koon Tai is now 76 years old. He first joined the trade of husk-grinder (A) making when he was 16 years old as an apprentice. His teacher was a fellow clansman. He retired in 1980. He also got an apprentice to succeed to the craft of husk grinder making. Because of the decline of rice farming in the New Territories since the 60's, the apprentice could not find a living with his profession, and therefore has migrated to UK. In those golden days of husk-grinder making, Mr Chung received orders for grinder making from villages all over the New Territories. He had to travel to these villages on foot and stayed there for three to four days to make a husk-grinder. He also made husk-grinders for rice-grinding shops (*) in the old market towns in Tai Po, Yuen Long and Tuen Mun. Chan Yat Sun (H), the former Heung Yee Kuk Chairman, was also his customer when he owned a rice-grinding shop in the town of old Castle Peak (Tuen Mun today). There used to be two skilled workers working together to make a husk-grinder. When they arrived at the village, they first went to find some bamboo which was available almost everywhere in the New Territories. They cut down some bamboo and then stripped the bark off layer by layer into long narrow pieces of a quarter to a half inch wide. They then wove these long narrow bamboo strips into the upper and lower parts of the outer framework of the grinder, which looked like two empty baskets. The upper part was fixed with a wooden handle and a wooden funnel which helped the grain to go to the grinding surface. The lower part was also fixed with an axis of iron in the centre. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 303 middle for the upper part of the grinder to turn on. They then filled the baskets with a kind of very fine earth called "Wong Nei" (黃泥) (which contains no sand grains) which was available only in some places like Au Tau (凹頭) in Yuen Long. Kei Lun Wai (雞卵圍) in Tuen Mun and Pak Fan Chin (白粉田) in Lam Tsuen. They crushed and tamped the earth with wooden poles until the basket was packed. On the surface of the earth they then drew some geometrical patterns according to which the grinder teeth (*) would be placed. The grinder teeth were made of bamboo strips two to three inches long and 2/3 inch wide. These were made from a different type of bamboo. The bamboo teeth were inserted vertically into the earth with a wooden hammer according to the pattern drawn on the earth surface. When all the bamboo teeth were fixed side by side with one another into the earth, the worker had to make sure that there was no room for the teeth to move. If the teeth still had room to move, they either set more teeth into the earth or filled the grinder with very fine silt and packed it with the wooden hammer again until the teeth stayed very firm. They usually finished the work of the lower part of the husk remover first and then started work for its upper part. A hole would be reserved in the middle to accommodate the axis. It took about three days' time of two skilled workers to produce a husk-grinder.* Riden Sung Chi-Pui THE BRITISH MERCHANTMAN “NORNA” On the 24th of April 1862, the Hong Kong China Mail reported that the sailing barque Norna had been wrecked on an uninhabited atoll in the Caroline Islands. The facts surrounding the rescue of her crew highlight the tenacity and application of the naval authorities of the China Station in Hong Kong. The Norna was built in Sunderland in 1851 and, although no complete details of her exist today, it is known that she was barque rigged and measured 460 tons gross. Her length was about 100 feet. * See Plates 10-13. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 166 descendents experimenting with the locations in the light of family events over that time, since anything untoward would be attributed to bad siting of the urn.* If, however, good fortune smiled on the family, it might then be decided to prepare a formal, horseshoe grave on that site, or perhaps on another equally auspicious or even better location. The services of a geomancer were obligatory on such occasions as few families would possess a member with the necessary skills. Thus, by the time a new grave appeared on a hillside, there had been a great amount of prior thought and activity among the responsible persons in the family, as well as considerable expenditure. Sometimes, this included paying those villagers living in the vicinity of the grave, persons with customary rights of grazing, and somebody to cut the grass around the grave occasionally. Some Typical Grave Inscriptions The following inscriptions on two old graves recorded from the Tsuen Wan District, with translations and comments, will indicate the care taken with burials, and the obvious importance attached to the process. The first is from a grave belonging to the Tang family of Kam Tin, New Territories. This inscription, dated 1853, has been chosen from among many others of the kind, because it exemplifies the strong family feeling that motivates descendents in regard to ancestral worship and their duties toward the living and the dead: Ancestor Wing-shing, alias ...-yue, alias Shan-fung, was the second son of Ancestor Kwan-leung. He was born in Chien Lung ping-san year (1736) and died in Chia Ch'ing kap-shut year (1814). By his wife, who was from the Man family, he had one son, Ying-yuen, a kui-yan of 1789. Ancestor Hin-sing, alias Kwing-yue, alias Kang-sham, was the only son of Ancestor Kwan-chak. These two gentlemen were grandsons of Ancestor Kwok-yın. [Hin-sing] was born in Chien Lung mou-san year 1748, and died in Chia Ch'ing san-mei year 1811. By his wife, who came from the Liu family, he had two sons. One, Ying-..., who held fu kung-sang degree had a [second] wife from the Man family, by whom he had two ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 169 family in the present generation and after: Our ancestors first came to live in Tsuen Wan about 235 years ago [1740]. Two brothers came from Chik Sek Market of Shi Kwan Tong sub-district (heung) of Hoi-fung County to Lai Chi Kok in Kowloon. Later, one brother moved to Sha Tsui (Yeung Uk Village), Tsuen Wan. Our founding ancestor was first buried on Tsing Yi Island, but because the authorities wished to develop that part of the island into a dockyard his remains were reburied in a formal grave at Fa Shan, Tsuen Wan. His wife was, and still is, buried at Hau Tei of Chai Wan Kok, Tsuen Wan. It has been found that both these ancestral graves have ever brought good fortune to our clansmen.” This letter was sent in response to my enquiry about the settlement of the lineage in Tsuen Wan. I had not realized it would be a catalogue of information on founding ancestors and their graves, ending in the statement that the graves were responsible for the flourishing condition of the lineage today! Alarm and Indignation at Official Notices Sometimes, there were more direct examples of the kind, originating in the posting of official notices on site. When old graves on Tai Mo Shan were being inspected and registered by our land staff in 1980, notices were posted which were guaranteed to upset their owners. One of the many affected parties, the Tang clan of Wang Toi Shan Village in the Pat Heung, sent in a very strongly worded letter to the Office: We refer to your notice posted at the ancestral graves of our Tang clan at Sze Fong Shan, Tai Mo Shan summit, stating that the burials were in violation of public health regulations. Descendants of the clan called an urgent meeting at which it was resolved to make strong objections. The Tang clan are indigenous villagers of Wang Toi Shan in the Pat Heung, and have a history [of settlement there] which is older than the Hong Kong Government. The ancestral graves in question date back to more than a century ago, and were repaired in the 31st year of Kuang-hsu [1905], as shown by the tomb inscriptions. The prosperity of our clan is attributed ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 174 to indigenous status, though now living in multi-storey apartment blocks following an earlier removal from their village. The grave was in thick bushes and clearly had not been visited at the two grave-worshipping festivals for a very long time. The elder confirmed this, but added that the fung-shui had turned bad.2 Where adverse influences were detected by experts, stones were placed at the grave, so as to block off the tablet. An instance of blocking-off is given in one of the files. It comes from Northeast Lantau. The grave belonged to a family from Tai Lam Chung on the mainland. A branch had also been settled for a hundred years at Tai Pang Po, Lantau, where this particular grave was located, on account of the good stake-net fishing there. The land officer provided a photograph of the grave. He reported that it was some 60-70 years old, but added, "The inscription cannot be seen as the tombstone is covered by small rocks, because of poor fung-shui." The claimant told him there were four burial urns inside the grave, and gave the names of the persons whose remains were interred there." In another case, also seen on Northeast Lantau, the names of the deceased had been deliberately chipped off the tablet. Obligations Outside The Family When it came to securing the removal of old graves, we found that the obligations to take up and rebury could sometimes ramify beyond the clan concerned. I had several cases of this kind when serving in Tsuen Wan. In another instance, the link was not so direct or as clear, but it was just as well-established as an obligation in the minds of those involved. The case involved an old grave, required to be removed for further development at Sam Pak Tsin, Texaco Road, Tsuen Wan. Since it had been repaired in 1813, it assuredly dated from the 18th century. Moreover, the grave tablet referred to the earlier burial of the remains of the husband and wife at other places, one of them at Kwai Chung. A lineage of a different surname, belonging to Hoi Pa Village, had responded to our notices posted on site, and came forward to state its obligation to arrange for removal and reburial of the remains. This was not simply a matter of taking compensation (if we were satisfied with the claim) as the reburial would involve the family in much trouble and expense. Such cases were not encountered frequently. Elders of this lineage (and the village representative who also belonged to it) said that the link with the persons buried in the grave was through the female side of their family but was no longer known clearly to even its oldest living members. Whatever it was, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 189 APPENDIX 2 Shops in Sha Tau Kok Market. 