RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch ORASHKB and author 108 Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 usually decides to transfer into the seminary and become nuns. The educational standards are high: in 1959 and 1960 over 90 per cent of each graduating class of the middle school passed the Chinese School-leaving Certificate examination, nearly a third with distinction. Other institutions of the Sangha that are noteworthy for their welfare activities are: (1) The Chi Lin Tsing Yuen, a nunnery established at Diamond Hill in 1945, where 68 nuns now operate a subsidized primary school (opened in 1953) for 236 underprivileged boys and girls; an orphanage with 24 girls from 6 to 15 years old; and the Chi Lin Home for Aged Women which has 100 inmates who live there free of charge. Both the Home and the orphanage were built in 1956 with funds donated by Aw Boon Haw 胡文虎, (2) The Po Yeuk Tsing She, a nunnery in Shatin where about 30 nuns operate the Po Yeuk Home for Aged Women. The Home was built in 1955, also with funds donated by Aw Boon Haw, and has 100 inmates, who live free of charge. in Shatin, where a group (3) The Ts'z Hong Tsing Yuen of about 30 women lay devotees, under the direction of an ordained nun, operate a co-educational subsidized free school with 216 pupils (tuition actually paid is HK$10 a year), (4) The Taai Kwong Nunnery near Tai Po, where about 10 nuns operate a co-educational subsidized primary school with 309 pupils (established in 1945) and are planning to open a middle school in 1961. This nunnery also runs a small orphanage, which now has 4 girls and 5 boys from 1 to 15 years old. Visitors get a very pleasant impression of the atmosphere created by the abbess, who has all these enterprises in her sole charge. Financial support comes from Buddhist laymen. VI. LAY ORGANIZATIONS 1. HONG KONG BUDDHIST ASSOCIATION 香港佛教聯合會 This is the leading Buddhist organization in the Colony. It was originally founded in 1932 as the Hong Kong Buddhist [Studies] Association, to foster solidarity among Buddhists, dis-seminate the dharma, and promote social welfare. During the Second World War it became inactive, one reason being that its members did not wish to have it exploited by the Japanese, who had become adept at using Buddhism for political penetration abroad. It was revived, however, in 1945 under its present name and incorporated on May 2, 1959. Its membership has risen from 1,500 in 1952 to 3,850 in 1960. Of the latter number, 116 are monks, 324 are nuns, and 20 are institutions (e.g., the Po Lin Tsz and the Hong Kong Lotus Association). The rest of the membership is composed of laymen, among whom the purely devout probably outnumber those who take a more intellectual approach to Buddhism. Dues are HK$10 a year for most members. 7 Tuition actually paid is only HK$24 a year. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r 60 K. M. A. BARNETT NOTES 1 "Amah Rock” — A more decent title would be the Mother and Child Rock. The Chinese name for this and many similar rocks is mong fhuuh sreak, ★❶. 2 Baat Xheong, ★❴. 3 Boo-ghonn, ❵. 4 Boo-shaann, ❷. 5 Braak-gok, ★❸. 6 Braak-mrong, ❹. 7 Braak-shaah-qou, ❻★. 8 Braak-xrok-dheonn, ❼. 9 Brok, ❽. C 10 Ceak-traap-gok, ★❾★. 11 Chaah-xhang, ★➀. also Taai-xhaang, ★ṃ. 12 Cheng-criw, ★☆ (+1644—+1911). 13 Cheng-jhih, ❵, name of a local fish. 14 Cheng-shaann, ❶☛. 15 Now called Cheng-shaann-whaann, ❶ which formerly applied to a smaller bay at the foot of Castle Peak itself. Cirn-whaann, ★★ see 26. 16 Corgwok, approximately +927-+951, but it is doubtful whether a nienhao was adopted. 楚剧 17 Crann, ★. 18 Crann Gwor, ❸. 19 Creah, ❹, Hakka eria. 20 All the other words now pronounced creah having formerly had initial ts, not ch. 21 Creah-drou, ❺, which however in this territory is always called xrorn-wroh, ★. 22 Creoy-criw, ★☆ +581 (locally from +589) to +618. 23 Creoy Crung-sreak, ★❶. 24 Crih-jrynn, ★❷. 25 Crih-xoe, ★❸. Crinn-whaann, ★★ see 26. 26 Crynn-whaann, (Crinn-whaann) and ★ also written , ★ (Zin-whaann), ★★ (Cirn-whaann), ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r HONG KONG BEFORE THE CHINESE 65 122 Shann-qhonn, ✯✯. 123 Shann-ghonn Jrynvzi. ĦEMA. 124 Shann-qhonn Jrynvzi, ĦE, previous editions, see separate table. 125 Shanntrinn, #w (there pronounced shangtrin), 126 Shaygung, St. 127 Sheong-shih-mruunn, 128 Sreakbhek-whaann, H, the passage south of Cape D'Aguilar. *. 129 Sreak-seoe-gaarn, ̃†M - Sreoi-jran, **, see 42. 1 130 Sreong-seoe, L. 131 Srynnwhaann-xoe, MA. 132 Sungeriw, T +960 +1279, but in Kwangtung only from +971. Taai-xhaanq, * see 11. 133 Taaizruk Zrongzruk Jrytzruk xaao, ****** . 134 Terraces. See also an excellent photograph in the latest report by the Director of Agriculture and Forestry. 135 Thinnxrau-ghung, AB, or Thinnxrau-mriuv, B. Tin Hau is the patroness of the Tanka43 boat people. 136 trinn, + 137 Trinnfhuuh-zae, W★# or Trinnfuur-zae, . 138 known locally as Tronq-brok, #, pronounced treong-breok which I believe is a corruption of tryng-brok & the meaning of which had been forgotten. 139 Trongcriw, I +618–+907. 140 troo, . 141 Trynn-mruunn, Es, local pronunciation tryną-mruunq, see 138. Trynnmruunn-zan, E18. 142 trynntrinn, ɖ#. W 143 what, or Z. The # of #, as is written in the San On Yuen Chi123 should be read thus, 144 What-Iroofuur, Z. 145 Wraljreoną, . Wrang-buui, Я, see 51. 