RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1962 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f LIFE IN THE NEW TERRITORIES 85 examination by the District Magistrate at Nam Tau and by the Kwang Chau prefect at Canton, proceeded to the Viceroy's yamen in the same city where eventually a favoured few would manage to pass the first degree of sau choi. This in theory entitled the scholar to qualify for an official post. In practise there were many more sau choi than there were posts and a scholar had to pursue further study and pass other examinations before he stood a real chance of becoming an official. In every district there were sau choi who would never obtain posts. Many became local schoolmasters. Others by virtue of wealth and position became the local gentry who, by report, were sometimes a help to the magistrate and frequently a nuisance, both to him and to the litigant or criminal public. They sat on the local tribunals kuk and advised the magistrate on local affairs. Being literati like himself they had ready access to his yamen and to his ear. Sometimes they even outranked him. Elders, on the other hand, rarely sat on the kuk. Lockhart estimated that there were one hundred and fifty sau choi in the whole district.20 In 1898 the elders of important villages like Ha Tsuen and Ping Shan were literati. Several of them played a leading part in the planning of operations against the British take-over.27 20 Sometimes the wealthier village elders enhanced their position by purchasing degrees. In the late Ch'ing period the sale of examination titles appears to have been considerable. Smith mentions it in his Village Life in China** and I have come across several such persons in villages in the Southern District of the New Territory. They were usually substantial villagers. Such a one was CHAN Tak-hang4 of Cheung Kwan O in Junk Bay who died in the seventeenth year of Kwong Shui (1892) at the age of sixty-four. According to his descendant, the present Village Representative, he was a man of substance who built a guest house in the village which is still standing to-day, gave money for the upkeep of the stone tracks which linked the villages of the area with Kowloon, and was well known locally. His portrait, painted at the age of fifty-seven, shows him in his borrowed finery as a kwok hok sang, for which he paid an unknown consideration to Government. A man such as this would obviously play a considerable part in the affairs of his immediate neighbourhood. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1962 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f LIFE IN THE NEW TERRITORIES 99 three districts in the vicinity of Canton the phrase shui shui, tso shui, tsou shui (£££) literally "sleeping in-come, sitting in-come, walking in-come" which may be thus explained: the incumbent of the first may go to sleep, whilst his emoluments come rolling in; in the second he may sit still, and his emoluments come rolling in; and in the third he must trot around, but his emoluments come rolling in". 12 Lockhart calls these officers assistant and deputy magistrates, Papers 1899 p. 191 and so does Consul Allen in his Trade Report for Pakhoi 1896, FO No. 1983, but there appear in fact, to have been no such titles. There were one or two yuen shing (B) in each district styled to ye (*) who were officers of the sixth and seventh rank and were graduates of kam sang (1) degree. These were appointed from Peking and were transferable every three years like the magistrate himself. They were stationed at places in the district and their powers were very limited. 20 He does not mention officers other than those at the two Lantau forts, but there was another fort on Lantau at Fan Lau, still standing, which may or may not have been occupied at this time, and there were posts on Lamma and Cheung Chau officered by shun tei kun (MILF) (information from Mr. CHEUNG Yau (4) of Tai Ping, Lamma Island, and from a list of donors inscribed on a tablet in the Tin Hau temple on Cheung Chau). There must also have been shun tei kun in the mainland part of the district. More information is sought about their stations and their duties. As far as I know, they were military officers of low rank who controlled ten or twenty men in an out-station, 21 Papers 1899 p. 192. 22 A map showing these divisions, dated July 1899 on the reverse, is to be found in the Registrar-General's Department, in the Supreme Court. It is probably the Map VI referred to on page 192 of the Papers 1899, which was not printed with them. The Councils of the Tung may not have existed in the remoter and more sparsely populated areas. On Lamma for instance the village elders appear to have administered summary justice individually and not in unison. Mr. CHEUNG Yau already quoted, and other gentlemen of similar age, state there was no Council on the island. The map does not assist in this instance, being vague in some details. There were four tung in any district: north, south, east and west. 23 Dyer Ball, The Chinese at Home (London, Religious Tract Society, 1912) p. 189 says "The life of an official in China, if he occupies a high position and rules over a populous district of country, is arduous in the extreme. He knows no hours. His work is never done. He is up before dawn, and official receptions take place in the small or early hours of the morning. The health of many a man is injured by the incessant toil and unremitting anxiety". He calls him "often hard worked, harassed with many cares, and loaded with responsibilities". His is experienced and impartial testimony. 24 Papers 1899 p. 192. 25 Sir Robert Douglas, Society in China (London, Ward Lock & Co., 1901) pp. 120-1 has hard things to say of them. "The mental activity of these men, not having... any power to operate in a beneficent way, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1962 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f 128 CHAN, Dr. H. C. - CHAN, Hok-lam, William CHAU, Hon. Sir Tsun-nin CHENG, T. C... CHEONG-LEEN, Hilton · CHEUNG, Oswald - CHING, Henry CHING, Joseph CHIU, Ling-yeong CHOA, Dr. Gerald H.- CLARK, Mrs. N. E. COHN, Dr. A. J.- COLE, Martin + CRANMER-BYNG, J. L. CUMINE, E. · - + T Bank of Canton Building, 5th floor, H.K. c/o Dept. of History, Chung Chi College, Ma Liu Shui, Shatin, New Territories, 8, Queen's Road, West, Hong Kong. c/o S.C.A., Fire Brigade Building H.K. G.P.O. Box 584, 310 Yu To Sang Bldg., Hong Kong. 1002, Alexandra House, Hong Kong. 9, Village Road, 1st floor, Hong Kong. c/o U.S. Consulate-General, 26 Garden Road, H.K. 167, Yee Kuk Street, 3rd floor, Shumshuipo, Kowloon. Queen Mary Hospital, Pokfulum, H.K. c/o H.K. & Shanghai Banking Corpn., H.K. 116, Leighton Road, Leisham Court, 6/F., "F", Hong Kong. 16, Conduit Road, Hong Kong. Dept. of History, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. 14, Embassy Court, Hong Kong. CUMMING, Mount Stephen e/o Messrs. Butterfield & Swire, Union DAIKO, Paul - T DAVIES, Miss Ann Carol DAVIS, Dr. S. G.- DEANS PEGGS, Dr. A. - DENNYS, Miss Sylvia M. DJOU, G. G. - DONOHUE, Hon. Peter DRAKE, Mrs. F. S. DRAKE, Prof. F. S. L House. L P. O. Box 201, Hong Kong. ■ J L + DRAKEFORD, Louis Samuel DUNCANSON, J. D. - + DUNT, Percy EDWARDS, O. P. ENDACOTT, G. B. ENGEL, Dr. D. - 2, Friston, 15, Old Peak Road, Hong Kong. Dept. of Geography and Geology, Hong Kong University, c/o Education Department, Battery Path, Hong Kong. c/o Economic Survey Section, 804 Man Yee Bldg., H.K. c/o American International Assnce. Co., Ltd. 12/14 Queen's Road, Central, Hong Kong. Education Department, Battery Path, H.K. 92 Bonham Road, Hong Kong. Dept. of Chinese, Hong Kong University, Hong Kong. 25, Chatham Road, 11th floor, Front, Kin. c/o Barclays Bank (D.C.O.), 1 Cockspur Street, London, S.W.1. England. P. O. Box 94, Hong Kong. c/o Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corpn., H.K. Dept. of History, Hong Kong University, Hong Kong. 542 Alexandra House, Hong Kong. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v 150 BOYD, J. D. I. BRAGA, J. M. - BREUIL, Mrs. N. du BROMHALL, J. D. BROOKS, D. E. BRUUN, F. - A-1 9th Floor, 2 Oaklands Path, H.K. - P. O. Box 951, H.K. 86, Main Street, Stanley, H.K. Fisheries Research Station. The Fish Market, Island Road, Aberdeen. Radio Hong Kong, Rodney Block, G/F., Wellington Barracks, H.K. 908, Takshing House, H.K. BURKHARDT, Col. V. R. - 86, Main Street, Stanley, H.K. BYRNE, D. J. - CALCINA, P. G. * CHAN, Dr. H. C. - CHAN, Hok-lam CHAN, Leonard + CHAU, Hon. Sir T. N. *- CHAU, Wah-ching CHENG, T. C.. CHEONG-LEEN, Hilton + c/o China Light & Power Co., Ltd. Argyle St., Kowloon. Commercial Investment Co., Ltd., Union House, 12th Floor, H.K. Bank of Canton Building, H.K. c/o Department of History, Chung Chi College, Ma Liu Shui, N.T. c/o Pâzer Corporation, G.P.O. 323, H.K. 8, Queen's Road, West, H.K. English Department, Chung Chi College, Ma Liu Shui, N.T. United College of H.K., Bonham Road, H.K. G.P.O. Box 584, 310 Yu To Sang Building, H.K. CHESTERMAN, Prof. W. D. 4 Felix Villas, Pokfulum, H.K. CHEUNG, O. CHING, Henry CHING, Joseph - CHIU, Miss B. T. CHIU, Ling-yeong CHOA, Dr. G. H. CHOW, Edward T. CLARK, Mrs. N. E. COHN, Dr. A. J. - COLE, M. 1002, Alexandra House, H.K. 9, Village Road, 1st Floor, H.K. c/o U.S. Consulate-General, 26 Garden Road, H.K. Department of Botany, The University, H.K. 167, Yee Kuk Street, 3rd Floor, Shumshuipo, Kowloon. Queen Mary Hospital, Pokfulum, H.K. 3 Village Terrace, Happy Valley, H.K. 71, Peak Road, H.K. 116, Leighton Road, Lei Shun Court, 6th Floor, "F", H.K. 16, Conduit Road, H.K. *Life Member Please notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r 157 CHAN, L. CHAN, Hok-Lam CHAPMAN, Dr. G. W. - CHẦU, Hon. Sir Tsun-nin CHAU, Wah Ching CHEN, Yih CHENG, Dr. Irene CHENG, T. C. - CHESTERMAN, Prof. W. D. CHEUNG, Oswald CHING, Henry CHING, Joseph CHIU, Miss Bek To CHOA, Dr. Gerald H. CHOW, Edward T. CHUN, Dr. C. T. = CLARK, Mrs. E. E. CLARK, Mrs. N. E. + CLUTTERBUCK, Miss A. COBBAN, K. M. COHN, Dr. A. J. COLE, M. CRAGG, N. F. - - CUMINE, E. CUMMING, M. S. DAIKO, P. D'ALMADA, C. P. + - + - c/o Pfizer Corporation, G.P.O. Box 323, H.K. 3327 Graduate College, Princeton University, Princeton, N.Y., U.S.A. c/o The Nethersole Hospital, Bonham Rd., H.K. 8 Queen's Road, West, Hong Kong. English Dept. Chung Chi College, Ma Liu Shui, N.T. 406A Bank of East Asia Building, H.K. c/o Confucian Tai Shing School, H.K.L.L. No. 4405, Sam Po Kong, Kowloon. United College, Bonham Road, H.K. 4, Felix Villas, H.K. 1002, Alexandra House, H.K. 9 Village Road, 1st floor, H.K. c/o U.S. Consulate-General, 26 Garden Rd., H.K. 168 Ebury Street, London S.W.1., England. Queen Mary Hospital, Pokfulum, H.K. 3. Village Terrace, Happy Valley, H.K. New Asia College, 6 Farm Road, Kowloon. Tytam Villa, 30 Tai Tam Road, H.K. c/o The H.K. & Shanghai Banking Corpn., H.K. The Helena May, Garden Road, H.K. Flat 33, Mount Austin Mansions, 8 Mt. Austin Road, H.K. 116, Leighton Road, Lei Shun Court, 6th floor, "F", H.K. 16 Conduit Road, H.K. 11, Peak Pavillons, 12 Mt. Kellett Road, H.K. 14, Embassy Court, H.K. c/o Messrs. Butterfield & Swire, Union House, H.K. P. O. Box 201, H.K. Casa Branca, Lot No. 270, Silver Strand, Clearwater Bay Road, N.T. • Life Member Please notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653 122 NOTES AND QUERIES 2. With the high rates of interest on loans and/or the continuing need over several years to have money ready to pay the instalments in a money-loan association, it is not surprising that people got into difficulties and there are good instances of this in the papers. One man borrowed thirty-four silver dollars from the Tong at the end of 1886, and three years and two months later owed eighty-eight dollars, representing principal plus interest. Of this sum ten dollars had already been paid off by selling land to offset the debt. The remainder was extinguished by the debtor waiving his turn for payment in a money-loan association in favour of his creditor. Yet this experience was not a case of 'once bitten, twice shy' for either side, for in the month following the settlement of his affairs with the Tong he asked it for, and secured, another loan of sixteen dollars "due to dire need of money." This loan was made on the mortgage of more of his inherited farmland. We do not know the sequel. Another villager who had failed to pay his share or instalment in a money-loan association mortgaged a house in pledge and was to lose if he had not paid the money by the end of that lunar year. 3. The Tong was not the only source of money loans available to the Shek Pik villagers. Shops in the neighbouring market centres of Tai O and Cheung Chau would advance credit, or give loans as would two other local Tongs. They were not organizations belonging to Shek Pik, one being composed of merchants from Tai O and the other a family organization belonging to a clan in another village. 4. These papers came from only one of the clans living at Shek Pik and there is reason to think that similar activities were taking place in other clans and amongst other groups of persons in the village. J. W. HAYES A CEREMONY TO PROPITIATE THE GODS AT TONG FUK, LANTAU, 1958 In the course of opening new roads and other works the developers usually run up against feng shui (geomantic influences). This ================================================================================ 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 The Five Great Clans 29 area by a group at least as strong as they, a point which will be taken up later. The Pangs of Fanling were also on the fringes of the Sheung Shui area, and also were unable to settle on this better land, though they apparently arrived shortly after the Hau's. Their land is of moderate quality, though a little of it is in the 250-300 catty range,54 and the Pangs were poor, as remarked earlier. Recently the 'vegetable-growing revolution' began on this lineage's land,55 communications being excellent, so that, being on the direct line of exit from the Mainland, the area was soon picked out by the immigrants for settlement and farming. One result of this revolution has been a sudden rise in the income and standard of living of the Pangs, an indication of their growing influence being their entering of a candidate in 1964 for the high-prestige position of Chairman of the Heung Yee Kuk.56 At the same time the Pangs display an ultra-conservative attitude in respect of feng shui57 and religion. I am not in a position to say whether this conservatism is of long standing, or whether it has been strengthened since the change in their economic conditions. It is interesting, however, that their response to rising standards of living contrasts markedly with that of the Lius, whose rejection of feng shui tenets appears to be as whole-hearted as is the Fanling tenaciousness. The Lius were the fourth of the clans to arrive. Their history is fairly well documented and throws an interesting light on the process by which they acquired probably the largest area of first-quality land outside the Tangs' holdings.59 The first ancestor was an itinerant tinker who disappeared from the area after founding a family there. Within four generations the family was scattered all round the Sheung Shui area in small settlements, the best land being occupied by the Kan60 lineage. By the seventh generation the Lius had greatly increased in numbers. A geomancer61 was amongst them, and he suggested that they should all come together to found a village, for "he knew that it was not good policy to live in so many places, and feared that being scattered they would be unable to retain their close contacts and unable to maintain their mutual protection and aid".62 Then, says the genealogy, "the whole lineage lived together completely in accordance with the wishes of the geomancers".63 This bland explanation of history does not explain how the Kans were persuaded to vacate their ================================================================================ 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 The Five Great Clans 31 highly desirable vegetable land. Shifts in land values have also affected the balance of wealth within any one lineage, and have produced interesting differences in ritual practices between lineage branches. In Sheung Shui, for example, land to the southeast of the village has greatly increased in value due to the rise there of Shek Wu market.68 Land to the northwest of the village, on the other hand, has declined in value for several reasons. One branch of the lineage, whose land holdings are mainly to the northwest and which has no land on the Shek Wu market side, has been forced to dispense with certain annual feasts through lack of income. IV Controlling large areas of land, and having power, the five clans and their settlements were natural communications centres and foci of rural interest, and they were able to maintain and increase their wealth and influence by setting up markets under their control. The market of Shek Wu Hui, mentioned above, was established on Liu land. Yuen Long Kau Hui, until displaced by the new market known simply as Yuen Long, was owned by the Tangs. The market of Tai Po Kau Hui70 was owned and controlled by the Tang lineages of Tai Po Tau and Lung Kwat Tau,71 while the new Tai Po market was a joint venture by many clans, amongst whom were the Mans of Tai Hang72 and the Pangs of Fan Ling. These markets were held on regular schedules based on the lunar calendar. Thus, Yuen Long kept to a 3-6-9 schedule, meaning that markets were held there on the 3rd, 6th, and 9th; 13th, 16th, and 19th; 23rd, 26th, and 29th days of the lunar month. Tai Po new market also worked the 3-6-9 system, while Shek Wu Hui maintained a 1-4-7 schedule.73 The controlling clans received an income in various ways, chief of which was through their charging a fee for the weighing of goods sold in the markets, all scales being retained by them, or hired out by them to private individuals at a high rent.74 No other large markets were controlled by members of the Five Clans,75 though each of their larger villages appears to have small daily markets meeting for the exchange and sale of perish- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 36 HUGH D. R. BAKER one's own lineage or clan, nor indeed from any of the other four clans, I think. Descendants of these people still live amongst the master clans, though their servitude ended in most places shortly before the Second World War.89 Thus, single-lineage settlements often contained more than one surname due to this system, the Sai Man sometimes now constituting quite a high proportion of the total as is the case in the Hau village of Ping Kong, for instance, but politically the Sai Man were not to be reckoned with, and I was told, “As with women, we don't count them." Nowadays, however, they tend to be treated as near-equals by members of the master-lineages, certainly as superior to other outsiders. For instance, Sai Man descendants surnamed Lam still live in Sheung Shui, and their children attend a private kindergarten run by the Lius at the same reduced fees which Liu children pay; in fact, they do not count as 'outsiders', who have to pay the full fee. In the Mung Yeung School at Kam Tin, the list of subscribers to the fund raised to found the school includes one man of the surname Sham,92 a descendant of a Sai Man family of Kam Tin, who has become wealthy.93 In Ping Kong, as noted above, many Sai Man descendants are still living; but yet other descendants of these people in the various villages have removed out of the villages of their ancestors' degradation now that they are free to do so. Near the town of Shek Wu Hui there is a small village started some years ago by such Sai Man descendants of the surname Chiu.94 Finally, in our discussion of the effects of landed wealth, we may point out that it has made a difference to the adaptability of the five clans to recently developed ways of acquiring money. For several generations now, smaller lineages and mixed-lineage villages have been sending men overseas on a large scale, and amassing a great deal of money, which is invested in better housing and sometimes in urban business ventures. Already wealthy, the five clans did not feel the need to indulge in this kind of enterprise on a large scale, and only since the 1950's have they succumbed to the lure of the easy money to be earned in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and other overseas territories. Particularly since the Communist victory on the Mainland, agriculture has been hard hit in the New Territories. Pigs and chickens cannot be raised to sell at a competitive price with ================================================================================ 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 41 inside their walled village, and the Hau installed cannon in three of their villages and bombarded Sheung Shui. At the same time one of their literati with contacts in Nam Tau,118 the district capital, arranged for the Imperial troops stationed there to be brought in on the side of the Hau Clan. The Lius got to hear of this, and used their contacts in the provincial capital to have the troops stopped. It is said that on being told of this Liu countermove the leader of the Hau "spat out blood and died of rage". The dispute was settled eventually by arbitration. VI I have tried to show that these five clans controlled the more important part of the area which is now the New Territories, and that they derived their power and wealth from the land. My field-work was concerned with only one of these five, and the information which I have given above was largely gathered as incidental to my own study. I feel that a worthwhile project would be a study of just such a group of clans, to find answers to such questions as: exactly how much power they did wield; how much they were able to disregard the central government and the provincial authorities; what connections they had with each other at what levels; how much they inter-married, and whether marriage patterns changed significantly according to the rise of disputes; exactly why certain clans allied with others; and how spheres of influence over smaller clans came about. There is the question also of the position of some of these clans as tax-lords120 acting as tax agents for the government how they obtained the privilege and how they used it. The study could be brought up to date with an enquiry into the way in which the power of the five clans is being lost as educational, economic, and governmental changes bring about a levelling of opportunity in the New Territories. Perhaps this brief introduction will serve to point out the need for such a study. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 44 HUGH D. R. BAKER 42 Grant, op. cit., figs, VI(k), (l), (m), (n). 43 ###. Notes on the third generation. + 44 Grant, op. cit., figs. VI(m) and (n). 45 **#. Notes on the sixth generation, where the move is said to have been made "at the end of the Yuan Dynasty". 46 Ibid., Notes on the third generation. 47 Grant, op. cit., figs. VI(o) and (p) show a perhaps exaggerated picture of the paucity of land around Lung Kwat Tau, since part of the Tangs' area of influence is not shown. Figs. VI(e) and (f) show a no less meagre amount of agricultural land around Tai Po Tau. It must be stressed that geographical and political accident have combined to change the situation greatly in both these areas in recent years, so that Grant's findings do not demonstrate the true historical picture. + 48 ******, Notes on the founding ancestor. He was born in A.D. 1023 and died in 1085, but the date when he moved to Ho Sheung Heung is not recorded. 49 Ibid., Notes on the fourth generation, shows that the expansion occurred in the fifth generation, which we can infer from the data to have been in the mid-12th century. I cannot locate the places mentioned, and, unless they have since disappeared entirely, we must assume that they are not situated in the New Territories, or that they are names for internal divisions in Ho Sheung Heung itself. Without having been able to check on these assumptions, I would incline to the last. 50 Ibid., Notes on the thirteenth generation. This village was founded in the seventeenth generation (possibly mid-16th century, but it is difficult to arrive at even an approximate date) by a man who moved from one of the original expansion villages discussed in note 49 above. 51 Ibid., This village has the same first ancestor as Ping Kong, whence he moved on after some years. 52 Ibid., Notes on the twelfth generation. The village was founded in the last years of the Chien-lung reign period (A.D. 1736-1795). 53 Grant, op. cit., figs. VI(o) and (p) show the land surrounding only Ping Kong of these four villages. It is of no better than average productivity (200 catties), and is not a very large acreage. 54 Ibid., figs. VI(o) and (p). 55 Ibid., The same figures show the extent to which vegetable-farming has taken over the land in this area. See also "Changes in Agricultural Land Use in Hong Kong", by C. T. Wong, in S. G. Davis, Land Use Problems in Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1964. 56. The 'Rural Consultative Council', which represents New Territories interests to Government. An explanation of its structure and objectives may be found in S. S. Hsueh, Government and Administration of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1962, pp. 84ff. 57 Bk. 'Wind and Water'. For a short but unsympathetic explanation of this belief see J. Dyer Ball, Things Chinese, London, 1904, pp. 312f. 58 廖氏族譜, section headed 韩考座代进移節略, 59 Grant, op. cit., figs. VI(o) and (p). 60 M. + 61 feng shui hsien sheng (Mandarin pronunciation). 62 ****, section as in note 58. ================================================================================ 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 47 112 Rth. Sec J. H. S. Lockhart, "Report on the New Territory", Sessional Papers, 1899. 113 Hayes, op. cit., p. 83, quotes Lockhart, but does not give any new evidence, though he mentions other similar informal bodies. 114 八鄉 [115] I am not sure that this was the original purpose of the alliance. 116 Ancestral halls are generally sited outside walled villages for reasons of feng shui. 117 Ho Sheung Heung, Ping Kong, and Kam Tsin. The cannon of this last village was not handed in when British administration began in 1899, and still lies hidden in the corner of one of their ancestral halls. 118 南鄉. 119 That is, in Canton. 120 See J. W. Hayes, "Cheung Chau”, in JHKBRAS, Vol. 3, 1963, note 12; and the same author's "Peng Chau", in JHKBRAS, Vol. 4, 1964, p. 79 and note 27. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g LAND AND LEADERSHIP IN THE H.K. REGION OF KWANGTUNG 97 Lantau for a long time. He had a better start in life than either Chan or Cheung. His father was a schoolmaster with a business turn of mind who, besides owning land in his own village, had built up a small estate in a neighbouring settlement of Shek Pik where he had taught for many years.1 After being educated by his father at home he was sent to the District City to continue his studies in the academy there. However, despite this favourable beginning he does not seem to have obtained the first degree by examination after all, and had to purchase the title of chien sang later on. Being literate and neither a shopkeeper nor a farmer he probably possessed more of the external attributes of a gentry member than the other two. He was well known in the area as a scholar and calligrapher, and his services were in demand for writing presentation scrolls and for composing suitable inscriptions for temples, monasteries, and private houses. He was also a geomancer or expert on “fêng shui” and was often called in by local people when they wished to site a new grave. All these were gentlemanly occupations. Kung was also a teacher and taught for some years at Shek Pik like his father before him. Later on, he also taught in the school run by one of the district associations in Tai O Market. However, he did not forget the business side of his life, on which his superior position depended, and continued to act as a money-lender and land-broker. At the time of the lease of the New Territories, he owned or managed eight acres of land in the Shek Pik valley and was recorded as holding mortgages on 30 plots of farm land there. It was left to his nephew, who succeeded him in the property, to dissipate the estate which had been built up by Kung and his father. This man was known locally as a gambler but when I saw him in 1962, aged seventy-two, three weeks before his sudden death, I was impressed with his appearance and manner, and could well imagine that his uncle and great-uncle had been public figures in the area. Commentary What points of general interest can be made from what is known of the origins and careers of these three men? In the first place, it is interesting that two of them were Hakka at a time when Cantonese must have formed the great majority ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g A NOTICE OF THE SANON DISTRICT 129 In the superior grades of the military, the natives of this district did not show at all well during the first two centuries of this dynasty, for during this time they could boast of only two military Tsin-tze, and twenty-four military Keu-jins. Forty years ago a more military spirit seems to have arisen amongst them, and the examinations for military degrees have been better attended. At each military examination at Canton, the same number, ten, of military as of civil Seu-tsai, are chosen from the students of Sanon, and in the same proportion from the two races, viz., eight Puntis to two Hak-kas. At present there is in the district only one man holding the degree of "Mo-tsin-tze", Military Tsin-tze, and about twelve of the degree of "Mo-keu-jin". The first is an octogenarian, and lives in his native place, Kap-shui-hou. He has never held any office, and has been chiefly engaged in training pupils for the examination; he is a good-natured man, and is amicably disposed towards foreigners; one of his sons has the degree of Mo-keu-jin. The village of Sheang-tsun, between Namtow and Sai-heong, is particularly noted for producing military graduates. The highest military mandarin which Sanon can at present boast, is a Chau-toi, or Brigadier; he is a native of Kap-shui-hau, and serves against the rebels. Inferior ranks up to that of Colonel are held by some natives of the district, who have attained these distinctions by meritorious service, and not by examination. A native of San-keaou was stationed in one of the Bogue forts during the first war with the English; he distinguished himself much by his bravery, and was in consequence rapidly promoted to the rank of Colonel. Three years ago he fell at Canton in an engagement with the rebels. Through this officer many natives of San-keaou were induced to enter the service at Foo-mun, and some of them were promoted to inferior ranks. We proceed to notice some of the most important Places and Edifices of the district. It is to be remarked, that the district of Sanon, like the empire of China in general, cannot boast much of its architecture. Mention has already been made of the four walled cities, and of the small insignificant forts. The most important place in the district is the city of Sanon. It is built on a hill about eighty feet high, is of a quadrangular form, and contains about 8,000 inhabitants within its walls. The walls are ================================================================================ 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 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-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 33 Ibid., p. 113. MILITIA, MARKET AND LINEAGE 61 34 This event has a tangled academic history. The establishment of the association by the twenty-four villages was originally reported in the Chinese Repository (IV, 1836, p. 414), and is quoted by Wakeman (op. cit., p. 63) from that source. It is also quoted by Hsiao (op. cit., p. 309) as an example of inter-village co-operation for the purposes of defence and the maintenance of order. Skinner (op. cit., p. 39, n. 80), quoting from Hsiao, argues its significance for the analysis of standard marketing communities. 35 Wakeman, op. cit., p. 39. 36 Skinner, G. W. "Marketing and Social Structure in Rural China Part II". The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. XXIV, no. 2, February 1965, pp. 207f. 37 Only those aspects of the New Territories most relevant to the argument will be discussed. There is a growing literature about the area which, taken together, gives considerable detail. Freedman, op. cit., p. viii, provides a bibliographical note on published works. 38 The land frontier of the territory begins just north of the Sham Chun river and runs eastward from Deep Bay to the market of Sha Tau Kok. J. H. Stewart Lockhart, the then Colonial Secretary of Hong Kong, was deeply opposed to this boundary. "It cuts in two the rich valley of which Sham Chun is the centre, and, while excluding that town, divides the villages in the valley hitherto linked together by family ties and common interests; all these villages regard Sham Chun as their central and most important market, where they dispose their goods and make their purchases" Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, Extracts from Papers Relating to the Extension of the Colony of Hong Kong, 1899, Hong Kong, 1900, p. 196. 39 Ibid., p. 187. Stewart Lockhart's population estimates cannot be regarded as very accurate. By 1900 he thought the number of villages to be 597. Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, 1900, Hong Kong, 1901, p. 252. The Hong Kong census of 1911 gave the total population of the territory as 104,101. In the Northern District alone, 398 villages were enumerated. Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, 1911, Hong Kong, 1912, pp. 103ff. On the other hand, as guesses go, Stewart Lockhart's count is by no means disreputable. His estimate of 100,000 is not all that far from the 1911 census figure cited above. Other examples could be given which suggest that his estimates are sufficiently accurate to indicate general magnitudes of population, if not precise numbers. 40 Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, Extracts..., op. cit., p. 188. 41 This discussion will be confined to that part of the territory which used to be known as the 'Northern District' and will not consider the markets at Sai Kung, Tsuen Wan, Sham Shui Po, and Cheung Chau island. For brief accounts of these, see Hayes, J. W., "The Pattern of Life in the New Territories in 1898"; "Cheung Chau 1850-1898: Information from Commemorative Tablets", Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 11, 1962, vol. III, 1963. 42 Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, 1911, op. cit., pp. 103f.; Correspondence (December 15, 1903, to February 27, 1907) Relating to the Proposed Canton-Kowloon Railway, Eastern No. 88, Colonial Office, London, 1907, pp. 85ff. 43 For example, the marketing schedule of the two Tai Po markets was 3-6-9. That is to say, the markets met on the 3rd, 6th, 9th, 13th, 16th, 19th, 23rd, 26th and 29th days of each lunar month. The same principle applies to the schedules of each of the other markets. Normally, in specifying a schedule, only the first three days are given. ================================================================================ 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 63 61 Ibid., p. 154. 62 Ibid., p. 159. 63 Liu Wan-kuk, of Sheung Shui, later described the inaugural meeting and its consequences in the following terms. "On the 1st of the 3rd moon (10th April), the Un Long Division made a great show of force, and stated in a most peremptory manner that if we refused to join in the resistance of the British, thousands of men from the Un Long Division with arms would proceed to level to the ground the villages belonging to the Liu, Tang and Pang families. The Sheung U Division was therefore compelled on the 3rd day (12th April) to request the Hau, Liu, Pang, Tang, Man clans to meet in the temple dedicated to a former Governor of Kwang Tung province. There it was decided to raise a small public subscription.... It was also decided that the various villages in our Division should have their trainbands (or militia) in readiness so that we should not be....powerless to check disorder. Our Division was the victim of circumstances.... Our trainband (or militia) was intended solely for the protection of the old and young in our Division." Translation of a statement made to the Colonial Secretary of Hong Kong, 26th April 1899, Papers. Despatches..., op. cit., p. 74. Here and subsequently, the spelling of place names and parenthetical remarks are those of the original translator. Remarks in brackets are my own. 64 Correspondence ..., op. cit., p. 226. Jingals are "long tapering guns, six to fourteen feet in length, borne on the shoulders of two men and fired by a third. They have a stand, or tripod, reminding one of a telescope being less liable to burst than cannon, they form the most effective gun the Chinese possess." J. Dyer Ball, Things Chinese, London, 1904 edition, p. 44. Page 13 Correspondence 65 Stewart Lockhart described the flag as follows: "the flag has a red border and a white centre, on which are seven Chinese characters meaning: Train band sanctioned by the Government: -Tai Kai (village), surname Man.' The village referred to.... is also known by the name of Tai Hang , op. cit., p. 180. The militia were so martial in appearance and conduct that the British at first thought they were regulars. The Viceroy commented: "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." Ibid., p. 304. 