1925 = (WTS = Wang Tau Shek), UP = Upper Street, LS = Lower Street, OS = Old Street, SLH = Sha Lan Heung (= Fish Laans) TYK = Tai Yuen Kok, SH = Sam Heung LH = Luk Heung, WH = Wo Hang, YT = Yim Tin, YSQ = Yung Shue O, FH = Fung Hang, TT = Tong To, ST = Shan Tsui, HL = Hoklo, KLH = Kwun Lo Ha, LK = Luk Keng, JMK = Jat Muk Kiu, LL = Lai Long, AH = Au Ha, SNT = San Tsuen, NC = Nun Chung, SC = Sham Chun, STK = Sha Tau Kok A = in 1894 Shan Tsui Tablet, B = Cheung Shan Kwu Liu Tablet, C = in Oral Evidence, D = in 1906 Budd's Pool Tablet * = The largest shops) = in 1920 No. Name of Shop Address of Shop Name of Owner Village of Owner Source Comments General Stores 1 WTS Sold saws, bowls, plates, pottery, ropes, nails etc 4 LA ABC JAWN MHL WTS C C YSO BCD Donated Bell to Wu Shek Kok Temple, 1922 PL Pottery Basel missionaries, 1853 (A)BCD Occupied lower floor of gun lower Probably donated to 1898 Tai Po YSO TH BC BC Kwong Fuk Bridge sold gram, pig slaughterer, winemaker etc Pawnshop fli THI PS H YT 7 Growery X* W WTS WTS 12 I WTS China BCD sugar dealer, etc WTS + WH BC r 1 WTS $1. TTC) ABCD IS ST BC IS 7 WH AC pig slaughterer, winemaker etc 1HI WTS ΥΠ BC [4* Other Goods 15 16 FEE # WTS China BC THI IS THE C 20 AC winemaker. grocer. etc Basel missionaries, 1853 winemaker baker, probably connected with ↑ FI 21 22 ze aza夤èsa a 4 WH C dogmeal WTS SIK BCD baker Lishmongers 20 FHC WTS THE BC WTS BC ƒ SLET SI BC נו 23* SLET YT BC main donor, 1894 واع 24 26* Aumal 01 临 WTS China вс THI SETI LA BC SLEE SIK ABCD SLET! BC IS IT C = WIL C ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 1850-1911, op cit 71 See P H Hase, "Sha Tau Kok in 1853”, op cit 72 The largest shops were Kwan Tau (144) the household goods shop (Nai Wai, Niwei, in Luk Heung) 2 Wang Hap (Z) the household goods shop (Yung Shue Au) 3 Kwong Yue (M) the grocery (Fung Hang) 4 Yuen Tai (54) the grocery (Tong To) 5 Sam Lung ( ) the grocery (Wo Hang) 6 Yan Hong (10) the grocery (Yim Tin) 7 8 Cheung Ding (FL) the fishmonger (Kwun Lo Ha, Guanlouxia, in Luk Heung) Wa Shong (4) the fishmonger ("Sha Tau Kok" probably Sha Lan Ha) 9 10 Tak Ding (120) the tobacconist (Luk Keng) 11 Tsui Cheung (4307) the silversmith (Tsai Muk Kiu) 12 I San Cheung (1) the tailor and cloth dealer (Yim Tin) 13 San Lung (954) the tailor and cloth dealer - the largest shop in the market - (Au Tau, Aotou, in Luk Heung) 14 Tung Yue ( ) the carpenter (Sau Hang, Xuokeng, in Luk Heung) 15 Jung Hing ([]) the carpenter (Sha Tseng Tau, Shajingtou, Luk Heung) 16 Cheung Sze (12) the boatbuilder (Sha Tau Kok Sha Lan Ha) 17 Sze Fong Ting (P44) the gambling house (Wo Hang) 18 Nung Sang Tong (WE7) the doctor (Yim Tin) 19 Wo Hing Tong (ABU) the pawnshop (Yim Tin) Thus, of the largest shops, five were owned by Luk Heung people, four by Yim Tin Yeuk people, two by Wo Hang Yeuk people, two by Sha Tau Kok (Sha Lan Ha) people, two by people from the Thi Tin Yeuk (the area south-west of Sha Tau Kok across the sea, around Luk Keng and Nam Chung), and one each by people from the Hing Chun Yeuk (around Lai Chi Wo), Kuk Po Yeuk, and Sam Heung. Thus, in 1925, not only were the largest shops all operated by people from the Shap Yeuk area, but ownership of these larger shops was spread around most of the Yeuk areas of the Shap Yeuk. The Basel missionaries make it clear that the shops in the market in 1853 were also all owned by people from the surrounding villages see P H Hase, “Sha Tau Kok in 1853", op cit 71 See J W. Hayes, The Hong Kong Region, 1850-1911, op cit for the places of origin of shop-keepers at Tai O and Cheung Chau, and J W Hayes, The Rural Communities of Hong Kong, op cit for those at Kowloon city. D Faure, loc cit gives details on those at Tsuen Wan and Sai Kung. The fisher ports in the Islands (Tai O, Cheung Chau), and, to some degree Sai Kung on the mainland, had the largest percentage of non-indigenous shopowners, but Sha Tau Kok had fewer "outsider" shopowners even than Tsuen Wan. 74. A contact from Tsat Muk Kiu village, for instance, said that she would go to the market with her wood, sell it, buy what she needed in the market, and return home, passing on her way home the women from Wang Shan Keuk still carrying their wood. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 156 intellectual and historical traditions. Thus they were able to push the study of Hong Kong history to new frontiers. The Hong Kong History Project, Chinese University of Hong Kong Research was pursued with great energy at the Chinese University, and a history project its members began in 1978 may be said to have marked a turning point in the development of the study of local history. Aimed at saving whatever historical information that might still be found, the Project included Ng Lun Ngai-ha, Kwan Li-hung, David Faure, Bernard Luk, Tam Yu-yim and Barbara Ward, and teams of students. They began by gathering historical inscriptions in temples and ancestral halls, and then went on to interviewing villagers for what they remembered of the villages. Villagers were also asked to come forward with whatever documents they had. Soon, gathering documentary materials and interviewing became complementary. The research teams worked on one district at a time, first concentrating on Sha Tin and Sai Kung, then Lam Tsuen and in 1982, Tsuen Wan, though members would approach other villages in the New Territories whenever the opportunity arose. Their search yielded rich fruits because they cast their nets wide - they sought materials that earlier researchers had not considered relevant. Thus documents such as village regulations, land deeds and accounts, ritual and ceremonial texts, scholars' handbooks, textbooks and almanacs, clan records and so forth were gathered, and these were able to throw new light on important, and yet hitherto neglected, aspects of village life - daily life, farming and subsistence, sickness and death, family life, marketing, intervillage organizations, internal village organization, 22 The project must have seemed like a massive raid by scholars into the New Territories, and its benefit to other scholars is incalculable. Many of the manuscripts and books were deposited in public libraries. Inscriptions copied were published in three volumes as Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong, now standard reference. The wealth in information supplied by these inscriptions is overwhelming, and Maurice Freedman noted that, together with land deeds, genealogies and other records, they formed the basic sources for an understanding of the New Territories. The exercise was all the more timely since, in face of Hong Kong's rapid development, it was possible that many of the inscriptions might have been lost had the project not been undertaken at that time. 24 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 185 be a stone or brick fireplace in which paper money and other paper offerings are burned. Occasionally a Tai Wong may be dedicated to a particular deity, such as at Pak Kung near Sai Kung which has its Tai Wong dedicated to Tin Hau, protective goddess of fishermen. A large village may have its own Tai Wong, but it may sometimes be shared with other neighbouring villages of the same lineage, as occurs with the Lam Tsuen villages. The Paak Kung shrines, of lesser importance, are more simply built, often no more than an "archway" arrangement of stones upon a flat rock, with perhaps wooden boards on which paper scrolls are pasted. In any village there would normally be several Paak Kung. The village of Pat Heung, for example, has around ten Paak Kung and earth god shrines. In some cases, especially with the lesser ranked Paak Kung, the shrine may be the tree itself and is only marked by the presence of joss-sticks and porcelain cups for rice wine offerings, sometimes on a flat stone at the base of the tree. Examples of such tree spirit shrines may be seen by the large banyan trees behind Sheung Ling Pei, and the enormous camphor trees, Cinnamomum camphora, behind Sha Lo Wan, both on north Lantau. In both cases, the surrounding fung shui woods were felled by the Japanese during the Occupation in the Second World War, with the exception of these trees, which are now venerated for having "saved" the village. The camphor tree at Sha Lo Wan is one of the biggest in the Territory, with a girth of over seven metres. In the New Territories, the fung shui tree par excellence is the banyan, Ficus microcarpa, which symbolizes longevity, fecundity, and perseverance in the face of adversity. Apart from its natural resilience in the face of typhoons, the ability of the tree to survive in an environment where wood has been at a premium is explained by Ng (1983). "Its wood is gnarled and so cannot be used as timber, it will not flame and so cannot be used for firewood. Its very lack of useful properties ensures its invulnerability and survival. It is often favoured as a single fung shui tree, when it becomes the home of a local tree spirit and is given great respect and provided with offerings, so that it often appears to be a form of tree worship. The "grandfather" tree at Kuk Po is an example. Sometimes the fame of a particular tree-dwelling earth god extends beyond the locality of the village. Near the village of Lam Tsuen, a venerable banyan is claimed to have a spirit which is especially efficacious. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 187 In Ho Sheung Heung, the 'guarding star' at the entrance to the village is a bamboo. However, it is not always the case that a tree growing beside a shrine has any relationship to that shrine. At Ho Sheung Heung trees besides the southern Pauk Kung have no fung shui significance and have simply grown up there. At Tar Om trees near the main shrine have grown up in the seventy years since the shrine was built and have little, if any, fung shui importance. None of the villagers questioned thought that the fung shui woods had any sacred or spiritual value outside their fung shui importance. Another important reason for the protection of large, old trees was that they had been planted by the ancestors. Examples are at Man Uk Pin, Ma Mat Wai, Ping Kong, and Ma Tsuek Leng. Few of these trees were individually venerated except for the 'grandfather tree' at Kuk Po which was planted by the founders of the village to honour the local earth gods. Villages often have examples of many types of fung shui tree. An example is the village of Sheung Wo Hang which has an inviolable fung shui wood in which all vegetation is protected, in addition to ancestorally planted trees which guard particular shrines and which reinforce certain fung shui locations, as well as earth god trees without shrines. In some cases, shrines may not be dedicated to an earth god. At She Shan Tsuen in Lam Tsuen valley, a small shrine at the edge of the fung shui wood makes the spot at which hunters would gather to make offerings before the hunt. There is a parallel here with those shrines in the sacred forests of Nepal at which hunters gather to worship (Mansberger, 1991). Both Tar Wong and Paak Kung shrines guard the important places and fung shui points of the village, such as the wells, irrigation dams, "dragon veins" and especially the entrances to the village. The latter are often marked by a Tar Wong shrine. Where a path or road leaves a village, invariably where an approaching path curves around the end of a fung shui wood, the site is known as "the mouth of water", (the flow of a road symbolising water). The site is often associated with a clump of bamboo, a large rock or a large camphor or banyan tree, or sometimes all three, known as a "guarding star" in fung shui terms, as it guards against excessive outflow of chi from the village. ================================================================================ 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 147 incense or joss sticks. According to Lo (1959, quoted in Iu, 1983), these trees were introduced into Guangdong Province from Vietnam in the Tang dynasty (619-907 AD) and were planted in large numbers in the New Territories during the Sung dynasty (960-1279 AD). In the late Ming period, the county of Tung-kuan was renowned throughout China for the quality of its incense. Until 1572, Tung-kuan county included the area subsequently forming the county of Hsin-an (including the present day New Territories) (Chan, 1989). In the Kuang-tung hsin-yu (Ch’u, 1974), it is noted that many people in Tung-kuan made their fortune from Kuan-heung (meaning incense from Tung-kuan) which was so popular that the annual sales values amounted to tens of thousands of taels. Incense trees were very suitable for the decomposed granite soils of the area and were particularly grown in the area of Shatin and the lower part of Lam Tsuen valley, whose name means "forest village", and around Tung Chung and Sha Lo Wan on Lantau. Interestingly, Schofield (1983) referring to the fine fung shui wood at Sha Lo Wan adds “In a suitable light, ancient log slides can be seen running straight down the steepest hills on this stretch of coast", although whether these have anything to do with the incense trade may never be known. The successful cultivation of the incense tree depended on three conditions, the suitability of the soil, adoption of proper methods of cultivation and the mastering of tapping and cutting methods for the collection of resin, which had a medicinal use. The general name of the varieties of incense produced in Tung Kwun, Po On districts, which included Hong Kong and the New Territories in those times, was "Kuan-heung" (Iu, 1983). The logs were collected at Tsim Sha Tsui from where it was shipped by small boats to Shek Pai Wan near present day Aberdeen on Hong Kong Island, where it was re-shipped onto Chinese seagoing junks to Canton, SE Asia and as far away as Arabia. It has been suggested that the cultivation of and trade in incense trees gave rise to the name of Hong Kong (meaning incense harbour). "Little Hong Kong, or Heung-kong-wai, is said to have been so-called on account of the quantity of Pak-miu-heung-shu then growing there, the wood of these white-wood fragrant trees is called "Nga-heung" (i.e. fragrant wood white as a tooth), is odoriferous when burnt, and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g 150 (Hase, P. pers. comm.). This tended to reinforce the fung shui layout of the village by protecting the primary and secondary fung shui woods. It is largely because woodfuel is rarely gathered from the hills any longer by villagers, due to the use of alternative fuels and because the reduced population can obtain its fuel needs, if necessary, from the abandoned fields, that such songs and prohibitions are being forgotten by the old women. This in turn has two effects. It allows fung shui woods to spread and colonize the hillsides, yet at the same time the precise working knowledge of fung shui is being lost. However, it appears that substantial amounts of woodfuel are still used in more remote coastal villages. When visiting Lai Chi Wo in December 1990, large amounts of fuelwood were seen cut and stacked, but whether this was solely for the use of the villagers is not known. Some of the coastal village restaurants, which cater for hikers and junk trips on a regular basis, such as at Sam A Tsuen, Plover Cove, use only firewood for cooking. At Ma Tsuek Leng near Sha Tau Kok in late 1993 there were large stacks of woodfuel, mostly cut branches, which the elderly people purchase from elsewhere, as it is cheaper than buying bottled gas. During the Japanese occupation, and the years immediately after, the pressure on the countryside for fuel was severe. Grass was shaved from the hills, scrub and remnant woods were cleared, even from remote areas, and inroads were made into fung shui woods, especially those of secondary importance. Such was the pressing demand for fuel that those trees and woods that can be seen on the US Airforce airphotos of 1945, taken prior to liberation, must only have survived purely because they were of such fung shui significance (Hase, pers. comm.). Daley (1975) gives an indication of the extent of this immediate post-war felling. "Woodcutting extended further and further from the towns and gradually the hillsides as far as Mirs Bay and the western side of Lantao were stripped of trees. The prevention of all this cutting was an impossible task in the circumstances. Very few large trees survived this onslaught during the war years and just after. Perhaps the biggest was the pine felled at Ping Shan Chai, near Tai Po, in 1960. It measured almost 3ft in diameter at 4ft above ground, and 69ft in height. It was 159 years old." Page 180 Page 181 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 recorded as having 29 males and 10 females resident. The boat people at Kowloon City and Sham Shui Po may have been included in the Victoria Harbour grouping. But it seems likely that the bulk of the Northern boat-people population was omitted from the statistics in 1911. At Cheung Chau, 4,442 boat-people are recorded in 1911, 2,601 of them male. This probably includes those boat-people usually anchored at Ping Chau and Mui Wo. At Lantau, 5,413 are recorded, 3,159 of them male.