146 Wrong Craaw, . The rebellion began in +877. Canton fell in +878 and Ch'ang An (the capital) in +880. The capital was retaken by loyal forces in +883 and the rebellion spluttered on for some years after the death of Huang Ch'ao in +884. Although defeated, the rebellion brought down the dynasty. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r NOTES AND QUERIES 153 the cultivation of all plants whose names are qualified by the prefix faan," used for immigrants such as the tomato, the guava, the rambutan, one kind of melon, and the sweet potato. The peanut is not so qualified and it would appear that the prefix faan is used only for importations from the Pacific. The peanut bears no indication of foreign origin in its name. I do not know what it is called in the various dialects of Fukien, but Chinese books of reference refer to it as lok fa shang. The Cantonese name is fa shang, which is clearly an abbreviation of the former, while the Hakka name is ti tiu, which means earth bean. Again it might be of some assistance if there could be recorded the names by which this plant has been known both in Arabia and in other countries of the Middle and Far East to which the Arabs introduced it. Another introduction, perhaps better described as a reintroduction, was the lemon. It would appear that the first Arab traders on their admission to Canton at the end of the sixth century took back with them the seeds of a plant then described in Chinese as yi mo (itself clearly a non-Han name) and from that plant developed and cultivated the now well-known lemon-shaped lemon which they called by the name Al-Laimûn which is the old Chinese name arabized by the common ending -n and the initial slurred with the definite article. The Cantonese then re-borrowed the Arabic name in the form of ning mung12 which we still use. Another Arabic word which was introduced into the language of Canton was the word amah, now familiar in the meaning of a Chinese female servant employed by a foreign family, which has nothing to do with the Cantonese word for grandmother2 but is a word for a female servant common to all the Semitic languages, including Hebrew it will be found in the Books of Exodus, xxiii. 12, Judges xix. 9 and many other places in the Bible. I suspect that many of the other words commonly used in Cantonese to express special relationships between Chinese and foreigners could also be found to have an origin in Arabic, Malay or other languages used by foreign traders in Canton before any Europeans were heard of: for example, sz tsai,16 sz tau,15 (which I think is the Arabic sayyid,1 fa wongł which is clearly the same word as the Urdu malik, originally meaning king and then gardener; kwun-tim," sz-naai14 and taipan3 If this surmise is correct, then these words are likely to have been ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 164 NOTES AND QUERIES and transcribed in a variety of ways by native-speakers of Cantonese. The origins of words such as amah are hidden in the obscure labyrinths of time but are still as fresh as a new-born babe. Such words contain the elements of English mammy, ma, French maman, Latin mater and so on, for they represent the infant mouth opening to bawl and sometimes the closing of the tiny lips over the mother's teat. Such words exist in all languages even as a rejecting, spitting series for the father: pater (in Latin), English daddy, Cantonese papa mimic the child's rejection of his father's milkless breasts. It is unnecessary to derive Cantonese amah from an Arab source. Similar forms, demonstrably not of Semitic origin, occur in many languages; in those of the Iberian peninsula, ama may or may not be an Arabism. In India, it was one of the common Indo-Portuguese words for a children's nurse. It is this word which came to Canton either in the Portuguese lingua franca which preceded pidgin English as the jargon of the China coast or in pidgin English itself. The documents of the nineteenth century are rich in derivatives of this word and even today wash-amah and baby-amah are widely used expressions in Hong Kong. Chow-amah (wet-nurse) disappeared at the introduction of patent infant formulae. The only problem is whether amah, which sounds as exotic in Cantonese as kowtowing once did in English, entered the dialect directly from a Portuguese dialect or was introduced by way of English. My understanding is that amah is seldom used by the Hong Kong Portuguese in the sense of servant and that the word, though Portuguese in origin, is an early English loan to Cantonese, the forerunner of pa-si (bus), mhodhang nreoezir (modern girl), bheazao (beer) and the hundred and one other loans found in the Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong today. Until more evidence is forthcoming, the derivation of sz tsai and sz tau will seem far-fetched. Nor is there enough proof to convince that fa wong is a calque (translation) of Urdu malik, even though the semantic extensions of wong and malik appear to coincide. I cannot tell which are the foreign words from which we are supposed to derive kwuntim, sz-naai and tai pan and have yet to be convinced that Cantonese natuk is in fact the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g