66 Ibid., pp. 188ff. These and similar letters were found in the T'ai Ping Kung Kuk at Yuen Long. A proclamation issued by the Council of the Yuen Long Division was also discovered. It supports Liu Wan-kuk's claim that coercion was a feature of the resistance movement: "The English barbarians are about to enter our territory, and ruin will come upon our villages and hamlets, All we villagers must enthusiastically come forward to offer armed resistance and act in unison. When the drum sounds to the fight, we must all respond to the call for assistance. Should anyone hesitate to take part or hinder or obstruct our military plans he will most certainly be severely punished, and no leniency will be shown. This is issued as a forewarning." Ibid. 67 Ibid., p. 171. 68 Papers 69 Ibid. Despatches , op. cit., p. 66. op. cit., p. 166. 70 Correspondence ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 64 71 Papers.... Despatches R. G. GROVES + * op. cit., p. 68. 72 Correspondence..., op. cit., p. 167. 73 Ibid., p. 297. Skinner postulates models of intermediate marketing systems in which each intermediate market is ringed by six standard markets. Skinner, op. cit., Part I, pp. 23f. 74 Correspondence 75 Ibid., p. 296. 76 Ibid., p. 380. + I P 1 op. cit., p. 295. 77 Wakeman, op. cit., p. 39. 78 See, for example: Spector, Stanley, Li Hung-Chang and the Huai Army, Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1964, Folsom, Kenneth E., Friends, Guests, and Colleagues; the Mu-Fu System in the Late Ch'ing Period, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1968. Since writing this article, and further to note 37, Dr. Hugh D. R. Baker's study, Sheung Shui: A Chinese Lineage Village has now been published (London, Frank Cass & Co, Ltd., 1968). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 116 H. G. H. NELSON The Building of Village Houses... New Territories village houses, as we see them today, are the descendants of structures that have been on the same sites since long before the British came and mapped them. No anthropologist, so far as I know, has been able to watch the building of a Chinese village: we have no firsthand information as to what forms of cooperation lie behind the construction of these regular terraces. Single "houses" are however constantly being built and rebuilt, and informants are very clear in their association of building or rebuilding with the renewal of the family in each generation as its sons marry. Fathers are under the clear obligation to provide each of their sons with a house when he marries, and parents generally vacate and restore their own house, and move into a less elegant structure, to make way for their son. There is therefore a necessity, each time a man produces more sons than he has houses, to build new houses to accommodate them all — unless adequate means can be found of redistributing sons among the already existing stock of houses. Possible means include the purchase or renting of houses, and the adoption of sons; but none of these in fact provides an effective solution to the problem of balancing sons and houses in each generation in the community as a whole. Overproduction of sons automatically leads to overproduction of houses. It is hardly necessary to add that there is no strong incentive for a man who has more houses than he needs to transfer one to another, less fortunate, family: he will always be hoping to produce enough sons and grandsons to fill the houses he has. Their redistribution... a) Sale Informants in Sheung Shui agreed that it is very shameful to sell a house: much more so than to sell land. I learned of a few sales, but had the impression that they are extremely rare. Examination of the Land Records has revealed a much larger number than I had expected to find. However, an investigation of the general economic situation of each seller and buyer, as far as it is revealed by the state of their landholdings and their registered mortgages, reveals that as a general rule people sold houses in the course of, or more usually at the very end of, a protracted economic decline; whereas the buyers of houses often ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d BOOK REVIEWS BOOK REVIEW SHEUNG SHUI: A REVIEW ARTICLE. 165 PROBLEMS RELATING TO SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE NEW TERRITORIES OF HONG KONG. MORRIS I. BERKOWITZ* The rural resident of the New Territories is a resourceful and competent person. He wrings from a largely inhospitable terrain both a way of life and a livelihood, frequently in the face of extremely destructive natural forces. Now, however, the tremendous growth of Hong Kong and the development of his countryside for cities and industrial sites, threatens both his way of life and his livelihood. An unprecedentedly large flow of social scientists have of late descended upon these rural residents to document their way of life, hopefully before it is fundamentally changed. Among the earlier arrivals in this group is H. D. R. Baker who has done an unusual and profitable study of the village of Sheung Shui.1 Dr. Baker has attempted an extremely useful task: he has tried to do a major structural study of this village in an effort to carefully understand the differences between village, community, and lineage and to identify the functions of each of these entities in relation to each of the others. In order to do this, Mr. Baker begins with a detailed introduction to the history of the lineage which serves as a background for the three central chapters of his book which are concerned with the lineage as a ritual and kinship group, the lineage as a community, and segmentation within the lineage. This core is followed by briefer discussions of the leadership of the lineage, the interaction between members and those people who live within the lineage village but are not members of it. He concludes his discussions with considerations of how the lineage relates to outsiders, including other lineages, and some brief comments on the processes of change which are affecting the traditional form of lineage organization. * Dr. Berkowitz is currently Senior Lecturer and chairman of the department of Sociology and Social Work at Chung Chi College, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, on secondment from the University of Pittsburgh, where he is an Associate Professor. 1 Hugh D. R. Baker, A Chinese Lineage Village: Sheung Shui. London: Frank Cass, 1968, pp. xiv, 237, 50/-. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d BOOK REVIEWS 167 these statements of how the study was done, one is always faced with the possibility of laying open to question important segments of the findings because one cannot evaluate the sources of the data. I write this in the belief that this requirement should be common to all social scientists. 8 For example, Baker discusses the problem of worshipping at graves, when the graves are located in the territory of another lineage. First he notes that "the old men of Sheung Shui denied that their procession (to the grave) had ever been interfered with" which is a clear enough statement, apparently made by more than one respondent. Baker then proceeds to contradict his respondents and contends that indeed there had been interference. Minimally, the methodological point must be clear --- in any study of this kind one must have "rules of evidence"; rules by which respondents' views are accepted or rejected. If, in fact, Baker had earlier stipulated that some minimum number of people agreeing to a piece of testimony makes it accepted and less than that number makes it doubtful, then this problem could not arise. But one cannot have it both ways. An author cannot accept interviews as authoritative at one point and literature at another point without first setting up guide-lines for himself and the reader so that what he is doing can be assessed and evaluated. Complex studies, such as this one, frequently require sophisticated methodological solutions. Similarly Baker has not chosen to make his theoretical orientation clear and to analyze that orientation in the light of the data which he has gathered. There can be no real question that his orientation is structural-functional and this writer feels that implicit in Baker's work is the possibility of a major creative contribution to the literature of functionalism, particularly its structural aspect. Perhaps it clearly is asking too much to include this in an empirical monograph, but Baker most assuredly must have materials with which to make important comments on the analytic use of functionalism in field research, Baker's work will hopefully introduce a new sequence of competent and problem-oriented studies. In analyzing the lineage, Baker has provided highly significant data on the formal organization of a wealthy and powerful village. In essence, he has 8 Ibid., p. 191-2. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g 222 BOOK REVIEWS affirmations, are the opposite of jural rules. Jural rules rely for their value on their relative clarity; rites derive their strength from their poetic vagueness. Indeed, when the jural rules are themselves lacking in clear definition and are internally contradictory, then the rites exploit them by exaggerating their ambiguities and discrepancies. It seems to me that the Chinese rites of marriage above all stress the ambiguity of affinal relationships'. Professor Wolf in an essay on Chinese kinship and mourning dress shows how his informants in the Taiwan town of Sanhsia, an old riverport near Taipei, gave conflicting versions of the mourning attire to be worn by daughters. As he writes, 'where disagreements occur, they reflect conflict in the kinship system. . . . Disagreements between people are inevitable because there is ambiguity in the kinship system. The only way to avoid variation in mourning dress without imposing an arbitrary code would be to resolve the conflicts that it reflects'. The conflicts discussed by both Professors Freedman and Wolf take us further away from an idealised and literary version of Chinese society: they supply data and arguments that allow us to see the Chinese family and kinship group as it really is. Contradictions are the heart of the matter. The other essays in this volume deal with a variety of interrelated problems. Mrs. Irene Taeuber, a demographer, takes another look at the data collected on farm families by J.L. Buck in 1929-31 and shows that there is some adaptation of family size (and family structure) to primary economic resources. Mrs. Ai-Li S. Chin analyses samples of short stories from the Mainland and Taiwan and concludes that, whereas in tradition-oriented Taiwan the writers concentrate on portraying the problems of the alienated and isolated individual, the Mainland writers seem to accept (in the period under review, 1962 to mid-1966) the family itself, if it is ideologically sound, as a source of happiness for the individual. Professor Johanna Meskill discusses the Chinese genealogy as a research source, describes different types of genealogy, and demonstrates its uses and limitations.* Professor John McCoy writes of Chinese kin terms of reference and address. This is a highly technical but interesting paper. Finally, in a terminal paper Professor * Hugh D. R. Baker has used genealogies with effect in his A Chinese Lineage Village: Sheung Shui (London, Frank Cass, 1968). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h SIR JAMES HALDANE STEWART LOCKHART 63 On 16 April Lockhart returned to Taipo and in the presence of the General Officer Commanding, Major-General W. J. Gascoigne, and about 500 men, he hoisted the British flag and then read the Order-in-Council and Convention. The territory was now formally occupied. There had been some resistance from the people and from those living in the Sham Chun area. Lockhart had been asked to return to Hong Kong to attend a meeting of the Legislative Council but in a minute to the Governor he stated: 'I have consulted the General Officer Commanding, who thinks it very desirable for many reasons that I should remain here. I am of the same opinion, so propose to remain.'22 Since the situation was still unsettled, the Governor concurred with Lockhart's proposal and Lockhart stayed behind with the troops, accompanying them on a long sweep through the New Territories to make the British presence known. Lockhart and the troops led by Lieutenant-Colonel The O'Gorman pushed on from Taipo on 18 April to Shek Kong; from that village they passed through Kam Tin, Yuen Long, Ping Shan, Sheung Shui, Fanling, and arrived back in Taipo on 27 April. The O'Gorman reported: "To the Honourable J.H. Stewart Lockhart, C.M.G., Colonial Secretary, is due the admirable results that have been attained in the Civil Administration of this Territory during this brief state of turmoil; his measures have been taken with great energy and ability and in a manner that, long experience has shown him, were suitable to the occasion. The result has been a most complete success. Only those on the spot can realise the amount of labour and care he has devoted from early morning to late at night to the discharge of these trying duties. A most hearty co-operation has existed throughout between us and no difference of opinion on any one point has arisen.'23 The Secretary of State, Joseph Chamberlain, in a despatch to the Governor, commented: 'without wishing to undervalue in any way the services rendered by others, it is evident to me that much has been due to the energy of Mr. Lockhart, and to his local knowledge."24 Lockhart remained in the New Territories until July 1899 in order to start the civil administration. The headquarters of the new administration were fixed at Taipo. He was assisted in his task by C.M. Messer, a cadet officer, Ts'oi Yeuk-shan, First Chinese Clerk, and two Chinese assistants. The problems he had to face were at first formidable. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r LEGENDS & STORIES OF THE NEW TERRITORIES: KAM TIN 121 is called Lo Foo Ts'z T'ong (老虎祠堂), Tiger Hall. The floor of the cave is quite smooth with a lot of small stones almost like a mosaic. Though the actual site of the school is not known, old tiles have been found from time to time on the hillside, and one of these can be seen in a house called Cheung Ch'un Yuen (祥泉園) of Shui Tau (水頭) village. In the same house is a flower vase of interest that was dug up on Hong Kong island about 30 years before the British settled there. As mentioned before, four of the "five Yuens" eventually left Kam Tin and founded branches of the Tang family elsewhere, and it has even been said that Yuen Leung, the ancestor of the Kam Tin branch, moved to Mok Ka Tung (莫家洞) near Shek Lung, but this removal is generally attributed to Yuen Leung's daughter-in-law, a princess of Sung dynasty whose story reads almost like a romance. She was a daughter of the Emperor Ko Tsung (高宗) of Sung Dynasty, who before becoming emperor of China was Prince Hong Wong (康王). The Tartars at that time were attacking the North of China, and in the 2nd year of Tsing Hong (靖康) A.D. 1127 they entered the Sung capital, captured the two emperors Fai Tsung (徽宗) and Yam Tsung (欽宗) together with both the mother and wife of Hong Wong, who was himself away in another part of the kingdom fighting the Tartars as he held the appointment of Tin Ha Ping Ma Tai Yuen Sui (天下兵馬大元帥), the commander-in-chief of all the emperor's forces. Hong Wong's little daughter was only ten years old and she was protected by her women servants who fled with her to the South. In the 3rd year of Kin Yim (建炎) A.D. 1129 they arrived in the Kiangsi province where Yuen Leung was district officer of Kung Yuen (贛縣) district. He was very zealous to help the Emperor and had collected together an army of soldiers, with the intention of marching North. Kiangsi was full of the Tartar forces, and the princess found herself surrounded by enemies. One day she saw the Sung flag over the encampment of Yuen Leung's army and she went to him for protection. She stayed with Yuen Leung, moving about with his soldiers, and eventually when he returned to Kam Tin he brought her back with him. He did not know who she was, as the servants had told him only that she was the daughter of a high official in the North. The princess found happiness and security in Kam Tin. She was like a daughter in Yuen Leung's house, helped with the household duties and was quite content. Eventually she revealed ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 The Manchu dynasty was at its strongest and most prosperous from the middle years of the K'ang Hsi reign on until late in the Ch'ien Lung period. This enabled the country to recover and consolidate after the disasters of the late Ming and the troubled period of transition to the Ch'ing; but it is necessary to remember that throughout these years Hsin-an remained a border region receiving new settlers. In the present New Territories this period saw many newcomers settle in old villages or found new ones. Besides the rehabilitation of old fields, there was apparently much new land to be opened for the taking. When the first ancestor of the So clan of So Uk, Kowloon, arrived in 1739 he called his new home Mau Tin Tsuen or Village of the Rough Grass Fields; and his descendants long used this name before 'So Uk' came into common usage.1 Life for all these persons was hard, and although the empire was in good hands, it seems likely that inhabitants of these coastal areas of the southeast were often subject to attack from marauders. The Ho family of San Tsuen, Pui O, Lantau say that a founding ancestor was killed by pirates; by calculation from the clan record,2 about the year 1710. This obliged villagers to site their settlements with care. In this period of resettlement and consolidation several of the Lantau villages, though getting a living from the sea, were by design located at some distance from it. It is only in more recent times, say the present elders, that they moved to lower sites nearer the shore.3 From time to time, pirates became a particular menace, and it was not possible for the authorities to ignore their activities. A period of especial distress began for the people of Hsin-an, Tung-kuan and other coastal counties in the later years of the Ch'ien Lung reign. The genealogy of the Cheung clan of Pui O records: In the 53rd and 54th year of Ch’ien Lung, a Tung Kuan man, Tam Ah-che became a sea robber. He robbed and killed, burned houses, in great measure, took away the men as slaves and women also. The local officials and soldiers would not dare to face these robbers.4 The Cheungs and other villagers later took steps in their own defence. The village council held a meeting and decided to turn 1 Hayes, 1970, p. 158. 2 Ho-shi Ts'u-pu; in manuscript. 3 Removals on feng-shui grounds are excluded from this statement. 4 Chang-shi Ts'u-pu; in manuscript. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 132 JAMES HAYES BIBLIOGRAPHY In English Alabaster, Chaloner Grenville, The Laws of Hong Kong, 3 vols., Hong Kong, Noronha and Co., Government Printers, 1913. Arlington, L. C., Through the Dragon's Eyes, Fifty Years' Experiences of a Foreigner in the Chinese Government Service, London, Constable, 1931. Baker, H. D. R., 'The Five Great Clans of the New Territories', in JHKBRAS, 5, 1965: 25-47. A Chinese Lineage Village, Sheung Shui, London, Frank Cass, 1968. Balfour, S. F., 'Hong Kong before the British being a local history before the British occupation', Shanghai, T'ien Hsia Monthly, Vols. 11-12, 1940-41; 330-352, 440-464. Reprinted in JHKBRAS, 10, 1970: 134-179. Barnett, K. M. A., 'The Peoples of the New Territories' in J. M. Braga (compiler), Hong Kong Business Symposium, Hong Kong, South China Morning Post, Ltd., 1957, pp. 261-265. 'Hong Kong before the Chinese', 'Technical Revolution in 900 AD' and 'The Riddle of the Hakka', Hong Kong, South China Morning Post, 24-26th April, 1967. Collingwood, Cuthbert, Rambles of a Naturalist on the Shores and Waters of the China Sea, London, John Murray, 1868. Cooper, J. T., 'The Mapping of Hong Kong' in JHKBRAS 9, 1969: 131-140. Des Voeux, Sir G. William, My Colonial Service in British Guiana, St. Lucia, Trinidad, Fiji, Australia, Newfoundland and Hong Kong, London, John Murray, 1903, 2 vols. Eitel, E. J., (revised and enlarged by Immanuel Gottlieb Genähr), A Dictionary of the Chinese Language, 2 vols., Hong Kong, Kelly and Walsh, 1910-1911. Fox, Grace, British Admirals and Chinese Pirates 1832-1869, London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1940. Franke, Wolfgang, An Introduction to the Sources of Ming History, Kuala Lumpur, University of Malaysia Press, Singapore 1968. Fu, Lo-shu (Compiler), A Documentary Chronicle of Sino-Western Relations (1644-1820), 2 vols., Tucson, University of Arizona Press, 1966. Giles, H. A., A Chinese English Dictionary, Second Edition, revised and Enlarged. Shanghai, Hong Kong, etc., Kelly and Walsh, 1912. Groves, R. G., 'Militia, Market and Lineage: Chinese Resistance to the Occupation of Hong Kong's New Territories in 1899', JHKBRAS, 9, 1969: 31-64. Hay, Sir John C. Dalrymple, The Suppression of Piracy in the China Sea, 1849, London, Edward Stanford, 1889. Hayes, J. W., 'Cheung Chau 1850-1898: Information from Commemorative Tablets', JHKBRAS 3, 1963: 88-99. 'The San On Map of Mgr. Volontieri' in JHKBRAS 10, 1970: 193-196. ================================================================================ 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 161 Another ancestral hall, built by the Tang family was less fortunate. The story goes that in the 1st year of Ka Hing (✯✯) A.D. 1796 of Ts'ing dynasty, the sons of Tang Yue Cheung (**) decided to build an ancestral hall worthy to house the tablet of their illustrious ancestress, the princess. So they built a house of “kak muk” (**) in T’aai Họng (✯✯✯) village, and in shape the house was like a king's palace. At that time the district magistrate of Sun On was a man nicknamed “Hungry Bug" on account of his habit of collecting "squeeze" wherever he could. When he heard of the new building being erected in Kam T'in, and how magnificent it was, he scented a chance to make money. So he sent a message to the Tangs to say he would like to inspect their new acquisition. The Tangs were much dismayed; being familiar with the character of their district officer they knew quite well the object of his visit, they did not want to pull down the house yet its very existence was an indication of their wealth and prosperity. In the village of Lung Kwat T'au (#) where the villagers are Tangs too, being descendants of the first son of the princess, there was a portrait of the princess and the Tangs of Kam T'in borrowed it and hung it up in the entrance of the hall. When the district officer saw it he was filled with awe, and hastily made obeisance to it. He was so impressed that he dared not demand money from the descendants of so distinguished a lady, and after making a show of being pleased he stayed one night, and then took his departure. Eventually the picture had to be returned to its rightful owners, and the Kam T’in men fearing further trouble, pulled the hall down, but the foundation stones, overgrown with weeds and grass can still be seen. The legends of Kam T'in are curiously mixed up with tales of buried treasure. One story tells how at the end of the Ming dynasty the Tangs wished to build an ancestral hall for the tablet of their eleventh ancestor, Tang Kwong Yue ( ). Tang Ping Yee (*) (a grandson of Tang Kwong Yue) and eight of Tang Ping Yee's cousins chose what was, according to one "Fung shui" man, a very lucky day to put up the central beam of the house, but a few days later they found that the beam was putting forth shoots. The people considered this to be a bad omen, so they consulted a more reliable fortune-teller, who declared that the day had been a lucky day, but for building boats, not houses! The people at once pulled down the beam, the time happened to be the season of the dragon boat festival, and the villages decided to make the discarded ================================================================================ 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 181 It is an ancient custom in China when a man passes a Government degree examination or is appointed as a Government official, for him to have his new official title carved on a wooden tablet and hung in the Hall of his ancestors. By this means the good news is reported to the ancestors that their descendant has become a man of rank, and at the same time an example is set to future generations to encourage them to do their best to rise to the same honour, as the tablet is left hanging in the hall permanently. There are many of these title-tablets hung in Sz Shing Tong, put there not only by Kam T'in men, but by other descendants of the Tang family who have sent their tablets from places far away, where they have gone to live. The oldest among them is the "Man Fui” or Kui Yan degree put there by Tang Ting Ching who passed it in the 7th year of Shing Fa, A.D. 1471. The most highly honoured title-tablets are the two from Tang Yung Keng from Tung Kwun district. He passed his Kui Yan degree in the 3rd year of Tung Chi, A.D. 1864 and became "Hon Lam Yuen Shue Kat Sz" (H.K.N. VIII, p. 110) in the 10th year of T’ung Chi, A.D. 1871. He held the office of On Ch'aat Sz (Provincial Judge) of Kiangsu province, and in 1900 during the Boxer trouble he was appointed by Lei Hung Cheung, the Prime Minister and then Viceroy of Kwangtung and Kwangsi provinces, to be the Superintendent of volunteers in Kwangtung. Tang Ts'ing Lok's eldest son, Tang Wan Kuk was a very rich man, and he owned a lot of cultivated land in San On District. During his time there were twenty-eight Sau Ts'oi (B.A.'s) and nine very rich men all members of his family and living in the same street where his house was situated in Shui Mei village. His house was called Kam Ts'un Tong "ornamental stream hall"; it has long since been destroyed and a vegetable garden is on the site of where it once existed, but the remains of a large stone gateway can still be seen (plate 20). Tang Wan Kuk owned a large library in this house, and a fine stone fish-tank, made of pink coloured stone, 2 Chinese feet high, 14 wide and 24 long. (Plate 19). Two scholars of the Tang Family have written inscriptions about this tank, speaking very highly of it, but it now lies in a destroyed school building in Shui T’au village, and no-one cares about it. The dates of Tang Wan Kuk's birth and death are not recorded, but we know that his grave, which is in Noh Mai Ham about seven li from Kam T'in was made before the 8th year of Ching ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 182 SUNG HOK-PANG Tak (£), A.D. 1513, of Ming dynasty, because there is evidence that after that year the direction of the grave was altered. The grave was repaired in the 12th year of Kin Lung, A.D. 1744, of Ts'ing dynasty, and the inscription on the tablet was composed by Tang Yue Cheung (§§#), a noted Kam T'in scholar. Tang Wan Kuk is supposed to have owned the whole of Hong Kong island, and his great, great grandsons Tang Shing Ngok (# *) and Tang Yuen Fan (1) both very rich men during the Maan Lik period (A.D. 1573-1620) of Ming dynasty, appeared to have shared the island between them, three-quarters belonging to the former, and the rest to the latter. There seems to have been some rivalry between these two gentlemen, and a story often repeated by Kam T'in villagers to-day, tells how when Tang Shing Ngok built a big hall in Shui T'au village, Tang Yuen Fan's youngsters were filled with admiration. Tang Yuen Fan exclaimed, "Don't waste your time admiring it, but let us do the same thing." So he started building a hall equally big and grand, and at the present time Tang Shing Ngok's hall is no longer to be seen, but the old ruins of Tang Yuen Fan's still remain. Tang Shing Ngok's grave was in Sheung To (E✯), now Hung Heung Lo temple (#), Wong Nai Ch'ung (✯✯✯). It was repaired in the 16th year of Kin Lung, A.D. 1751 and the name of the grave was Maau Yee Sai Min (#✯6) "the cat washes its face." The people of early times called it Tsau Ma Hoi Kung (ŁSH) "to draw the bow to shoot at a galloping horse." T'o Shi (A), the wife of Tang Shing Ngok, was buried in Kai Lung Wan (#), her grave being repaired in the 14th year of Kin Lung, A.D. 1749. Both the inscriptions of these graves are still visible. During the Ming dynasty Hong Kong island was known as Ch'ek Ch'ue Shaan (1) "red pillar hill,” (Stanley is still called Chek Ch'ue), and it was under that name that the island was referred to in the records of the lands owned by the Tangs. Even in the map contained in the San On Record book, published as late as the 24th year of Ka Hing A.D. 1819, of Ts'ing dynasty, the island is called Chek Chue Shaan. The land owned by the Tangs amounted to several tens of “King” (4) (one "king" equalled one hundred Chinese acres) and was mentioned under different localities, the names of which are familiar to us now, such as Taai T'aam (✯✯), Wong Nai Ch'ung (✯✯), K'wan Taai Lo (***) “skirt string ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 232 Sam Tung Uk NOTES AND QUERIES The Sam Tung Uk (village), is a small, square-walled lineage village dating back to the 18th century. It was settled by the Chan (陳) family. Before the Ch'ien Lung period of the Ch'ing Dynasty (清朝), the Chan clan lived in Ning Fa District, Ting Chow prefecture in Fukien Province (福建省). One of the branches then moved to Lo Fong, of Po On District* in Kwangtung Province (廣東省). Later Chan Yam Shing (the 13th generation) came to Tsuen Wan (old name Chin Wan meaning shallow bay) with four sons. Guided by his uncle (ancestor of Kwan Mun Hau Village, Tsuen Wan), they took up farming. They worked very hard, put up sea walls, reclaiming much land, and were content. Straw huts were built firstly at Lo Uk Cheung (羅屋丈) (where Block 2 of Tai Wo Hau Estate, Tsuen Wan, is now located) in the 22nd year of Ch'ien Lung, (1757). The elder son, Kin Sheung (堅常) was a herbalist doctor, renowned in fung shui and possessed a wealthy home. The other sons, Ying Sheung (應常), Wai Sheung (維常) and Cheuk Sheung (卓常) were farmers, living moderately. Kin Sheung, after settling down, searched around Tsuen Wan hoping to find a suitable site to establish a village. He found that a piece of land situated on the right side of Ngau Kwu Tun (牛牯墩) (present site of Tsuen Wan Government Secondary Technical School) would be the best, but it belonged to the Sun clan of San Tsuen at that time.† His brothers were told to contact the Sun family, hoping for a possibility to purchase it. One day a member of Sun clan turned up being, at that time, urgently in need of money. He offered to sell the much-desired land but no decision could be made as Kin Sheung was not at home. Mr Sun then said that he would go to Shing Mun to consult with other rich men who were likely purchasers. The brothers debated what should be done but in their elder brother's absence were unable to make any decision. When their elder brother returned home and heard of the Sun Clan's proposal, he was delighted and rushed to Wo Yee Hop (old name Woo Lee Hop meaning Fox's Valley), and the bargain was made. * Strictly speaking, San On (新安) at that time. †新村孫旗 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 234 NOTES AND QUERIES houses were built later at the back when they had more descendants. That is the entire village even to this day. There are 42 dwelling houses within the village, divided by 5 lanes and ten gates; measuring 162'-3" in width and 125'9” in depth. The idea of this layout would seem to have been to protect themselves from pirates, when the whole family stayed inside. The Chi Tong is located in the centre with three roofs and two light wells (#). There is a village school 150 feet from the southern corner for primary education of their children, and a Tin Hau Temple within 500 feet to the northeast for worship. Land Registration took place in 1906 in Tsuen Wan after the Lease of the New Territories. The village was recorded from Lot No. 1528 to 1559 (Lot No. 1546 excluded) in Demarcation District No. 449 in the Block Crown Lease, totalling 0.43 acre of house land and 0.03 acre of waste land, all belonging to the Chan family. It is a pity that 0.135 acre of house land were sold to outsiders since 1937 otherwise the village would still remain solely in the hands of the descendants of the founder. Chan Kin Sheung, the founder of Sam Tung Uk, was awarded a portrait by Chien Lung of Ch'ing Dynasty, worded "Heung Yam Tai Bun” (means Honourable Guest in Village Parties). To everyone's sorrow and great loss it disappeared during the Japanese Occupation of Hong Kong. There have been very many big changes in the area surround-ing the village since re-development of Tsuen Wan. Fung shui trees at the back were felled, village type houses were built around, roads were constructed in front, multi-storeyed buildings were erected with obstruction of the front view. Ngau Kwu Tun, the small hill by the left, was removed to make way for a school building, and the hill at the back was partly cut off for construction of the Rapid Gravity Filter. Even the grave of the village founder was affected as it was in the same line and over-looking the village. The name in fung shui was called "Lion over-looking the village platform" (獅子瑩樓台) It is to be hoped that the Walled Village can be retained as a historical relic in Tsuen Wan, even if the whole area is to be re-developed. God has blessed it for over two centuries and it is hoped will continue to do so. Text and visits are organized and prepared by Mak Kai Yim, A. H. Mackreth, Brian Liu and Helga Werle. Page 240 Page 241 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 165 Originally, many Sai Kung villagers owned their land only indirectly. In a system of multiple ownership, the Lius of Sheung Shui and the Tangs of Lung Yeuk Tau, as registered land-owners, collected rent in many places in Sai Kung. Sai Kung villagers who paid rent to them nonetheless held their right to the land in perpetuity, and the registered land-owners merely paid the tax and kept the balance from the rent. When the land was registered by the Hong Kong Government, the Lius and the Tangs lost their tax collection rights, and the Crown Rent that was collected by the Hong Kong Government was usually smaller than the former rent that had been paid. For many villagers, then, this must have meant an increase in income.12 Elderly villagers in Sai Kung still remember the "taxlords". Eighty-seven year old Mr. Wong of Tam Wat had heard of the "great red hats", and Mr. Lam Kaap Shau of Tai Long of the "Koreans" who came here to collect the tax. Mr. Cheung Kau of Ping Tun had heard of the Sheung Shui people collecting rent here, and elderly Mr. Cheung of Tai Po Tsai (near Tai Mong Tsai) of the Lius and the Tangs doing so. Mr. Cheng Yung of Uk Tau called them the "Heung Shui Lo", and knew that they collected rent in his village in his grandfather's days, while Mr. Yau T'aam Shang of Wong Keng Tei actually saw his father among a group of villagers who drove out the rent-collectors from Sheung Shui after the villagers started to pay Crown Rent directly to the Hong Kong Government.13 Yet another influence that affected some villages, although it left no impact on Sai Kung District as a whole (except in the field of education), was the introduction of Christianity. As early as 1861, a Roman Catholic priest had reached Wun Yiu in Tai Po. In 1873, the records of the Roman Catholic Church noted that a priest from Sai Kung visited the San On magistrate. In the 1870's, Sai Kung was noted as one of three centres of the Church in the New Territories, the Sai Kung church being responsible not only for the eastern New Territories but also for Wai Chau and Hoi Fung. By 1934-35, Roman Catholic communities were established in Sai Kung Market, Yim Tin Tsai, Wong Mo Ying, Pak Tam Chung, Long Ke, Leung Shuen Wan, and Kei Ling Ha. There were also converts in the 1930's ================================================================================ 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 205 greatly in importance in recent times, but it is now, as far as I can see, a large-scale charitable organisation of business men which, while it rests in theory on the representation of villages falling within the area once covered by the old yeuk-complexes, is in fact essentially both city-based and city-run. (At the present eighteen villages appear to be represented in the Lok Sin Tong: one in Sha Tin, one in Tsuen Wan, and eight each in Sai Kung and New Kowloon. But I am not sure that the representatives are members of the villages they represent). 