** The Lantau figure probably includes, not only the floating population at Tai O, but also the people living in "boat-huts" on stilts there. It also probably covers those boat-people anchored at Tung Chung, and may cover those at Tuen Mun as well. In 1921, 3,552 boat people are enumerated at Cheung Chau, and 3,894 at Tai O (probably not including the “boat-hut” residents). Given the absence of some deep sea fishing boats during the 1921 Census period, it seems that the Southern District floating population statistics are broadly similar in 1911 and 1921. The careful notification of New Territories residents as to the purpose of the 1911 Census, and the use of local men as enumerators, led to a lack of practical problems with villagers, who seem to have responded surprisingly well to the process. The police escorts had "not very much to do,” and “no trouble whatever" occurred. On a more detailed basis, the civilian enumerator teams in the mainland New Territories, and the police on Lamma, in the Sham Shui Po area, and, to a lesser extent, on Lantau, seem to have done a more careful job than the police on Cheung Chau, and in the Tsuen Wan and Kowloon City areas. 598 villages were separately enumerated in the nine mainland civilian enumerator districts," 18 on Lamma, 49 on Lantau, and 23 in the Sham Shui Po district." Very few of the villages or hamlets on Lamma or in the mainland New Territories outside the Tsuen Wan and Kowloon City areas were not separately enumerated. The few that are not are hamlets closely connected with a nearby village and enumerated with it. On Lantau, however, some villages are not separately enumerated. The villages to the south of Tai O (Fan Kwai Tong, Yi O, Fan Lau), those immediately east of Tung Chung and along the upper edges of the Tung Chung valley (Tai Po, Tung Chung Hang, Wong Lung Hang, Lam Che, etc.), most of those in the Chi Ma Wan peninsula (except Shap Long), and most of the very tiny villages in the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 69 males, while their families remained behind. In other words, those villages with an excess of females are the inevitable reverse side of the coin, off-setting the towns and cities of the area, with their excess of males. Not surprisingly, given the more urban character of Southern District, most of the villages with excess females were in Northern District, as this temporary male emigration was a feature of rural villages, just as temporary male immigration was a feature of the industrial villages, towns, and cities. Appendix I lists the villages with significantly low ratios of males to females (less than 47.0% of total population male, excluding villages with total populations of less than 35, except where the imbalance is extreme) Table 31 maps these villages It will be seen at once from the map at Table 31 that the villages with low percentages of males are concentrated in the mountainous east of the New Territories, and on Lamma. Because of this, more Hakka than Punti villages are low in males. This is, however, a factor of social and geographical conditions, rather than racial or cultural ones: large Punti villages within the eastern New Territories (such as Siu Lek Yuen, Ho Chung, Sha Kok Mei, Wu Kai Sha, Tai Hang etc) share a shortage of males with their smaller Hakka neighbours. Indeed, in Ta Kwu Leng, it is the Punti villages (Ping Che, Lo Shue Ling, Lei Uk Tsuen, Tai Po Tin) which are short of males, the Hakka villages having either a balanced population, or even a surplus of males (eg Heung Yuen with 53.4% of males, and Ping Yuen with 55.9%). Within the richer western parts of the New Territories, villages with shortages of males are less common, but a few clusters can be seen, such as around Ha Tsuen and Yuen Long Markets. These clusters are probably mostly of villages with significant numbers of males working in the markets (the shortage of males in all the Yuen Long villages with shortages was in total 242: the number of excess males working in the markets at Yuen Long and Ha Tsuen was 197) Similarly, it is likely that at least some of the absent males from Lam Tsuen were working in the market at Tai Po The shortage of males in the eastern New Territories is to be explained by emigration. The missionaries of the Basel Mission, who were active in the north-east New Territories from 1849 onwards, remarked on the high levels of emigration from villages in this area from 1851 onwards. By 1880, the missionaries were speaking of "emigration fever" in their reports on the area, by 1894 of "deserted ================================================================================ 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 73 The Basel missionaries make it clear that this feature of domination of the local market towns by males whose families remained resident in the village was normal in the mid-nineteenth century. In their description of Sha Tau Kok Market, from 1853, they say: The owners of these shops and stalls [in Sha Tau Kok Market] do not live in the town, but in neighbouring villages, and only come here for business and trade, or have it conducted by a substitute/manager. 102 Clearly, male-dominated towns, with shopkeepers living apart from their families in the village, are a long-standing feature of the region. The practice of young men leaving their villages for temporary residence in a town was, therefore, not a new one in the early twentieth century. The society, heavily dominated by temporarily resident young adult males, that sprang up in the city in the early decades after the foundation of Hong Kong as a port, was not either novel or a reaction to the foreign nature of the city, but was a practice with deep local roots. Obviously, the men in the market towns would often have their families within a half-day's walk away, while the city was, for most of them, more distant, but the essential factor in both cases is a widespread social acceptance of young villagers temporarily leaving home to seek fortunes away from their native village. The close link between market towns and high male:female ratios is sufficiently strong to allow this factor to be used to differentiate between towns in being, and towns not yet established. Tap Mun's 66.4% males, for instance, differentiates it from Kat O, with its 54.5%. Similarly, Ha Tsuen's 67.4% males differentiates it from Kam Tin, with no significant village higher than 55%. Kat O and Kam Tin may well have had small periodic markets in 1911, and perhaps one or two shops, but they were not yet towns. Hang Hau's 67.9% of males also marks it as a town in being in 1911. Another clearly differentiated group, again as noted above, was the specialist industrial villages, although in them, usually, the male-female ratio, while high, was less than that in the market towns (this does not hold true for the industrial villages ringing the City, as perhaps is not to be considered surprising, and also does not hold true for villages with quarries). Ferry villages, and suburban villages outside ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 78 Min Fong ST 4 25 0+* Ngau Wu Tok ST 3 10 33.3** Lo Sheung Tun ST 3 9 33.3** Mau Liu Shui ST 5 13 38.5** Cheung King ST 2 6 33.3** Siu Lek Yuen ST 73 174 41.9* Mu Ping ST 57 124 46.0 Shek Kwu Lung ST 18 55 32.7** Tai Lam Liu ST 23 57 40.4 Sha Tin Wai ST 81 180 45.0* Shan Ha Wai ST 24 56 42.9* Kak Tin ST 92 200 46.0 Keng Hau ST 86 195 44.1 Tai Wai ST 164 350 46.9% Ha Wo Che ST 31 76 40.8% Shan Mei ST 42 94 44.7 Kau To ST 57 130 43.8 Ho Lek Pui ST 18 45 40.0* Wu Kai Sha ST 59 135 43.7 Sai Shan Wai YL 7 21 33.3*+ Leung Ka Tsuen YL 3 8 37.5** Ying Lung Wai YL 38 94 40.0* Nam Pin Wai YL 223 519 43.0 Shan Pui YL 118 273 43.2 Tong Tau Po YL 53 116 45.7 Nam Hang YL 44 104 42.3* Ha Che YL 109 234 46.6 Tin Liu YL 48 105 45.7 Lam Hau YL 107 237 45.1 Fui Sha Wai YL 72 165 43.6 Hung Uk Tsuen YL 56 120 46.7 Kiu Tau Wai YL 71 152 46.7 Shek Po YL 108 257 42.0* Sik Kong Tsuen YL 178 381 46.7 San Wai YL 215 487 44.1 Hung Mei Tsuen YL 21 52 40.4* Fung Kong Tsuen YL 34 76 44.7 Wong Ka Wai TM 20 50 40.0* Sheung Cheung Wai TM 52 119 43.7 Hang Tau TM 17 39 43.4 San Tsuen TM 22 50 44.0 Tai Lam TM 26 61 42.6* Keung Ma Wo TW * 6 33.3** Sham Tseng TW 32 72 44.4 Sai Hang Hau SK 3 10 33.3** Pik Uk SK 5 25 20.0* Shek Pok Wai SK 4 13 30.8+ ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 Ngau Liu SK 5 14 35.7** Chuk Yuen SK 3 9 33.3** Chuk Kok SK 4 11 36.4* Heung Chung SK 4 16 25.0** Che Ha San Tsuen SK || 30 36.7** Tai Wong Chung SK 3 8 37.5** Sheung Yeung SK 34 85 40.0* Tai Wan Tau SK 53 117 45.3 Tseung Kwan O SK 90 193 46.6 Yau Yue Wan SK 53 116 45.7 Ma Yau Tong SK 60 131 45.8 Tseng Lan Shue SK 124 276 44.9 Mok Tse Che SK 20 51 39.2** Tai Po Tsai SK 77 172 44.8 Wo Mei Ho Chung Pak Kong SK 30 66 45.5 SK 159 418 38.04* SK 75 190 39.5** Sha Kok Mei SK 152 346 43.9 Nam Shan SK 36 86 41.9 Wong Chuk Yeung SK 15 83 30.1** Shan Liu SK 33 73 45.2 Lung Shuen Wan Pak A SK 76 164 46.3 Chuk Hang San Wai TP 7 18 38.9** Tai Wo Yuen TP 3 9 33.3** San Uk Pai TP 3 9 33.3** Tai Hang San Tsuen TP 3 9 33.3** Uk Tau TP 10 27 37.0** Tu Tan TP 12 35 34.3** Nam Shan TP 9 26 34.6** Nai Tong Kok TP 19 49 38.8 Che Ha TP 33 73 45.2 Ma Kwu Lam TP 27 63 42.9 Tai Po Tau TP 50 112 44.6 Shek Kwu Lung TP 30 72 41.7 Ha Wun Yiu TP 26 60 43.3 Lai Chi Shan TP 40 97 41.2 Sheung Wan Yiu TP 53 129 41.1 Wong Yi Au TP 43 114 37.7** Hang Ha Po TP 99 246 40.2 Tong Sheung Tsuen TP 46 131 35.1 Tai Ming Tsai TP 36 86 41.9 Shui Wo TP 41 92 44.6 Pak Ngau Shek Ha TP 22 53 41.5 Tsai Kek TP 51 129 39.5 Tai Om Shan TP 30 72 41.7 Tai Om TP 74 162 45.7 Lung A Pin TP 40 90 44.4 Tin Liu Ha TP 74 177 41.8 79 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 Tai Hang Tsz Tong Tsuen TP 29 77 37.7** Tai Hang Chung San Wai TP 52 112 46.4 Tai Hang Fui Sha Wai TP 47 117 40.2* Sha Lo Tung TP 120 307 39.1* Fung Yuen TP 60 133 45.1 Ha Hang TP 40 97 41.2* Shuen Wan Tseng Tau TP 21 48 43.8 Shuen Wan Tung Tsai TP 14 43 32.6** Shuen Wan Po Sam Pai TP 70 156 44.9 Ting Kok TP 301 669 45.0 Shek Tau Pai TP 25 56 44.6 Ko Tong TP 34 80 42.5* Tai Tai TP 12 35 34.3** Pak Sha Au TP 52 117 44.4 Nai Tong Kok TP 19 48 38.8** Kam Chuk Pai TP 39 93 41.9* Yeung Shu Long I 5 13 38.5** Kau Lung I 2 6 33.3** Mau Tat I 23 69 33.3** Upper Tung Oi I 18 44 40.9* Lo So Shing 30 75 40.0* Luk Chau 16 54 29.6** Tai Ping I 49 113 43.4 Pak Kok 15 52 28.8** Tai Wan 52 113 39[+] Wang Lung [?] 