CHINESE ELITE IN HONG KONG 95 two European partners of the firm, with the intention of building Chinese houses of a better type to accommodate the wives and families of the growing class of well-to-do compradores. Previously the compradores had not brought their families to Hong Kong but they remained in their home village or in Canton. The editor of The China Mail comments that "Messrs. Dent and Company have shown both wisdom and kindness in disposing of their land for such purposes. Chiu Wing Tsun (†), one of the purchasers, and his elder brother, Yuk Ting (†), had both been compradores in Dent and Company. Their nephew Chiu Yee Chee () was compradore at Shanghai and became one of the organizers of the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company in 1872. Chiu Wing Tsun died at Macao in 1873, leaving property in Hong Kong estimated at $111,000.27 Yeong Lan Ko (☎), the other Chinese purchaser of the Dent property, had succeeded his relative Yeong Atai (*) alias Yeong Chun Kum, to the position of first compradore of Dents at Hong Kong upon the latter's death in 1870. Yeong Lan Ko alias Yeong Sun Yow (), and also known as Asam (), was one of Hong Kong's largest landowners. In 1876 he was the nineteenth largest rate-payer and in 1881 had risen to fifth position. He died in 1884 at Pak Shan, the family village in Heung Shan District. Before Dents sold their property, the few substantial Chinese who had family residences in Hong Kong were located at the former Middle Bazaar site. When the inhabitants of the Middle Bazaar had been relocated at Tai Ping Shan, the Government replotted the area and laid off new lots which were meant to be bought principally by Europeans for their residences or business houses.28 Two of the more substantial Chinese bought lots at the sale in 1844: Ying Wing Kee (*) alias Ng Wing Kee (**), a compradore and merchant who died in 1849, and Tong Kam Sing, a contractor who died in 1845. Other Chinese of this class soon bought lots from European owners, that they might establish family houses in a better part of town. These included Wei Akwong, compradore of Bowra and Company and later of the Chartered Mercantile Bank; Ho Sek, compradore of Lyall, Still and Company; Lee Kip Tye, a Fukien broker who began his Hong Kong career as a Government interpreter; ================================================================================ 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 113 of Shui Pin Ts'uen, and enlarged to the size of a temple very soon after. It remains almost unaltered since except for the written characters over the door which were put there by Tang P'ooi Ch'oh (**) in the 27th year of Kwong Sui (***) of Ts'ing ( ) dynasty A.D. 1901. It is the custom in China for men to count back the generations to their "first ancestor." Thus a man may speak of himself as being the twentieth or fortieth generation meaning that he belongs to the twentieth or fortieth generation after one particular family ancestor who, by being the most ancient known forbear, or the founder of a particular branch or even the first of a particular name to settle in a certain locality, is given the title of "first ancestor". In many families there are more than one "first ancestor", the Tang family have several whom they venerate equally. First they have Tang Yue ($) their earliest known ancestor. A native of San Ye (†) now Honan province, (i) he was born in the second year of Hon Ping Tai (+) A.D. 2 and died 52 years later in the 1st year of Wing P'ing (†) of Tung Hon (**) dynasty. He was a very famous and high officer, and a personal friend of the first emperor of Tung Hon, Kwong Mo (†). He was only twenty-four years of age when Kwong Mo became emperor, but he was given the high office of "Tai Sz To," (✯a✯) equivalent to Prime Minister (during Tung Hon dynasty), for having helped him to rid the country of the numerous bandits that infested it. After Kwong Mo died his son Ming Tai (8) gave him the honour of “Taai Foo (AM), the second highest honour it was possible to receive from the Emperor, at that time, and he was created "Ko Mat Hau" ( 4 ) which means Marquis of Ko Mat, now Kiaochow (*) in Shan Tung (R) province. After the death of Tang Yue his portrait was placed first among those of twenty-eight generals in one of the Emperor's palaces called Wan Toi (雲臺) Tang Hon Fat, forty-seventh generation after Tang Yue, is also venerated by his descendants. It is believed by some, that he was the first of the Tang family to settle in Kam Tin. He was a government officer holding the post of "Shing Mo Long” (**) and was a native of Paak Sha Ts'uen ( & ††) of Kat Shui ( #7†) district in the province of Kiangsi ( ¿1). According to one old family history he was visiting Kwangtung (*) and coming by chance ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r 114 SUNG HOK-P’ANG to Kam T'in he was much taken by it, considering the people were more friendly and honest than those of his own country, and it was said that he came to live there in the 6th year of Hoi Po (HT) A.D. 973 of Sung dynasty. During the 8th year of Shing Fa (APC) A.D. 1472 of Ming dynasty when the Kam T'in people revised their family tree, they added a note which cast doubt on the veracity of this, and instead they were