RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 268 P.H. HASE, J.W. HAYES AND K.C. IU family will produce enough tea from one stripping to last that family a year. Before the War, villager families would put in more time, stripping the trees up to four times in a year, to produce in addition a few baskets of tea for sale in the market towns, to supply those villages, mostly the large, lowland villages, who had no tea trees of their own. The villagers have no recollection of their tea ever being traded more widely than in the local market town." As well as at Mau Tso Ngam, several other hill villages in Shatin still prepare tea in this way (including Wong Chuk Yeung, and Kwun Yam Shan) and several others did until recently. Probably most hill villages of the New Territories used to prepare tea in this way. Traditionally, villagers drank tea out of their rice bowls at the end of the meal after the rice was finished. Special tea bowls were used in ritual contexts (e.g., when offering tea to gods or spirits or during weddings when tea is offered by the bride to her husband's mother) or when tea was offered to important visitors. The rice bowls were kept very carefully, and the owners would often scratch their names into the glaze inside the bowl to guard against loss." A set of rice bowls used for tea drinking in Mau Tso Ngam from about 1920 is now preserved in the Hong Kong Museum of Teaware, together with tealeaves produced at Mau Tso Ngam, and a full photographic record of the preparation processes. (2) Traditional Tea Growing in the Southern New Territories (JWH) My recollections of local tea go back to 1957-58 when, newly appointed as District Officer, South, I visited all villages and hamlets in the district within a six months' period and much of it on foot! My recollection was that I drank hill tea in a number of places as well as ordinary tea or hot water in others. Referral to my notebooks has provided some information on tea growing in the villages of the Southern District but not as much as I had either thought or hoped. Hill tea came to my attention when I was offered it to drink, and this was conspicuously the case in the Clear Water Bay villages. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 6 October, 1986: 19 January, 1987: 17 February 1987; 16 March 1987: 31 March (still to come): Dr. Betty Wei Peh T'i "Treasures from an Attic in Pennsylvania: Letters from the Chinese Countryside 1901-6" David Lung "Vernacular Houses in Fujian and Guangdong" Dr. Ronald Skeldon "Ladakh: Land, Peoples and Plays" Anthony Lawrence "The Long March: The Story of a Joint Venture" Mr. Geoffrey Emerson "Yankee on the Yangtse" Besides the lectures, eight local visits were made during the year to places of interest. They comprised the following: 9 and 30 August, 1986: Visits to the Museum of Teaware and Hong Kong's 1941 Underground Military headquarters David Pannach, Robyn McLean and James Hayes 25 October, 1986: Ta Chiu at Kat O island 9 November, 1986: James Hayes Walk from the Peak to Kennedy Town to view the fortifications which guarded the Western approaches to Hong Kong Phillip Bruce 29 November, 1986: Ta Chiu at Tuen Mun James Hayes 6 December, 1986: Fung Ping Shan Museum Dr. Michael Lau viii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 14 February 28 February 7 March, Rethinking the Market Town Through Festivals in Contemporary China, ' Helen Siu Fung-har The Confucian Examination Hall at Jia Ding,' by Dr Betty Wei Peh-T'i "The Hong Kong Diary, 1849-1857, of John Francis Evelyn Wright, 'by Mr Christopher Munn. In addition the following three lectures were jointly organised by the Royal Asiatic Society and the Museum of Art in conjunction with the latter's exhibition on 'Views of the Pearl River Delta-Macau, Canton and Hong Kong." 23 November 24 November 'Two Hundred Years of Collecting Chinese Export Art at the Peabody Essex Museum,' by William Sargent. The Thirteen Factories in Guangzhou,' by Dr Joseph Ting. + 27 November Change and Continuity in Macau, 'by Reverend Carl Smith. In addition to lectures the Branch has organised a number of other functions, such as visits, both in Hong Kong and outside the Territory. These were as follows: 1996 Place 20 April Walking Tour of Historic Sites in Central District. 11 May Boat Trip to View Dolphins off Lantau. 8 June 13 July Historical Sites in Kowloon Guided Tour of Exhibition. 'Teatime in Flanders,' Museum of Teaware. xiv Page 15 Page 16 ================================================================================