17 50 34.0** San Tsuen I 61 133 46.2 Luk Tei Tong I 23 76 43.4 Leung Uk I 46 104 44.2 Kau Pa Kong SSP 73 165 44.2 Pak Shue Long SSP 61 151 40.4* Aberdeen Old Village HKI 74 164 45.1 Aberdeen New Village HKI 45 98 45.9 Hok Tsui Wan HKI 15 39 38.5** Villages with severe shortage of males (43% or less) * Village with extreme shortage of males (39% or less) ** ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 83 Tin Wan HKI 67 [[| 60.4* Ma Kong HKI 7 7 100** Chung Hom Kok HKI 10 10 100% = Lan Nai Wan HKI 4 4 100** To Tei Wan HKI 53 54 98 [*1 Tar Tam Tuk HKI 52 76 68 4*! Tong Po HKI 17 18 94.4*** Deep Water Bay HKI 8 8 100 A Kung Nam HKI 161 269 59.9 Shaukerwan НKІ 4317 5908 73.1** Fu Tson Fat HKI 361 585 61.7* Ma Shan Ha HKI 458 742 61.7* Sai Wan Ho HKI 650 876 74.2** Tsai Tsz Mui ΗΚΙ 193 297 64.9** Ma Tau Kok k 145 212 68.4* San Shan k 117 180 65.0** To Kwa Wan k 766 1072 71.5 Shek Shan k 178 277 64.3** Hok Yuen k 789 1272 62.0* Tai Wan k 61 97 62.9* Lo Lung Hang k 178 204 87.3* Wong Nai Yue k 168 250 67.2** Fo Pang k 126 180 70.0** Tai Shek Kwu k 47 70 65.7** Ho Man Tin k 272 470 Fuk Tsuen Heung k 610 861 57.9 70.8** Sz Wo Tong k 258 451 57.2 Wau Chau Tsan k 85 130 65.4** Ap Liu 270 391 69.0** Tin Liu Tsuen SSP 253 337 75.1*1 Chu Liu ssp 84 142 59.2 Cheung Sha Wan SSP 496. 653 76.0** Sheung Chu Liu SND 35 54 64.8** Lai Chi Kok ssp 144 173 83.24* Sai Kok ssp 309 508 60.8* Kowloon Tong SSP 113 185 61.1* Muk Kung Hom NSD 42 62 67.7** Shek Kip Mei SSD 50 72 69.4** Sham Shui Po $52 1028 1577 65.24* + Villages with severe excess of males (more than 60%) ** Villager With extreme excess of males (more than 64%) Fully developed parts of Hong Kong Inland and Kowloon excluded ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 91 7 The Census Officer in 1931 came to this conclusion, after considering the evidence in some depth Census Report, 1937, pp. 139-141 440 Papers Laid before the Legislative Council of Hongkong, 1902 (Hong Kong Sessional Papers), printed Noronha and Co Government Printers, 1903, No. 14 "Report of the Committee of Education” (The Brem Report), "Land before the Legislative Council by Command of His Excellency the Officer Administering the Government”, p.392 * Crime Report, op cit para 101, and Appendix G * Administrative Reports for the Year 1913, pages N[3-17 ** Administrative Reports for the Year 1921, pages 03-4, 022-23 ** Administrative Reports for the Year 1921, page 03-4. An average of 34 years would imply about 80% of boys received some education 4 years, about 70% *The Tampo Market Girls School, the Cheung Chau Girls School, the Yuen Long Girls School, and the London Mission Society School (Co-educational) at Tsuen Wan By 1931 there were distinct signs of improvement while only 2.81% of land population females over 21 were then literate, 1.69% of those aged 16-20 were Her The withering scorn with which the Sung Report treats the content of the traditional curriculum and teaching methods of the village schools should be treated with some caution Sung was an extreme proponent of the "new methods” in education * Census Report, 1977, Tables XXXV, XXXVI, Census Report, 1927, Table XVII KH KU Census Report, 1921, para 4. The criticism of the 1921 "Occupations” statistics was repeated in the 1931 Census Report Census Report, 1921, Table XXVIII Census Report, 1927, Table XXXIVa "Census Report, 1927, Table XXIII, Part I and Part II 02 Omitting people working in agricultural occupations, fishermen, domestic servants, people working in religion, teachers/students, sailors on ocean-going ships, grass-cutters, Cartway workers, road transport workers, caddies miners and lime-burners, seamstresses and Mu Tsu "Aberdeen, Ap Lei Chau, Lam Wan and Wong Chuk Hang also show dominance of the population by males, as does Shau Kei Wan, but these areas should be considered more as market towns, with subordinate industrial villages, and thus to fall more with places like Sai Kung or Peng Chau * Census Report, 1971, Tables XII, XIII Page 120 Page 121 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 112 The sessions for the maintenance of the ancestors' army are "Issuance of Pai [token of authority] to Recruit Soldiers”, "Recruitment of Soldiers”, and “Distribution of Army Provision". The three were part of the Anlong rite I witnessed at Cheng Lan Shue, although the offering of a raw pig was not part of that occasion during which the villagers were to take vegetarian food only. The Decline of Magic, the Rise of Literati Influence? This Lu Shan-related tradition of ordination had persisted for about ten centuries among the Hakka in the apparent absence of an "orthodox" Daoist tradition. This is despite the fact that Chen Nan, the founding master of the Southern School of Daoism in Southern Song, is from Buoluo of Huizhou, a county where some Hakka live. Moreover, many Hakka settlements are in the proximity of the famous Daoist mountain of Luofu Shan. On the Buddhist side, we know about some Hakka ancestors who befriended monks (e.g., the one in the genealogy of the Lins of Lam Tsuen). The genealogy of the Chens of Luk Keng also mentioned an ancestor who had the type of ordination name we discussed and was to become the founding patriarch of a Buddhist establishment, using another, Buddhist ordination name. Another example, again in a family with ordination names since an early ancestor who lived in Song times, is provided by the Wens of Xingning county. An 8th generation ancestor, who does not have an ordination name, made donations to a Buddhist nunnery, yet all his sons had the same type of ordination names. A story in a work of anecdotal literature of the Yuan dynasty, of a Buddhist monk from Nanxiong Prefecture, where there were some Hakka settlements since early days, suggests that those enlightened in "respectable" religions may feel powerless in their home village. The monk, who returned having attained a high level of enlightenment in Buddhism, had to eat non-vegetarian food so as not to contradict his mother. When he tried to wash away the food from his intestines afterwards he was scolded by an old woman of the neighborhood, using the name by which he was known when small. Eventually, he had to leave the village for a Buddhist monastery in another prefecture. The story tells how, long after the death of this monk, the coming of people from his home place is ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 125 HH The volume entitled the Genealogy of the Chens of She Shan contains two or three separate genealogies of Chen surname from which I cannot trace common descent. It seems that some pages were missing in the copy in the Hong Kong University collection. The name pujao, if indeed an ordination name, does not follow the usual long or fa format. It is probably an ordination name from another, more well-known "folk" religion, Luozu Jiao, which have ordination names in a format of Pa followed by another character, according to an account in a Qing work of anecdotal literature quoted by Fu Yilin's article "Qing Qrankong kupan Cilaoguançaizong Qislu Kao" – first published in 1942 and included in his Fu Yin Zash wusht man Wengao Xiamen Daxue Chubanshe, 1989. The pantheon and practice of Laiozu Jio is not related to the tradition that is the subject of this article. * According to Lo, op cit, p. 216 n 21. So Lo Pun was a member of an alliance including Lai Chi Wo, a multi-surname village. With one exception, which is not So Lo Pun, all member villages were lineage extensions related to Lai Chi Wo. I know of some Huang people in Lai Chi Wo, but do not know their genealogical relationship with So Lo Pun or whether they celebrated the Fengchao in the past. The genealogy contains a spirit tablet related to Lu Shan and the Three Ladies, a passage of invocation, and two talismans. It is unlikely that the genealogy belonged to a wang specialist, whose repertoire will take up many volumes, not just a few pages in a genealogy as in this case. *I fail to date any of the generations. Some dates are given in the genealogy using Dynastic year names which cannot be found in reference books for year names. I have not checked as thoroughly some of the year names and title of emperors in the prefaces. Copied during an interview with the ritual specialist by Lee Lar-mu, then of the Oral History Project of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. For part of the memorial, I have a tape recording of the priest's recitation demonstration during the same meeting for comparison. 