inclined to believe that Tang Foo (#) the great grandson of Tang Hon Fat was really the first to come to Kam Tin, and that he transferred the bones of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather to Kwangtung from Kiangsi. Be that as it may, and although there is no actual proof that one or other was the original Tang to settle in Kwangtung, Tang Hon Fat remains a "first ancestor" as his is the oldest Tang grave near Kam T'in. It can be found at Ah Kai Shaan (Y), Waang Chau (H) village. Six generations after Tang Hon Fat there were two brothers, Kwai (3) and Sui (). Kwai had two sons called Yuen Ying (* ) and Yuen Hei (†), both of whom left Kam T’in and founded branches of the family elsewhere. Sui had three sons, Yuen Ching (元祯), Yuen Leung (元亮) and Yuen Woh (元和). The first and last of these also left for other districts but Yuen Leung remained behind, and the Tangs in Kam T’in to-day are his direct descendants. These five cousins were known as the "Five Yuens", and after their death their descendants who by then were scattered in various parts of China built an Ancestral Hall, common to all the Yuens, called To Hing T'ong (*). It is at the South gate of the district city of Tung Koon (✯✯), on the Kowloon-Canton railway not far from Sheklung (). In the hall Tang Hon Fat has been given premier place, but the "Five Yuens" are venerated in the same way as he and Tang Yue are, as being "first ancestors”. As mentioned before, Tang Foo, the great grandson of Tang Hon Fat is said to have found the sites for the graves of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, himself. They were all acknowledged as being lucky places by the "fung shui" men, who were, of course, consulted. That of Tang Hon Fat is called Yuk Nui Paai T'ong (£#*) jade girl reverence; and his son's grave which is on Yuen Long Hill (₪), is called Kam Chung Fau Tei () gold bell cover ground. The grave of Tang Foo's father is called Poon Yuet Chiu T'aam (#AM) half moon shine lake, Page 120 Page 121 ================================================================================ 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 125 been repaired and colour-washed in red and white. For a long time this grave was lost, much to the sorrow of Tsz Ming's descendants. In the 33rd year of Hong Hei (R) of Ts'ing dynasty, A.D. 1694, Tang Lui Taan (12) of Ha Ts'uen (†) happening to read the old history of Tung Kwun came across this passage. "Tang Tsz Ming's grave is in Kau To (A) on Fat Au Leng Shaan. It is now called Ng To (£) of San On district." Lui Taan reported this to a relation, Tang Ng Shaang (£) who immediately collected a party of Kam T'in men to go out to the hill and find it. They found a grave there, but on it was a stone stating that it belonged to Tang Maan Lei (£) a cousin of Tsz Ming and the first ancestor of the Ping Shaan family of Tangs. The Kam T'in men were preparing to go away disappointed, when Ng Shaang discovered another and much older stone nearby with the characters almost obliterated. He took the tea he had brought to drink, carefully washed the stone with it and found the following on it ẞ and part of the two characters Kwan # and Ma which were in Tsz Ming's title. After consultation it was decided to dig up the grave and a sham tomb with bricks inside it of a very old style were found exactly the same as in the princess' grave. At last they found the real tomb itself and Tsz Ming's bone-pot could be seen through a hole in the top. So the Kam T'in men were very glad indeed, and to show their gratitude every year about the third month, at the Ts'ing Ming () festival of worshipping at the graves of their ancestors, the Kam T'in people always presented Ng Shaang with some roast pork taken from the offerings for the husband of the princess. [3] During the Sung dynasty the titles of She Yan (4A) or Siu She (J) were used to address young men of high rank. As the four sons of Tang Tsz Ming and the Princess were the nephews of the Emperor they received the title of Kwok She (4) which means "Kingdom's young men." The eldest, Lam (*) was known as Taai Kwok She, the others Kei (2) Waai (†) and Tsz (†) were called Yee, Saam and Se Kwok She respectively. It is the custom in Kam Tin even now for the young people to address their fathers as "She" instead of “Ah Dae" (E) the Cantonese equivalent to "Daddy." ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 168 SUNG HOK-PANG the heart in his mouth went off with it. The villagers gave chase but after a while there was a terrific gust of wind and the dog disappeared. The present Kam T'in is divided into two distinct districts. The South, Naam Wai (南圍) was originally a large common or open space of grassland; the North, Pak Wai (北圍) was hilly country surrounded by mangrove swamp. The principal villages of Naam Wai are Kat Hing Wai (吉慶圍) the first village on the right-hand side as one approaches from the main road, which was built by Tang Paak King (鄧伯經) and two other men during the Shing Fa years 1465-1487 of Ming Dynasty; Wing Lung Wai (永隆圍) the village at the end of the road on the left-hand side, facing the open green where football is now nearly always in progress, which was started by Tang Shiu Kui (鄧紹舉) and seven others; and T'aai Hong Wai (泰康圍) the large walled village on