25. Yeuk existed also in the Sha Tau Kok area (note the Nam Yeuk mentioned in the early British records) and in the area of Ho Sheung Heung (Hau Yeuk). It will be seen, therefore, that at the time of the advent of British rule many central, southern, and eastern areas of the mainland part of the New Territories were covered by a network of yeuk which, while certainly not including every village, nevertheless generally affected the political organisation of these areas. The striking omission is the west, that is to say, roughly the modern Yuen Long District. As far as I have been able to discover (my enquiries in this area were cut short by my premature departure from the Colony), the term yeuk has no traditional meaning here. (I stress 'traditional'. The British used the word for their own purposes; demarcation districts for land and the broader administrative districts were called yeuk after the new regime was established; and, as a result, by hearing the word used today one may be misled into thinking that it has a longer local history than it in fact has). Similarly, I know of no evidence that there were yeuk in the islands. Groupings of villages there certainly were in the Yuen Long area, under the names of heung (although I am not sure how old this usage is) kung shoh, just as these groupings sometimes appear in the areas where yeuk also existed; but the absence of yeuk seems to call for comment. 26. If we look again at the evidence on yeuk-complexes, we may perhaps conclude that they were formed to protect the interests of the weak against the strong. The powerful Liu of Sheung Shui were never members of a yeuk. Indeed, on their own they were the enemies of the Luk Yeuk of Ta Kwu Ling. Similarly, the Tang of Lung Yeuk Tau (in which name, incidentally, the character for Yeuk is not the one we are concerned with here) and Tai Po Tau stood aloof from yeuk. It is probably significant that the Man of Tai Hang formed a yeuk on their own when they assumed leader- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 206 MAURICE FREEDMAN ship of the struggle over the market; for up to that point they were perhaps strong enough to be independent, becoming a yeuk (and so assimilating themselves to an older pattern) in response to the needs of the new situation. (I may add that the Man of Tai Hang, the Liu of Sheung Shui, and the Tang of Lung Yeuk Tau were three particularly prominent clans in the area, and that their interrelations probably fluctuated as their respective fortunes waxed and waned. When the Man and their allies ruined the old market a Liu of Sheung Shui wrote a poem congratulating the Man leader; the poet was clearly pleased to see Tang 'arrogance' humbled). The villages in the Luk Yeuk of Sai Kung were subject to Tang landlords or taxlords (which they were it would not be possible to decide without a long debate on the relation between rent and the taxes exacted, officially or otherwise, by strong clans), and they may have used their contacts with the Kowloon organisation to protect themselves. In a part of the Empire where the state could certainly not be relied upon to redress wrongs and protect property and lives, the weaker communities were forced to seek among themselves (and sometimes, as the case of the Ts'at Yeuk illustrates, with the aid of a stronger one) protection against oppression by local powers. In many parts of what were to become the New Territories the Tang were regarded as being unduly dominant, their riches, scholarship, and connexions with officialdom being the bases of their strength; and smaller communities banded together against them. But on their home ground in the Yuen Long area Tang dominance was so complete that yeuk could not emerge. That, at least, is one possible conclusion. 27. It is time now to examine the word yeuk more closely. It can be taken to mean a pact or agreement, and several of my informants interpreted yeuk and yeuk-complexes as contracts or joint enterprises freely entered into. (It is like a business partnership, one man told me, in which people take shares). But in fact it is possible to argue that what we have been examining at the end of the Ch'ing dynasty may not have been some spontaneous and popular form of grouping so much as a development of an official and imposed system of control. Yeuk is an abbreviation of heung yeuk (‘hsiang-yüeh'), a term with a long history in Chinese local government and administration. It appears first in the Northern Sung period when (late eleventh century) a Confucian scholar set out a scheme for a kind of village self-government in which country people were 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 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-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 178 DAVID FAURE Table 3. (Translation) Front: Annual festival 19th First Month, 15th Second Month, 23rd Third Month, 5th Fifth Month, 14th Seventh Month, 24th Twelfth Month, Tung Chi in Eleventh Month, Night of 30th Twelfth Month; she t'au (leaders of the she); ALL THOSE WHO LIVE IN PAK KONG VILLAGE HAVE THE RESPONSIBILITY TO SERVE THE AFFAIRS AND PUBLIC INTEREST OF THIS VILLAGE; work collectively for the achievements of this village, do not follow the Monroe [Doctrine]. Back: GOLD Cheng Tso On, Cheng Chung, Lok Tso Po, Cheng Woh, Cheng Chan Ip, Lau T'in T'ing; WOOD Lok Shek Kam, Lok T'aai Ts'eung, Lok Shue Kam, Lok Foh Kau, Lok Yau T'aai, Lok Shai Ngau, Lok Tak Kwong; WATER Lok Ting Ngau, Lei Lam, Lei Kau, Lok Kam, Cheng Tso Ning, Lok T'aai Hei; FIRE Lok Tak Lam, Lok Shiu Ch'oh, Lok Lam Kwai, Lok Kam Uen, Lok Chi K'eung, Lok Shang, Lok Uet T'aai; EARTH Lok Fuk Shing, Lei Iu, Lei Kw'ai Cheung, Lok Kau Kei, Lok Tso On, Lei Shek, In a slight variation, in Tai Po Tsai (near Tai Mong Tsai) and Wo Mei, instead of collecting money to buy the pig at the time it had to be slaughtered, villagers bought a piglet at the beginning of the year and participating families took turns to feed it during the year. By the end of the year, it would be slaughtered, and the meat divided. In Wo Mei, the five lineages of the village also gathered into the Ng Woh T'ong for matters that affected the entire village.42 Less formal but not less important were the "marriage clubs" (lo p'oh wooi) found in many villages, such as Mang Kung Uk and Hang Hau, consisting of the unmarried young men of the village. The young men of the club were obliged to help the bridegroom during wedding ceremonies, and they themselves would be helped when their turn came. In general, village ceremonies, not only weddings but also funerals, required the participation of members of the village, including those outside the immediately affected lineage. It was commonly understood that on these occasions members of the village had the right and duty to participate and to help. 43 ================================================================================ 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 66 J. T. KAMM Finally, a word on economic development. Equilibrium in the tenancy system in no way implied stagnation in the economy. We have already noted the benefits which tenants derived by extending the surface value. The clans, restricted in the amount of rent-value collected, expanded economically into two areas, regulation of trade and monopolization of tax collection. It was at the level of periodic marketing that the landlord clans "reasserted control” over the tenants' surplus; moreover, the landlords were able to extract increasingly large amounts of revenue, as taxes, while both trade and agricultural production increased. In this way, perpetual tenancy gave impetus to the rise of taxlordism, which we shall consider in the next essay. NOTES 1 Hugh Baker, Sheung Shui, A Chinese Lineage Village, p 8. 2 See, for instance, the Kwang Tung Nung Yeh Kai-K’uang Tiao-ch'a-pao-kao Shu Hsuan-pien (*), Vol. I, p 185. 3 Hung ch'i represented officially recognized ownership of land. Pai ch'i (é) denoted unregistered ownership, mortgage, and the like. Tenants might possess pai ch'i, or they might not. 4 It is very difficult to give a realistic estimate of the amount of land worked by tenants in the early nineteenth century. Existing records (including Government CSO reports, sessional papers and cadastral surveys) suggest a very high degree of tenancy. A survey taken by Potter in 1960 indicates a tenancy rate of 83% in Ping Shan (); this coincides with my observations in Kam Tin. 5 Extension of the Boundaries of the Colony, p 52. 6 In the first tally of cultivated land conducted at the beginning of the Ch'ing Dynasty, 4039.567656 mow of land were liable to the payment of taxes. By 1819, this amount had shrunk to a total of 3815.94836965 mow. (Hsin-An Hsien-chih, ch'uan 8). Lockhart, in the Extension papers, writes of the land registers: "The land registers of the district, which ought to be a reliable guide, are worse than useless, as they contain not more than half of the land under cultivation." (p.48). 7 See Tung-Kuan Hsien-chih (*), ch'uan 39, for an account of the problems raised by this situation. In the early years of British administration, officers were often informed by cultivators that plots of 3rd class land (see below) were exempt from tax in certain areas. 8 Kwang-chow Fu-chih ( ), ch'uan 4:46b-47a. 9 Hsin-An Hsien-chih, ch'uan 2. 10 James Hayes, "Old British Kowloon", Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Vol. 6, 1966, gives some data on Kowloon. The Hakka Tangs of Pat Heung apparently arrived in the neighborhood of Kam Tin during the migration years. 11 Wan Lo, “Communal Strife in Mid-19th Century Kwangtung” Papers on China from the Regional Studies Seminar, p 93. See also N.B. Dennys (ed), The Treaty Ports of China and Japan (1867), pp 20-22. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 80 J. T. KAMM One of the earliest petitions received by the British after the occupation relates to the collection of land tax by a group of tax-lords, and illustrates their ability to lobby effectively for the preservation of their "rights": Hau Chak Wing (侯澤榮), Liu In Yu (廖延裕), Liu Sut Kam (廖雲錦) and Tang Yui Shan (鄧銳臣) gentry of Sheung Yu Tung, complain that Ho Fung Wing (何鳳榮) of Ki Ling Ha (企嶺下) village, Wong Sin (黃先) of Nai Chung village (坭涌村), Li A Fat (李亞發) of Wong Chuk Yeung (黃竹揚), Tang Shek Tse (鄧錫梓) and Wong Fat Shing (黃佛成), have combined together, and instigated the various villages of Tung Hoi (東海) district to refuse paying the rent in paddy amounting to 2000 stone. Petitioners have already produced title deeds for the payment of taxes, and the government has already issued notification directing the farmers to pay their rent as hitherto. These farmers have not paid their rent for two years, nor have they been dealt with, although petitioners have brought this matter to the notice of the Government.40 Though considerable confusion initially existed over the issue of whether the sum stated referred to taxes or rents, the matter was eventually resolved with the Land Court's recognition of these gentry as "taxlords."41 Examination of the early history of Britain administration in the New Territories lends final proof to the economic interpretation of the basis of tung. Though the colonial administration attempted to bolster the chu as local judicial bodies, they essentially undermined their power by abolishing taxlordism. As a result, the category tung rapidly dropped out of local usage.42 NOTES 1 Imperial Maritime Customs, Decennial Reports, See Kowloon reports in the volumes for 1882-1891 and 1892-1901. 2 Ibid., 1882-1901: p.682. 3 C. M. Chang, "Tax Farming in North China,” in Nankai Social and Economic Quarterly 8:4 (1936), pp. 831-836. Chang defines ya shui (牙稅) as "at first no more than a license fee paid by various brokers for the privilege of doing the business of brokerage, i.e. to bring together prospective... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 156 W. SCHOFIELD on the ridge.* Further afield, on the Hang Hau peninsula, is the paved road referred to above, which runs as far as Ha Yeung: and on Nam Tong, commanding the strait, is the robbers' stronghold with its gun platform. Porcelain near its gate looked fairly modern, from what I remember. Remains of a similar kind can be found on the other islands of the Southern District. Just above the village of Shek Sun at the west end of Lantau stands a Dutch fort built about 1610, rectangular in plan. A few cannon balls and other relics have been found in it, but it is very overgrown and needs clearing if any research is to be done there, or sightseers enabled to visit it. The old fort and cannon protecting the small yamen were repaired when E. W. Hamilton was D.O., I think between 1927 and 1929: I remember that one room in the yamen was inscribed shu shat (library). Another relic of old coast defences, close to Tai O, is the old Chinese guard station already referred to, outside Po Chu Tam creek, and quite ruined. On the south coast, near Shek Pik, a very ancient rock carving on a cliff was found quite recently. In the outlying islands are three interesting structures: one is on the North Soko island, where in a small valley on its south coast are two converging lines of megaliths. The other two are on Sha Chau, one a stone burial chamber on the south isthmus in the form of a 'kistvaen,' the other a ruined guard station on the flat area northwards of the chamber, with an earthwork protecting the landing place to eastward. No doubt there are many other places of interest, especially temples and their contents: one of the finest is the Pak Tai temple in Cheung Chau, with its coloured relief showing the local ferry boat nearing the pier in Hong Kong harbour. Lastly, there is one place of much interest with which I had to deal in 1917 or 1918. The Tang grave at Hau Tei, beside Tsun Wan, made in the Sung dynasty, was naturally affected by the new Castle Peak motor road and a projected reclamation of the shallow sea area beyond it. The Tang elders come to the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs, where I was 2nd A.S.C.A.,† and partly I think on my suggestion the hill of the grave was made into a public park, so as to preserve its surroundings and outlook. The grateful elders presented me with a 'fung shui' map of the grave site for my efforts on their behalf; and the good influence of their virtuous ancestor continues to augment the prosperity of their descendants, and of Hong Kong generally, if there is anything in 'fung shui'! * See Mr. Schofield's note in JHKBRAS 9 (1969): 154-156. † Assistant Secretary for Chinese Affairs. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 228 BOOK REVIEWS ology and administrators in the 'Territories'. This report (which was published in full in the 1976 volume of our Journal) had a profound effect, at least in anthropology. Students began to move from archives into the field in what Freedman came to refer to as "residual China"—the New Territories and also Taiwan. It was difficult at that time, in Britain, for a variety of reasons, to obtain the necessary training in sinology for social anthropologists and so, undaunted, Freedman persuaded those who were sinologically trained to move into anthropology. One of those he drew in was Hugh Baker, well known to members for both his village study of Sheung Shui and contributions to our symposia and Journal. Freedman's Singapore, China, and New Territories studies triggered off a new era in research. The essays in this book reflect Freedman's many interests in Chinese society and point up his lively mastery of Chinese social structural problems. The book is valuable also because they are scattered over a wide range of publications, many of which are difficult to obtain for those without access to professional and academic libraries (and several are not elsewhere available in Hong Kong). Essays are grouped around five major topics, viz.: "The Chinese in Southeast Asia”; “Chinese Society in Singapore"; "Social Change in the New Territories"; "Kinship and Religion in China”; and "On the Study of Chinese Society". Several pieces deal with studies in history. Freedman was a master at finding something in documents others might scorn for their biased approach or the secondary nature of their sources. I remember him saying to me once, “any document has something new to tell you. Whether you get a new answer depends on the questions you ask it". Other pieces reflect his interests in migration and settlement of the Chinese. As the editor observes, part of the attraction of overseas Chinese to Freedman was surely the analogy with Jews (Jewish studies were in fact another of Freedman's main-line interests). Essay 4 gives a treatment of this analogy. Other essays deal with geomancy in the context of kinship; Joan associations and the handling of money; and marketing organization. Some address themselves to the sinologist, as in "What Social Science can do for Chinese Studies". One of Freedman's missions indeed was to foster better relationships between sinologists and anthropologists: two groups more known perhaps for their feuds than their friendship. He was beginning to have some considerable success. Page 255 Page 256 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 204 DAVID FAURE hsü 12 (1886). In the Kau Sai Hung Shing Temple, the lintel is dated Kuang-hsü 15 (1889), and the altar Kuang-hsü 20 (1894); and in the Hang Hau T'in Hau Temple (besides the 1840 bell), the lintel is dated Kuang-hsü 1 (1875), a tablet Kuang-hsü 2 (1876), an altar is of the same year, a wooden board of Kuang-hsü 4 (1878), a shrine of Kuang-hsü 10 (1884), a pair of stone lions of Kuang-hsü 13 (1887), and a pair of incense burners of Kuang-hsü 20 (1894). The bell and the incense burner at the Tin Ha Wan T'in Hau Temple are both undated, but Mr. Ip Ch'un, who lived nearby, told us that the temple was already in disrepair over fifty years ago. Historical inscriptions found in Sai Kung and elsewhere in Hong Kong and the New Territories have been transcribed as a special project and may be found in David Faure, Alice Ng, and Bernard Luk, "A collection of historical inscriptions in Hong Kong". The report is available in the Institute of Chinese Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong, and will, it is hoped, be published shortly. 7 Mr. Hoh Taai of Ko Tong, aged over 60, knew of the whereabouts of a charcoal burner, but never saw it in operation (Int. 10.6.81). Lime kilns were reported in Wong Yi Chau, Wong Keng Tei, Tai Mong Tsai Tso Wo Hang, Tai Wan, Kiu Tsui, Sha Ha, Pak Sha Wan, Che Keng Tuk, Ta Ho Tun, Tai Tan, and Yau Yu Wan (Ints. Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 15.5.81, 22.5.81, Mr. Wong Yung Ts'ing 20.5.81, Mr. Tang Kei Faat 25.6.81, Mr. Lei Yau 28.6.81, Mr. Wong Ping Lin 29.6.81, Madam Liu 20.5.81, Mr. Lau Lui Faat 23.6.81, Mr. Tse Wing 9.6.81, Mr. Tse Shui Kam 24.6.81, Madam Lo Koon Mooi 21.6.81, Mrs. Hoh née Lei 28.6.81, Mr. Chung 23.7.81, and Madam Lam Yau Ch'un 19.8.81.) The Liu family at Kiu Tsui built the ancestral hall that can be seen today on the main road into Sai Kung Market. For an impression of the long history of lime making in Sai Kung, it should be noted that Madam Lo Koon Mooi was 85 and Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 87 in 1981, and it was their fathers who were engaged in the lime business. Mr. Yau continued working the kilns until his early 40's. Brick kilns were reported in Chek Keng and Pak Tam Chung (Ints. Mr. Chiu Sz 7.5.81 and Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 15.5.81, 22.5.81). The lime industry, of course, also provided income for fishermen who collected coral for the kilns. See "Return of the approximate number of fishermen employed in taking coral and shell from the sea adjoining the New Territory", in Hong Kong Legislative Council, Sessional Papers, 1901, p. 685. "The best indication of the growing importance of the trade in pigs is a set of account books that belonged to Mr. Yung Sz Ch'iu of Pak Sha O, a photocopy of which is held by the Oral History Project. See also ints. Mr. Chan Tsz K'eung 28.5.81 and Mr. Hoh King 5.6.81. • There are many instances of seamen recruited by recruitment firms (haang shuen koon); see, eg. Mr. Chiu Sz (Int. 7.5.81). Remittance from abroad was sent back to the village through import-export houses (kam shan tsong), see Mr. Yau T'aai Hong (Int. 11.8.81). 10 Mr. Cheung T'o's grandfather was a cook on Hong Kong Island, and his father was employed on the Kowloon-Canton Railway. Mr. Cheung, of Ho Chung, was c. 70 in 1981 (Int. 15.6.81). Mr. Tsang Yau of Tai Mong Tsai (age unknown, but who married before World War II) worked in a shop started by his father in Shaukiwan on Hong Kong Island (Int. 23.6.81). 11 Ints. Mr. Cheng Chung Ting 21.5.81, Mr. Chan P'aang Hing 29.5.81, Mr. Chan T'aai 22.7.81; Bernard Williams, "Visit to Ho Chung and Sheung Yeung villages in the Sai Kung area”, in Marjorie Topley, ed. Aspects of Social Organization in the New Territories, Hong Kong, 1965, pp. 46-47, and "The Chan family of Tseung Kwan O", JHKBRAS 7 (1967), pp. 158-160. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 205 12 On this particular type of tenancy, see John Kamm, "Two essays on the Ch'ing economy of Hsin-an, Kwangtung Province”, JHKBRÁS 1977, pp. 55-84, and James Hayes, The Hong Kong Region, 1850-1911, Folkestone, Kent, England, 1977, pp. 50-53. 13 Ints. Mr. Wong 22.6.81, Mr. Lam Kaap Shau 8.6.81, Mr. Cheung Kau 26.6.81, Mr. Cheung 26.6.81, Mr. Cheng Yung 10.7.81, and Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 8.5.81; Hugh D.R. Baker, Sheung Shui, A Chinese Lineage Village, Guildford and London, 1968, p. 172. 14 Father Sergio Ticozzi, 12.5.81, quoting from Giovanni B. Tragella, Le Mission Estere di Milano, Nel Quadro Degli Avvenimenti Contemporanli, Milan 1950-1963, vol. 1, pp. 274-275, vol. 2, pp. 85, 89, and 314. Int. Father George Carusso, 20.5.81. 15 Ints. Mr. Lok Tak K'ei 17.7.81, Mr. Leung Yung Hei 16.6.81, Mrs. Lau 14.6.81, and Mr. Tse Kw'an 16.11.80. 10 Int. Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 8.5.81. Mr. Yau's term for "moorage inlet" was "siu wan t'au". Cf. also the type of market James Hayes refers to as "coastal market centres" in his Hong Kong Region, p. 37. 17 Documents on this case are included in Kuan T'ien-p'ei, Ch'ou-hai ch'u-chi (1836, n.p., Taipei reprint, 1968) 2/26a-33a, 56a-74a, 80a-99b. Kuan was Naval Commander-in-Chief for Kwangtung from 1834 to 1841. C. Fred Blake, in Ethnic Groups and Social Change in a Chinese Market Town, Hawaii, 1981, p. 46 note 8, states "Lung Shuen Wan was a traditional outpost for the Chinese imperial navy's regulation of eastern approaches to the Pearl River. I wonder if perhaps Lung Shuen Wan was the original 'coastal market centre' in this area?" Elsewhere (loc. cit. and p. 95) he points out that the Lung Shuen Wan Tin Hau Temple retained the patronage of the Pak Kong and Sha Kok Mei villagers, despite the greater convenience of the Tin Hau Temple within Sai Kung Market. 18 These are figures of shops as registered in the Block Crown Lease (DD215, DD224). It is more than likely that these were shop spaces rather than shops, and in the event that a shop might take up more than a shop space, there were fewer shops in Sai Kung and Hang Hau in the early 1900's than noted here. For comparison, in 1905, Yuen Long had only seventy-four shops and Tai Po Market twenty-three large and fifteen small ones. See James Hayes, Hong Kong Region, p. 36. 19 Ints. Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 15.5.81, Father George Carusso 20.5.81, Mr. Lei Kan 19.6.81, Mr. Ue Shun Hing 10.7.81. 20 Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 15.5.81. 21 Mr. Cheung Ts'oi 20.6.81, Madam Chiu I Mooi 7.5.81, Mrs. Foo, née Lei, 28.6.81. 22 Mrs. Kong Lei San Kiu 21.6.81. Mr. Cheung Kin Wa 10.6.81 of Taai Fung Nin (opened c. 1933) in Sai Kung Market remembered that the shop used to slaughter a pig each day to sell to the boat people. 23 Mr. Chan Kei Shang 28.5.81, Mr. Chan Shou 19.6.81. 24 Mr. Hoh King 6.5.81, Mrs. Lei née So 20.6.81, Mr. Lei Yau 13.11.80, Mr. Cheung Ming Shing 8.6.81, Mr. Lai Foh 8.5.81. Mrs. Lei used to obtain piglets from Kam Lei Loi in Sai Kung Market. It took six to seven months to fatten them, and two dollars to have each pig carried back to Sai Kung Market. She also had rice and pig feed (chiefly rice husk) from Kam Lei Loi on credit. Kam Lei Loi was a butcher's cum general store, where her husband worked. 25 According to Mr. Yau T'aam Shang, 15.5.81, the interest rate in Sai Kung Market was 5 cents per dollar per month, i.e. 60 percent per annum. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 207 36 1911 Census. 37 For a brief discussion of these ideas, see David Faure, "Hongkong and China in the village world", JHKBRAS 21 (1981). A noteworthy variation is the shrine for the Taai Shing Yan Kung Ma at Luk Mei Village, which is both an ancestral figure and a territorial god. See research notes on Ue Lan Festival at Luk Mei, 5-7.8.81. * Ints. Mr. Cheung T'o 29.5.81, 15.6.81, Mr. Cheung Ts'oi 20.6.81, Mr. Tse Ming 8.81, and notes on the ta tsiu at Ho Chung, 27.12.81 - 31.12.81. For the donations of the Uens towards the repair of the temple, see Ch'e Kung Temple tablet and ints. Mr. Uen Chi Ming 16.1.81, 13.2.81, 7.3.81. Our interviews did not discover if only villagers of Ho Chung contributed towards the annual Ch'e Kung Festival, or if other villagers in the villages that took part in the ta tsiu also did. 3 Int. Mr. Chan P'aang Hing 29.5.81. 40 Ints. Mr. Cheng Ip 14.5.81, Mr. Lei Yiu T'ing 23.6.81, Mr. Lei Kau 23.6.81, Mr. Lok Kau Kei 26.6.81, 21.7.81. 41 Ints. Mr. Tse Wing 9.6.81, Mr. Tsang 25.6.81, Mr. Tsang Yung 25.6.81, Mrs. Wai 27.6.81 42 Ints. Mr. Cheung Ts'oi 20.6.81, Mr. Cheung Wing 1981; see also Mr. Sung Kw'an 23.6.81 for similar arrangements for raising pigs in Tit Kim Hang, and Mr. Shing Uen Wan 10.7.81 in Pik Uk. 43 Ints. Mr. Shing Ip On 14.6.81, Mr. Leung Yung Hei 16.6.81. Every year, on the 28th of the First Month, all the five surnames of Mang Kung Uk joined in the worship of the earth god. A matshed was built in the village, on which lanterns were hung. See int. Mr. Ue Shun Hing 10.7.81. See also Patrick Hase, “Observations at a Village Funeral", presented at the Conference on Hong Kong Society and History at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, December 1981, (papers to be published shortly). 44 ** Mr. Leung Yung Hei 16.8.81. * Ints. Mr. Sung 22.6.81, Mr. Tang Kei Faat 25.6.81, Mr. Hoh King 24.6.81, Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 8.5.81, Mrs. Lau Lei Loi T'aai 28.6.81, store keeper at Wong Chuk Wan 28.6.81, Mrs. Hoh née Lau 29.6.81, Mr. Kuet Po Shing 2.7.81, and notes on the ruined temple at Wong Chuk Wan 28.6.81. The composition of the Shap Heung given by Mrs. Hoh née Lau and Mr. Kuet differs slightly from that in the text here. Other village groups in the Sai Kung area include one that consists of Tse Keng Tuk, Chiu Hang, Ta Ho Tun, and Ma Nam Wat (int. Mr. Chan Uet Shing 24.6.81), another that consists of the three villages at Man Yee Wan (int. Mr. Lei Shiu Yam 8.5.81), yet another the seven villages that made use of the sugar press at Ko Tong (int. Mr. To 19.6.81). Apparently, Tai Long, Pak Tam Au, and Chek Keng, and then Sham Chung, Lai Chi Chong, and Pak Sha O were two groups of villages that had close social ties (int. Madam Chiu I Mooi 7.5.81). 48 Ints. Mr. Tse Wing 20.6.81, Mr. Yau 28.7.81. Fung shui was involved in the dispute in Sha Kok Mei. The villagers considered that part of a hill nearby, known to them as the "tiger's land" (foo tei) was essential to the fung shui of the village. Sha Kok Mei would not permit burial, grass or tree cutting on the foo tei. "Mr. Chau T'in Shang 9.7.81, Mr. Lok Kau Kei 26.6.81, Mr. Yau Taai Hin 8.81, Mr. Tse Ming 8.81. Major temple celebrations before World War II were held in at least the following places: Leung Shuen Wan, Sai Kung, Tai Miu, Hang Hau, Pan Long Wan, Tseung Kwan O, Kau Sai. Pak Kong and Ho Chung had a ta tsiu every ten years, and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 209 22.7.81, Mr. Yau Taai Hin 23.7.81, 8.81, Mr. Lau 24.7.81, Mrs. Yau née Lau 13.8.81, and Hong Kong Government Administrative Report, 1934 p. M101. 5. For the work of the village teacher, see ints. Mr. Tse Wing 9.6.81, and Mr. Cheng Yung 23.6.81. For naam yam in village, see Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 22.5.81, and Mr. Sung Kw'an 22.6.81. 60 Mr. Chau T'in Shang's father, for instance, owned one of the shipyards in Sai Kung Market, but his mother and his sister-in-law farmed (see int. 3.6.81), and Mr. Lei Shiu Yam entered his father's herbalist's store at eighteen, married at nineteen, and continued to work in the market while his wife farmed in the village at Man Yi Wan (see int. 8.5.81). For shortage of rice see Mr. Chan T'in Po 12.5.81, Mr. Wong Yung Ts'ing 20.5.81, Mr. Lok Shaang 21.5.81, Mr. Sung 22.6, Mrs. Lau 1.7.81. In the 1920's and 1930's, each load of firewood carried into Kowloon sold for 25 to 40 cents, pigs were sold in Sai Kung at approximately 18 dollars per picul, which was the weight of one pig, and rice for 3 to 4 dollars per picul. It was possible for a family to carry firewood into Kowloon quite a few times every month for about five months per year, and to sell two to three pigs. The cash income would have been 50 to 80 dollars per year, enough to buy 15 to 20 piculs of rice, enough for about five adults for the year. In addition, daily wages were 30 cents, and there was employment in the limekilns and in construction. Money was not short for daily necessities, but for weddings, in which the present to the bride's family alone would have been 200 to 300 dollars, many families would have had to resort to borrowing. See ints. Madam Laai Hung Tai 8.5.81, Mr. Lei P'aang Kei 12.5.81, Mr. Chan Tin Po 12.5.81, Mrs. Lau 14.6.81, Mrs. Kong Lei San Kiu 21.6.81, Mr. Kong Hei 21.6.81, Mrs. Cheung 24.6.81, Mr. Lau Hing Lung 16.6.81, Mr. Lei 29.6.81, Mr. K'uet Po Shing 2.7.81, Mr. Cheung Ts'oi 20.6.81, Madam Lo Koon Mooi 21.6.81, Mr. Lau Lui Faat 23.6.81, Mr. Lei Yau 28.6.81, Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 22.5.81, Mr. Lok Foh Kau 20.6.81, Mrs. Tse 21.6.81, Mr. Tsang 25.6.81. For a descriptive account of village production, see Mr. Cheng Ip 4.5.81. 01 Ints. Mr. Yau Taam Shang 8.5.81, Mr. Lei Yau 28.6.81, Mr. Lai Foh 8.5.81, Mr. Hoh Taai 10.6.81, Mr. Cheung T'o 15.6.81, Mr. Hoh Shang 20.6.81, Madam Wan née Lau 21.6.81. 02 Int. Mr. Sung 22.6.81. 03 Yield on good land was 3 piculs of grain per harvest, i.e. 6 piculs per year. In addition to this, there were several piculs of sweet potatoes. On poorer land, e.g. near Mang Kung Uk, it could be as low as 1 to 2 piculs per harvest. Rent was half the produce of grain, and somewhat less if the land was rented from the ancestral trust. See ints. Mr. Sung 22.6.81, Mr. Lau Lui Faat 23.6.81, Mrs. Tse née Lau 24.6.81, Mr. Tse Shui Kam 24.6.81. 04 Madam Yau 10.7.81, and cf. Mrs. Tse 22.6.81. 05 65 Int. Mr. Chung P'oon 13.11.80. 00 ibid. 07 Mr. Chau T'in Shang 13.11.80. 08 Mr. Wan Ts'eung 31.11.80, Mr. Cheung Wing 81, Mr. Tse Koon K'au 9.6.81. 60 6 Mr. Tse Ming 15.1.81, Mr. Yau Kei 8.7.81, Mr. Shing 20.7.81, Mr. Leung Chiu Man 25.7.81. 70 Mr. Chau T'in Shang 13.11.80, Mr. Cheng Ip 14.5.81, Mrs. Tsui née Lei 20.5.81, Mr. Hoh King 5.6.81. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 20 KEITH G. STEVENS Although clan or ancestral halls and temples are usually handsome buildings located near the centre of a village, many now old and rarely used have been permitted to fall into disrepair and are derelict. These memorial halls contain only the ancestral tablets of the senior member of each generation of the clan whose surname appears over the main entrance of the hall or complex. Some villages have two and even three such temples, dedicated to each of the clans dwelling within their bounds. (Plates 10 and 11). The memorial and ancestral tablets of the man-in-the-street (personal ancestral tablets) are placed on either the private household altar of the family or the shelves of the memorial halls of Buddhist or Daoist monasteries and temples. Personal ancestral tablets are rarely retained for more than three generations, whereas the tablets of the public ancestors of the clan are retained as far back as the first ancestor who moved to the area in which they are presently situated. Like the small temples, the clan halls are usually cluttered with agricultural equipment used only when the season comes around. None of the clan halls is spotless, and often the plaques, panels, mirrors and other decorations are so covered in accumulated filth that they are hard to decipher. The excuse given is that the lineage is too poor to employ a temple keeper and by implication there is no one else who should keep it clean, so the halls remain decrepit and forlorn. Family and clan temples very rarely contain images, particularly as Cantonese do not carve images of their ancestors as did the people of Hunan and Fujian provinces. When family and clan temples do contain deities, these are represented by either a framed print usually of the bodhisattva Guan Yin or a small image of a popular deity placed there by a devotee who either had no place for it at home or had a misguided notion to donate such an image to the clan (Plate 12). This happened in a small clan temple near Sheung Shui where the tolerant members of the clan have ignored the deity and have left it there to avoid hurting the donor's feelings. Shrines Shrines almost certainly pre-date temples and in their basic form have remained essentially unchanged for hundreds, if not, thousands of years. A considerable percentage of Chinese ritual is performed ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 FUNG SHUI: ILLUSTRATED BY KAT HING WAI, N.T. 89 for defensive purpose, it is my firm belief that careful planning was previously done in order to make possible the coherent relationship that I have mentioned. If original planning was not enhanced, then what had prompted the builders 200 years later to know where and how to trim off excess settlements in order to build the orthogonal wais? Above all, compared to the Hakka walled village in Sheung Shui, the enclosing wall which was also built during the same period and also for the same protective reasons as Kat Hing Wai, is of much more irregular shape. This further reinforces my assumption. None of the four wais coincides in size and proportion. This variation is partly due to the size of the extended family, but most importantly, such adjustments are essential to achieve the subtle relationships after each hamlet's position and orientation have been determined. Thus, a square is not a perfect square, but an idealised (or symbolised) square. The dependency of geometrical configuration and proportion in physical forms in China is not so rigid as that of the Western counterpart of the Renaissance period (incidentally concurrent with Ming Peking and Kat Hing Wai): As Joseph Needham points out in his work Science and Civilisation in China, "the Chinese did not feel the need for [geometrical] forms of explanation — the component organism in the universal organism followed their Tao [way] each according to its own nature.”21 Compared to the T'ang Dynasty capital Ch'angan, one that has been designed most closely with the canonical prescription, Kat Hing Wai is the epitome of the cosmic archetype, the most fundamental stratum of agricultural China. The organic expression of wall and moat architecture is symbolic of Heaven and Earth. The palace in the north in the capital can be seen to parallel the shrine of the Earth God in Kat Hing Wai in which both are protective powers guarding their respective territories. The orientation to the four quadrants, the representational north-south axis, and the division of the compound into smaller living units are all too profound for the sinologist and missionary Arthur H. Smith to grasp the intricacy. In Village Life in China, he writes: It is customary in Western lands to speak of ‘laying out' a city or a town. As applied to a Chinese village, such an expression would be most inappropriate, for it would imply that there have been some traces of design in the arrangement of the parts, whereas the reverse is the truth. A Chinese village, like Topsy. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 118 BARBARA E. WARD universe in general and their own place in it. (3) One is always looking for the underlying principles or structures beneath these various aspects of social life, and attempting to compare them systematically with the underlying principles and structures of other societies. The enumeration of these three points will allow you to see at once that a good social anthropological study is likely to put on record a very great deal more than almost any other kind of study, and although, of course, no single ethnographer ever really succeeds in writing about everything, as ideally he should, nevertheless he often does try, and in so far as he limits himself to one aspect or another of a society (as he always must when dealing with a complex situation) he remains aware that the rest is there and that it is important. The result is that good ethnographies contain an enormous amount of information recorded in a systematic way. One thinks of Francis Hsü's Under the Ancestors' Shadow, for example, or Fei's study of Kaishienkung, or C. K. Yang's Chinese Village in Communist Transition. In short, the second point I am trying to make clear to you is that it is extremely lucky that the New Territories have been studied by social anthropologists because good social anthropologists usually include a great many more kinds of information in their studies than most other social scientists do. Thus, because quite a large number of social anthropologists have in fact worked here since 1950 the result is that it is probably true to say that we already know a great deal more about the New Territories than we ourselves actually realise. For example, (taking the published books alone) we have a detailed anthropological study of clan and village organisation in Sheung Shui; we have an even more detailed study of clan and economic structure in Ping Shan, and the effects upon it of the nearness to the big port cities of Kowloon and Hong Kong; we have an interesting account of one part of the great and constant stream of overseas emigration from and return to the New Territories; we have important descriptive studies of the fishing communities in Castle Peak; a book on Sai Kung is about to be published in Hawaii, and part of a long-term study pre-New Town Shatin has recently appeared in Sweden and so on. In addition a number of other books are in the press or soon will be: one on the Ch'iu- ! Page 150 Page 151 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 BOOK REVIEWS ANCESTRAL IMAGES, MORE ANCESTRAL IMAGES, ANCESTRAL IMAGES AGAIN Dr. Hugh Baker, Hong Kong, South China Morning Post Ltd., pp. viii, 162, viii, 164, viii, 186. The first volume in this series was reviewed in the Journal by Dr. Marjorie Topley a few years ago. Since then, two more volumes in this popular series have appeared and I have no doubt that they will be reprinted frequently to meet public demand. The three books' main asset is their easy style and readability. This is due to the wide observation of the anthropologist - Dr. Baker's own discipline - a good command of Chinese and Cantonese dialect - Dr. Baker is also a teacher of Chinese language and the added benefit of his wide reading in older books which provide a wider background to his stories. "I have spent hours trapped inside some of the books", he writes. In addition, there are excellent photographs from his own collection, most of which are reproduced in colour. The result is far and away the best and most enlightening introduction to the history and customs of the New Territories. The books show the reader what to look out for, and give him some idea of background and wider connections. To my mind each volume is better than the one before. In the third, in particular, Dr. Baker's familiarity with his subject leads to a great ease that, combined with his excellent sense of humour and sense of timing, provides some really entertaining reading. See pages 36-37, 65, 92, 122 (with photograph), 128, 150 to cite only a few examples. But let no one think that this means "light" content. I have found many illuminating things in these volumes, and enjoyed stories and situations from life which gave added point to things I have half understood for years. This arises largely from Dr. Baker's eighteen-month stay in Sheung Shui village in the New Territories in the mid 1960s, and his keen observation of the Hong Kong scene in later visits. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m 214 DAVID FAURE Dates Dates Name (and village) interviewed Name (and village) interviewed Mr. Tsang Yau (Tai Mong Tsai) 23.6.81 Mrs. Cheung, née Chan 27.6.81 (Sha Kok Mei) Madam Tsang, Mr. Liu 27.6.81 23.6.81 Madam Cheung (Cheung Muk Tau) (Wong Mo Ying) Mr. Wong (Sha Ha) 27.6.81 Madam Lau 23.6.81 Mrs. Lau Lei Loi T'aai 28.6.81 (Pak Kong Au) (Wong Chuk Wan) Mrs. Loh, née Tsang 23.6.81 Store-keeper 28.6.81 (Tai Mong Tsai) (Wong Chuk Wan) Madam Cheung 24.6.81 Visit to temple at 28.6.81 (Sha Kok Mei) Wong Chuk Wan Mr. Wong Yung 24.6.81 Mr. Foo Ts'ing's funeral (Tung Sam Kei) 28.6.81 Mr. Chan Uet Shing 24.6.81 Mrs. Tsang, née Lei, 28.6.81 (Tsiu Hang) Mrs. Hoh, Mr. Tse, née Lau 24.6.81 née Lei (Tai Tan) (Che Keng Tuk) Mrs. Cheng née Mo 28.6.81 Mr. Tse Shui Kam 24.6.81 (To Kwa Ping) (Che Keng Tuk) Mr. Wong Ping Lin 29.6.81 Mr. Hoh (Ha Yeung, 24.6.81 (Tai Wan) near Ko Tong) Mrs. Wong, née Sin 29.6.81. Mr. Wong (Ha Yeung, 24.6.81 (Tai Wan) near Ko Tong) Mr. Lei (Wo Liu) 29.6.81 Mrs. Wai, née Lei 25.6.81 (Sha Kok Mei) Mr. Chung Kam Faat 29.6.81 (Ma Nam Wat) Mr. Tsang 25.6.81 Mr. Wan 29.6.81 (Sha Kok Mei) (Ma Nam Wat) Mr. Tsang Yung 25.6.81 (Sha Kok Mei) Mrs. Hoh, née Lau 29.6.81 (O Tau) Mrs. Siu (Pak Tam) 25.6.81 Mr. Wan Koon Fuk 31.1.81, (Wong Mo Ying) 25.6.81 (Tai Nam Wu) 6.81, 5.8.81 Mr. Tang Kei Faat Mr. Lau Wan Hei 25.6.81 Mrs. Lau, née Lei 1.7.81 (Pak Kong Au), (Hei Tsz Wan) Mr. Kong Sai P'ing (Lung Mei) Mrs. Lau 1.7.81 (Hei Tsz Wan) Mr. Cheung Kau 26.6.81 (Ping Tun) Mr. Lei (Wong Chuk Yeung) (1) 1.7.81 Mrs. Cheung née Wan 26.6.81 (Ping Tun) Mr. Lei (Wong Chuk Yeung) (2) 1.7.81 Mr. Cheung 26.6.81 (Tai Po Tsai) Mr. Lei 1.7.81 Mr. Lei 26.6.81 (Tsak Yue Wu) (Muk Min Shan) Mr. Lei (Wo Liu) 2.7.81 Madam Keung 26.6.81 Mr. Lau Yun Shang 2.7.81 (Muk Min Shan) (Wong Chuk Wan) Mrs. Wai 27.6.81 Mrs. Yung, née Wan 2.7.81 (Sha Kok Mei) (Hoi Ha) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m Dates 215 Name (and village) Dates interviewed Name (and village) interviewed Mr. K'uet Po Shing (Nam A) 2.7.81 Mr. Lok (Seung Sz Wan) 17.7.81 Mr. Yung (Hoi Ha) 2.7.81 Mr. Lau (Sheung Yeung) 17.7.81 Mr. Ip Wan (Pak Sha O) 2.7.81 Mr. Lok Tak K'ei (Seung Sz Wan) 17.7.81 Visit to church in Pak Sha O 3.7.81 Mr. Lam (Seung Sz Wan) (2) 17.7.81 Mr. Yau Kei (Tseng Lan Shue) 8.7.81 Mr. Lau Kwong (Ha Yeung near Seung Sz Wan) 20.7.81 Mr. Cheung Loi Yau (Sha Kok Mei) 9.7.81 Mrs. Wan (Mang Kung Uk) 20.7.81 Mr. Shing (Ha Yeung near Seung Sz Wan) 10.7.81 Mr. Shing Uen Wan (Pik Uk) 10.7.81 Mr. Wong Kam Tai (Hang Hau) 20.7.81 Mrs. Yau (Mang Kung Uk) 10.7.81 Mr. Shing (Pik Uk) 20.7.81 Mrs. Yau, née Tse (Tseng Lan Shue) 22.7.81 Mr. Ue Shun Hing (Mang Kung Uk) 10.7.81 Mr. Chan T'aai (Tseung Kwan O) 22.7.81 Mr. Cheng Yung (Uk Tau) 10.7.81 Mr. Yau Yan (Tseng Lan Shue) 22.7.81 Mr. Uen Kwai Naam (Mau Wu Tsai) 14.7.81 Mr. Chung (Yau Yue Wan) 22.7.81 Mr. Tsang Shui On (Ma Yau Tong) 14.7.81 Mr. Chung Wai I (Yau Yue Wan) 22.7.81 Mr. Wan Yau (Wong Chuk Long) 14.7.81 Mr. Yau Taai Hin (Tseng Lan Shue) 23.7.81 Mr. Tsang Wan (Ma Yau Tong) 14.7.81 8.81 Mr. Lau (Po Toi O) 24.7.81 Mrs. Tsang, née Shing (Ma Yau Tong) 14.7.81 Mrs. Chung (Po Toi O) 24.7.81 Mr. Ng (Tseung Kwan O) 15.7.81 Mrs. Sit (Tin Ha Wan) 24.7.81 Madam Chan (Tseung Kwan O) 15.7.81 Mr. Ip (Tin Ha Wan) 24.7.81 Mr. Leung Chiu Man (Hang Hau) 25.7.81 Madam Wan (Tai Wan Tau) 16.7.81 Mr. Yau Koon K'au (Tseng Lan Shue) 27.7.81 Mr. Lau (Tai Wan Tau) (1) 16.7.81 Mr. Yau Tai On (Pak Shek Wo) 27.7.81 Mr. Lau (Tai Wan Tau) (2) 16.7.81 Mr. Yau (Nam Wai) 28.7.81 Mr. Lam (Seung Sz Wan) (1) 17.7.81 Mr. Yau T'aai Hong (Nam Wai) 28.7.81 Madam Chan (Mang Kung Uk) 17.7.81 Mr. Lau (Tai Au Mun) 29.7.81 Mr. Lau K'in Tsun (Ha Yeung) 17.7.81 Mr. Lau (Siu Hang Hau) 30.7.81 ================================================================================ 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 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-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m 42 EDGAR WICKBERG lineage. The lineage has a great deal of clan solidarity but at the same time there is marked internal differentiation. The other type of locality, one without a dominant lineage, is made up of small farmers of several lineages. Only a few are markedly wealthier than their fellows. But there is also only limited solidarity. It would be presumptuous of me, on the basis of my limited research, to challenge this analysis, and I have no intention of doing so. I would, however, like to suggest that further refinement may be useful. It seems clear to me, looking at the four villages I have considered, that there is a good deal of variation among villages where there is no dominant lineage. To lump them into a single category without further definition is to define them only negatively - they are NOT lineage strongholds; so they ARE everything and anything else. Can we say more about them? How, for instance, can we further classify the area around Sheung Tsuen where it appears that two lineages - one of them from a neighbouring village - approach “dominance”? What can we say of a small two-lineage village like Shui Lau Tin? What if there is no surname dominance but there is some kind of community organization, either at the village level or at the level of a group of villages? Is there a variety of "non-dominant" types along a continuum of relative degrees of clan leadership and/or community solidarity? It would seem reasonable that there should be. Finally, a proposal. We may readily observe and accept the expansion of the "great clans". But we should also wonder about whether, and, if so, how "non-great clans" expand in multi-lineage areas. Do their expansive activities have anything to do with the fact that these areas are multi-lineage and are not dominated by single clan? The "great clans" are attractive as subjects of study. We wonder about their creation, their expansion and their maintenance. We appreciate their ability to produce scholars and to wield influence. But let me make a plea that we also take as a subject of study those zones where one can see but slight influence of the Great Clans of the New Territories. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m 134 TA ACTON "home village associations", which are formed by all members of particular villages in China who have migrated to Hong Kong. The clubs are the home village associations of two little fishing villages left behind not in distance, but in time, engulfed by technological change and urban sprawl. The villages still exist, surrounded by or transmuted into flats, but their former inhabitants are as much spiritual exiles as most other Hong Kong Chinese. That these clubs are not primarily economic in aim does not mean, however, that they cannot be used for economic advantage, of course. The members do help each other. Members of the clubs, for example, had managed to secure most of the life-guard jobs at the new Chai Wan public swimming pool. The fishermen's club on Lamma Island was founded by a business-man who had been active in trade with China since the 1930s, Jonathan Gray. It is similar to those of Chai Wan and Stanley, but has been prepared to be more militant and public in its pressure group activity to gain compensation for fishermen when their best fishing areas off Lamma were being 'reclaimed'. These three clubs, confined to a small area in the south of the territory, are the only instances that even approach an ethnic mobilisation of the Shui-sheung-yan, The True Jesus Church The True Jesus Church was founded in Peking in 1917, and is evidently part of the world-wide Pentecostal revival of the early years of this century. It is distinctive in that, as well as being charismatic, it is "Seventh Day" — that is, it holds the Sabbath should be celebrated on Saturday, not Sunday. It also holds that believers' baptism should be carried out by total immersion with the face facing downwards, and should be followed by the washing of feet. Otherwise, it is fairly orthodox in its evangelicalism. It describes itself as "a revived apostolic church”, preaching "a full gospel of salvation based on the truth in the Bible, accompanied by signs and miracles and the gifts of the Holy Spirit". The membership of this church remained almost wholly Chinese as it spread to South-East Asia, apart from some missionary work in Nigeria. Its headquarters are now in Taiwan. During the Japanese occupation in World War II, a lady fish merchant belonging to the church came to Hong Kong from Malaya to buy seafood. She began to preach to her Shui-sheung-yan suppliers, and to pray for healing for their ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m EDUCATION AS A BY-PRODUCT OF FISH MARKETING 135 diseases. This preaching, and a number of healing miracles, enabled a church to be started among the Cantonese-speaking Shui-sheung-yan in Sha Tau Kok, a small port that straddles the China-Hong Kong border. After 1949, when the original church was closed by the Chinese authorities, a new church was established on the then uninhabited island of Ap Chau; and around it a new village drawing on Cantonese-speaking fisherfolk from all over the north-east of the New Territories of Hong Kong was established, which has steadily improved its prosperity to the present day. The villagers live in rows of new cottages, built with overseas assistance. In the middle, there is a square with chairs and tables shaded by trees, a meeting room, and a separate church building with a high roof, plain whitewashed walls, and hard benches, like the older type of country Nonconformist chapel in Britain. Here the villagers, led by the village elder who is also the pastor, meet for prayer and Bible study at 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. every day, except on Saturday, when they hold their main services of the week. Then many young people who have had to take jobs in the urban area come back for the day, even though there are now congregations in other parts of the territory. On Sundays, people go down to Hong Kong to do their shopping. The decline of the numbers involved in fishing, despite the start of sea fish-farming, has also led to substantial emigration. This phenomenon has also occurred in other fishing villages, such as Kau Sai.* In fact, while no more than 500 Ap Chau islanders remain in Hong Kong, there are some 800 now in Britain, mostly restaurant owners or workers. Philip Chan, son of the village elder of Ap Chau, now attending an inter-denominational Bible college in Edinburgh, put it: 'In Edinburgh, you can see Ap Chau in miniature.'** The observation of John Wesley, that the sobriety and hard work consequent upon religious revival bring prosperity within a generation, is now borne out in the well-appointed church that has been converted from an old, stone-built scout headquarters. This prosperity does not seem, however, to have lessened fervour, as the church, which in Hong Kong has for some years not been to any extent a proselytising one, is now making plans to evangelise among other Chinese restaurant workers in Britain. Its meetings in Britain are always in the afternoon, convenient for waiters, as its Hong Kong service hours are for fishermen. Nevertheless, in Britain as in Hong Kong, at present, apart from a few Malaysians, its membership is largely Shui-sheung-yan, and it crosses the divide between poor and rich. Although based on a religious mobilisation, it has, therefore, an ethnic character of a kind. It is the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m 136 T.A ACTON Cantonese Shui-sheung-yan who have joined, and not the Hoklo, who have been "resistant to the Gospel message." When I asked Philip Chan about the use of the term "Tanka”, he answered, as did most Shui-sheung-yan, that the term was no longer used as it was offensive, because of the way ordinary Cantonese used it to oppress them. Nevertheless, in the sermon he preached the next day, referring to the knowledge of the sea his audience possessed, which land people could not understand, he spoke of "We Tanka... or so to speak, Shui-sheung-yan." The whole sermon, over an hour and a quarter long, held his audience spell-bound with illustrations from storms at sea, fishing disasters and marine life, salting his speech with fisherman's talk (Shui-sheung-wa) so deep that the Malaysian student who had been put by my side and knew only standard Cantonese, was often completely baffled and unable to give me any interpretation. (Later, Philip Chan referred to Shui-sheung-wa as “a separate dialect”.) Of course, the content of this sermon can hardly have been completely unaffected by the knowledge that there was a sociologist in the congregation interested in the life of boat-people. Nonetheless, it is indicative of the way in which an ethnic and cultural solidarity has been maintained, an assertion of pride of origin, which provides a way of avoiding the schizophrenic need to assimilate wholly to ordinary Cantonese society and suppress one's own identity. Adaptation and Education As Barbara Ward and other sociologists have indicated, the majority of boat people are able to assimilate into land-based Cantonese society, and do so fairly often. Members of the Fishermen's Recreation Clubs, the True Jesus Church, and perhaps to some extent the Hong Kong and Kowloon Fishermen's Association Ltd., find a middle way of adaptation that relieves them from the stark dilemma between the self-obliteration and the stasis of isolation. Nonetheless, one cannot speak of any general emergence of Shui-sheung-yan ethnic consciousness; the leaders of the three movements mentioned above, geographically separated at the three opposite corners of the territory, appeared absolutely unaware of each others' activities. When one asks Shui-sheung-yan the conventional Cantonese question about what kind of Chinese they are, (“Nei hai matye yan a ?"), the most common answer remains a reference to their home village, or, at any rate, to that of their grandparents — “Ngo hai Tunglowaan-yan" or "Yeung Kong yan”, or “Ap Chau yan”, Page 150 Page 151 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m 138 TA ACTON individuals, though rare in Hong Kong, might find their way through the system more easily if the F.M.O. schools were to become part of the general educational system, which they now so closely resemble. Conclusion Speaking at the closing ceremony of the 12th annual summer camp of the F.M.O. schools, at Wukaisha Youth Village, the Director of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Hon. J.M. Riddell-Swan J.P. said: "There are clear advantages in completing secondary education, whether a child wishes to follow a career in the fishing industry or ashore. In common with other industries, fishing and fishing vessel technology are advancing rapidly, and the well-educated fisherman will obviously be able to take better advantage of this and so increase family prosperity.' * 46 The two major themes of this education policy appear in this speech: its benefit to the efficiency of the fishing industry, and its contribution to slimming it down (“a career in the fishing industry or ashore”). It is noteworthy, however, that the speaker applies these themes specifically to secondary education. The battle for primary education has already been won (give or take the odd thirteen-year-old who suddenly appears at a remote school, refusing to admit to any previous schooling; but this happens far less often than in Gypsy school projects.). This is an indication of how much more educational policies for the Shui-sheung-yan in Hong Kong have "achieved" than those for Gypsies in Britain. There has been a much greater penetration by the schools system, and by the dominant attitudes of industrial society to education among the Shui-sheung-yan than among the Gypsies. This paper quoted the SOCO study which showed that 32.5 percent of 263 poor Shui-sheung-yan respondents declared they wanted no more than primary education for their children. If such a question were asked of a sample of nomadic Gypsies in Britain, the figure would be nearer 90 percent, one would guess. In Hong Kong progress towards better education for the Shui-sheung-yan is general throughout the territory. The 11 British West Midlands Local Education Authorities, with their claims of achieving 800-1,300 children attending out of their estimated 1,500–2,000 constituency, are merely the brightest spot in Britain. Many other local education authorities are doing nothing, and the Department of 47 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m 192 NOTES AND QUERIES TRADITIONAL FUNERALS Apart from the ta tsiu, the most significant ritual acts within the traditional New Territories village were those marking the death of an adult villager. The ritual of such funerals differed in detail from area to area, but seem to follow basically the same form everywhere. The traditional funeral was a matter of importance not only to the bereaved family but to the whole village. The ritual alternated between formal religious acts, led by Taoist priests, and village customs, led by the elderly men and women of the village. Traditional funerals are becoming rarer, rituals are being simplified to follow the pattern set by the modern style funerals in the City, and the willingness of villagers outside the circle of the immediately bereaved to assist in the rites is less automatic than in the past. There is, therefore, a need to record the funeral ritual used while there are still opportunities to witness it in operation. Miss Barbara Ward, and Dr. David Faure of the Chinese University together with the author of this note were privileged to record at length a recent traditional funeral in Tai Wai Village, Sha Tin; it is hoped that this record will be published in an appropriate form soon. In the meantime a brief indication of the ritual with some photographs, (plates 4-13) is published here as a general guide to the main features of a New Territories traditional Punti funeral. The photographs were taken by Mr. Liu Yun-sum, of Sheung Shui Village, the current First Vice-Chairman of the New Territories Heung Yee Kuk, in 1953, at the funeral of his father, Mr. Liu On-wai, and are published here with Mr. Liu Yun-sum's kind consent. Mr. Liu On-wai was the son and grandson of Ch'ing dynasty village headmen; he and his brother had been educated to the best standards available in Sheung Shui. His elder brother, indeed, became a Sau Ts'oi degree holder and taught in the village school. Mr. Liu On-wai himself went into trade, selling foot-stuffs and roast meats from a shop in Sheung Shui market; he was 76 years old at his death. The photographs, therefore, are of the funeral of a well-connected and moderately wealthy, but neither particularly rich nor powerful villager. The funeral ritual began everywhere immediately on the death. Elders of the clan and village washed, dressed, and prepared the corpse, while the women of the bereaved family sang wailing songs. Friends and relatives stood around weeping during the dressing and preparation. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m 194 NOTES AND QUERIES place in all of which the bereaved family played the central role with the other villagers looking on. Details differed from district to district, but usually some or all of the following were included: the buying of water for the forthcoming rituals, the opening of the coffin and the washing of the face of the deceased by all in mourning (in Sheung Shui these rites took place immediately after death), the preparation by all the sons and daughters of the deceased of food to be placed in the grave, a procession around the coffin by all mourners, carrying incense, the division of threads by the mourners, either over the coffin or elsewhere, and the offering of wine by all mourners. Eulogies to the deceased might be read by the village elders, and last of all the singing of prayers by a Taoist priest, with all mourners kneeling, preceding the screwing down and sealing of the coffin was practically universal. During these rites mourning would, in most places, be carried by the nearest relatives present for persons within the mourning grades but unable to be present. At many points the women of the deceased's immediate family would sing wailing songs. In many places in the New Territories the natural family of the deceased's wife would play a prominent role in these rites alongside his own family. When the coffin was prepared the young men of the village would lash it on poles and carry it off, preceded by the bereaved family. Since the funeral was of ritual significance to the village as a whole the standing rice in the fields would, if necessary, be trampled down to let the coffin pass. The grave would have been already dug, again by the young men of the village. At the grave other rites would take place; these differed from area to area; in some, Taoist rites took place at the grave, in others, the main rite was the sharing of food among the mourners across the open grave. Usually the first handfuls of soil were thrown in by the sons and daughters of the deceased, but everywhere the filling in of the grave and the proper ordering of the food offerings and ritual decoration of the grave was the responsibility of the young men of the village. Upon the return to the village Taoist rites would usually, in most areas, take place around the new, temporary, spirit tablet of the deceased, often at the spot where the corpse had been laid out. The room and its environs would be purified and decorated. From now on until, usually, the twenty-first day after the death, that is, during the mourning period, the immediate family would observe some relatively minimal ritual restrictions, and would place offerings to the deceased daily in front of the tablet. In some areas Taoist rites to assist the deceased to reach the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m NOTES AND QUERIES 195 Taoist heaven would be held on the seventh night after the death; but it is probable that these rites were more frequently combined with the rites of funeral night and conducted then. In most areas the most important rituals during the mourning period were the preparation for the return of the spirit of the deceased to visit his family, and, a little after this, the visit of the family to a spirit medium to consult the deceased to check that he was contented and comfortable. On the twenty-first day early in the morning members of the immediately bereaved family would go to the grave, place new offerings there, and pay the family's last respects. (In Sheung Shui this rite was done on the third day after death). The family would then put on full mourning, which would not have been worn since the day of the burial, or the day the seventh day rituals were held. They would attend Taoist rituals in front of the temporary spirit tablet, thereafter take the tablet to a suitable spot, in some cases near a river, where it would be burnt. In some cases this was done within a ritual enclosure purified by the sons of the deceased, together with all the objects used in the various rituals, and with gifts of paper money and objects to the deceased and to other deceased family members. The family would, in many cases, then remove mourning, in some cases at a spot outside the village. The mourning would then be burnt. All mourners would put on new clothes which had been passed through the smoke of the fires. Led by the Taoist priest the family would return to the place where the temporary spirit tablet had been placed, now stripped and swept, and would assist the priest in the placing and worshipping of a new paper tablet to the deceased, after which new lucky papers would be pushed up, the ex-mourners would put on pieces of red tape or cloth to signify their final removal of mourning, and go to welcome their friends and relations in another meal prepared by the elders of the village. This extremely condensed statement represents the basic ritual of a Punti village funeral. In Hakka villages customs differed substantially. Thus, for instance, the burial usually took place in such villages at dawn, and many of the family rituals, such as buying water, were correspondingly brought forward to the previous day, to before the main Taoist celebration. Again, Hakka custom demanded in many areas a daily visit to the grave throughout the mourning period whereas Punti custom demanded only a daily visit to the spirit tablet. In many other places similar divergences are to be noted. This note, therefore, represents only a very bare skeletal framework of rituals common to most Punti villages; it ignores the numerous intricate, but fixed and essential, minor ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p CONTENTS Page PRESIDENT'S REPORT viii ADDRESS BY DR. J.W. HAYES xiv ADDRESS BY REV. C.T. SMITH xvii TREASURER'S REPORT xviii LIBRARIAN'S REPORT xxi ARTICLES: Structure and Function in an Urban Organization: The Mutual Aid Committees JANET LEE SCOTT 1 Origin and Development of the Political System in the Shanghai International Settlement J.H. HAAN 31 The Strike and Riot of 1884 A Hong Kong Perspective - ELIZABETH SINN 65 The New Constitution and China's Emerging Legal System in Perspective W. ALLYN RICKETT Two Chinese Domestic Murders LETHBRIDGE 99 H.J. 118 Phonology of a Cantonese Dialect of the New Territories: Kat Hing Wai -- LAURENT SAGART 142 Saikung, The Making of the District and its Experience during World War II-DAVID FAURE 161 The Hong Kong Amateur Dramatic Club and its Predecessors - CARL T. SMITH 217 Village Education in Transition: The Case of Sheung Shui — NG LUN NGAI-HA 252 V ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p NOTES AND QUERIES The Po Tak Temple in Sheung Shui Market - DAVID FAURE, LEE LAI-MUI The Attempt to Assassinate the Governor in 1912 - N.J. MINERS Problems of the China Trade a Century Ago: Two Letters on Transit Passes - H.A. RYDINGS The Village Watch in the Hong Kong Region - JAMES HAYES Village Rules: Firecrackers in the Settlement of Disputes and in Token of Fines - JAMES HAYES 271 279 285 294 297 Canton Water Pines (Glyptostrobus Pensilis (Lamb)) at Tai Hang Village, New Territories - IU KOW-CHOY, LAY CHIK-CHUEN 302 More About the Tung Chung Fort - ANTHONY K.K. SIU 305 BOOK REVIEWS 308 MEMBERSHIP LIST 363 vi ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p VILLAGE EDUCATION IN TRANSITION: THE CASE OF SHEUNG SHUI NG LUN NGAI-HA* When the British took over the New Territories in 1898, their stated policy was to interfere with the civilization and way of life of the settled population as little as possible". The policy was maintained. Yet, the turn of the century and the decades that followed were years of important changes in China which must have affected the traditional way of life even in the New Territories. Moreover, with the introduction of British rule and administration, the opening of the region to the "outside world and its growing contact with urban Hong Kong, forces for change must also have been at work. This study aims to show how village education, which was one of the most important aspects of traditional New Territories society, was affected during these decades of change. Sheung Shui is taken as a case study because it is an important single clan village with a long history of scholastic achievement. As information that can be found in the official documents such as Lockhart's Report and the administrative reports on the New Territories is very scanty, much of this study has had to depend on local sources collected in an Oral History Project** which included written records in private possessions and also the recollection of the village elders. The development of education in Sheung Shui, the change from the traditional to a modern educational structure passed through four phases, the first being the completely traditional, which ended about 1900; the second a transitional phase during which the traditional education declined but little reformed education was available in its place; the third, which lasted from about 1912 to 1932, saw a steady increase in modern educational * Dr. Ng is a Senior Lecturer in History at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. **This was one of the series of Oral History Projects on the study of the New Territories sponsored by the Institute of Chinese Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong during 1981-82. The author wishes to acknowledge here her thanks to the Institute for its financial support. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 253 opportunity alongside a continuing, but declining, traditional education, and finally, from 1932, the establishment of an eventually modern education within the village. Rising from a humble community of Hakka origin, the Liaos [Liu] of Sheung Shui had long paid special attention to educating their sons. Since the founding of the village, they had set their sights on education and participation in the civil examinations as a means of advancement, and for centuries they had been able to win numbers of official titles and honours1. Traditionally within the village, schooling was provided in private houses, the ancestral hall, and the study halls known as shu-shih#, shu-wu#, or chia-shou*. The existence of these study halls was considered an indication not only of wealth but also of the great encouragement given by the clan to learning. In addition to their well-known ancestral hall, the Wan Shih T'ang, there were in Sheung Shui at least six study halls that operated in the nineteenth century. According to the village elders' memories, each hall normally accommodated ten to thirty students, at an average of 20 per hall. Assuming that the Wan Shih Tang was not used regularly as a classroom and there were 15 sons of rich families taught by private arrangements, the total number of children attending class in the village would be about 135. As the population of Sheung Shui in 1898 was estimated to be 1800, school-going children then amounted to 7.5% of the whole population. This figure works out to be about 75% of the male population between 6 to 14. This gives credence to the belief that "very few males of the lineage were prevented from becoming literate." The length of schooling ranged from two to ten years, but the average was four. We can find no evidence of a hierarchy among the six study halls. However, according to the brief biographical notes recorded in the Hsin-an Hsien-chih of the villagers,10 most of the few villagers who achieved distinction at the county level, and indeed, most of the small number who were prepared to take part in the civil examinations at all were tutored first at private houses within the village and then sent to schools at Nam Tau, the county capital, or at Canton. * Plate 6. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 254 the prefectural capital, for more advanced studies. During the last quarter of the 19th century, when deliberate efforts to prepare for the civil examinations began to fade, there still existed within the village some of these special small classes taught by the more prestigious teachers in their own homes. This practice continued even after the abolition of the civil examinations. Liao Chung-nan [Liu Chung-nam], a siu-tsai of the late Ch'ing, taught a small class of about ten at his own house at and after the turn of the century, charging a higher fee than the normal school fees paid for classes held in the study halls. His classes remained as prestigious classes for the rich well into this century. The curriculum and method of teaching both in the study halls and in the private classes were typical of Chinese traditional education. There was no division of classes by academic standard. Instruction was given individually or in groups of four or five by rotation. Progress depended largely on the individual or the liking of the teacher. Normally teaching would start with the well-known primers, the San-tzu-ching,70 Ch'in-tzu-wen* and Pai-chia-hsing‡. Two other popular primers were the Hsiao-ching and the Yu hsueh ku-shih ch'iung-lin****. Brighter students would proceed to the Four Books and even the Five Classics after a year or two. There was also much emphasis on teaching the students rhymed couplets, other simple poetic forms, and the correct way of writing polite letters and other formal documents. Books for this kind of teaching, some printed but most hand-written, have been found in several villages alongside the standard primers used in the village schools. Rhymed couplets were useful, we were told, to reinforce recognition of characters for their sound and meaning and also for teaching students to compose couplets, this being a form of literary activity popular in the villages of the region. Shortly after the setting up of British rule in 1898, a government officer described Sheung Shui as "a village of scholarship and agriculture”.11 Perhaps he was impressed by the grand looking ancestral hall and the number of study halls in the village. The many wooden boards hung in these halls recording ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 256 . ! examinations in China in 1905, brought about a new situation in which command over the classical learning was no longer the channel to position and wealth. The official report on the New Territories in 1912 contains the following remarks: Roads and railways have indeed been made through the centre of the Northern district and country folks who used to require a full day to reach Hong Kong can now go in and out and do their shopping in the day. More and more of the young men from the country have been tempted into Hong Kong or abroad in quest of higher wages, and many have returned with their savings to their native villages: money has been brought into the country to purchase land required for roads and railways. The increase in wealth led to a rise in the cost of living. The same report gave a list of the average prices of staple food in 1900 and 1911, showing that rice had risen from $4 to $8 per picul and pork from $15 to $25. The average increase was almost doubled. The only cost which remained almost stable, at least at Sheung Shui, was the school fees, which were in 1912 from $3 to $6 per annum for each boy. Thus, as the report says, "In spite of the rise of cost of living, there is practically no family which cannot obtain elementary education for the sons of the family.” Yet, the same also meant a very low income for the village teacher. According to the recollections of a village elder whose father gave up teaching in 1913, the general income of a teacher was from $4 to $6 a month, with small presents in kind on feast days. But the income might vary with the come and go of the students. Thus, the standard of living of a teacher became in fact poorer than it had been in former days. This made the teaching profession much less attractive in the short run, and in the long run led to a lowering of the prestige of the village scholars as well as to a drop in the practical value of learning. In Sheung Shui, where the lineage had long been known for its deliberate efforts in promoting education, we have evidence which seems to show that there may have been a decline in village school attendance after the turn of the century. The observation is based partly on the oral testimony of ten informants who were born between 1893 and 1903, reaching their school age ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 257 approximately between 1900 and 1915. We find that of the four born before 1898, three had attended class for an average of four years, one attended for only one year, and then worked first in the farm for a few years and then in the construction of the railway. Amongst the six born after 1898, however, three never went to school and one claimed that he learnt to read a little when he worked as a shop assistant in a small tea-house at Shamshuipo. Around 1900, at least two teachers are known to have given up teaching, one to work in the Land Office of the New Territories administration and the other to work for his brother-in-law at Taipo. Liao Chung-nan, the siu-tsai who formerly taught a small class at high fees in his own home as mentioned above, eventually had to move to teach at the Wan Shih Tang at a lower fee of about $5 per pupil. Three government schools providing an elementary English education were set up between 1905-1906, one being situated at Taipo, about six miles from Sheung Shui. Unlike in urban Hong Kong, response to this new educational provision was not great. The school at Ping Shan fared most badly and was closed in 1907 to be replaced by one set up in Cheung Chau. The average attendance throughout 1905-1912 in these three schools was twenty, out of a total of 224 schools in the whole Territories with an average attendance of sixteen each.15 The Report of the District Officer of 1912 states: “Government schools on a small scale have been opened at centres in the New Territories providing an elementary instruction in English, the fee for these is 50 cents per month. There is not, however, a great demand for this instruction of a more modern type in most of the districts, for the people still cling to the old-fashioned learning.”16 We have no record of village people from Sheung Shui attending the Taipo government English schools before 1913. 1913. The social and economic changes resulting from the change of government were still small and the opportunities for new jobs were still limited, and the jobs were mostly confined to manual labour. New demands had not yet appeared to bring marked changes in popular literacy which remained basically rooted in the traditional and relatively confined village society, but it was perhaps beginning to lose its former hold both as a basic education for the masses and, at a more advanced level, as the avenue to position and wealth. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 258 The first British District Officer of the region had the following remarks:17 Education of any kind has always appealed powerfully to Chinese, and they are probably more ready than any other people to defer to the voice of learning. In every village appeal is made to the lettered man to settle points of dispute, and he receives the place of honour in all local gatherings. It must be admitted that this respect was formerly due not only to his intrinsic merits and his superior knowledge, but to the advantages that he possessed in being able to write and thus to draw up petitions in proper form and present the case of litigants to the courts. With the coming of British rule these advantages have largely disappeared except that it is still usual for a litigant or other petitioner to submit his petition in due form. The completion of the railway from Lo Wu to Hung Hom in 1910 and its extension to Tsim Sha Tsui in 1916 brought Sheung Shui into direct connection with urban Hong Kong and Kowloon. Extension of the Tai Po Road into a ring road also connected the village with many of the main population centres in the New Territories and Kowloon. The 1921 census shows a small decrease of the population in the village from 1440 to 1400, but in the whole New Territories, there was an increase from 80,622 to 83,163.18 The village economy was still predominantly agrarian. Yet opportunities for taking other employment must have increased. The decrease in population must have been due to the numbers of people leaving the village for the cities, as oral recollections of the period do not include any memories of any decrease in the size of the clan overall. The increased contact with the outside world and new employment opportunities must have exercised considerable influence on the local popular literacy. Another stimulant was to come from the educational policy of the Hong Kong government. The early laissez-faire policy began to give way to some degree of concern, After a survey made by Sung Hok Pang of the conditions of rural schools in 1913, the government decided to give a subsidy varying from $5 to $10 per month each to fifty selected schools 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 259 hope of raising the income of the teachers and improving their conditions of teaching. Annual reports given by the inspectors show a constant cancellation and replacement of the schools on the subsidy list. Numbers of schools receiving subsidy varied from forty to a hundred before World War II. More direct supervision was exercised from 1921 onwards when the 1913 Education Ordinance, which required all schools with nine pupils or more to register with the government, was applied to the New Territories. In 1926, a government Vernacular Normal School was set up in Taipo in the hope of "producing capable vernacular teachers for the country districts."20 Political events and cultural movements in China during the first few decades of the 20th century brought about important changes in traditional Chinese educational concepts. Modern schools were set up alongside the traditional ssu-shu, and the classical primers were revised or replaced by new sets of textbooks, the first stage in a major change in the contents and aim of education. This process of modernization, coupled with the changes induced by the economic and social pressures mentioned above, led to changes in the education provided and the level and types of popular literacy achieved in this village community at Sheung Shui which can be documented in some detail. The first departure from traditional educational practices in Sheung Shui was the beginning of female education. For a long time, education was confined to boys only. Amongst the five old ladies above the age of 76 whom we interviewed, all admitted that they were unable to read and write, and they had no knowledge of any woman of their age who had been to school. According to the male informants, they did not see any girls attending class in the village until the first girls' school was opened in 1912, and neither had they any knowledge of girls being tutored at home. The first two ladies resident in the village who were known to be literate came to the village from outside and had received their education in Hong Kong. They were sisters, one of whom had married an early Christian convert from the village who became, in time, a pioneer in the promotion of modern education in the district. Our informants admitted, "In spite of our efforts in building study halls and securing success in the civil ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 260 · J : examinations, Sheung Shui lagged behind other villages in allowing girls to attend schools, perhaps it was due to the conservatism of our ancestors". The rate of female literacy before the turn of the century was almost zero. The change in educational concepts which led to the beginning of a literate female population in the village was brought about by the efforts of the Hong Kong and New Territory Evangelization Society and the early Christian convert from the village just mentioned above. The Society had initially fared badly in the village as the villagers were strongly opposed to Christianity. In 1912, it managed to rent a house in the village to set up a small class of fifteen girls taught by the two ladies already mentioned from urban Hong Kong.21 In 1914, this school became the first and for a time the only government subsidized school for girls in the New Territories. Unfortunately, the school had to be closed in 1917 as the two lady teachers left the village, one for Sham Chun and another for Shanghai.22 Some of the girls from this school were admitted into the other village schools such as the Yun Sheng Chia-shou and Ming I Te Tang ** and thereafter girls continued to be enrolled in the different schools in the village, but the total number was still very small. In 1921, amongst a total number of 33669 females in the northern district of the New Territories, only 674 claimed to be able to read. The rate of female literacy was then 2%. By 1931, the rate had increased to 3.5%. The different rates of female literacy among the different age groups at that date can be seen in the following table:24 All females aged TABLE I % with ability to read and write 5 and over 3.74 11 and over 4.14 16 and over 3.69 21 and over 2.81 · The table shows that except among those below 11, there was a higher percentage of literacy among the younger generations, which also indicates that there was a gradual growth of female literacy from about 1920, when those who were at the age of 21 in the 1931 census had just reached their school-age. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p No first-hand information concerning female education of the time has yet been obtained as the small number of women who then attended classes in Sheung Shui left the village upon their marriage, and have not yet been located for interview. According to the account of their male contemporaries, however, 'the small classes in the Christian-run girls' school (Fu Yin T'ang 女校) were mostly from humble families, but those who were later admitted into classes in the study halls were mostly daughters of wealthy families. These girls were usually bright and diligent and showed deep interest in learning. Their average attendance was shorter than the boys', starting normally from the age of nine and none stayed beyond fourteen when they began to prepare for marriage.' "The experience of the two daughters of the founder of the Fu Yin T'ang was, however, exceptional. They never attended class in the village but were sent to a Christian school in Kowloon at the age of 10 and 9. It was a subsidized boarding school for girls (Fairlea) where the Bible, English, arithmetic, biology, hygiene, geography, history, and music as well as the traditional primers were taught. The fee was $5 a month per pupil." "It was a big sum of money, as the fee in the village schools was then from $2 to $5 per year," one of these two ladies, now aged 78, told us in an interview. The elder sister died young but she herself, after completing the upper primary class at Fairlea, received training in nursing at the Nethersole Hospital and then worked as a nurse in Hong Kong until retirement. While the above case was exceptional for women, it was less so among the men. Changes of the 1910's and 20's brought opportunities as well as new demands. Traditional education, though modified to a certain extent, began to seem steadily more inadequate to cope with the conditions of the time. Those who formerly would have sought a literate career in classical learning turned to the new facilities available. According to our findings from the Oral History Project, between 1913 and 1932, at least twenty young men from the village and almost certainly more were known to have received a Western education at the Tai Po Government School or at the Anglo-Chinese schools in urban Kowloon and Hong Kong. Most of these people had thereafter successful careers as government clerks, interpreters, teachers, headmasters, and businessmen. They were also viewed as elite. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 262 and often served as village leaders or became appointed officially as village representatives, enjoying perhaps as high a social prestige as had once been accorded to the civil examination degree-holders in imperial China. We have seen that, from about 1912 or 1913, some girls in the village began to be educated, and some boys began to seek a fully modern education outside the village. Adjustments were also made in the education available to the majority of the villagers who stayed and received their education in the village. But the changes were slow to come and were not without difficulties. Between 1913 and 1932, of the fifty to a hundred government subsidized schools in the New Territories, three at the most were from Sheung Shui and they had more than once been struck off from the subsidized school list because of unsatisfactory progress. When the Education Ordinance of 1913 was applied to the New Territories in 1921, at different times only between one and a maximum of three schools in Sheung Shui were accepted for registration. With an average attendance of about 20 students each, this small number of subsidized and registered schools accounted for only between 20 and, at most, 100 students, and probably averaged about 40. This meant that a great part of the village education at this time was operated outside approved channels, and was not subject to the supervision of the Hong Kong government, and since even the supervised schools were occasionally struck off for poor standards, it may be assumed that the average school had not received much advantage from the modern education ideas, modern textbooks and new teaching methods. School education remained basically still in the impoverished traditional form described above as typifying village education in the first decade of the century. Meanwhile, it seems unlikely that school attendance had dropped drastically, and it is therefore unlikely that more than a third of the school-going children in the village were being educated in these subsidized schools. According to accounts given by elders who had taught or studied in the village during these years, traditional small tutorial classes were carried out as before. But only the one, two or three larger and better such classes were able to secure any subsidy from the government. In these tutorial classes the curriculum remained basically as narrow as before, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 265 Year of birth Years in Type of School Subject school 1906 8 9 り over 10 10 4 3 J ! | 5 I 12 8 13 10 DAC вит L L... L. 1910 14 3 K 3 1911 15 7 ✓ 16 S 1915 B C 17 5 18 3 L 1 برد 19 3 2 20 N GA પ ватим L... ... Атить 2 8 21 ... 12 вонить 222 22 6 L .... ватни Occupations Caddie at Fanling Golf Club, brick-maker at Lo Wu Subsidized village school teacher, teacher at Fung Kai Clerk in various government departments Grocer, bus-driver Shop-assistant, seaman Private village school teacher, registered village school teacher, grocer Registered teacher at Shek Wu Hui Herbalist Farmer, labourer (Urban Council) Caddie, farmer, seaman Teacher at a modern school in Canton Shopowner at Kowloon Grant school teacher at Kowloon, headmaster Registered school teacher, businessman at Saikung Son of a village school teacher, herbalist Traditional village schools in Sheung Shui Anglo-Chinese Schools at Taipo Anglo-Chinese Schools at Kowloon/Hong Kong ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 266 With the shortage of teachers, the turning of the village elite away from the traditional learning to a westernized education, the widening gap between the classical syllabus and the modern world, and the continuing reluctance of the small schools within the village to reform their educational practices, traditional village education, and its relevance to the average villager, clearly declined in Sheung Shui during the early decades of the 20th century. In fact, according to the official census reports, there was a decrease in the rate of literacy among the male populations over the age of five in the New Territories as a whole from 56.6% in 1921 to 54.22% in 1931. The following table, compiled from statistics of the 1913 Census, also shows the decline of literacy rate in the younger generations: TABLE III Year of Birth Age Able to read and write Unable % of literacy rate within age group 1927 0-4 4108 1926-1921 5-10 942 5657 14.27 1920-1916 11-15 2215 3008 42.41 1915-1911 16-20 2968 2523 56.83 1910- over 21 18274 9416 66.00 The very small percentage in the 5-10 age group may be due to the fact that most children started school at about the age of seven or nine and they could hardly be expected to be able to read or to write after only one or two years' schooling. The declining rates in the two age groups below 21 might be due to other factors such as delay in acquiring education or an influx of educated adults. But, as far as Sheung Shui was concerned, the figures help to support our belief that there was a decline in village education in the early decades of the 20th century. The inadequacy and disappointing conditions of the village schools must have also been noted by leaders of the village. In the late 1920's, people like Liao Kang-wai **[Liu Hong Wai], Liao Shao-hsien [Liu Siu Yin], Liao Hsin-yeh 新業 [Liu Sun Yip]** who had received a westernized education in urban Hong Kong, started a campaign to set up a modern school in the village in the ancestral hall. The movement was ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 267 supported by some of the village elders but objected to by some others because of the need to allow some remodelling of their hall if it was to become a school. After much argument, and under the leadership of Liao Shou-peng [Liu Shau-P'aang], a pioneer of modern education in the village, the Fung Kai School was eventually set up in the hall in 1932.* The school was run on modern lines with division of classes, set syllabus, time-tables, etc., and became one of the very few such schools found in the New Territories before World War II. With accommodation for more than 120 students, the school replaced almost immediately all the traditional small schools in the village, and its foundation marked the firm completion of the process of development from the traditional to the modern in village education in Sheung Shui, * Plate 7. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 268 NOTES * A general study on traditional education in the New Territories before the arrival of the British is given in another paper, "Village Education in the New Territories under the Ch'ing" shortly to be published by the Centre of Asian Studies, Hong Kong University. This present article is a related study on a single village in the N.T., with the purpose of seeing how and why education changed from its traditional pattern to a modern structure in the late 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century. * Sheung Shui is a large single surname village consisting of eight sub-villages lying at the heart of the Sheung Shui/Fanling plain (originally called Sheung U Tung [上烏塘] in Chinese). The village lies in a fertile low-lying river valley some twenty miles north of Kowloon and four miles south of Sham Chun. The village has been discussed in detail by Hugh Baker in his book, A Chinese Lineage Village, Frank Cass, 1968. * We were told by the village elders that their ancestors made special efforts to convert their dialect and custom into Punti shortly after their settlement in the district, just to be qualified to partake in the imperial examinations, for it was not until 1802 that the Hakkas were given a small quota in the examination, see also Hsin-an-Hsien-chih, 1981 reprint of the 1819 edition, Hong Kong, vol. 9, p. 99. According to the Liao genealogy and records on the ancestral tables (神主牌), the number of first degrees (生員) won by the lineage by generation were as follows: no of Sheng-yuan Generation 9 1 17th 10 century 11 12 10 Enw. 2 13 13 18th century 14 8 15 4 16 12 19th century 17 4 18 3 These data are not completely reliable, especially for those before the 14th generation, when the genealogy had not yet been written. Yet the numbers can be taken as an indication of the academic success of the Liaos. According to official records, there were at least three chu-jen degree holders from Sheung Shui in the 19th century. The six halls included the Ming Te Tang 明德堂, Hsien Ch'eng Tang, Yun Sheng Chia-shou 潤生齋, Tu Nan Tang 圖南堂, Ming Te Chia-shou 明德齋, and Yen Siu Tang 延壽堂. The Liaos stood next only to the T'angs of Kam Tin and Ping Shan within the New Territories in possessing such a number of halls for studying purposes. The Wan Shih Tang, unlike the other ancestral halls, was seldom used as a classroom as it was reserved for ceremonial functions. But in 1932, the building was re-modelled to accommodate the Fung Kai School, the first modern school set up in the village. For the history of the Wan Shih T'ang and founding of the Fung Kai School, see Liao Yin-sen. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 269 [Liu Yun Sham] Shang Shui [Sheung Shui] Hsiang Hsiang-kung-so kai-mu te-k'an 1:03, Hong Kong, 1981, pp. 31-32, 51. * The estimated population was given in "Report by Mr. Lockhart on the Extension of the Colony of Hong Kong", Sessional Papers, 1899, p. 204. * The figure is worked out on the estimate that about half of the population were males, and 20% of them were within the age group 7-14, Hugh Baker op. cit. p. 73. Hsin-an Hsien-chih, pp. 100, 156-157. G. P. Late, "Report on the Survey of the New Territories, 1900-1901" Hong Kong Government Gazette, 1902, p. 708. The description was given by a late Ch'ing sit-tsai, Liao Chun-nan in a poem (undated) found in a hand-written collection of poems and verses kept by a retired school master in the village. *G. N. Orme, "Report on the New Territories, 1899-1912”, Sessional Papers, Hong Kong, 1912, p. 56. 14 Ibid., p. 59. 15 "Report of the Director of Education for the year 1912", Hong Kong Administrative Reports, 1912, p. N 14. G. N. Orme, op. cit., p. 57. 17 Ibid. "Report on the Census of the Colony for 1911" p. 103(26) and "Report on the Census of the Colony for 1921", p. 173. Table XVIII of the 1911 Census gives 94,246 as the total population including the N.T., Kowloon City and Sham Shui Po. From this, we have to subtract the numbers for the last two districts, which were placed administratively under New Kowloon. Hence population figure of what we now call the N.T. in 1911 was 80,622. "Report of the Director of Education for the year 1913”, Administrative Reports, 1913, pp. N16-N17. * "Report of the Education Department", Administrative Reports, 1926, p. O5. * Annual Report of the Hong Kong and New Territory Evangelization Society, Hong Kong, 1912, p. 6, ** Annual Report of the Hong Kong and New Territory Evangelization Society, 1918, p. 4. * "Report on the Census of the Colony for 1921", Hong Kong, p. 189. "Report on the Census of the Colony for 1931", Hong Kong, pp. 138-139. "Dr. David Faure and Dr. Patrick Hase discovered last year at the home of a former village school teacher (born about 1875), a villager of Hoi Ha and resident at Pak Sha O Ha Yeung some 365 books of immense interest for the study of traditional village life and scholarship in the area of the New Territories. Amongst these books are a substantial number of textbooks used in the village from about 1875 to the eve of World War II. The books include the standard primers and their revised editions with additional commentaries, a set of three-four-five character primers composed in the late Ch'ing designed for women and children, simple readers, semi-modern texts on history, geography and hygiene, etc. The collection is of great value for further research. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 270 "Report of the Education Department", Administration Reports, Hong Kong 1921, p. 24. * Subsidies were paid at varying rates of $45 to $180 per month according to a school's merits. Throughout the 1910's & 1920's, the few subsidized village schools at Sheung Shui were placed at grade C, receiving the lowest payment. The teacher got usually $4-$5 a month from the subsidy and a similar sum from school fees paid by students. * Their usual work was to write formal invitations, announcements or acknowledgement for the villagers on occasions such as engagement, wedding, birthday and funeral. At times, they also composed couplets in fine calligraphy as gifts. In our research, we find that most of the few retired elderly village teachers whom we interviewed had in their possession a hand-written copy of manuals with exemplars of these types of writings. "Report by the Inspectors of Vernacular Schools", Hong Kong Administrative Reports, 1930, p. 023. ** Information is based on memories of fifteen of them who are still living at Sheung Shui. Seven had passed away but were contemporaries of these fifteen elders. The oral accounts given are also supported by written records such as certificates, school records, and photographs. #1 * "Census Report for 1931", p. 138. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 294 G NOTES AND QUERIES In 1884 Brenan was H.B.M. Consul at Chefoo. His position in 1880 is not clear from papers to hand, but he appears to have been making official visits to various places on the China Coast. * China, Imperial Maritime Customs, Reports on trade at the treaty ports for the year 1879. Shanghai, 1880, p. 246, Ibid., p. 247. It was on behalf of one of Thomas Piry's grandsons that this volume of the trade reports was consulted, leading to the discovery of the two letters to W. Keswick. & Ibid., p. 246. THE VILLAGE WATCH IN THE HONG KONG REGION Before 1899 most New Territories villages of any size had watchmen or constables employed by the elders to enforce local rules, and in the bigger villages these may have had permanent employment. Lockhart wrote of “kang fu (kaang foo) or village constables, who are appointed by the village, and paid out of contributions made by the villagers according to the extent of their holdings in land". He continued, "Their duty is to keep watch, especially at night. They have the power to arrest, which is deputed to them by the gentry and elders of the village". Writing four years after the transfer of the New Territories, another official, F. H. May, added a qualification: "The so called Police really only village watchmen formerly and still in some instances employed by the villagers were only responsible for prevention of larcenies between villagers. They were not held responsible for robberies by outsiders which were supposed to be beyond their power to prevent".2 The village watch was still a feature of the local security arrangements in the 1960s. Baker gives an account of it in the Sheung Shui villages of the northern New Territories in the 1960s, whilst Watson mentions it in his book on the Man lineage of San Tin, in an adjoining area. My own notes, which follow, made at Nga Tsin Wai, the last surviving village of central Kowloon, in the mid 1960s also offer some information on the subject. Before and after 1899, this old walled village* had an office there was no wall as such, but the houses all faced inward, giving the same effect as an enclosure. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p NOTES AND QUERIES 297 北 * H. D. R. Baker, A Chinese Lineage Village, Sheung Shui (London, Frank Cass, 1968) 79-83, 128 for details. 'James L. Watson, Emigration and the Chinese Lineage, The Mans in Hong Kong and London (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1975) mentions the San Tin Village watch at 27, 42, 177, 183 but gives no details of its organization. 5 Useful comparative information about the night watch in villages in Hopei, Shansi, Shantung and Hunan is given at pp. 109-112 of Sidney D. Gamble, North China Villages, Social, Political and Economic Activities before 1933 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1963). See also pp. 22-23 of his article "Hsin Chuang, A Study of Chinese Village Finance" (1907-1931) in Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, VIII (1944-45), 1-33. Ordinarily the paid watch, sometimes replaced or augmented by volunteers, operated in these villages from the first of the tenth month until the end of the twelfth month, and sometimes into the second lunar month of the following year, whereas in the Hong Kong region it seems to have been permanent. However, more information is needed on this point, as there are cases here, such as Muk Min Ha, Tsuen Wan, where the former Village Watch was active mainly in the winter quarter. VILLAGE RULES; FIRECRACKERS IN THE SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES AND IN TOKEN OF FINES In rural society in the Hong Kong Region, there was until very recently and certainly up to the discontinuance of the padi farming that was the basis of subsistence agriculture a great reliance on local customary rules. These were generally unwritten, and carried in the heads of the elders, available for use when required. They were generally known to, and accepted by, the villagers, who would know when rules were being infringed or broken, and the appropriate remedy or penalty. Sometimes the rules would be put in writing, and in matters deemed to be important would be placed on a wooden board in the community temple or cut on a stone tablet let into the wall of the temple. Copies of the rules would often be written into the handbooks held by the village scholars. Copies of individual rules were also, on occasion, written out and posted up in a public place for all to see. This much is generally known, but one aspect of local practice in connection with the settlement of disputes that has come to my attention in the Hong Kong countryside is not so well covered in modern studies of village life in China. This was the provision for the letting off of firecrackers, to an appropriate but always ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 102 The first valley is that of Shek Pik ("Rock Wall"). This lies right under the steep south-west face of Lantau Peak. The main village stands at some distance from a creek with a big sandbar which makes a good harbour for small boats. To the east is a little hamlet, Tung Wan ("East Bay"), where a sandbar has silted across the mouth of a stream, making a marsh. A bay a little west of the creek faces the surf, and so has no landing and is in consequence deserted except for cultivation and pasture1a. Shui Hau and Tong Fuk ("Creek Mouth" and "Banked Happiness"), which form the second group of villages, have poor landing-places. They lie at one end of the long stretch of beach which extends to Pui O (“Cup Haven")14 which is the name of the third group of villages. The chief features of Pui O are its fine woods with their ancient trees: the very long sand-spit enclosing a lagoon where boats can lie: and the double storm beach, the second one to the rear being the older. There is an old brick or pottery kiln built on this beach. Passes go from Pui O to Mui Wo and Shap Long. Beyond Pui O to the southeast is a rugged granite peninsula; it only has one village of importance, Tai Long ("Great Waves"). This village has one very fine sand beach with another to the west, which, because it is much more exposed, has no village15. To the east of Tai Long are the wells from where the Cheung Chau waterboats get their water. On the north coast of this granite peninsula are bays and hamlets where sand junks used to dig sand. At its innermost point is Shap Long ("Ten Ridges", but this translation is particularly doubtful), a plain with a sandbank in front; the sea is so shallow sand junks cannot approach. A few years ago an epidemic of smallpox made the villagers think something was wrong with their abode, so they left the houses all standing and moved into huts further down the valley, on its northern side. The next point of interest on the Lantau coast is the Silver Mine Bay, a beautiful valley with a big sand beach in front, and with four villages, Mui Wo ("Plum Nook"), Tai Tei Tong ("Big Land Pond"), Luk Tei Tong ("Deer Land Pond"), and Pak Ngan ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 133 NOTES 1 See John A. Brim "Village Alliance Temples in Hong Kong" in Arthur P. Wolf (ed) Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1974) pp. 93-103. More recently, David Faure has given examples from the eastern New Territories in articles published in this Journal. See pp. 76-85 of "Hong Kong and China in the Village World” in Vol. 21(1981); pp. 172-179 of “Saikung, the Making of the District and its Experience during World War II" in Vol. 22(1982); and his Note (with Lee Lai-mui) "The Po Tak Temple in Sheung Shui Market" in the same Volume, pp. 271-279. A book is forthcoming. 2 This is the theme of my own studies, particularly in The Hong Kong Region 1850-1911, Institutions and Leadership in Town and Countryside (Hamden, Conn, Archon Books with Dawson, Folkstone, 1977) and The Rural Communities of Hong Kong, Studies and Themes (Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1983), hereafter Hayes 1977 and Hayes 1983. 3 A study of one of the smaller villages of Hong Kong island, Tai Tam Tuk, is given at pp. 61-73 with 250-255 of Hayes 1983. This provides some information on the coastal market centre, Shau Kei Wan, to which the villagers went regularly (pp. 65-6 and 253) but, generally speaking, this entire subject is still badly under researched. 4 The Hong Kong government's census returns, printed in the Hong Kong Government Gazette from 1853 (and before that in the China Mail into which government notifications were placed) show the rapid growth of population, almost all of it newly urbanized. G.B. Endacott's A History of Hong Kong (London, Oxford University Press, 1958) devotes half its length to the first thirty years and gives population figures at pp. 64-66, 85, 98, 116 and 125 for this period. The population rose from 20,338 in 1848 to 121,825 in 1865. 