12. The Xu's genealogy of Shek Pik, Lantau Island in the British Library collection of genealogies from the New Territories contains a list of offerings for grave worship which begins with one raw pig and one cow. Rubie S. Watson, in her Inequality Among Brothers, Cambridge University Press 1985, p. 43 mentioned the division of raw pork after the ancestral hall ritual at Ha Tsuen but does not say if the four pigs purchased for the occasion were first offered to the ancestors as offerings. 41 Huhur Xinwen Yi hun Xu Zhi, Beijing Zhonghua 1986, p. 181. "For the note see Luo, op cit, p. 230. For his picture of the Hakka as "farmer-scholars" see ibid, pp. 16-18. **Luo Op Cit, p. 255-263. * The description is in vol. 2. In the table of contents, the author has inserted xiang ("incense") between Ahuan and Huo. The rite has some interesting features. It uses a long piece of red cloth stretched from the "lower" end near the entrance of the hall to the "upper" end of the ancestral incense burner, and the ashes were carried over the "bridge" thus formed to the incense burner. That additional ancestors are incorporated into the ancestral hall in the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 95 with impounded water being conveyed through a 2.2km-long 2.5m-diameter tunnel, mainly in granite, and by a 5km-long conduit winding along the northern shore of the Island beneath Bowen Road to the first two slow sand filter beds above the city, and thence into the service reservoir located at a lower level. The distribution system involved laying, between 1890 and 1892, some 30 kilometres of 75-350mm-diameter cast-iron mains together with the installation of a system of fire hydrants. Major fung shui problems were encountered during the tunnelling works, rumour being that children were to be selected for burial alive to ensure success; fortunately no ritual sacrifice was needed! On an uncontoured 1895 version of Collinson's plan (1845), there is an interesting feature clearly marked “overhead tram" extending 2.3 kilometres between Quarry Bay and Quarry Gap. It seems likely that it would have been used to transport materials and, perhaps, workmen associated with the early Tai Tam reservoir works. As part of the Tai Tam scheme a further small high-level reservoir at Wong Nei Chong was completed in 1899. Around this time the Braemar reservoir (now Choi Sai Woo Park) and further smaller reservoirs near Quarry Bay were built, primarily to meet the needs of the large commercial Tai Koo sugar refinery and dockyard complex. With the population already rising to about half a million, three further concrete dams within the Tai Tam valley, the largest Tai Tam Tuk being 50m high, and associated reservoirs were completed between 1904 and 1917. The upper (42m high) and reconstructed lower (20m high) concrete dams, the latter being previously a privately-owned dam built in 1890 for a paper works, impounding the Aberdeen reservoirs were later finished in 1931 and 1932 respectively, thus completing the last economical water storage development on the Island. After the turn of the century engineers were already looking to the New Territories to increase the supply of water for Kowloon, which had hitherto been dependent on two wells located to the north of Yau Mai Tei. As a result, the 35m-high concrete dam for the Kowloon reservoir was completed in 1910 and three further reservoirs in the vicinity were completed during the period 1925-1931 by which time the population was already approaching a million. A commercial reservoir was also built early this century to the south of Lung Wo Tsuen to provide water for Rennie's cotton factory at Junk Bay. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x were also to be found in Ta Kwu Leng and Ma Tau Wai. 23 It will be seen that Kowloon City, Kowloon Market, and the suburban villages around them, apart from Sha Po, (that is, Tung Tau, Sai Tau, Hau Wong, and Hoklo Villages) had no part in the League of Seven. These areas were considered to fall immediately under the control of the Sub-Magistrate in Kowloon City, or under the control of the Kowloon Market Kaifong. Apart from these places, the League of Seven covered all the area around Kowloon City. The Kowloon City and Kowloon Market areas worshipped at the Hau Wong Temple outside the Walled City, and did not worship at the Nga Tsin Wai Tin Hau Temple. There was a Tin Hau Temple at Sha Po where the residents in the Market also worshipped. Ma Tau Wai had a temple of its own: this was to Pak Tai, worshipped under the title Sheung Tai (7). Only the gate pillars of this temple survive today, in the Lomond Road Garden. To the east of the area of the League of Seven was the large and ancient village of Po Kong, belonging to the Lam (*) clan. Po Kong never joined the League of Seven. Po Kong had its own temple (it was dedicated to Tin Hau), and the Po Kong people did not go to the Tin Hau Temple at Nga Tsin Wai. Chuk Yuen and Sha Tei Yuen were genealogically connected with Po Kong. According to the Nga Tsin Wai elders, the villages of Po Kong, Chuk Yuen, Sha Tei Yuen, Nga Yiu Tau, Ngau Chi Wan (including its "Mau Tsuen” of Pak Uk Tsai, or Ping Shek), and Yuen Ling (both the Upper and Lower Villages) formed an inter-village alliance of their own, the Six Villages Alliance (AM). Ngau Chi Wan had its own temple, to the Sam Shan Kwok Wong - this temple still survives. According to Ngau Chi Wan village elders, there was no Six Villages' Ta Tsiu, but Ngau Chi Wan conducted these rituals on its own every ten years. Ngau Chi Wan also held the She (£) feast before their higher earth god, every year, when every family made an offering of food, which later formed the basis of the communal feast. Ngau Chi Wan was, clearly, rather independent where the worship of the deities was concerned, and may well have been rather less well-integrated into the Six Villages than the villages closer to Po Kong. Ngau Chi Wan was a Hakka village, founded in the very early eighteenth century. It was founded by the Lau (1) clan, but the To (†), Yeung (), Tsang (4), and Yip () clans joined the Laus during the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 37 name of the three brothers of the Sz Ko Ancestor, but none were very wealthy (Tak Ko, 0.68 acres: Fung Ko, 0.12 acres: Hon Ko 0.13 acres). The four "Ko" Ancestors, that is the Sz Ko Ancestor, and the other three, also owned 0.46 acres jointly. The income from all the land owned by these latter trusts, and the land held jointly by all four, was doubtless used for ritual purposes and the maintenance of the graves, with the Sz Ko Tso used for more aggressive commercial dealings. An alternative investment strategy was used by the Yat Un Tso (E - this was named from the founding ancestor of the Fourth Fong, i.e. of the last nine descent lines of the village, representing probably four-fifths of the clan: about a half or a third of the members of this Tso were also members of the Sz Ko Tso), and the Wai Wing Tso (77 - this had identical membership with the Yat Un Tso). The Yat Un Tso, rather than investing in arable land, like the Sz Ko Tso, invested heavily in the development of the Market at Kowloon, but, like the Sz Ko Tso, was clearly involved in aggressive investment in land: the Wai Wing Tso invested in arable land near the village. The availability of rentable Sz Ko Tso, Yat Un Tso, and Wai Wing Tso land made the junior descent lines the wealthiest in the clan: the Village Headman of 1902, Ng Kam-tong (A) was from this section of the clan (the ninth descent line). Before the coming of the British, the Nga Tsin Wai villagers owned a good deal of the subsoil rights, both over the Market, and in the general Sha Po area”. Some of these rights they had sold out before the coming of the British to the New Territories in 1898. On other parts of their land, however, the clan developed shops for rent. The Ng Yat Un Tso owned no less than 0.28 acres of house land in the Market, at the far southeast edge of the Market, next to Hoklo Tsuen. This was developed as five very large shops or workshops (one was jointly owned with a trust named in the Lease as the Shing Un Tso, possibly in error for the Tai Un Tso, the Founding Ancestor of the Third Fong). Several of these shops had large courtyards and wells. This strategy was also employed by the Shing Tat Tso, which owned one very large lot in the Market, with fifteen workshops scattered around a large courtyard. This complex stood on the southeastern edge of the Market, between the Market and the southern edge of Sha Po Village. This complex was probably used for some offensive trade or trades. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 41 part of it was being used for market gardening. The villagers in the Ng and Li clans had enough trust land to provide a fallback for poorer clan-brothers, although the Lease shows us the Chan clan already almost gone from the village. The Ng clan are shown as taking an aggressive part in the lending of money on mortgage, and thus increasing the clan land-holdings by foreclosure: the Lis, however, may not have had enough spare cash to do this. The village elders, Ng Kam-tong and Li Lai-ting in particular, stand out. Nga Tsin Wai does not show anything very different from other New Territories villages of this period, albeit it was more prosperous than most, but the Lease does bring the then village community to life. Traditional Lifestyles It is likely that the Nga Tsin Wai area was never a standard rice subsistence area. The proximity of the Market at Kowloon must have encouraged a measure of market gardening here from an early date. If the Lams settled at Po Kong because it was convenient for their trading business, it would seem likely that growing vegetables and cutting fuel for ships was always part of the Po Kong lifestyle. Nga Tsin Wai was doubtless also involved in this sort of business from the beginning. Nonetheless, at the end of the nineteenth century, a good deal of the land of Nga Tsin Wai was still used for growing rice. The land here was extremely fertile: rich, deep soil with few stones, and well watered: eminently suitable for rice growing. The present village elders remember hearing about rice-cultivation in the village from their grandparents, although pig-rearing and vegetable growing for the market was already very important in the late nineteenth century when those grandparents were active. According to the memories of the village elders of today, it is likely that the percentage of the land devoted to vegetables and livestock for the market grew steadily from 1841 onwards, until rice was, by the late nineteenth century, being grown only to meet the subsistence needs of a minority of villagers, who were otherwise living on the cash income from market gardening. Buyers from the new city of Hong Kong came to Kowloon City and Shamshuipo and Tsuen Wan from 1841 on looking for vegetables and meat animals to meet this new, and insatiable, demand. Market gardeners in the Kowloon City ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 89 called. 'hair vegetable), is a homonym for 'get rich'. This basin-meal lunch was the final item on the agenda for the day that the main ceremony was held. With this having taken place on the Wednesday at Sheung Tsuen, and the god, Taai Wong Ye, having been burned the same evening, the bamboo-framed matshed was dismantled the following day. As follow up, the Author thus decided to return to the village three days later. The five tun fu pots filled with sand, with a single, split-bamboo talisman with prayers written on it in each pot, had been placed circling the old banyan tree (see Plate 7). Tied to the top of each talisman was a golden (foil) kam fa and a red ribbon - both auspicious colours. There were remains of joss sticks burned by villagers. 10 Further follow up visits by the Author revealed that, on the 1st and the 15th of every Chinese month especially, joss sticks are burned near the tun fu pots largely by elderly women on behalf of their families. Nevertheless, the pots often give the impression of not being particularly well looked after. The site is untidy. This is a pity. The new West Railway line, of the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation, is planned to come into operation in November 2003. The tunnel is due to be finished in 2002. The pots will be left for the full duration of its construction and, if they cease to be effective, a nuen fu ('warming' of the talismans) "revival ceremony" may be needed. If so, Taoist priests will again officiate. Comparisons of various tun fu ceremonies How does the Pat Heung ceremony compare with other tun fu ceremonies that have been conducted elsewhere (Baker; 1980, 21)? Unfortunately the Author has not been able to find any written information, nor has he heard any oral accounts of tun fu ceremonies conducted outside Hong Kong although he gathers they do take place in places like Taiwan. Often in Hong Kong, like the one mentioned earlier (see Endnote 1) on Ma Wan Island, or those that the Author has seen in places like Sha Tin and Kam Tin, the pots were placed near earth-god shrines. All these ceremonies were much smaller than the main ceremony at Pat Heung described in this paper. No matsheds were erected at these smaller gatherings. Sometimes ceremonies are held close to tsz tongs (ancestral halls), although not normally inside. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 92 Do villagers really believe in tun fu? How many of the New Territories' villagers really believe in tun fu? Earlier, it was mentioned that the Pat Heung villagers were paid $600,000 to stage their collective tun fu ceremonies. Brian Jenny, Government Director of Audit, in November 1994 wrote in his report that, during the 1980s, amounts paid annually by the Government (on account of feng shui disturbances) varied between $500,000 and $950,000. In 1990, the Government paid $1.1 million, in feng shui compensation, to the villagers at Ha Tsuen so that ceremonies could be held (Hong Kong Standard; 1990). The fall in the purchasing power of the dollar over the years must be taken into account when interpreting these figures. When the British took over Hong Kong they promised the Chinese that Qing laws would be retained and local customs respected (Endacott; 1958, 38, 40, 41). Certainly a large number of festivals, customs and much culture have been retained. To some degree, because of lack of restrictions during the colonial period, there was limited hostility towards the British (Cheung; 1999, 573). Other ex-colonial powers could perhaps argue that this easygoing affinity, which developed between the Hong Kong Chinese and their rulers, was not always in the interests of the Colony. For example, the compensation paid to villagers to hold tun fu ceremonies, could have been put to better use. But returning to how many villagers really believe? A small group of elderly women that the Author spoke to, sitting in the sun near a tun fu pot at Shui Tau Village, in the Kam Tin District, said that when work first started on improvements to the Kam Tin River the villagers did not intend doing anything. But people started falling sick and several died. It was decided then to hold a tun fu ceremony.12 'Did the elderly ladies believe in tun fu?' 'Well, people stopped falling ill and dying,' they replied, 'so of course we had to believe.' That is as good an argument for believing in tun fu as any. Nevertheless several retired civil servants, both British and Chinese who have worked in the New Territories, some as District Officers, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 97 in tun fu and other religious ceremonies. 'It is not really worth making a fuss about and upsetting the system', seemed to sum it all up. But by comparison, even if western women would probably not accept a 'second-class citizen' situation in a similar way, nevertheless it should be remembered that only men are allowed, still, to become Catholic priests. Women have however been accepted, in a number of cases not so long ago, as clerics into the Anglican (Episcopalian) Church. Again showing leanings towards men, even in the West, the Author recalls his 90-year old English mother saying, in the 1980s, "It's a pity Mrs Thatcher (the then Prime Minister of Britain) isn't a man. People would respect her more.” Will tun fu die out? With the population of Hong Kong expected to reach somewhere in the region of eight-and-a-half million by the year 2010, this can only mean additional new towns and greater urbanisation in the New Territories. Such growth must bring drastic changes in lifestyles as has happened in the past. Western style bars, karaoke and other hostess services are now not uncommon in the Yuen Long and Kam Tin area, signifying the move towards globalisation (Chu; 1999)(Yu; 1999). In addition, what sociological changes will Route Three Highway, the West Rail Link and a possible new town close by bring to the district (Shum; 1996, 41)? But in spite of inevitable changes, Sheung Tsuen, where the main Pat Heung tun fu ceremony that the Author attended was held, is still a pleasant, peaceful village. In spite of paddy fields having long disappeared and derelict cars being dumped together with other eyesores, there is still a country atmosphere. The Koel and other birds call from atop camphor and banyan trees. To an observant person, the number of tun fu ceremonies held in the New Territories still does not appear to be exceedingly small. But with the continuing rapid increase in population and concomitant developments, they are likely to become endangered, although the custom is likely to be around, in smaller numbers, for some time to come. Conclusions Tun fu ceremonies are held because a previously quiet area of the countryside and its feng shui are threatened. Perhaps a hill in which the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 206 8 been affixed. A case of this kind from Chekiang in 1909 was cited in Lin Shao-yang, A Chinese Appeal to Christendom Concerning Christian Missions (London, Watts & Co., 1911), p.236. * Rev. S. Beal, Buddhism in China (London, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1884), p.241. ? Holmes Welch, Buddhism under Mao (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1966), p. For an updated statement on Buddhism in Hong Kong, see Bartholomew P.M. Tsui, "Recent Developments in Buddhism in Hong Kong" at pp.299-311 of Julian F.Pas (ed.) The Turning of the Tide, Religion in China Today (Hong Kong, Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, in association with Oxford University Press, 1989). 