the left just before one reaches the Cottage Hospital, which was founded by Tang Ts'ung (鄧聰) and four other contemporaries. Later on during the civil wars of the Hong Hei years 1662-1722 of Ts'ing dynasty these three villages were walled to protect the inhabitants from marauding bandits and soldiers. Tang Man Wai (鄧文蔚) and Tang Kaai Yuet (鄧啟悅) built the wall of T'aai Hong Wai; Tang Sui Ch'eung (鄧瑞昌) and Tang Kwok Yin (鄧國賢) built that of Wing Lung Wai and Tang Chue Yin (鄧珠彥) and Tang Chik Kin (鄧積堅) walled Kat Hing Wai. About the same time Tang Yuet Man (鄧悅民) of Kat Hing Wai and Tang P'ooi Hing (鄧培慶) of T'aai Hong Village both formed the village of Kam Hing Wai (錦慶圍), which is on the north of Kam T'in market; and Tang Chau Man (鄧秋文) of Kat Hing Wai built the village of Ko Po Ts'uen, on the left-hand side of the main road, on the west of Kam T'in market. These walls in many places are in a wonderful state of preservation to-day. Kat Hing Wai and Taai Hong Wai have very strong iron chain gates, and a tablet fixed in the wall outside the gateway of Kat Hing Wai explains the story of them. It can be roughly translated as follows: "The inscription on the tablet of Kat Hing Wai:— Since Foo Hip, the ancestor of our family Tang who was a Government officer, came from Kiangsi to Kwang Tung in the years of Sung Ning of Sung dynasty, we lived in both waais (villages) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 172 SUNG HOK-PANG He then returned to the capital, and stayed in General Ngai's house where he was able to make friends with many famous scholars. He wrote a book named "Yin t’oi san ngai” which had a preface written by Ts'oi Shing Yuen ## Noi Kok Hok Sz a political minister of high rank. Three years later Tang passed his Tsun sz degree, and was appointed district magistrate of Lung Yau Yuen in Chekiang province. Tang Man Wai was of a kind-hearted disposition and some say that through this the wall of T'aai Hong Wai was built. The story goes that when Tang passed his Sau Tsoi degree he was sent to Kwai Shin district, now Wai Yeung, to collect the rent due on cultivated lands, belonging to his family property. While there he came across a young man named Lei Maan Wing * hanging upside down as a punishment. On asking the reason why, Tang learnt that Lei had contracted gambling debts and was unable to pay them. Tang was sorry for the young man, paid all his debts and was able to use his influence in obtaining a military post for him. This happened during the end of the Ming Dynasty. Later on when the Manchus drove out the Mings in the North and the Ming Emperor Wing Lik✯✯ had retreated to Kwangtung, Lei was a colonel under Cheung Ka Yuk ✯ who was fighting against the Manchus. When Cheung was defeated in battle in the 4th year of Shun Chi A.D., 1647 of Ts'ing dynasty, and drowned himself, Lei, who was with him, fled with about a hundred soldiers. Gradually many of Cheung's soldiers were able to rejoin him, and with a strong army he attacked both Tung Kwun ✯✯ and San On ✯* districts. He drove out the Manchus, and made his headquarters in what is now known as the New Territories. One of Lei's camps was situated in the district round K'ei Lun Wai LP'ing Shan A and T'sing Leung Fat Yuen ****. Before the latter, which is a nunnery, was built, the locality had been known as Ying P'oon Tei, "The ground of the camp," and while the building was in progress the workmen dug up many old coffins which were supposed to be those of Lei's soldiers. Among them was found a general's sword, broken in many pieces. Anyone going to Kwun Yam Shaan to visit the Ling Wan monastery would notice half way up Taai Mo Shaan, far above the cultivated land, a stretch of hillside that has been terraced and flattened out in some former time. This is supposed to have been another of Lei's encampments. Lei burned and pillaged, and most of the + ================================================================================ 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 173 inhabitants of the New Territories fled. It was said that for three years the country presented the appearance of a battle-field, “The ground was covered with bones, in the day time nothing could be heard but the hum of flies, and at night the voice of weeping." Kam T'in might have shared the same fate as the other villages but for Tang Man Wai. Lei, remembering his former kindness, forbade his soldiers to go near the place, and seeking out Tang he taught him how to build strong walls to protect his village from other marauders. This story is still told by old people in the New Territories now, and, if true, what was stated in H.K.N. Vol. VII, page 255.... “during the civil wars of the Hong Hei years A.D. 1662-1721 of Ts'ing dynasty these three villages were walled is not correct.