5 See Revd. Carl T. Smith "The Emergence of a Chinese Elite in Hong Kong" in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch, Royal Asiatic Society (hereafter JHKBRAS) 11(1971), pp. 74-115. 6 The native place of the Chinese land population of the Colony was overwhelmingly Kwangtung province (227,615 out of 234,443 at the 1901 Census, with the population of the newly acquired New Territory taken separately. The Report was published in Sessional Papers (Papers laid before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong) 1901, No. 39 of 1901. See paras. 23-24, and the detailed breakdown of origin by districts of the province at Table XI. This detail is not available for earlier printed reports and is included here to indicate the diverse origins of the urban population, most of whom may be presumed to have been from the rural countryside of Kwangtung. 7 "It is not regarded as a promising missionary station, because it is the resort of the lowest class of the natives", wrote Revd. William Aitchison, a newly arrived American missionary to China, in 1854, a view imbibed from English and American Colleagues at Hong Kong, Revd. Charles P. Bush, Five Years in China The Life and Observations of Revd. William Aitchison, Late Missionary to China (Philadelphia, Presbyterian Publication Committee, 1865) pp. 91-2. 8 Ap Lei Chau or Aberdeen Island () is an island, 0.455 square miles in area, on the southern side of Aberdeen Harbour—see the Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories (Hong Kong Government Printer, 1960) p. 97. 9 Evidence given by a local inhabitant (b. 1815) in a hearing under the Squatter Ordinance 1890—see Notes of Proceedings of the Squatters ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 221 bungalow, its library and its visitors' books. I wonder if by some miracle, it and they are still in existence? ANCESTRAL IMAGES: A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE HUGH D. R. Baker* In Vol. 20 of the journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Dr. James Hayes published a very kind review of my Ancestral Images books (S.C.M.P., Hong Kong, 1979, 1980, 1981). Quite rightly he regretted the omission of page references from the passages of quotation in the books. It is unnecessary to detail the process by which I contrived to leave out this important information, but by way of penance I have prepared a complete list of the quotation references and I append it to this note. Leafing through all the books again, I was struck by the age of the sources which I used - well over half of them were written before 1949, and 16 of the 17 authors quoted more than twice each were writing before 1940. This is not, I hasten to say, an apology for conservatism, for there is no doubt in my mind that in much of the older material there is greater understanding of the Chinese and their culture than is to be found in the sometimes arid sociological analysis of later scholars. Certainly it is easier to find lively and illuminating passages for quotation in works written by experienced, jaundiced "China-livers" rather than in those of dispassionate "China-watchers". In any case I was trying to shed light on the "Chineseness" of Chinese and Hong Kong society, and "Chineseness" is an accumulation of three or four * Hugh D. R. Baker is Reader in Modern Chinese in the University of London and Head of the Contemporary China Institute, School of Oriental & African Studies. He has also written A Chinese Lineage Village: Sheung Shui and Chinese Family & Kinship as well as many other articles and contributions to books. He has conducted extensive research in Hong Kong, which he visits frequently, and was Chinese Language Training Adviser to the Hong Kong Government from 1974-75 on secondment from London. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 239 scattered farms of various families. Towards the end of the Ming, because of the unsettled state of the times, these families decided to come together to form a fortified village with wall and moat. They employed a famous Fung Shui expert, Lai Po-i (*), to set out and purify the enclosure. He was mocked by some youths however, and became so angered that he flung down the bowl of water he was using in the purificatory rites and left. Things went wrong, and eventually the elders sought Lai Po-i out to beseech him to return to complete his work. This he refused to do, but instructed them to build a temple oriented to the north-east on the site where he had thrown down the bowl, and to lay out a road directly in front to a suitable point where the gate would be, and then to set out a village with that road site taken as the centre. This was done, and the village was set out as a square, with the temple in the centre of the back wall, directly facing the gate down the main street, in consequence. The temple was dedicated to Hau Wong. The Sha Tin villagers believe that Hau Wong had been a refugee who had settled in Sha Tin somewhen before their ancestors arrived, who had farmed in the area and given advice to anyone who came to ask. After his death the residents continued to ask his spirit for advice, at the site of his hut. An exactly similar tale is told of Che Kung and the founding of his, the only other old temple in Sha Tin. It seems clear that these two gods were of essentially local significance, and that they jointly presided over the fortunes of the valley. Before the fortification of Tai Wai it is likely that the temple to Hau Wong stood in the fields, like the Che Kung Temple, and that all the residents of the area worshipped there. After the Tai Wai villagers brought the god into the new temple in the village this area responsibility seems to have remained, although the village came more and more to regard the temple as their own special property. Certainly, Hau Wong, as well as the definitely communal Che Kung, is still invited to all Ta Tsiu celebrations in Sha Tin. Further, at the repair of the temple inside the village in 1864, for which a donation tablet is preserved, donations were received from most Sha Tin villages, and even from wealthy men in Cheung Sha Wan and Kowloon who had ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 115 differences between liners and seiners can be expressed in the following diagram, which contrasts their basically different patterns of daily movement (blue and red solid lines) and annual (festival) movement (broken lines) with their basically similar territoriality (solid black line).” Unfortunately, the diagram was never prepared. 33 Readers interested in Chinese junks from the marine architect's point of view are recommended to the several beautiful studies by Worcester listed in the Bibliography below. See also Stanley S.S. Yuan Fishing Junks, a paper presented to the Engineering Society of Hong Kong, Vol. IX, No. 2, January 1956, pp. 41-78 (and 78a-y), and Needham (1971) [Possibly G.R.G. Worcester, The Floating Population in China, an Illustrated Record of the Junkmen and Their Boats on Sea and River (Hong Kong reprint, 1970) and Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China (Cambridge, 1954-)]. 34 Reference to Needham (and Yuan op. cit., p.53). [See n.33]. 35 Yuan: ibid. 36 Ref. Worcester and Needham et al. [See n.33]. 37 [A diagram showing the layout of the holds and deck space was to be provided at this point]. 38 [Not found in manuscript.] 39 [A note was planned at this point but not written.] 39 [Chapter 6?] 40 [An unfinished paragraph follows: "In 1970 I asked my friends in Kau Sai to make another count at the time of the festival, and to indicate which members of which boat families were now living ashore. The results, received by post, were as follows:") 41 [Term marked in manuscript, probably to be replaced in subsequent revision.] 42 [Not included in manuscript.] 43 [Manuscript includes this line in parentheses: "(etc. see annual report on this and include details)."] 44 [See p. 112.] 45 [Not included in manuscript.] 46 Particularly in Chapter 9 below. For economic aspects see also Chapter 8. [Unfortunately, neither chapter appears in the manuscript.] 47 Indeed, the boat itself and all the persons aboard were always (and solely) identified by reference to the master's (personal) name. Thus one heard of Wing Toh's boat, Fuk Hei's employee, Fung Shang's wife, Shing Chui's son, etc, etc. 48 Other terms used, usually more formally and in written contexts were shuen cheung (lit: boat exalted, boat leader) and shuen chu (lit: boat lord). Each of these also translates fairly well as "boat's master". (Cp. also uk cheung, uk chue (house leader, house lord, i.e. head of household); ghaah cheung (family leader, mandarin: chia chang); tsuen cheung (village leader) etc. 49 [Not found in The Census Report of 1961, K.M.A. Barnett, a long-time member of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, was then Commissioner of Census.] ================================================================================ 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-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 NOTES AND QUERIES THE PO TAK TEMPLE IN SHEUNG SHUI MARKET The Po Tak Temple (Temple to repay a virtuous deed), also known as the Ts'un Foo Temple (The Governor's temple), in Sheung Shui Market now occupies only a small flat in a multi-storeyed building on Tsun Fu Street, but it was a sizable building until it was burnt down in the fire in 1955. For a long time, it was also the political focus of the Punti villages in the northern and eastern New Territories. The temple was built to commemorate Chau Yau-tak (H), Governor-General of Kwangtung and Kwangsi from 1670 to 1673, and Wong Loi-yam (E), Governor of Kwangtung in 1669, the two officials who were instrumental in petitioning the Emperor to end the coastal evacuation from 1662 to 1669. No-one remembers when it was built. According to the 1819 edition of the San On Gazetteer, it was one of three temples devoted to these two officials in the county, the other two being located north of Sham Chun Market. This record must not be taken to be exhaustive: there was at least one more devoted to these two officials in Kam Tin (the Chau Wong I Kung Shue Uen). Village elders remember that before the Second World War and in the 1950s sacrifice was offered annually at the Po Tak Temple to the two officials by two separate but overlapping groups referred to as the Old Alliance (Kau Yeuk) and the New Alliance (San Yeuk). The Old Alliance sacrificed on the nineteenth of the Fifth Month and the New Alliance on the first of the Sixth Month. The account books of both groups are fortunately extant, and they provide valuable documentation on these two important inter-village organizations. Two copies of the Old Alliance account book are available. Both have written on the front covers: Po Tak Temple temple celebration volume, 12th year of the Republic, Lung Shaan copy (報徳祠神誕冊,民國十二年立,龍山冊). We have compared the introductory texts, and they are identical. It seems ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 NOTES AND QUERIES 273 Yeuk Tau, Fan Ling (surname P'ang), and San Tin (surname Man) each held a share, and Tai Hang (Man) and Tai Po Tau (Tang) together held another share. Thus, in the New Alliance, but not in the Old, all the five major punti lineages of the northern and eastern New Territories were represented. Included in the account books of the Old Alliance is a set of regulations, a translation with brief annotation of which we give below: 1. Management is to be rotated annually in the following order: first, Kam Tsin heung, Ping Kong heung, Ho Sheung heung, Yin Kong heung; second, the Liu surname of Sheung Shui; third, the Wan Shing T'ong of Sheung Shui; fourth, the Tang surname of Lung Shaan. 2. Each heung is to keep an account book. When it is its turn to take care of the affairs of the year, ten days before [the annual sacrifice] it should send invitations to the shan-sz of each and every heung, and there must be no delay. [The word heung is clearly not used consistently. In regulation 1, it is used in the sense of a single village. In this regulation, it is used for the groups of villages that together held a single share. We have also not used any English equivalent for the term shan-sz because of the controversy over the term. In an area with a strong tradition of scholarship such as Sheung Shui, a shan-sz before the abolition of the official examinations in 1905 would probably have been a man who possessed an official degree, won in the examination or purchased. It is conceivable, though, that the term was used less rigidly in villages that did not produce a degree-holder.] 3. Each heung must have contributed [a sum to be used as] capital, that is, ten dollars from each surname. [The text specifies that the money must have been contributed on a "previous day". This is probably a clumsy way of stating that only a contribution at the time of the foundation of the alliance constituted a share.] 4. To facilitate checking, the field names, rents, and mortgage prices of all plots of land mortgaged or purchased from the different surnames are to be recorded. The right for rent ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 NOTES AND QUERIES 275 the heung in question is to take charge of the matter on its own, and it is not the concern of the other heung [in the alliance]. 10. In the event that there is a genuinely unlawful descendant [tsz-ai] among the various surnames, and his own lineage () brings charges against him, and if the shan-sz of other heung are notified, they must also put their names to these charges and may not refuse to do so. [The term tsz-tai implies that the culprit must be male and within the lines of descent of the lineage.] 約 11. If a robber is caught within the alliance [yeuk shuk] and charged, the alliance will contribute 4 silver dollars towards expenses. [The term yeuk shuk, literally "what belongs to the alliance", may include a much wider territory than what is normally thought of as the confines of the individual member villages. The member villages were major land-owners in the New Territories, whose holdings stretched from Sai Kung to Kowloon, and the possibility must not be ruled out that the Old Alliance was designed to have jurisdiction over a much larger area than Sheung Shui and its immediate vicinity.] 12. On the occasion of the annual sacrifice, within the first ten days of the Fourth Month, the chief manager of affairs for the year is to set a title from the Four Books and another for a five character poem, and post them outside the door of the Po Tak Temple, so that during the celebration villagers may submit to the manager their compositions. The manager will forward these compositions to teachers at the provincial capital [i.e. Canton] to be adjudicated. The best ten compositions will be awarded some small gifts in order to encourage literary achievement. 13. On the occasion of a military or literary official functionary [man-mo yau-p'oon] passing by the Governor's Temple and paying his respect to Governor-General Chau and Governor Wong, a roast pig is to be prepared, he is to be awarded altogether 6 silver dollars, and his men and horses are to receive 2 silver dollars. For the feast on that day, two tables are to be set. Every share [in the yeuk] is to despatch to the feast at the Governor's Temple one or two shan-sz from the village. It will be understood that the four shares together will ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 44 + heard it they shouted for joy, and started off to their homes at once, full of hope. But when they found their houses half fallen down, some villages entirely hidden by the long grasses, and the paddy fields covered with weeds, they were much dishearted, realizing that they were not any better off when they were inside the boundary. San On district had in the meanwhile been re-established and Lei Hoh Shing (5) the district magistrate gives a pitiful picture of the condition of the land and people. ... I arrived as district magistrate and found many old and young lying in ditches, having died from hunger. The strong young men are gone to other places to earn their livings. When I look down from a height all is dense undergrowth and fallen walls and I cannot hear the voice of a single wild goose in the distance . . . . so I get oxen trained to plough..... and every so often I collect one or two lucky-to-be-alive people and try to encourage them to develop the barren land. We stand about and talk, but when the talking is not half finished each of us cannot help sobbing with grief. . . . ++ Thus gradually the land was worked back to its old state, and to perpetuate the memory of the two men who had done so much to help the people, a hall was built in Shek Woo Market (M) by the Sheung Shui (E) villagers and their neighbours. The name of the hall was **Tuk Foo I Kung Ts'z** (A) "The Viceroy and the Governor, these two Sirs Hall". Over the front door three characters were written Po Tak Ts'z "Return thanks for the Bounty Hall". The hall was used for the village council for many years and every year on the birthdays of Governor Wong and Viceroy Chau a feast is held in the hall by the village elders. Another such hall is in Kam Tin (see H.K.N. VIII, page 207 and plate 20(2))* and has been used as a school for many years. It is situated on Taai Sha Chau (7) amidst beautiful scenery and near it is the Kam Shui (*) “ornamental stream", with a big lawn like a tennis court in front of it. A large lichee orchard is on the left-hand side of the hill. Since the 10th year of Kin Lung (#), 1745, each Yuet Chau (ZE) year, which occurs every ten years [sic], the Kam Tin people have a matshed erected for Kin Tsiu ( ), the festival of the Dead. Two water colour paintings of the Governor and Viceroy are displayed * Vol. 14, of the Journal, plate 41. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q DAVID FAURE'S REJOINDER: There is much in this review that I dislike how can Chun take me to task, on the one hand, for dabbling in Anthropology, and on the other hand, conclude that I think “local history can be understood simply by looking at events and personages as they take place on the ground”? However, let me answer the several criticisms that I think touch on some of the major issues. First, Chun thinks I do not have a salient criticism of Freedman's thesis. Let me reiterate that much as we have learnt from Freedman, I found him wanting for not being able to incorporate village religion into his lineage framework, and for being sloppy in his use of terms such as "local lineage", "higher-level lineage" and "clan". I think my argument for the importance of "settlement rights" salvages his concept of the "local lineage". Second, Chun does not present here accurately my argument concerning the grandiose freestanding ancestral halls built in the official style. I do not argue that there was a "period" of the "Five Great Clans” not even in the eastern portion of the New Territories. I think the linkage of lineage groups across settlement, and the adoption of a code of conduct that included the compilation of written genealogies and that was consistent with officially prescribed standards, took root as a change in style that began in the sixteenth century and gradually worked its way from the richer and more powerful lineages to the poorer ones. This process took fully three centuries, and during this period different territorial groups dominated different parts of the eastern New Territories. In a nutshell, Lung Yeuk Tau (Tang surname) was overlord of all this area, with minor concessions to the Haus of Hung Leng and Ho Sheung Heung, up to the end of the Ming dynasty, The Lius of Sheung Shui sprang into prominence in the early Qing, nibbling into former Tang terrain, while possibly some time in the eighteenth century, the Hung Leng Haus lost their holdings. Of the other two surnames in the “Five”, the Fan Ling P'aangs did not achieve prominence until the nineteenth century, and while the Tai Hang Mans were taken into account by Lung Yeuk Tau, Sheung Shui and Ho Sheung Heung when the Po Tak Tz Old Alliance was formed in the early Qing (possibly eighteenth century), its influence declined subsequently until it became a party of the Kau Yeuk, along with the P'aangs, that founded Tai Po new market in the late nineteenth century. This history notwithstanding, my argument is quite simply that the ancestral worship one sees the villagers practise ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 130 ―T towards the end of the century. The original market for the Sha Tau Kok area was Sham Tsun; it was only from about 1825 that the population of the Sha Tau Kok area rose to the point where it could sustain a market of its own, at Sha Tau Kok. The main impetus to the foundation of the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz, apart from the purely religious one, and the political one to be discussed below, was to provide a resting-place for travellers on the road to Sham Tsun. This road was long, and the two-mile-long deserted section through the mountains was without shelter, either from the elements or from wild animals (tigers were a serious problem in the area, as village tales and placenames demonstrate). The nunnery was founded, in part, to provide services to wayfarers; in particular, according to elderly villagers, free tea was given to anyone stopping to rest there. Traffic on this road was heavy. At its peak, between 1900 and 1915, about 20,000 people a month passed by, carrying up to 400 tons of goods, according to surveys conducted in 1904 and 1910 by the Hong Kong Government to assess likely traffic on railway lines in the area. 10 The road from Sham Tsun to Sha Tau Kok was important not only because of its local significance to the two market towns, but to a wider area as well. It was part of the main road from the county city of Nam Tau (Nantou) to the Deputy Magistrate's city of Tai Pang (Dapeng), which was the most important east-west route in the county. The main north-south routes in the county were those which linked Kowloon with Sham Tsun, and then on from Sham Tsun with the towns further north, and, eventually, with Canton. There were three main crossings of the Sham Tsun river between the New Territories area and Sham Tsun: the Liu Pok ferry to the southwest of Sham Tsun, which carried the traffic on the Yuen Long-Sham Tsun road, and the Lo Wu ferry and the Law Fong bridge, which between them carried the Kowloon-Sham Tsun traffic. The most direct route from Kowloon to the north was the road from Tai Po to Sheung Shui, and thence over the Lo Wu ferry. This ferry, however, was expensive, and could only be bypassed by using a waist-deep ford, which was difficult and dangerous, and impossible after rain. Many travellers, therefore, preferred the slightly longer, but cheap and safe Law Fong bridge crossing. There were two routes from Kowloon to the Law Fong bridge. One crossed the mountains north of Tai Po by the Kat Tsai Au pass, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 146 the client relationship Lung Yeuk Tau wanted them in. Loi Tung, despite its genealogical connection with Lung Yeuk Tau, was always regarded by Lung Yeuk Tau as a "poor relation", and classed with the "small villages". Lung Yeuk Tau was, in addition, a member of the Po Tak Temple (#) Old Alliance: this alliance was of the "major lineages” of the area (Lung Yeuk Tau, Sheung Shui, Ho Sheung Heung, and Tai Hang), and was a specifically gentry body, whose influence was certainly antagonistic to the “small villages". The Sze Yeuk, therefore, divided into Lung Yeuk Tau to the west, interested mostly in its enmity to Fan Ling, and an eastern group, which had interests to the north. In the Shap Yeuk area, Man Uk Pin, the westernmost of the ten or eleven Yeuk of the Shap Yeuk, was also part of the Sze Yeuk, in which organisation it did not form a Yeuk by itself, but was merely a subordinate part of the Loi Tung Yeuk. Man Uk Pin was a long way from Sha Tau Kok market, and, again, looked in a different direction from most of the rest of the Shap Yeuk. To Man Uk Pin the road through the Miu Keng pass was essential, and the villages on the other side of the pass were, therefore, of more interest to it than would have been the case with the other Shap Yeuk villages. areas ― Peripheral areas, on the boundaries of the Yeuk inter-village alliance areas, were always more conscious of interests outside the Yeuk areas than villages closer to the centre of local political activity. The Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz is built where the Luk Yeuk, Shap Yeuk, and Sze Yeuk meet. The area is peripheral to the centre of interest of all three Yeuk - the Law Fong bridge, the Sha Tau Kok market, and the river crossing between Lung Yeuk Tau and Fan Ling. The continuing existence of the nunnery committee, and the continuing inter-relationship of the villages holding the six shares of the nunnery, was a standing brake to any attempt by hot-heads to provoke enmity between the three Yeuk alliances as units; if such a thing had happened, the three groups of "front-line" villages would have been unlikely to have been very enthusiastic participants. It is probably this factor which led to there never being any outright fighting between these three alliance areas as a whole, despite the Sze Yeuk and Shap Yeuk friendliness with Wong Pui Ling. Equally, the capacity to look for support from outside the Yeuk area must have strengthened the position of Loi Tung, Man Uk Pin, and the Ping Yuen people within their respective Yeuk areas. The influence of the Magistrate and the gentry in the area was minimal. ================================================================================ 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 155 27 As noted above, 20,000 people a month used the Miu Keng pass. Probably as many again used the road from Ping Che to Kan Tau Wai, or started their journey within Ta Kwu Leng. 40,000 users of the ferry a month is a likely figure. Probably 25% of them carried goods. This represents more than $50 a month income, or about $600 a year. Even depreciating heavily for the salary of boatmen and costs of maintenance, $400 a year clear profit seems likely. The date of this war was probably in the 1860s, as Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society, op. cit., p. 104, shows. 29 For the arrangement of the Yeuk, see map. The information in this section comes from Mr. Chan Yau-tsoi and Mr. Chan Wa-chun of Ping Yeung, Mr. Man Kam-muk of Ping Che, Mr. Yeung Choi of Fụng Wong Wu, Mr. Man Lei-wa of Tong Fong, and Mr. Hau Foh-tai of Law Fong, all very knowledgeable elders. I met them as a group, and include here only what they were unanimous in agreeing was the case. I would like to express my particular thanks to them for the several hours of discussion they had with me. As to Sai Ling Ha, this village, although it lay within the Ta Kwu Ling hills, supported Wong Pui Ling in the fighting, I was told. It had no part in the Luk Yeuk. However, when the Communists took over, most of the inhabitants of Sai Ling Ha crossed into Hong Kong, and set up homes in Ping Che. They were then allowed to become part of the Luk Yeuk, as part of Ping Che Yeuk. The account of the Luk Yeuk given here differs in detail from that given in Faure, op. cit., pp. 103-104. +1 - 30 The deaths are recorded in the "Heroes Shrine" () in the Tin Hau Temple at Ping Che, which was the community temple of the Ta Kwu Ling area. 23 names of the **Heroes who died in protecting the villages, who knew how to perform the duties of filial piety", or the "Heroes who defended the Yeuk" as they are named in two inscriptions *澳四總鎮源樂友例段英雄履考之神位 and "MX") are recorded. Of these, 3 (all surnamed Chan) came from the Ping Yeung Yeuk, 4 (3 surnamed Tang and 1 surnamed Chau) from the Lin Tong Yeuk, 4 (1 surnamed Chau and 3 surnamed Lei) from the Lei Uk Yeuk, 4(2 surnamed Yiu and 2 surnamed Hau) from the Law Fong Yeuk, 2 (both surnamed Yip) from the Lo Shue Ling Yeuk and 4 (2 surnamed Wong and 2 surnamed Man) from the Ping Che Yeuk. One Law died he came either from Law Fong (Law Fong Yeuk) or Kan Tau Wai (Ping Che Yeuk). A Lau Ah-ngau (劉亞牛) also died -- he could have been from Wo Keng Shan (Ping Yeung Yeuk), where there was a tiny clan of Laus, or could possibly have been a servant, as his name suggests his name is entered last on the tablet. 23 deaths suggests very bloody fighting. It is unlikely that the population of the whole of Ta Kwu Ling in 1860 was higher than 1750 (representing an average village population of about 80, or perhaps 12 households), and the adult males could not have been more than a quarter of that (440). The young men of fighting age were probably no more than about 200. 23 out of 200 is about 11.5% deaths of those involved, which is a very high percentage. The population of the Ta Kwu Ling villages within the New Territories totalled 1441 in the 1911 Census (Sessional Papers, 1911, no. 17, Noronha & Lo, Hong Kong, 1911, "Report on the Census of the Colony for 1911”, Table XIX p. 103 (32)). + - Loi Tung, with its lineage brethren of Lung Yeuk Tau, and the small villages between them, formed the Sze Yeuk (四約, “Alliance of Four''), which was, to a large degree, designed to ensure that the ancient enmity of the Tangs of Lung Yeuk Tau and Loi Tung with the Pangs of Fan Ling was tilted in favour of the Tangs. The Pangs supported the Luk Yeuk in its fight with the Cheungs this almost certainly means that the Sze Yeuk supported the Cheungs, as did Sheung Shui, the other ancient enemy of the Pangs. Man Uk Pin was a Yeuk of the Sha Tau Kok Shap Yeuk, as well as forming a part of the Sze Yeuk. The Shap Yeuk were dubious about the activities of the Luk Yeuk. Free travel between Sha Tau Kok and Sham Tsun was vital to the Shap Yeuk. With the Cheung Shan Kwụ Page 180 Page 181 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 328 winter. Once in a year they practised shooting at a police shooting range near Man Kam To. In earlier times the guards had used gwan sticks. C. The village market At present there are a few shops, mostly food stalls, in Kam Tin Shi. Some Dangs also live there. They are descendants of the senior branch, including descendants of Wan-Guk and Wan-Gaan. The place used to be the local market. It was active before the Japanese occupation. It had a sign in the form of an arch, which was removed by the Japanese. Some documentary information about the market has survived in a rent record.29 One of the shops entered into the rental contract in 1851. The rent book included entries for five shops in Kam Tin Shi. Among them one was run by a tailor. It also mentioned the names of three streets. These were Upper Main Street (Sheung Taai Gaai) and Lower Main Street (Ha Taai Gaai) as well as Middle Street (Jung Gaai). The elders remembered that the market had two or three butchers and two or three fishmongers. Besides these there were a few other shops. Two sold jaap-fo (“sundry goods”). Kam Tin Shi is remembered to have mainly catered for the needs of the Kam Tin people. Very few outsiders came. Some informants added that there was even one pawn shop inside Kat Hing Wai. The owner was a descendant of Wan-Gaan jou. I have no idea when the pawnshop was started. There was also a peanut oil factory which was started more than 100 years ago. It was owned by a Wan-Yu jou person. IV. SETTLEMENTS AND LINEAGE SEGMENTS 4 According to Sung (1973:111) Hon-Faat, the first Dang ancestor to come to the province, built the first house at the bottom of a hill called [Gwai Gok Saan] about three-quarters of a mile away from the present Kam Tin". His grandson Fu-Hip lived there on retirement and founded a school called Lik Ying Jai (ibid.: 116). The descendants of Fu-Hip's grandson Seui, lived in the Naam Wai and Bak Wai villages around the beginning of Ming dynasty (1368). The division of the Kam Tin settlement into Naam-Bin and Pak-Bin remain today. Yun-leung, father of the gwan-ma and one of the sons of Seui, remained in Kam Tin. The other four descendants of Fu-Hip moved to nearby Ping Shan and places in Dongguan county, among other places. The descendants of many of the sons of the gwan-ma moved away to Lung Yeuk Tau, Tai Po Tau, 30 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 358 ask the men instead. Throughout the festival period, one saw the ritual representatives, other elders and younger men in the rites and ceremonies. Whenever a woman came to the site, she was either doing strictly practical work such as that described above, or worshipping for her immediate family and herself. I talked with a lady of the Liu surname who had married into Kam Tin from Sheung Shui, at the san-teng of Kat Hing Wai where she was cleaning the altar for the coming festival. She did not know who the principal gods of the festival were. But she knew what she had to do at home for the festival: (1) She had to do the chau-san year-end thanksgiving rite before the jiu. (I saw another woman do this ritual at the san-teng, with chicken as part of the offering68). (2) She had to baai-san at home on the opening day with home-made cha-gwo and to burn paper clothing as offerings (those selected as ritual representatives had to do this at the festival site itself, she explained). The gods to worship include ancestors as well as the Gods of Heaven (tin-san). She also mentioned that in the rite of Procession of Incense the priests and the ritual representatives would come to worship at the san-teng. There would also be the Procession of well-being, when a priest comes to each house to purify by sprinkling charm water for the well-being (ping-on) of the family. A woman of about 60 in Ko Po told me that they would baai-san both at home and at the ritual site. VIII. RITES OF THE VILLAGE A. Worship at the Jau and Wong Temple before the festival Between mid-night and the Opening Rite, villagers, as required by custom, came to the Jau and Wong Temple to make offerings. First I saw a few women and one man making offerings of incense at the altar. I was told that they came on the basis of individual families in Shui Tau. People from the other Kam Tin villages, which were further from the temple, came later. From one point only men came to worship at the temple. It was explained to me that they were from Kat Hing Wai. The men came in this case because it was too early an hour for the women to walk. All these men wore cheung-saam but they were not ritual representatives, according to the temporary temple keeper. ================================================================================ 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 362 associated with lion dance groups. The ritual representatives held incense burners, but the joss sticks in them were not lighted from the beginning to the end of the procession. Mr. Dang Jik-Wai, an elder of Tai Hong Wai, with an outsider who had lived in Kam Tin since shortly after the war and was employed by the rural committee, led the procession. Mr. Dang had a list on a piece of paper of the gods to worship. The procession left the main ritual area where the participants had been waiting since the end of the rite of posting the Memorial. They first stopped at the Wa-Bou altar for the God of Earth and Grain at Shui Tau. From there they proceeded to the Tin-Hau Temple at Shui Mei and worshipped at the Temple, and two nearby altars for the God of Earth and Grain. The procession then turned south to Ching-Lok Ancestral Hall at Shui Tau, and worshipped at the Ancestral Hall, and at the Hung-Sing Temple. Next they worshipped at another altar for the God of Earth and Grain of Shui Tau, the Yi-Dai School (i.e. Man-Cheung Temple), and the altar for the God of Earth and Grain for the Mui Jai Yun section of the village. They entered Kam Hing Wai and worshipped at the san-teng, the earth god's place at the former village gate, as well as the altar for the God of Earth and Grain. The party proceeded to Kam Tin Shi, where they worshipped at an altar for the God of Earth and Grain. They intended to enter Yau-Leun Tong to worship too. But it was locked and no one in the procession had the key. So they made the offerings at the door. They then entered Sa Bui Leng and worshipped at the ruin of a former san-teng and the god of the well. They continued the procession to Ko Po, where they worshipped the God of the well, the God of the village gate, and an altar for the God of Earth and Grain. The procession turned back and continued towards Kat Hing Wai, where they worshipped at its altar for the God of Earth and Grain outside the village wall, and then entered the village and worshipped at the san-teng. The procession then took Kam Sheung Road to the san-teng (?) of Naam-Teng. ================================================================================ 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-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 G. Knapp, The Chinese House: Craft Symbol, and the Folk Tradition (Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1990). Knapp does not cover the paintings and stucco work that were a marked feature of the Kwangtung architectural style. For examples of this fine traditional decorative work, see Rural Architecture in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, Government Information Services Department, 1979). In the Hakka villages of the Tsuen Wan district, this "animal" was always a unicorn. In Cantonese villages the lion was usual. However, their purpose and motivation was clearly the same. Informants said there were differences in the dance performances of lions and unicorns; unicorns "crept, bobbed and weaved", whereas lions would "stand up and prance". The musical accompaniment, drums and gongs, was the same, and previously firecrackers had been an indispensable part of any performance by lions or unicorns. Hugh Baker mentions that the Liaos of Sheung Shui were known throughout the New Territories for their unicorn dance team. See the interesting information given in his Sheung Shui, A Chinese Lineage Village (London, Frank Cass & Co., Ltd., 1968), p. 193. See my "Notes on Temples and Shrines on Hong Kong Island" in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 27 (1987), p. 287. Monlin Chiang, Tides from the West (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1947), p. 9. John Francis Davis, The Chinese, A General Description of the Empire of China and its Inhabitants (London, Charles Knight, 1836) Vol. 2, pp. 29-30. From the memorial tablet to Mr. Chan Wing-on, Chairman of the Tsuen Wan Rural Committee and Chairman of the 18th Term, New Territories Heung Yee Kuk 1950-52, at the Wing On Pavilion, Fu Yung Shan, Tsuen Wan. Mr. Chan died on 15 October 1956; see Annual Departmental Reports, District Commissioner, New Territories, (1953-54 para. 56, and 1956-57 para. 119). From a “Short History of Yeung Uk Village" (in Chinese), published at the time of the village resiting in 1965 and written by Yeung's eldest grandson, Mr Yeung Cho-ling. According to the commemorative tablet, the grave was repaired on a lucky day in the middle month of the autumn season in the 10th year of Kuang Hsu, that is in September-October 1884. 