10 During a recent visit with friends to a small religious house in the hills behind Tsuen Wan (the Sai Chuk Lam), the couplets in the hall dedicated to the care of ancestral tablets of former inmates and the departed relatives of its clients gave the following messages to visitors: Place Trust in Kuan Yin's Great Mercy and Kindness (right) and Relieve Those in Hardship and Suffering by Reciting Her Name (left); with (above) another scroll to the effect that the Mercy Boat will Carry All over the Cruel Sea. I am grateful to Mr. Simon C.P. Yeung for discussing this with me on the visit. Hong Kong persons, temples, deities and places in these Notes are given in Cantonese romanisation. A whole chapter on "The Moral Tract Literature of China" is devoted to this subject by Rev. John L. Nevius, China and the Chinese (Philadelphia, Presbyterian Board of Publication, revised edition, 1882), pp.226-236. 12 H.A.Giles, Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh, 1915), p.469. A translation of the work is given at pp.469-487. 13 Besides the Buddhist and Taoist works in their collection (Moral Tenets and Customs in China, Ho-kien-fu, Catholic Mission Press, 1913) Fathers Wieger and Davrout also include some Confucian contributions. One of these was yet another very influential work, the Chu Pai Lu Chia Shun or the "Familiar Instructions of Chu Pai-lu”, a 17th century Confucian scholar. The "Instructions" were particularly favoured by generations of teachers. Enshrined in countless vertical scrolls and horizontal exemplars brushed by distinguished calligraphers, their text, in full or in part, served as suitable texts for pupils to copy. In both Page 240 Page 241 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 208 for an excellent, first-hand account. Rev. B.C. Henry, The Cross and the Dragon or Light in the Broad East (New York, Anson D.F. Randolph and Company, 1885), p.85. 21 Ibid, p.106. 22 See Chapter VII, "Rites for the Dead", in Holmes Welch, The Practice of Chinese Buddhism 1900-1950 (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1967), pp. 179-205. 23 By all accounts, too, the Buddhist and Taoist specialists offering services to the mass of the people were almost identical and interchangeable. One or other were also to be found in local temples, regardless of the supposed origin of the gods in them. I recall the Buddhist monk with an ordination certificate from the famous Ting Wu monastery in Kuangtung who was temple keeper at the Tin Hau temple in Shaukiwan in the 1960s. Also the mentions of the Buddhist priests in charge of the Tung Shan (Kuan Yin) Temple at East Kowloon and the Kam Fa Temple at Tsing Lung Tau, Tsuen Wan in the early years of this century. 24 Moulem, p.212. 25 See Campbell N. Moody, The Heathen Heart, An Account of the Reception of the Gospel among the Chinese of Formosa (Edinburgh and London, Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier, 1908). 26 Ibid, pp.102-3, 107. 27 Cited with similar quotations in (translated by Janet Lloyd) Jacques Gernet, China and the Christian Impact, A Conflict of Cultures (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, paperback edition, 1985), pp.82-83. 28 Rev. Hampden C. DuBose, The Dragon, Image, and Demon: Or The Three Religions of China ... (New York, A.C. Armstrong & Son, 1887). 29 One small squatter temple off the route connecting Tsuen Wan with Shek Kong (Route TWSK) is a case in point. The Sin Ha Tong was built about or before 1970, according to the person in charge. The temple is a wooden hut, with a goldfish pond in front, with some open space. Whilst the gods worshipped here include “old faithfuls" such as Tin Hau, Lui Cho, and Pao Kung, it is intriguing ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 341 NEXUS OF VILLAGES BY UNICORN DANCING TEAMS CHIU HANG SHI It was chilly, cloudy and rainy on Sunday, January 27, 2002 in Hoi Pui Tsuen, Pat Heung. This village is inhabited by the Fan, the Cheung and the Kan. This area was quite inaccessible before the construction of the Tai Lam Tunnel and recently the West Rail Station. Some 60 people, mainly young men and some leaders of the village, have been gathered in front of the village office since 2:00pm in a jovial manner. Inside the village office, a temporary altar was set up facing the entrance of the building with a tablet of hand-written characters on it. Some seven unicorn dancing teams arrived by 5:00pm. All teams were first greeted by the unicorn team of the host village and then each team proceeded to the two ancestral halls (Fan's and Cheung's) to pay tribute to the ancestors. A banquet of basin meal of 120 tables was served in the evening. The organizer of this celebration was Nam Shing Tong. This celebration has been held every year after the Handover. The reason for doing so was that this Tong has had some extra money left every year. At first one might have no idea why unicorn dancing teams from some apparently unrelated areas would be invited to come. 1. Yuen Long, well, it is reasonable to have a team from Yuen Long. Hoi Pui Tsuen is in Yuen Long, 2. Shatin, it is quite the other part of the Territory, and 3. Sai Kung, it is obviously very far away. Later, I was enlightened by being told that they were from the same instructor, Master So. The unicorn dancing team from Sai Kung was particularly able to draw one's attention - it was known as Pak Kei Lun (Northern unicorn), which was black, as different from the unicorns commonly seen in Hong Kong, which were bright and colourful. The Pak Kei Lun had two small horns, which might, ironically, make it no longer qualified to be a unicorn, in a Western sense. The ordinary unicorn had five colour strips around the neck: red, yellow, blue, white and black, resembling the five directions: south, centre, east, west and north. Page 390 Page 391 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 Date 2002 April 13 May 4 May 18 June 1 August 10 August 31 November 23 2003 January 25 March 1 Local Visits Ha Tsuen Market Town, Deep Bay, led by Dr Patrick H. Hase (see also Lecture Programme) "Waglan Island Lighthouse, led by Dr Dan Waters & Tim Ko (see also Lecture Programme) Pak Sha O in Sai Kung Country Park, led by May Holdsworth & Dr Patrick H. Hase Ha Tsuen Market Town, Deep Bay, led by Dr Patrick H. Hase (Repeat Visit) Fing Ping Shan Museum, to visit the Da Qin – An Imperial Christian Site of the Tang Dynasty Exhibition led by Dr Martin Palmer (see also Lecture Programme) Roman Catholic Cathedral and Archives, led by Anna Kwong & Fr Louis Ha Visit to Ming Chi Sing Cantonese Opera Troupe: Backstage Visit, "The Sweet General", led by Stella Ma (see also Lecture Programme) Devil's Peak Fort, led by Lawrence Lai, assisted by Tim Ko (see also Lecture Programme) Hong Kong Museum of History, to visit the "War and Peace: Treasures of the Qin and Han Dynasties" Exhibition, led by Dr Joseph Ting Overseas Visits Date 2002 March 28-April 2 Xi'an, led by Dr Joseph Ting September 28-October 1 Angkor Wat, Cambodia & Saigon, Vietnam, led by Dr Patrick H. Hase 2003 January 30-February 13 Eastern Bhutan, led by Dr Brian Shaw xxxii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 72 altars erected within the enclosure. On more social occasions, especially among the kaifong associations, it was also usual (and tedious for those present) to invite principal guests to speak: some orators did not need a second invitation! Owing to its super-glossy surface, this particular card does not reproduce well, nor does its successor for the 1985 Ta Chiu. I have therefore used the invitation card for the similar event at Shatin, held also in 1985 to indicate type and content (Plates 2-5).2 Although the majority of invitation cards were printed, some were still being hand-written in black Chinese ink using a brush (Plate 6), and even on the printed ones, the recipients' names and ranks were usually added by brush rather than by fountain pen or biro (Plate 2). Owing to their intrinsic interest, and the fact that most were destined for the wastepaper basket, I kept many of those I received, and sent specimens to library collections as ephemera, literary productions of a fleeting kind. The Hong Kong Collection at the University of Hong Kong has, or should have, them in its holdings today. At the scene Invariably, there would be some indication on site of the event being celebrated. Decorated archways and banners raised on bamboo scaffolding (pai lau), and/or floral tributes (fa pai), were the norm, and very colourful and ingenious they sometimes were, too. They were the work of skilled artisans, but their wording had to be supplied by the host body. Here are a few examples. The elaborate archway erected at the entrance to the ground used for the Ta Chiu at Kam Tin in 1985 features in Plate 7. The floral banner erected to mark the District Commissioner, NT's ceremonial opening of a newly completed local public works concrete track on Cheung Chau Peak in 1960 is shown in Plate 8, whilst the subject of Plate 9 is one of the large floral tributes made to honour a new chairman and his two vice-chairmen of the Tsuen Wan Rural Committee, which, along with others, was set up outside the restaurant 1 I must apologize for the high family content of the illustrations, the selection being made, of necessity, from our own photographs and memorabilia, from my wife's and my own service in the relevant departments. ================================================================================