* Lei Maan Wing occupied the New Territories from A.D. 1647 until he surrendered to the Manchus in A.D. 1656 which means that the walls of Taai Hong Wai, at least, were built some time during that period. Tang Man Wai is also remembered for having built the old Yuen Long Market ⇓, in the 8th year of Hong Hei A.D. 1669. The date is inscribed on a tablet in the wall inside Taai Wong temple in the market. Tang also made three fish ponds to the west of the market place which can still be seen by the side of the main road. + + Tang Fong was a notable scholar who passed his Kui Yan degree in the 27th year of Kin Lung of Ts'ing dynasty, A.D. 1762. He studied a great number of books especially the canons of Confucius and Books of Histories, and was considered very skilful in writing both poetry and prose. While he was still a Lam Shang he was employed as a professor of arts in Man Kong Shue Yuen * a high grade school in San On district situated in Naam T'au Shing the capital city. Students were prepared there for the Sau-tsoi examination, and it was said that while Tang Fong was there “learning was at its highest pitch." ♬ Tang Ying Yuen was a military officer and passed his Mo Kui Yan A degree in the 54th year of Kin Lung A.D. 1789 of Ts'ing dynasty. Although of a martial disposition, Tang was fond of books and his penmanship was highly thought of. Some of the characters that he wrote to be carved on stone tablets can still be seen in Ling Wan nunnery on Kwun Yam Shaan 音山 and in So Lau Yuen 泝流園 and Tsoi Shui Yat Fong 在水✈both school buildings in Kam T'in. He was a simple man and * See p. 168. ================================================================================ 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 184 SUNG HOK-PANG again, and the judas tree revived, and soon it was covered with blossoms and looked a beautiful sight. From this story the three Tangs had learnt a lesson, and realizing that any one branch of the family was unable to build a hall alone, they combined together and completed one hall, naming it Mau King T'ong "The luxuriant judas-tree Hall.” Although there is no record of the year that the hall was completed, the following is what is known of its history. The building was started by Tang Mau Wai, who passed the Tsun Sz degree in the 24th year of Hong Hei, A.D. 1685. The hall was rebuilt by Tang Shiu Chau (RA) who passed Sui Kung A† degree in the 1st year of Kin Lung, A.D. 1736; and was repaired twice, first by Tang Hei Sui (###) who passed Yan Kung Shaang in the 21st year of Ka Hing, A.D. 1816, and secondly by Tang Ming Shiu (*) a Lam Shaang during the To Kwong period (the 1st year of To Kwong was A.D. 1821.) The T'in Hau Temple (A) Queen of Heaven Temple, in Shui Mei village, was first built during the Hong Hei period (A.D. 1662-1722) of Ts'ing dynasty and possesses a fine bell of 180 catties in weight which was presented by Tang Ch'un Fooi (**) a Kung Shaang in the 10th year of Kin Lung, A.D. 1745. It is said that the tone of the bell is very clear and can be heard from ten Chinese miles away. The Kam T'in people say that one of the past Governors of Hong Kong heard about it and visited Kam T’in to try the bell, which he agreed was as beautiful as reported. For a long time the temple was in a bad state of repair, and the bell had to be kept in a private house where those wishing to, were allowed to see it. Lately the temple has been repaired and the bell re-instated in it; also an incense burner that was presented by Tang Yiu King (*) and his son Tang Chan Suen (**) in the 11th year of Kin Lung A.D. 1746, Kwong Yue T'ong (***) in Taai Hong village is the ancestral hall of Tang Man Wai, who was the only man to pass the Tsun Sz degree in the New Territories (See H.K.N. IV. p. 106). The building is quite a large one, and the ancestral fund belonging to this hall is a very large sum and is considered the richest in the New Territories. For many years $100 was given each year to each family of Tang Man Wai's descendants for their New Year expenses. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS IN 19TH CENTURY 89 explore the lives led by members of the European working class and to develop some ideas about the nature of social stratification among Europeans and Chinese in nineteenth century Hong Kong. The documentation on working class Europeans in Hong Kong is not extensive. They were often barely literate. Even if they wrote well, they were not inclined to record on paper their thoughts and experiences for posterity. If they wrote letters home, such correspondence was not usually preserved (there are some exceptions) for future generations. It is extremely difficult, therefore, to obtain a clear picture of their social perceptions, of what they felt about Hong Kong. Most accounts of this class must come, inevitably, from middle-class Taipans, colonial civil servants, travellers, journalists, writers of one type or another, many of whom were class-ridden and decidedly unsympathetic to the European hoi polloi of the China coast. A great deal of information is to be found, of course, in the English language newspapers printed in Hong Kong; but much of it deals solely with court cases, providing only indirect clues to the problems facing working class Europeans and to the social attitudes of their superiors. We do not have much material on their social and private lives for they were not clubmen or members of prestigious associations. Consequently, their everyday activities are not recorded normally in the social columns of local newspapers. Only intermittently, when they acquired local notoriety for delinquent or deviant behaviour, were their lives memorialised in the annals of the press. Scarcity of primary source material and lack of documentation should not stultify all efforts to write about the European working class in Hong Kong, for questions raised by its existence are important sociologically and some attempt must be made to answer them. For example, members of the European uniformed supervisory staff—those whom Cantonese call pong-paân (help-manage)* - had frequent face-to-face contacts with ordinary Chinese and often lived cheek by jowl with them in Chinese residential areas; this fact would suggest that Chinese stereotypes of the European may have derived from, or been heavily influenced by, such contacts. Such a question directs the sociologist to a further problem, * For this term, and for the maai-paån or managers see Marjorie Topley's definition at p. 105 below. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS IN 19TH CENTURY 105 had married, or lived with, Chinese, Eurasian or Portuguese women and for that reason stayed on. The decision to remain in employment in Hong Kong was also related to the level of wages in Britain and to depressions and unemployment in the mother country. Most felt that they were better off, if only marginally, in Hong Kong. Lastly, many inspectors had served in the army, navy or merchant marine; the jobs they took in Hong Kong usually satisfied their instinct for hierarchy, order, and discipline. As Dr. Topley writes: In Hong Kong, unlike in some British colonies and ex-colonies, two social classes of westerners are recognized. Chinese divide westerners into the taai-puân (bosses) and pong-paân (help-manage). The latter category includes most people who are in uniformed supervisory jobs. The former term has been romanised by westerners in Hong Kong as "Taipan" and is used commonly in conversation and in the English press to refer to wealthy westerners.28 Those in uniformed supervisory jobs—members of what one may call the 'inspectorate'—were in nearly every case former servicemen. There was thus no radical break in their lives when they stayed to work in Hong Kong in the dockyards, Marine Department, Sanitary Department, P.W.D., police, or prisons. TAIPANS AND THE EUROPEAN LOWER CLASS Visitors to Hong Kong were always startled by the extent of conspicuous consumption found there. Typical are these comments by a seasoned traveller in the 1860s: Europeans in Hongkong live in a very expensive style; much more expensively, one would think, than they need do, when we consider that many of the necessaries of life are to be had at prices very little in advance of our market rates at home. Nothing surprised me more in Hong Kong than the expensive way in which English assistants were housed, and the luxuries with which they were indulged. Indeed few more luxurious quarters were anywhere to be found than the 'junior messes' of the wealthy British firms. There the unfledged youth, coming out from the simplicity of some rural home, was apt to develop into a man of epicurean tastes, a connoisseur in wines, and to become lavish in expenditure...29 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 171 T'aai Shing finally collapsed during World War II, after it had been looted by bandits. Saam Shing owned considerable property on the waterfront, which had, in part, been reclaimed by this shop. But the shop collapsed before the War, allegedly because of mismanagement. Many people came to both shops.32 Table 1 Shops in Sai Kung Market Before World War II Name Business Owner Saam Shing* General store Lei, from Shuen Wan T'aai Shing* General store Lei Ling, from San Wooi Tak Shing* General store Lei Faat, from Fong T'ung Shing* Kwong Tak Lung* General store T'ung Hing* Shipyard Tung Shing* Shipyard Po Tsai Tong* Herbalist Loi Lei* Beancurd maker Kung Cheung* General store T'aam Shing* Carpenter Tsang* Taoist priest San Shun Cheung* General store Wong Chuk Yeung Fong, from Yung Shue Au ?, from Sham Chun Chau, from Wai Chau ?, from Sai Kung Lee Yim Kwai, from Sham Chung Saam T'aai* General store Laai, from Tam Shui Ng, from Mui Tsz Lam Tam (?), from Ngong Wo Tsang, from Sha Tseng Ling Shin Chung, from Po Kut On Cheung* General store Lei, from Lan Nei Wan Yan T'aai* General store ? from Ngong Wo San Cheung* Teahouse Chau Fuk Lei* Draper's Chau, from Wai Chau Kam Lei Uen Butcher Taai Fung Nin Butcher Cheung, from San Wooi * Recorded on 1916 tablet in Tin Hau Temple. Source: interview reports, see footnote 31. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n # TABLE A Summary of the Genealogy of the Kwaan lineage in Kwangtung CEREMONIAL LIFE OF 2 MULTI-SURNAME VILLAGES 1st Generation 6th Generation Record of Segmentation King-hei Kung (San-ooi Taam-nga Heung cir. 1080) Wing Kung (Hoi-p'ing Taai-ng Ts'uen cir. 1230) Ven-kau Kung ? Kung (Naam-hoi Kau-kong Heung cir. 1230) Uen-saam Kung (Yeung-kong cir. 1260) Ling-uen Heung 7th Generation Uen-luk Kung (Kau-p'ei-ch'ung (Taai-ng Ts'uen cir. 1260) cir. 1260) 10th Generation Lo-yeung Heung Chung-miu Heung Ng-wing Heung (cir. 1350) (cir. 1350) (cir. 1350) 15th Generation Kau-p'ei-ch'ung Lo-yeung (cir. 1500) Ts'ung-long Chung-miu (cir. 1500) Ts'ung-long Ling-uen (cir. 1500) (cir. 1350) (Source: Personal Communications) Page 111 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 BOOK REVIEWS ANCESTRAL IMAGES; A HONG KONG ALBUM. Dr Hugh Baker. Hong Kong, South China Morning Post Limited, 1979. At last, a