1736; but in fact the ping-san year is the 1st year of Ch'ien Lung's long reign. There was probably another, less altruistic factor at work here too: since it was believed that the graves of good people have a beneficial effect on the fortunes of their family for generations to come. It is implicit in this case that the good influences of the grave were not yet spent. For a more recent example from Tsing Yi Island, see my Rural Communities, op. cit., p. 143. Contents more than values, I suggest? Wolfram Eberhard, Cantonese Ballads (Munich State Library Collection) (Taipei, The Orient Cultural Service, 1972), p.2. R. David Arkush, "Orthodoxy and heterodoxy in Twentieth-Century Chinese Peasant Proverbs" at pp. 310-335 of Kwang-Ching Liu (ed.) Orthodoxy in Late Imperial China (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1990). Helen Kwok and Mini Chan, Fossils From a Rural Past, A Study of Extant Cantonese Children's Songs (Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press, 1990), pp. 17, 29. Lucien Bianco, Origins of the Chinese Revolution, 1915-1949, (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1971), successively pp.126, 94-95. ================================================================================ 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 41 Kong: Oxford Univ. Press, 1983), 156-160 & 163-164, on the Jiao festivals celebrated between 1964 and 1972 in Ma Tau Wai, Nga Tsin Wai, Tung Chung and Tai O. N Mathias, John R.G., Study of the Jiao: a Taoist Ritual in Kam Tin in the Hong Kong New Territories (unpublished D.Phil. thesis, Oxford University, 1977-78). #I Kani, Hiroaki, "Hồn Kôn Chugokujin no shukyo shiso no ichidan nitsuite" Shigaku 40, no. 2 & 3 (1967). 22 Obuchi, Ninji, “Hon Kon no tokyo girei" |Daoist ritual in Hong Kong] in Ikeda Sueri Hakase Koki Kinen Toyo Gaku Ronshu (Tokyo, 1980), 753-769. 27 Yoshihara, Katsuo. "Shukyo" [Religion] in Kani Hiroaki (ed.) Motto Shiritai Hon Kon (Tokyo: Kobundo, 1984), 184-191. 11 See note 37. 14 I have been told that Dr. Faure had a manuscript on the Jiao festival sent to a publisher in Hong Kong. However, due to whatever reasons, it has not yet been published. See also Hayes, 164, about Faure's book on Jiao festivals. 36 I was probably the only researcher who participated in the 1980 Kau Lau Wan Jiao festival when I was first introduced by the late Prof. B.E. Ward and Dr. S.H. Wang to the Jiao festival celebrated by the fishing village. In October the same year, Dr. Faure and I attended the Jiao festival at Pak Kong, Sai Kung. In November, the late Dr. Lu Bin-chuan of the Music Department of CUHK, Dr. Lu's student Mr. Chan Wing-Hoi and I attended the Jiao festival in Fanling. Dr. Faure, Prof. Ward and Prof. Tanaka also came. The Jiao festival of Fanling and that of other areas are mentioned here and there in Faure's 1986 book. In December 1980 students of CUHK under the guidance of Dr. Faure, Dr. Wang and Prof. Ward started an ethnographical research on the Jiao festival in Ho Chung, Sai Kung. A detailed report of daily rituals was written by Lee Lai-mui and Cheng Shui Kwan, two CUHK students majoring in History and minoring in Anthropology. The report was sent to interested scholars. Unfortunately it has never been published. Two students of the CUHK at that time should perhaps be mentioned here: Chan Wing-hoi, who specializes in music and computer, was employed by the History Museum of Hong Kong to study the Kam Tin Jiao festival in 1985, a report of which was published in the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 29 (1989). Chan's master's thesis on folk music in Hong Kong also includes a chapter on the ritual music played by the Taoists at the Jiao festival. Chan also has an ethnography on the 1986 Shek O Jiao festival published in the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Vol. 26 (1986), 78-101. The master's thesis of Leung Chor-on, now Ph.D. candidate of Cambridge University, submitted to the Anthropology Department of the CUHK gives a good account of the ritual symbols of the festival. Chan, Leung and I held a seminar on Jiao festivals on Dec. 11, 1988 for the "Research Circle of the Regional Society of Southern China" focusing on musical, ritual and social aspects of the festival. 27 Locally published works besides those by Faure and my own are: - (a) Chamberlain, Jonathan, "Introduction” in Chamberlain J. and Iam Lambot The Bun Festival of Cheung Chau (Hong Kong: Studio Publication, 1990). This is largely a collection of photos. Chamberlain's introduction is very descriptive but no sources are quoted. (b) Chan Wing-hoi, “Observations at the Jiu [Jiao] festival of Shek O and Tai Long Wan, 1986" Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Vol. 26 (1986), 78-101. Chan recorded meticulously what he was told and observed about the 'settlement', the 'participants', the "ritual site", the "local gods" and the "events". (c) Xiao, Kuo-jian (Anthony K.K. Siu), Xianggang Xiandai Shehui [Pre-modern society of Hong Kong] (Hong Kong: Chung Wah, 1990), 86-97. Xiao attempts to illustrate three reasons why the communities in Hong Kong celebrate the Jiao. The first reason is to plead for fortune, to pay sacrifices to the gods, to drive away evils and to prevent 4 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 262 public feeling. By his order he has misappropriated public land, and allowed one clan to take it by force and occupy it. A narrow place through which tens of thousands of the people must pass, and one clan has been allowed to grab it and keep hold of it! This is a case of officials and bullies in collusion. Who can trust them? Moreover, this is an enlightened age. Fung Shui cannot be allowed to impede communications. There are innumerable precedents. Anyway, if the Fung Shui is examined, that village is a good three li away, and the bridge is low down while the village is high up. Where is the problem? Why do we hear of fields and rice being flooded? This is clearly a case of a hidden plot to preserve private income. They are merely hatching a hundred schemes to destroy this bridge. Today the Cheung clan is trying in every way to destroy the bridge-work at Kim Hau. They consider that the ferry should remain as it now is. What they lose today in bribing the officials they can skin the ferry passengers for tomorrow. Magistrate Yau is a scandalous official uninterested in the public. How can we expect him to investigate this properly? It is useless to accuse an official he can rely on the other officials. It is like sending a lamb into a tiger's mouth. We the gentry and others have collected money to build a bridge. We cannot make any profit by this. Why should what we are doing offend those prominent officials and that powerful clan? Why should it cause a lawsuit? We have merely planned the construction of this bridge, and the work on it has already been overthrown three times. If the bridge-work were to be overthrown yet again, then not only would there never be a future renaissance for the communications of the people of all the surrounding districts, but also, the people having been oppressed and ground down for ages, so, what the bad consequences Page 285 Page 286 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 265 Kok and Ta Kwu Ling people had established a trust to collect cash and construct this bridge: Chan Sheung-yan (of Luk Keng in the Sha Tau Kok area), and Lei Tsok-san (of Lei Uk in the Ta Kwu Ling area) were the two Chief Managers of this trust, representing the totality of the people of the two areas. P.H. HASE I NOTES "Cheang Shan Kwa Tsz. An Old Buddhist Nunnery in the New Territories, and its Place in Local Society”, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 29, 1989, pp 121-158. The documents are contained in a recently recovered genealogy of the Chan clan of Luk Keng. I understand that a copy of this genealogy will be placed on record in the collection of Hong Kong historical documents held at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in due course. I am indebted to Mr. Chan Wing-hoi for drawing my attention to these documents. II I am indebted to Mr. P.L. Lau for assistance in the translation of this document. The Sha Wan River, unlike the main branch of the Sham Chun River, which flows in a deep and well-defined channel, was a shallow and ill-defined stream, which meandered through a broad valley which it often flooded. This river has now been dammed off to form the Shen Zhen Reservoir. See the paper at n. 1 for details of the loss of life in this War. A VILLAGE WAR IN SHAM CHUN The Rev. Carl Smith has drawn attention to the great wealth of material available in the Basel Mission Archive on the history of the Hakka people of Kwangtung Province. When looking through his notes and summaries of important documents I saw a summary of an important document on an inter-village war in Sham Chun (深圳). Through the courtesy of the Mission Archive, a photostat of the document was received, translated, and is published below. Sham Chun lies at the centre of a broad and fertile valley, drained by the Sham Chun River. This river has four main tributaries: the stream which drains the Ta Kwu Ling valley (this stream is considered as the headstream of the main river), the Sha Wan River, which joins the first stream at Kim Hau (or) at the entrance to Ta Kwu Ling, the Sheung Yue (or Beas) River which drains the Sheung Shui/Lung Yeuk Tau area and which enters the main river ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 266 about a mile below the Sha Wan River, and finally the Ching Shui River which drains the northern part of the valley from Po Kat (Buji) down, and which enters about half-a-mile below the Sheung Yue River. The main river is navigable for small skiffs as far as Kim Hau, but for junks only as far as the confluence of the main river and the Ching Shui River. However, the river at the mouth of the Ching Shui River is not navigable for junks at low tide. Furthermore, the navigable part of the river is not wide enough for a junk to turn around in easily when under sail. The Ching Shui River, at the junction with the main river, splits into two branches, with a low, marshy island between them and the main river.* Junks could come up the main river, enter the Ching Shui River, pass behind the marshy island, and back into the main river via the second branch of the stream, thus turning round without cutting across the channel, using a "one-way" system. The landing place used by the cargo junks and ferry boats, therefore, was the channel of the Ching Shui River behind the island. Junks would come up the river with the tide, and would load and unload while at rest on the mud at low tide, and would cast off and go down the river with the next high tide. Three significant roads pass through the valley, crossing at Sham Chun: the Yuen Long to Wai Chow (Huichou), Nam Tau (Nantou) to Sha Tau Kok, and Po Kat to Kowloon roads. In the Ming, this valley had a number of markets, of which Sham Chun was only one. There was another at Kim Hau, and others to the west, including one at Lung Tsun Hui (Longjinxu), which was part of the Fuk Tin (Futian) village cluster. By the nineteenth century, however, all these other markets had either become extinct, or else survived only in a very small way as satellites of Sham Chun. Sham Chun had developed until it had become a very large market, with probably 500 and more shops. The market was ringed by large villages of rich clans—the Cheungs at Wong Pui Ling (Huangbeiling) about a mile to the east, the Tsois at Tsoi Uk Wai (Caiwuwei) about half a mile to the south-west, the Wongs at Fuk Tin about a mile to the south-west, the Yuens at Lo Wu (Lohu) about half a mile to the south and the Hos at Sun Kong (Sungang) about half a mile to the north. These rich and ancient clans were almost perennially in dispute, as they jostled for power and position in the district. * See Map. ================================================================================ 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-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 157 The villagers in the central part of the northern New Territories, accustomed to marketing at Sham Chun, were able to make do after 1899. They had the old satellite market of Shek Wu Hui (Sheung Shui) within British territory; as soon as the new frontier came into effect, Sheung Shui saw its business boom - it quickly replaced Sham Chun as the primary market for this area. At Sha Tau Kok the population within British territory accustomed to shop at Sha Tau Kok had no alternative but to continue to do so. Problems abounded. Village memories of the Customs are uniformly bad. The Customs officials caused the goods of the merchants to be seized unless bribes were paid. They demanded a payment of 18 bushels of rice from each merchant. The villagers from the New Territories would come to the market to have their cloth dyed. Even if the amount of cloth was very small, 25 or £10 would be charged as a licence fee - if it was not paid, the goods would be seized and the villagers penalized. As for the merchants, if they sold a pig, or if a seed-pig was bought for rearing in the villages, when they went to the Customs they would have to pay $40 per tan as registration fee for the pig. At festivals, the village ladies would come to the market to buy oil or local sugar in small quantities. They would have to pay 50 or 60, or even 120 or 130 cash (#5 - #13) as fee before they could get an export licence. For cattle, for every cow crossing the frontier - in either direction for farm work, a Certificate had to be issued, at $20 Haikwan. And, if the Certificate was lost, there was heavy punishment, and a replacement had to be taken out, to avoid confiscation of the cow. Further, at the harvest, if the crop was carried across the frontier, you had to pay what was demanded - it is said that a percentage of the crop was taken. The Customs swallowed money whatever purchases were made. These sorts of evil practices caused the villagers to hate the Customs to the very pit of their stomachs. 12 It is unlikely that the Customs were as corrupt as they are often portrayed by the villagers. The payments complained of were all reasonable, if it was accepted that the transactions were "imports" or "exports". The villagers could never see that their day-to-day marketing should be so regarded - they were only doing what their ancestors had always done. The elders of the Shap Yeuk petitioned the District Magistrate on 19 April 1899, begging that the lease of the New Territories be not proceeded with. Their concern was, essentially, that if it did proceed, then they would be faced with “excessive taxation", especially Harbour Dues and Marine Fees, given that the waters off Sha Tau Kok would become Hong... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g PRESIDENT'S REPORT CONTENTS HON AUDITOR'S REPORT ARTICLES: Carl Smith - The German Speaking Community in Hong Kong, 1846-1918 Dan Waters - Foreigners and Fung Shui viii xiv 1 57 Keith Stevens - The Taking of Chapu, May 1842 119 James Hayes - The Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch 129 0 Elizabeth Sinn - The Study of Local History in Hong Kong: A Review · NOTES AND QUERIES 147 Anthony Siu Kwok Kin - Notes on Cheung Pao Tsai ...... 171 Anthony Siu Kwok Kin - A Short Biography of Lai Chun Bun 175 Wong Wing Ho - Yet More on the Man the Emperor Decapitated 179 Richard Webb - Earth God and Village Shrines in the New Territories 183 SPECIAL FEATURE An English Bibliography for China Studies - compiled by Betty Wei Peh Ti 193 vii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 1=1 Extel, Ernest I, Feng-Shui, Graham Brash, 1984 (Just published 1882) Fan Wei, 'Village Feng Shui Principles', Chinese Landscapes: the Village as a Place, ed. Ronald G. Knapp, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1992, pp. 35-45 Feuchtwang, Stephen, An Anthropological Analysis of Chinese Geomancy, Vantage, Southern Materials Centre Inc., Taipei, 1974 Fong, Gordon, An Introduction to Chinese Geomancy, privately published, Australia, 1980 Freedman, Maurice, 'Chinese Geomancy: Some Observations in Hong Kong', The Study of Chinese Society: Essays by Maurice Freedman, Stanford University Press, 1979 — 'A Report on Social Research in the New Territories at Hong Kong, 1963', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 16, 1976 Groot, J.J. de, The Religion of the Chinese, Macmillan, 1912 Groves, Derham, Feng Shui and Western Building Ceremonies, Graham Brash, Singapore, 1991 2 Gwee, Peter Kim Woon, Fengshui: The Geomancy and Economy of Singapore, 1991 Hase, Patrick H., and Lee Man-yip, 'Sheung Wo Hang Village, Hong Kong: a Village Shaped by Feng Shui', Chinese Landscapes: the Village as a Place, ed. Ronald G. Knapp, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1992, pp. 79-94 Hayes, James, 'A Ceremony to Propitiate the Gods at Tong Fuk, Lantau, 1958', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 5, 1965 — 'Geomancy and the Village', Some Traditional Chinese Ideas and Conceptions in Hong Kong Social Life Today, week-end symposium, October 1966, Brochure of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society — 'Local Reaction to the Disturbances of "Fung Shui" on Tsing Yi Island, Hong Kong, September 1977-March 1978', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 19, 1979 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 149 Song dynasty were said to have set up a travelling palace in the vicinity as they passed through the Hong Kong region fleeing the Mongols. Another characteristic of this group is that they relied on documentary sources such as dynastic histories, genealogies, local gazetteers and stone inscriptions, but had little use of non-text materials. They did, however, discover an enormous amount of valuable local historical material. In particular, Lo and Lin made important contributions through their systematic collection of genealogies and by expounding on their value in the study of local history. Equally significantly, as renowned mainstream historians, they played an important role in giving Hong Kong history a legitimate place in the wider field of Chinese historiography. Social Scientists from the West and Japan Another group of scholars working on Hong Kong, anthropologists and sociologists from the West and Japan, not only came from different parts of the world but very different intellectual traditions. Interested in Chinese society and yet no longer able to carry out in Mainland China the kind of prolonged, detailed and intimate field study they required, these scholars opted for Hong Kong's New Territories where much of traditional China still survived. The pioneer was Barbara Ward, an English social anthropologist trained at the London School of Economics, who arrived in 1950, much earlier than anyone else. Then in 1961 came Jack Potter from Berkeley to study economic developments in the village of Ping Shan. Two years later came Hugh Baker from London University to write his Ph.D. thesis, thus becoming the first of a long line of scholars to conduct extensive field work in Hong Kong addressing the issue of lineage which was seen as a key to understanding Chinese society. To carry out his research, Baker lived in the village of Sheung Shui, learnt the Cantonese dialect and generally immersed himself in the local community. The major outcome of his research is A Chinese Lineage Village: Sheung Shui. (London: Frank Cass & Co., Ltd., 1968). Others to follow were E.N. Anderson, R.L. Moench, John Brim, and Graham and Elizabeth Johnson from the United States, L.G. Aymer from Sweden, Hiroaki Kani from Japan, Marjorie Topley, H. Nelson and R.G. Groves from the UK. In the 1970s they were joined by James Watson and later, Rubie Watson. Each focused on a particular village or group of people—staking out his or her turf, so to speak. Through their in-depth ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 157 In addition, a number of articles and books came out of the project, including Ng Jun Ngai-ha's "Village education in transition: the case of Sheung Shui", and David Faure's "Sai Kung: The Making of the District and its Experience during World War II".25 Faure's book on the Eastern New Territories, based partly on these findings, appeared in 1986.26 The Project, both in the data collected and the interpretative writings arising from it, has significantly enhanced our understanding of traditional Chinese village life and the New Territories, elevating local history to new levels of sophistication. In particular, unlike the mainstream Chinese historians of a previous generation, Faure and others no longer look at the New Territories, or even South China, from the Great Tradition perspective, but tend to underline local culture and try to resolve the paradox between unity and diversity in Chinese culture.27 Institutional histories Local history has also been enriched by a proliferation of institutional histories from the 1970s onwards by commercial and non-commercial institutions which were beginning to celebrate their 60th, 70th... 100th anniversaries. In the course of producing the story of these institutions, be they banks, schools, churches, temples, trading companies, charitable organizations, hospitals, even private medical practices and government organizations, much information about Hong Kong on a micro-level has been uncovered. In cases where documents are lacking, and especially when a more lively approach is required, old people associated with these institutions are interviewed, yielding extremely valuable data. It is amusing that so often, the institutions themselves have no idea what a wealth of materials is sitting in their back rooms until the commissioned author starts rummaging through them. Unfortunately, histories of institutions are not generally available to the public, but in most cases they will be supplied upon request. Popularizing Local History: Museums and the Antiquities and Monuments Office Until the 1970s, the study of local history really involved an exclusive group of scholars, albeit growing in numbers, holding dialogue among themselves. There was little public demand for local history, and very little access to it. However, from the 1970s, things began to change. ================================================================================ 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 186 in matters relating to personal relationships. During Lunar New Year, hundreds of people come from all over the Territory, even from as far away as Aberdeen on Hong Kong Island, to offer prayers at the foot of the tree and to throw red and yellow prayer flags, attached to strings weighted with stones, up into the branches. Only in four villages was it claimed that the special trees were the home of earth gods. At Lin Au, the large, old Cinnamomum trees were planted by the villagers when the settlement was founded in order to protect the shrine that was built to honour the ancestors. The earth gods have their home in the trees and also roam about in the wood. Lin Au and Sheung Tsuen were the only cases found where this was said to happen, but it may be that such a belief could have been more widespread in the past. At Pak Kong, a grove of six trees protects the Tai Wong shrine to Tin Hau beside which is a smaller Paak Kung that is used to worship the earth gods who live in the trees. Kuk Po is also an example of an ancestral tree which is also the home of the local earth god. In most cases, however, the tree adjacent to the shrine is there simply to provide shelter. In the study carried out by the author, a variety of reasons were given as to why specific trees were protected and the commonest reason given was that the trees protected the important shrines of the village, which were both Tai Wong and Paak Kung shrines. The shrines were situated at important fung shui locations, usually protecting the entrance points of the village from loss of chi (good luck or prosperity) and affording protection from undesirable forces. The spirits live in the shrines rather than in the trees themselves. For example, at Tai Om, camphor trees protect each of the three Paak Kung shrines in the village and trees protect four of the principal shrines in Man Uk Pin. Such trees are commonly banyan, or camphor, although other species may be used. The commonest shrine trees found during the study were; Ficus microcarpa Banyan 19 Cinnamomum camphora Camphor 13 Euphoria longan Longan 5 Gironniera nitida 5 Litchi sinensis Lychee 4 in addition to 26 individuals of other less common species. 19 ================================================================================ 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-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 188 These sites and their associated trees, which are usually of a great age and which villagers often claim were planted when the village was founded, are of fundamental importance to the fortunes of a village, more so than the fung shui woods themselves. In some villages, such as Ma Mat Wei, during the last war fung shui woods were felled so that rice could be bought for the impoverished villagers. The important individual fung shui trees, however, were never felled. Villagers will go to great lengths to protect these sites from private development and from government projects. Roads may be diverted to avoid harming such sites. While the importance of certain trees can be determined on fung shui principles, villagers who do not possess any fung shui knowledge may just call any tree they want to protect a "fung shui tree". Shrines are in various states of repair or dilapidation according to the devotion and resources of the villagers and shrines may sometimes be completely rebuilt, such as at Tai Om where one of the main shrines was first built seventy years ago, but was rebuilt in the last few years and is surrounded by a small garden. Sometimes shrines may also be relocated, usually because of a road widening scheme, and the relocation of a shrine is a very serious fung shui matter. The relocation shrine at Wo Hop Shek, near Fanling, is an example. Occasionally a shrine may be abandoned, presumably due to a loss of efficacy by the residing deity. The Tai Wong shrine in the wood at Ho Sheung Heung is no longer worshipped, while it is the earth god, Fuk Tak Gung, who resides in the comfort of the village temple. There are also three Tze Jik shrines, which are more important than Paak Kung, protecting the village to the north, east and south. These shrines are particularly worshipped by farmers and protect the whole community. A typical layout of village shrines may be seen at Man Uk Pin, north east of Fanling. The Tai Wong shrine on the northern arm of the fung shui wood protects the whole village. The water spirit Paak Kung, by the dam on the stream which borders the fung shui wood, ensures the safety of the drinking water supply. There are also four other Paak Kung facing each of the four directions, with trees planted to protect them, including two within the fung shui wood, and one in the middle of the village. The villagers of Man Uk Pin take their spiritual protectors very seriously. Several villagers claim to have seen the spirit of Tai Wong himself while they were walking along the path at night. He was seen to be dressed in ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 191 Have, P. (1992) Sheung Wo Hang In Knapp, R. (ed) Chinese Landscapes, the Village as Place University of Hawaii Press, Hong Kong Baptist College Lo, Raymond (1992) Feng Shui and Destiny Tynron Press, Leis, UK Lovelace, G.W. (1983) Man, Land and Mind in Historic South Coastal China, an ecological and diachronic consideration of Chinese wet-rice agricultural settlements in the North West New Territories of Hong Kong. Unpubl. PhD thesis University of Hawaii Mansberger, J.R. (1991) Ban Yatra. A Bio-Cultural Survey of Sacred Forests in Kathmandu Valley PhD thesis University of Hawaii University Microfilms International Ann Arbor Michigan Ng, P.Y.L. & Baker, H. (1983) New Peace County A Chinese Gazetteer of the Hong Kong Region Hong Kong Hong Kong University Press Skinner, S. (1982). The Living Earth Manual of Feng Shui. Routledge and Kegan Paul London Ward, B.E. & Law, J. Chinese Festivals in Hong Kong The Guidebook Company, Hong Kong Webb, R. (1995b). The Fung Shui Woods of Hong Kong A Study of Culturally Protected Woodlands in the New Territories of Hong Kong Unpublished PhD Thesis School of Agricultural and Forest Sciences, University of Wales, Bangor ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g 35 TU = "Egg families" or "Egg people”— an expression used by the land-dwellers but never used by the Tanka to describe themselves as they regard it as derogatory (vide Barbara E Ward's article “A Hong Kong Fishing Village” Journal of Oriental Studies, Vol 1 No 1 (January 1954) p. 195, and Reports, DCNT, 1955-56, para 8, and 1959-60 para 48) They prefer instead to refer to themselves as "Nam Hoi Yan” (= “people of the southern sea”) or "Shui Sheung Yan" (= "water-borne people") (Reports, DCNT, 1955-56 and 1959-60, loc cit) 71 Report, DCNT, 1954-55 para 8 TH Report, DCNT, 1955-56, para 8 Report, DCNT, 1954-55, para 8 24 Report, DCNT, 1954-55, para 9 TA & T Report, DCNT, 1959-60, para 48 op cit p 332 Report, DCNT, 1955-56, para 8, vide Ward, loc cit TH Reports 1959-60, DCNT, para 46. To Balfour states "The word Hoklo is a dialect variation of Fukien and the Hoklo are the Fukienese fishing people of our region, but there is another term for them always used in literature, Man. We have already seen that the Tanka are considered a branch of the Man tribe. The word is very ancient and is used synonymously for "barbarian" or "uncouth". From the name alone you can judge that the Hoklo were once considered by the Chinese as barbarians" (op cit p. 332) EXOD Report, DCNT, 1954-55, para 8 * Report, DCNT, 1959-60, para 47 * Report, DCNT, 1954-55. para 8. op cit p 336 *For example, I have omitted the subjects of house-building and names, which appear in Wilson's Notes (vide footnote 35 supra) **That was the view taken by the late Mr. G.E. Strickland, Solicitor General of Hong Kong, and his view was endorsed by the 1948 Committee vide Committee Report, 1953, Appendix IX p 120 and Chap. II para 13. (Section 25 of the New Territories Regulation Ordinance, 1910 has now become Section 17 of the present Ordinance (Cap. 97) vide supra) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g 143 THE USE OF HILL LAND FOR VILLAGE FORESTRY AND FUEL GATHERING IN THE NEW TERRITORIES OF HONG KONG. RICHARD WEBB While recent economic and social changes in the New Territories of Hong Kong have wrought irrevocable changes to the rural villages, until perhaps twenty years ago, villagers appeared to have used the hillsides much as they pleased, even though some of the larger clans claimed payments for hill land. The villagers of Cheung Sha Wan, west Kowloon, for example, paid regular sums in silver to the Tangs of Kam Tin for their forest land. The Liu family of Sheung Shui was leasing forest land to the villagers of Long Keng under a deed of 1867 (Hayes 1983). However, hill and forest land was usually annexed by the nearest village. Each village had its forestry lot, apportioned to families according to natural boundaries. There was a major difference in people's minds between land under pine tree cultivation (Pinus massoniana) and other hill land used for fuel gathering, grass cutting, and grazing. The British administration carried over the common usage of hill areas for pine cultivation into their village forestry licenses, or "t'sung shaan p'aai", which allowed villagers to occupy Crown Land for the purpose of growing these trees on which they relied for fuel, poles, and timber. It was the 'pine hills' that mattered more to the village families, even though they possessed no proper title to them, save under British rule, an undifferentiated notional share in the village license through being part of its community. Like houses and fields, hillside plots could be passed from father to son. Daley (1975) provides an account of forestry activities, although it is not clear if this refers to village forestry, in which 211,015 trees were planted in 1880, rising to 1,157,609 in 1883. The British administration established the Botanical and Forestry Department in 1880, with the objective of planting the badly eroded areas and water catchments. From 1881 to 1891, an average of around 647,223 trees were planted every year, of which 95% was Pinus massoniana, a local pine which can establish on very poor soil. By 1938, 70% of Hong Kong island had been afforested with government plantations, and 200 km2 of the New Territories were occupied by leased forestry lots used as a source of firewood. By this time, the government plantations were ================================================================================ 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 75 market towns can be, as noted above, identified by their imbalanced populations, as can villages specialising in incense pounding, stonecutting, and salt-working (Yim Liu Ha, and perhaps Tsing Shan and Tsing Shan Po in Tuen Mun) Some fishing villages (especially Kau Sai) show what is probably a seasonal population imbalance, with the male population boosted by the temporary presence of "foreign" fishing vessels at the Census date. In all these cases, as with the market towns, the opportunities for wage-paying employment must have led to a certain degree of temporary male immigration into the village in question. Some other villages may have been "industrial" in 1911 without this being so clearly confirmed by oral evidence as in these cases. Thus, Sheung Wo Che in Sha Tin was the site of the Sha Tin Railway Station; the excess males recorded here, with the nearby Pak Tin and Wang Pok, may have been working on the construction of the railway. However, when all the urban and industrial villages are discounted, there remain numbers of villages with excess males where there seems little likelihood of immigration, and where some other factor or factors must be at work. A number of very poor villages in the eastern part of the New Territories have more males than are to be expected. It may be that some of these villages were just too poor to pay the fees required to let their young adult males emigrate, and equally too poor to arrange marriages for them until there was land available for them to inherit. On the other hand, a number of very wealthy Punti villages, especially those in the Sheung Shui plain (including Loi Tung, Lung Yeuk Tau, Ping Kong, with others at just below the 56% cut-off point) also have high male-female ratios. The reasons for this are unclear. It may be no more than a particularly strong unwillingness to report unmarried girls in these villages. J.L. Watson, however, has shown that some at least of the wealthier Punti villages had a “bachelor sub-culture”, in which poorer members of the lineage tended not to marry, but to drift into a society of bachelor clubs centred on the lineage self-defence force. This system, in which unmarriageable poorer lineage sons were nonetheless given a positive role in local society, may have induced higher than average male-female ratios in such villages; emigration was not the only option available to the excess males.13 No evidence of such a “bachelor sub-culture” seems to exist for the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 85 X "J Administrative Reports for the Year 1913, pages N13-17, 1914, pages N12-N13, 1915, pages O18-O19, 1916, pages 15-06-1917 page 07-1918, page 09, 1919, page O10, 1920, pages O15, O21, O29-O30, 1927, pages O17-4, O16, O22-O23, O33-O34. Scholarships were offered from these aided village schools to the Government schools in the New Territories, and from the Government schools in the New Territories to those in the City, although very few were taken up in the first few years. See RJ Phillips, Kowloon-Canton Railway (British Section). A History, (Urban Council, Hong Kong, 1990), and Administrative Reports for the Year 1910, page R6, 1911, page R1. In 1911, the Sha Tau Kok light railway was opened only as far as Shek Chung Au. The extension of the light railway to Sha Tau Kok came in 1912. Administrative Reports for the Year 1910, pages P34-35, 1911, pages P40-41, 1912, page P51, 1913, pages 186-88, 1914, page P85-86, 1915, pages Q94-96, 1916, pages Q77-78, 1917, pages Q88-90, 1918, pages Q81-85, 1919, pages Q53-55, 1920, pages Q64-65, and 1927, pages Q77-78. A programme to build 6 to 8 feet wide footpaths/bridle paths had been begun in the New Territories in 1899. The footpath from Kowloon to Tai Po was completed in 1902, and that from Castle Peak Bay to Au Tau in 1911. The section from Au Tau to Fanling was completed (except for the bridge at Au Tau) by the end of 1914. No path was built between Castle Peak Bay and Sham Shui Po, or between Tai Po and Fanling in this period. This footpath construction programme does not seem to have affected traditional village life significantly, although the District Officer felt the new footpaths had made the work of patrolling and administering the New Territories easier. However, the only specific use the District Office noted for the new footpaths, other than by Government officials, was by cattle drivers sending animals to the City for slaughter. The footpaths were "justified by administrative and military needs” (the Orme Report, pages 30, 32-33, 36). The New Territories circular road was an upgrading of these earlier footpaths, where they existed, but included new construction where the earlier footpaths were lacking. Papers Land Before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, 1899 (Hong Kong Sessional Papers), printed by Noronha and Co., Government Printers, Hong Kong, No. 9, "Extracts From Papers Relating to the Extension of the Colony of Hongkong, Laid before the Legislative Council by Command of His Excellency the Governor. Extracts from a Report by Mr. Stewart Lockhart on the Extension of the Colony of Hongkong," p. 187, remarks that, in 1899, the steamers from Hong Kong to Macao called intermittently at Cheung Chau. The Orme Report, op. cit., mentions that steam ferries from Cheung Chau used to carry the fish catch to Hong Kong early in the morning (para 65). See also Administrative Reports for the Year 1913, page J12, 1915, page J9, 1916, page J12, 1919, page J12, 1922, page J12. 1 Including the choice of Cheung Chau as a place to spend weekends and the summer by numbers of European families, mostly missionaries from Canton. This began in a very small way in 1912, but only became a major feature from 1918. In 1919, a “European reservation” was formed, and a small year-round resident European community with an Assembly Hall and a 10-hole golf-course had become established by 1921. Administrative Reports for the Year 1912, page J13, 1914, page J11, 1915, page J10, 1917, page J11, 1918, page J11, 1920, page J12, 1921, page J13. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 90 65 Census Report, 1971, Tables II and XIII. No detailed breakdown of Dialect Spoken in the Home by the floating population is included in the 1911 Census * Oral evidence suggests that the boat people did have larger families than the land people, and a higher rate of infant mortality, but these figures still suggest that the “35 per thousand" figure given by the Census officer in 1921 may have been slightly under-estimated 67 Census Report, 1921, Table XXVI 68 Taken from the 1911 Table of Places of Birth (Northern District), and the 1921 Tables of Places of Birth (Northern District Southern District, Floating Population) 69 Census Report, 1911, Table XXVIII 70 The 1911 Census records 24,468 males of 10 years old and upward, and 22,460 of 15 years and upward, suggesting about 24,000 of 12 years and upward The married state of 24,378 males is recorded, of whom 881 were married before the age of 12 The corresponding figures for Northern District females are 27,926, and 24,378, suggesting about 26,000 aged 12 and upward, with the married state of 26,723 females actually recorded, of whom 902 were married before the age of 12 * The corresponding figures in 1911 for the Southern District land population were 0.8% and 1.1% * In 1911 the Married State figures for Southern District are not broken down into the Islands and New Kowloon, and are therefore difficult to use * The "Occupations" Table of the 1921 Census (TABLE XVIII) shows 31 male, and 104 female religious in North District, and 14 male and 71 female religious in South District in 1921 24 Census Report 1911, Table XXX 75 Census Report 1921, Table XII See also Alice Ng Lun Nga-ba, "Village Education in Transition The Case of Sheung Shui”, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol 82 (1982), pp 252-270 generally for this section of this article 76 In 1931, the Census Officer stated that he felt the 1921 Census figures for educational attainments of the floating population were inaccurate. He suggested 34.04% of floating population males over 20, and 1.38% of females over 20 were literate These figures, however, are not broken down by district See Sessional Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, 1931, printed by Noronha and Co, Hong Kong, 1931, No 5/1931, "Report on the Census of the Colony of Hong Kong, 1931" (the Census Report, 1931), p [4] * See Alice Ng Lun Ngai-ha, op cit p 266 Census Report, 1911, Tables XXXV and XXXVI ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 254 of death rituals, rites of passage, gender role, festivals and customs, ancestor worship and feng shui, Constable illustrates that the Shung Him Tong Hakkas' attempt to reconcile Hakka-Chinese and Hakka-Christian identities is an ongoing process. This ongoing process is also demonstrated in the continuous transforming images of Hakka characters. The older generation emphasises Chineseness despite being Christians; the younger generation tends to allow Christianity a far more obvious role in their lives (Chapter 6). Chapter 2 is devoted to a discussion on Hakka migration and the Taiping Rebellion, both events thought to have been important in the construction of Hakka identity. According to the book, the former provides the Hakkas with a historical mechanism to identify themselves as "Orthodox Chinese," and the latter provided, other than lineage, an "organisational structure that helped bring together those who became influential in inventing and articulating Hakka identity” (p. 38). If these two historical events were so crucial to the construction of early Hakka identity, one would expect to know more about how they were told and utilised by the Shung Him Tong Hakka Christians to reconstruct their own Hakka identity, not through records by historians of European missionaries. Without this, it is difficult to relate the construction of early Hakka identity and the reconstruction of the Hakka-Christian identity in Shung Him Tong. Shung Him Tong is located near Lung Yeuk Tau, a village compound dominated by the powerful Tang lineage. It is also situated close to two other influential localised lineages in the New Territories of Hong Kong: the Pangs of Fanling and the Lius of Sheung Shui. Though the political influence of the early founders of Shung Him Tong is mentioned, Constable does not explain how the marginal situation of the village contributed to the survival of the community, which is Christian and Hakka (as against Chinese and indigenous Punti villages like Lung Yeuk Tau, Fanling, and Sheung Shui). It is also unclear how, unlike the Lius of Sheung Shui, who had to change their ethnic identity from Hakka to Punti, this marginal nature of the community is manipulated by the Shung Him Tong Hakkas to reconstruct their own unique Hakka-Christian identity. There are also some minor imprecisions. One of which is Qing Ming, which does not fall in “Spring during the third month of the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 68 Pangs for achieving the common goals mentioned before. Their adaptation to spatial changes associated with the redefinition of the transfer practice of property delineates succinctly how traditional identity is strategically preserved and reinforced when the local society has been experiencing modernisation and industrialisation from the late 1970s on. A New Type of Village House Emerged: Ding Wu Since 1972, the government has introduced a new housing policy—the Small House Policy—which allows every New Territories indigenous inhabitant to build a village house of 700 square feet covered area and 25 feet in height. The timing of the introduction of this housing policy coincided with that of the ten-year housing program in Hong Kong, which the government anticipated would be able to provide accommodation for 1.8 million Hong Kong people within ten years, aiming at improving the overcrowded urban living conditions. Since this housing program mainly favoured the city dwellers, the Small House Policy was, as scholars argue, intended to improve the New Territories indigenous inhabitants' housing conditions. A male indigenous inhabitant aged over eighteen can apply for building a ding wu. They can build houses by converting their agricultural land into building land without premium or purchasing government land at a concessionary price. In 1978 the Pangs successfully built a total of fourteen ding wu. From 1979 to 1982, they built twelve more. All were built on the outskirts of the village territory, and the building lands included both private land and Crown land. The total construction costs of a house were around a hundred thousand dollars, and at that time only a limited number of the Pangs could afford the costs. 18 There has been no deadline to hand in an application, but the Pangs usually do it at the age of eighteen. Applications have been gradually increasing from the 1980s on, and it has to do with the government's resumption of their lands for development. In the late 1970s, the government started to develop Fanling and Sheung Shui into a new town, of about 780 hectares, to accommodate a population of 226,000; and On Lok Tsuen in Fanling (about ten minutes' walk away from Fanling Wai) was designated to be an industrial site. For this ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 69 project, about 1,924 acres of agricultural land in Fanling and Sheung Shui were reclaimed.22 Besides, in 1982, thirteen acres of the Pangs' agricultural land were then resumed to build a park. By surrendering their lands to the government, the Pangs received cash compensation. The land records show that, for example, Pang On Sun in 1981 surrendered agricultural lands with a total area of 2,168 square feet and received $224,334 at a rate of $103 square feet. In the same month a plot of agricultural land of 3,610 square feet, owned by Pang Chung On, was reclaimed by the government, and he received $372,860 cash compensation. Besides, the Pangs since the late 1970s have also been granted cash from their corporately-owned land trusts when the trust land was resumed by the government. The villagers say that a trust member has been granted more than twenty hundred thousand dollars in total or so from their trusts since the 1980s. As they received cash compensation, many of them saved up for building houses. After the 1980s, however, the Pangs find that they do not have enough land to build ding wu, as most land has been resumed by the government. Moreover, the government has not provided any building land for them in or nearby Fanling Wai. Consequently, by 1990, the number of applications for purchasing Crown land to build ding wu had increased to 300. In 1994, a new set of selection criteria was drafted by the District Officer and the Village Representatives for evaluating the applications.3 Those additional criteria included the applicant's family size, financial competence to pay the construction costs of building house, contribution to the village and so forth.4 Besides, the Village Representatives recommended that the applicants residing in the village or in Hong Kong took priority for having their applications granted over those overseas applicants, as they were said to be in greater need. As a result, 69 villagers were selected from among approximately 300 applicants under this new selection system.2 25 Pang Yeuk Lung was one of the successful applicants. He was a village committee member from 1985 to 1994 and a member of Da jiao committee in 1990. His payment for the construction costs largely came from the cash dividends of his ancestral trusts in the 1980s. He said the amount he could save from his job was little, as most of it was spent on the family. Pang On Sun was another successful applicant. He was a seaman from the 1950s to the early 1980s and remitted a large part of his salary to support his family. His savings for building a ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 78 47 # Government Press The total land area of Fanling and Sheung Shui was 13,184 acres (20.6 square miles). See Heung Yee Kuk, Xin Jie Xiang Yi Ju Cheng Li Lu Shi Zhou Nian Jin Dian Te Kan (The Special Issue for the New Territories Heung Yee Kuk's 60th Anniversary [published in 1986]), p. 182 A name list of successful applicants was posted on the village notice-board in 1991. A total of 69 ding houses were allowed to be built. But unsuccessful applicants tore down the list and then submitted objections to the District Office. They complained that some successful applicants were found to be living abroad, some came from the same family, and that most village council members of Fanling Wai (cun wei hui cheng yuan) were successful applicants. The result was considered unfair because many of these successful applicants were said to have bribed the Village Representatives for their applications. So the District Officer and Village Representatives had to set up new criteria for reconsidering the applications. "The detail of the criterion is as follows (Data collected from the Fanling Wai village notice-board in 1994): (1) Villagers having large families and those whose present living conditions were comparatively less desirable. (1) Villagers who could afford the construction costs of the houses and were unlikely to dispose of the completed houses to outsiders. (11) Villagers who were enthusiastic towards serving fellow villagers and were benevolent towards the affairs of the village. (iv) Villagers who had submitted applications before June 1989. (v) Applicants who were or had been members of either the village committee, or Da Jiao Committee or Village Guard would be considered to have served their fellow villagers and to be benevolent towards the affairs of Fanling Wai. (Da Jiao is a lineage-based religious festival, see footnote 10). (vi) Where two or more applicants having a father and son relationship were successful in this selection exercise, only one application would be selected for allocation of a Small House site. "Some villagers anticipated that their building rights would not be realized in their lifetime due to the keen competition or to their lack of money, so they decided to sell their "right to build" (ding quan) to land developers to profit. That is, land developers have offered villagers money to make use of their building rights to apply to build houses elsewhere. During my fieldwork, I found a total of seven Pangs who had successfully applied to build ding houses outside Fanling Wai. Six were built in San Wai of Lung Yeuk Tau (the Tang lineage settlement in Fanling), and one in Long Chai, Fanling. In fact, the phenomena of selling ding quan by villagers to make a profit has been a common one. For example, according to the Far Eastern Economic Review, ten villagers living abroad who had no intention of returning to Hong Kong made a total profit of $500,000 by selling their ding quan to land developers (1982: 55, quoted in Allen Chun, op. cit., p. 222). * In 1976, in order to discourage villagers from making profits by selling their ding wu, the government amended the policy to pay the government full market value premium if houses are sold within five years of the end of construction work. 27. The emigrant Mans also built new village houses in San Tin as the ultimate proof of their stake in the community of their birth. See James Watson, op. cit., p. 165 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 10 were indeed set out by the same Fung Shui master. This strongly suggests that the walls of Nga Tsin Wai were built about 1570-1574. This date fits very neatly with the dates calculated above for Chan Chiu-yin, the first ancestor of the Chans to live in Nga Tsin Wai. It is, therefore, likely that Chan Chiu-yin was not the first of his name to move to Nga Tsin Wai, but was the villager in whose lifetime the place changed its name from Nga Pin Heung to Nga Tsin Wai, and that he was the first of the clan to move inside the newly built walls from his earlier residence in the open open fields The reason given by the Tai Wai villagers for building their walls in 1574 was the ravaging the area by bandits. Pirates or bandits are recorded in the Hsin An County Gazetteer as ravaging in the county in 1551 (when they killed the local Military Commander), 1566, 1567, and 1570 (when a local Military Sub-Commander was killed by them). Particularly active in the area during this period were the bandits under the command of Lam Fung (#, he was known as "Limahong" to the Portuguese, who also suffered from him). Lam Fung is credited in the Ming History with killing 20,000 people in the general Hong Kong area, which he dominated from 1568-1574: the County Gazetteer specifies attacks in the Tai Po area in 1570. Nga Tsin Wai, only a hundred yards or so inland from the best landing place in Kowloon Bay, was doubtless extremely exposed to the attacks of all these pirate bands. Pirates remained a problem here for many years. Cheung Po-tsai was active in the Victoria Harbour area in the mid-eighteenth century, and the Shau Kei Wan area was notorious for pirates right down to the middle nineteenth, when a vigorous local military commander drove them out for a while. In the unwalled village of Ngau Chi Wan even as late as the 1920s the village youths took turn to spend the night on watch from a bamboo shelter in front of the village - there was a gong there to waken the village if any bandits were spotted. Walls, therefore, were highly desirable, and a late sixteenth century date for them entirely reasonable. The Ng clan Tsuk Po starts with an ancestor who achieved a Tsun Sze degree in the period 1056-1063, who enjoyed significant official success in the early twelfth century, and who died in 1113. This man was unlikely to have been born any earlier than about 1040, since his eldest son was born in 1078 (this son died in 1158). This eldest son, Ng Kui-hau, (5), the second generation of the clan to live in ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 32 The Tse clan had clearly bought into the village at a slightly earlier period - probably the grandfather of the household-heads recorded in 1902 had been the first to settle here. The family owned a complete subsistence estate - three houses within the walls, and one outside, and a total of 4.21 acres of arable land. They had probably bought out one or more of the Chan households. The Tse households had their landholdings arranged in a very closely interlinked fashion - the family was still, in 1902, clearly functioning very much as a single economic unit. There seem to have been four households, but only two were recorded as owning houses (in total, they owned four houses). 3.49 acres of the family agricultural land, however, were recorded as being owned by those two households not recorded as owning houses. Of the households recorded from the Ng clan in 1902 there were, as is to be expected, considerable variations in wealth. Of those household heads who owned their property without any other joint owner, the arable land owned varied from 0.41 acres (Ng Un-po), 0.56 acres (Ng Kun-po) and then through 0.83 acres (Ng Yuk-sing), 0.90 acres (Ng Kwong-ip), 1.23 acres (Ng Man-hi), 1.49 acres (Ng Shui) to 1.58 acres (Ng Kwai-cheung), and 1.61 acres (Ng Tak-tat). Of the joint owners, Ng Cheung-sing and Ng Lam-yau (probably uncle and nephew jointly inheriting from the younger man's grandfather) held 0.68 acres, Ng Fo-sang and Ng Tin-yau (probably another uncle and nephew joint inheritance) held 1.05 acres, Ng Hing-tak and Ng Loi-fat held 0.47 acres, Ng Hop and Ng Tak-lap held 1.20 acres, Ng Kit-san and Ng Yuk-chan held 0.81 acres, Ng Shing-fu and Ng Shui-fat held 1.37 acres, while Ng Tseuk-hin and Ng Tso-fuk held no less than 4.93 acres. In many of these cases one or other of the joint owners are also recorded as owning small areas of land as individuals in addition to their joint estates, but in each case the joint estate provided the great bulk of the property owned. All the estates listed above would have been enough for subsistence. Farms in this area of less than an acre (if used for rice cultivation) did not need more than a single adult's labour, except at the peak harvest periods. Most families, however, had more than one single pair of adult hands (there would be both a husband and a wife, and often teenage or married children, and frequently a married sibling). It was normal in the area for one person to work the farm, or perhaps two, while others would go off to earn cash income as labourers or ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x Wai Wing Tso, ir. Ng Shui Yat Un Tso, tr. Ng Tseuk [Cheuk] Hin, Tseuk (Cheuk] Ming Yan Tak Tso, tr. Ng Fo Yan, Yeung Fat TOTAL with Shing Un Tso 1.09 KC26 0.48 KC1/2 0.31 Fo Yan holds no individual land Hau Temple (2 sites) I(Anc. hall) (6 sites) KC11/54 SP2/4 16.50 2. Li Clan Trusts Ching Wan Tso, tr. Li Lai Ting Hi San Tso, tr. Li Kun Fuk, Kun Sang Kai Tsoi Tso, tr. Li Kam Tak Kwan Fong Tso, tr. Li Lai Ting Luk Wa Tso, tr. Li Lai Ting, Kun Tai 0.93 One lot has Li Tsol as trustee 0.11 0.17 0.24 1.43 Trustee prob.changed in 1902.1 lot in Po Kong village area Man Lau Tong, tr.Hau Fu Shing Kwai Tso,tr.Li Lai Ting with Ng Shing Tat [1(Tin Hau Tso and Chan Chiu In Tso Temple & Vill.Office)] Si Fo Tso,tr.Li loi Sin Leuk Tso,tr.Li Kun Fuk, Kun Sang Si Cheung Tso,tr. Li Hau Fu 0.05 1.09 0.43 0.26 0.09 Sz Kwong Tso, tr.Li Hau Fuk with Sz Pin Tso Sz Pin Tso, tr. Li Lai Ting, Li Tsoi 0.19 0.13 0.30 Trustee prob. changed in 1902 67 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x with Sz Kwong Tso U Wan Tso, tr. Li Kun Tsoi Wa Fat Tso, tr. Li Kun Fu 1/1 Yung Fat Tso, tr. Li Ping Sang TOTAL 1/1+[(Tin Hau temple)] 3. Chan Clan Trusts Chiu In Tso [1(Tin Hau) Temple] Shuk Ching Tso, tr. Chan Ying Kam TOTAL TOTAL: TRUSTS [Temple] 55. Tin 4. Ng Clan Individuals Chan Shi 10.13 0.21 1/1 0.02 0.10 5.70 1/1+Ng Clan Hau Temple Anc. Hall (6 & Village sites) Office (2 sites) 1/1 [A] Cheung Cheung Fat Cheung Shing & Lam Yam 2/2 with Shui Hing Chun Shan Fo Po 0.16 0.16 KC11/54 22.36 SP2/4 KCW/I Tr. holds no individual land Only holding Tin Hau temple and Vill Office, jointly with Ng Shing Tar Tso & Li Shing Kwai Tso See Lin Hi See Shing Hi 0.68 0.06 See Kun Shan See Fo Shan 68 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 85 of tun fu ceremonies which, collectively, were said to be the largest of their kind ever held in Hong Kong.* After referring to the Chinese almanac, Tung Sing, believed by some to be the world's oldest, continuous publication, an auspicious day, the 7th day of the Second Moon in the Year of the Rabbit, was selected for holding the main tun fu ceremony. The Author was invited. Thirty-six committee representatives attended with some of the larger of the 26 villages taking part having two representatives. Previously, other smaller tun fu ceremonies for individual villages at Pat Heung had been held, the first at the time of Lap Chun. This festival marks the advent of spring in the Chinese solar calendar, when winter ends, the earth awakens and there is a spirit of renewal in the air. In 1999, the year this tun fu festival was held, Lap Chun fell on February 4. Each village taking part in the Pat Heung ceremony displays at least one tun fu pot which each holds one split-bamboo talisman. Such a practice is not uncommon as, in the dawn of Chinese history, charms were frequently carved on bamboo. At Pat Heung, in 1999, some villages had three and some even as many as eight pots. Duties for the person(s) performing tun fu ceremonies start well before the due date. He has to decide how many pots are required. Where will they be placed? Why should they be placed here and not there? How many talismans will be put in each pot and which gods will be summoned. Which magical forces will be brought to bear to protect the fung shui? What supplications will be written on the split bamboo talismans? Although the main rules that priests or masters follow may be similar there will be differences in detail, which can be pronounced, as the reader will see later. The main ceremony, which the Author attended, was held in Sheung Tsuen (Village), in Pat Heung District, on March 24, 1999, where obviously a great deal of planning and preparation had been necessary before the big day. Here, alongside a 150 or so year-old, small-leaf, Chinese banyan tree, a matshed, approximately 9-metres long by 6-metres deep by 10-metres high, had been erected. For a religious ceremony to take place near a tree, with wood being one of the Chinese Five Elements, is quite natural. The banyan after all, with its trailing roots, gives the impression of multiplication, and from there the move to 'fertility' and the extended Chinese family is but a small ================================================================================ 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 94 'I don't go along with that for one moment. Village people have a long tradition of believing that cosmic harmony is required for the well-being of the living and the dead...' The Author agrees with Hayes that many Chinese do take feng shui and tun fu very seriously. This includes some of the western-educated. The fact that with some ceremonies villagers are prepared to put up with inconveniences, such as not being allowed to leave their village, demonstrates this. People spend large sums of their own money on some festivals, not just money that is given to them by the Government. Feng shui can even be a source of terror: if a grave of an ancestor is flooded, for example (Waters; 1997, 106). Taking remedial action and conducting ceremonies can have a therapeutic effect on the persons involved. The fervency with which these ceremonies are carried out, as described in this paper, are also indicators of 'serious intent'. Organisers and participants frequently put themselves to a great deal of trouble and inconvenience. On a lighter note a retired, English, Hong Kong senior police officer told the Author that, in the early 1960s when he was stationed in the Ping Shan district in the north-west of the New Territories, tun fu ceremonies were more common. The belief then among the police was that as long as there was money in Government's coffers to pay for them and to let off a few firecrackers, with a bit of cash left over for villagers including paying for a lunch, then everybody was happy. 13 West Rail representatives complained, at a government meeting that the Author attended in 1998, that New Territories' villagers were not always co-operative. In the case of the tunnel at Pat Heung, work has not been held up. Compensation, it seems, can sometimes help buy co-operation. This has not always been so. For instance, as previously mentioned, in the case of the Tang clan, they closed some of their buildings along the Ping Shan Heritage Trail in retaliation because the Government needed to move an ancestral grave (Cheung; 1999, 582). Nevertheless, even if many villagers do genuinely believe in tun fu, there are, it is agreed, inconsistencies in their beliefs even if, at times, the average Chinese does not act as though everything depends on such things as the pulsation of feng shui. Chinese not infrequently say that, when a baby is born, ‘it lands on the ground, cries three times ================================================================================ 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-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 252 has not only survived, but was actually extended in 1947,87 despite the vigorous developments that Kowloon would have to experience in the 20th century.88 This cemetery was renamed as New Kowloon Cemetery No.1’ in 1925.89 In 1904, ‘Sham Shui Po Cemetery’ was also appointed ‘at Shum Shui Po in the New Territory, the Eastern boundary thereof being about 270 feet West of the Tai Po Road and the Southern boundary being about 520 feet North of the old boundary of Kowloon and containing 4.75 acres or thereabouts.’90 The cemetery was close to the old Sham Shui Po Village and other settlements in the area. Similar to Po Kong Po Cemetery, the cemetery might have been an extension of an early villagers' burial ground. In some later government notices, the names of ‘Kowloon Tong Cemetery’ and ‘Christian Chinese Cemetery, Kowloon Tong, known as New Kowloon Inland Lot No.16’92 also appeared. Further clarification is needed in regard to the location of these two cemeteries, though in a 1924 map,93 three cemeteries can be found in the present Tai Hang Tung area, which may be related to the two cemeteries. Kowloon Tong Cemetery was closed in 1921, but removal of all graves and urns were not ordered until 1949;95 while the removal of all graves and urns in the Chinese Christian Cemetery, Kowloon Tong, was ordered in 1950.96 93 94 In January 1907, two cemeteries were authorized, one on the island: A plot of land at Kai Lung Wan (A) having an area of about 12 acres and the following boundaries:- North: Farm Lots 14 and 15 and the Jubilee” and Pokfulam Roads; South: the present Kai Lung Wan Cemetery; East: the Pokfulam Road; West: Farm Lot 15.100 The other was described as: A plot of land at Tseung Loong Tin11 (✯✯), situated at Cha Kwo Ling in the New Territories, having a total area of about 1 acre. 102 • Later in the year, ‘Kai Lung Wan East Cemetery,104 which was “situated on the East side of the Pokfulam Road at No. 10 Bridge, and containing about 53.50 acres’ was also appointed. .* 105 In 1908, Cheung Chau Cemetery which was situated on the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 395 so on. I owe this information to our President, Dr. Patrick Hase, who has also referred me to an article on the subject by Professor James L. Watson, "Eating from the Common Pot: Feasting with Equals in Chinese Society", published in Anthropos, Vol. 82, 1987, pp. 389-401. In the course of enquiries (1970s) into foods made at festival time, I came across some interesting facts about the preparation process. This was often laborious. The "cakes" made at the lunar New Year are a case in point. The materials comprised pounded glutinous rice and cane sugar. According to men from two of the former Tsuen Wan villages, sixteen hours were needed to cook the mixture in a very large, deep wok (the Chinese frying pan) in effect for a whole day, from dawn till dusk or later. Cooking in an old-fashioned village stove, fuelled by dried grass or firewood, was essential; since the taste would be different were charcoal or gas to be used. Some of the Sham Tseng elders (also Tsuen Wan District) said that each "cake" might require between 30 to 50 catties of glutinous rice, resulting in very large "cakes". In one household of my acquaintance (originally from Shek Pik on Lantau Island, resited to Tsuen Wan in 1960), it had been usual for them to make four large "cakes" every lunar New Year. These were distributed as goodwill gifts to shops in the market towns of Tai O and Cheung Chau, and the boat people's families in the Shek Pik anchorage - indicative of this household's economic and social ties. People also gave and received portions of such cakes during the customary visiting to mark the arrival of the New Year. The Sham Tseng men had also mentioned a rather curious requirement involved in the preparation of the dumplings made for the fifth day of the fifth lunar month festival, commonly known as the Dragon Boat Festival. The dumplings had to be made with a preparation of wood ash, placed between bamboo leaves, and filtered with water. This watery ash, known as kan shui [the character I was given for 'kan' is that for 'root', but though this sits oddly with the context, I have not been able to find anything more suitable in a dictionary search] had to come from "new" wood, though not necessarily of any particular kind. It was no use trying to filter ash from anything that came to hand, like old boards or drift-wood. Turning to other topics, I had earmarked but subsequently overlooked two interesting items in the course of shaping the chapters. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 6 incorporating the existing country park in Ma On Shan, marine park, hiking trail, holiday camp, water sports centre and festival market in the town. Moreover, Tai Long Wan - a traditional dwelling with its nearby beautiful beach in the eastern part of Sai Kung - was also included in its developmental guidelines for selected areas pending the preparation of Outline Zoning Plans (OZPs). However, the contested issue in Tai Long Wan is going to be the first case I will introduce. Tai Long Wan is especially well known among hikers and trail-walkers due to it being situated on the way from Long Ke to Pak Tam Au, forming the MacLehose Trail Stage Two. Nonetheless, we realize that the Town Planning Board (TPB) also deferred the Tai Long Wan zoning decision which was included in the SENTDSR for the intensive tourism/recreation and conservation/landscapes planning in Sai Kung area. After the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) rejected plans to build the Sheung Shui to Lok Ma Chau spur line project and the Lantau North-South Road link between Tai Ho Wan and Mui Wo, it perhaps was not surprising that the main reason for the postponement of the decision was the existence of certain rare plants in the area. And, TPB worried that natural resources in the proposed village zone area, in which indigenous people want to build houses, would be negatively affected in relevant development. A closer investigation of the situation in Tai Long Wan highlights the significant role of the government and implications of its policy and plan in balancing indigenous livelihood and the natural conservation. Tai Long Wan Tai Long Wan is a traditional settlement consisting of five villages and villagers with different surnames living together. It was probably founded more than 200 years ago even though we are not able to tell whether they came before or after the Coastal Evacuation 1662-1669.* Historically speaking, in 1899, there were already 700-800 villages including tsuen (not walled) and wai (walled) in the New Territories, and the two major dialectic groups were Punti who spoke Wai-tau language, and Hakka who spoke Hakka language. Those villages were grouped together in different regional alliances; however, after the official land registration at the beginning of the British colonial regime, the previous Chinese administrative units of heung and yeuk were strongly affected as well as weakened. In South China, the heung, ================================================================================