book for those interested in Chinese traditions and beliefs in Hong Kong, that is about Hong Kong, and written with the ordinary layman in mind. Dr. Baker, known to members of this Society from the several talks he has delivered, is a sinologist trained in anthropological field-work, and he brings his knowledge and first-hand experience to us here in forty very readable short pieces. Some of our longer-term residents will recognise, and may have kept, many of them as they were originally serialised in the South China Morning Post between 1977-1978, but it is unlikely that they will have preserved them all. Now they are here, all together between one hard-back cover with a dramatic photograph of “daai si,” one of the gods described in the text, on the front of the dust sheet. Although the book is entitled Ancestral Images it covers a comprehensive range of topics: from pigs to incantations, and geomancy to New Year biscuits, all amply and expertly illustrated with the author's own black and white and coloured photographs. This book would make an excellent gift for expatriate newcomers and their parents back home; and it affords a good introduction for those wishing to pursue the study of Chinese culture further. There is a useful list of secondary source references in English at the back. Hong Kong. June, 1979. MARJORIE TOPLEY HONG KONG : STABILITY AND CHANGE, A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS. Henry Lethbridge Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1978. This book contains ten essays on the social history of Hong Kong, all concerned in one way or other with questions of social stability: a stability which, as the author points out, stands in marked contrast to the conditions obtaining in many other Asian countries. Nine of the essays were previously published elsewhere (five ================================================================================ 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 206 DAVID FAURE annum. The Yung Sz Ch'iu account books from Hoi Ha (see footnote 8) show that it was 30 percent, and that as a rule, interest was seldom successfully collected in full. 20 Mr. Chau T'in Shang 3.6.81, Mr. Tse Kw'an 16.11.80. Mr. Lau K'in Tsun of Ha Yeung (Int. 17.7.81), who managed the Kwong Shing general store at Hang Hau before the War, remembered that he bought oil and rice from the Nam Pak Hong, and had to send his goods to Hang Hau via Shaukiwan. 27 Mr. Hoh King 27.5.81 described the shops making rice wine in conjunction with pig raising, the dregs from the wine being used to feed the pigs. The beancurd maker was Loi Lei, see int. Madam Laai Hung Tai 8.5.81, the owner's daughter. Of course, the markets also provided the hawkers who went regularly to the villages. Mrs. Lau 14.6.81 remembered the fish mongers who took fish from Seung Sz Wan to Ha Yeung, and the hawkers who came with sweets and items of clothing. 28 Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 8.5.81 for years operated a boat that carried lime and firewood to Kowloon. His father was in a similar business. In the 1930's, Mr. Cheung Ts'oi 20.6.81 had a junk that took orders from shops in Sai Kung for purchases from Hong Kong. Mr. Lei P'aang Kei collected fish in Sai Kung directly from fishermen to be sent to Kowloon. He had formerly worked for Saam Shing, and started this business on his own when Saam Shing collapsed in the 1930's (Int. Mr. Lei P'aang Kei 12.5.81, 19.5.81). Mr. Chan T'in Po 12.5.81 from Yim Tin Tsai used to send his fish to Sai Kung Market and employed women to carry them into Kowloon, paying 40 cents for approximately 40 catties. 29 In addition to references already cited, see Ints. Mr. Hoh Shang 20.6.81, Mr. Tse Shui Kam 24.6.81, Mrs. Mo née Cheng 28.6.81, Mr. Lau 16.6.81, Mr. Leung Yung Hei 16.6.81, Mr. Lok Shang 21.5.81, Mrs. Yung née Wan 2.7.81, Mr. Shing Uen Wan 10.7.81, Mrs. Tsang née Shing 14.7.81, Mr. Ng 15.7.81, Mr. Lau 17.7.81, Mr. Yau Yan 22.7.81. 30 Mr. Wong Kam Tai 20.7.81 remembered Shing Woh general store, owned by the ancestors of Mr. Shing Mau Kwong of Mang Kung Uk, that collected fish for various shops that made salt fish, a shop that made wine, owned by a Mr. Lau, a stationer's owned by a Mr. Chan, and a small shipyard that removed barnacles from boats, owned by a Mr. Po. Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 31.7.81 remembered that the Maus of Pan Long Wan had a general store there, the Shings of Mang Kung Uk had two shops, both called Shing Woh. 31 Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 8.5.81, Mr. Lei Shiu Yam 8.5.81, Mr. Chan Tsz K'eung 28.5.81, Mr. Hoh Taai 10.6.81, Mr. Hoh King 27.5.81, 5.6.81, Mr. Chau T'in Shang 3.6.81, Mrs. Lei née So 20.6.81, Mr. Lei Yau 13.11.80. 32 Mr. Lei Yiu T'ing 23.6.81, Mr. Lei Shiu Yam 8.5.81, Mr. Lei P'aang Kei 12.5.81, 19.5.81, Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 8.5.81, 15.5.81. 33 For background see Hong Kong Government, Administrative Report 1914 D (Harbour Office), p. 6, Hong Kong Government Gazette August 3, 1914. Mr. Yau T'aam Shang referred to this in relation to the growth of Saam Shing and T'aai Shing in int. 8.5.81. 34 Ts'ui Mau Fung was not a shop-keeper, but a land-owner who lived in Sai Kung. He was not involved in the kaifong (int. Mr. Lei Shiu Yum 8.5.81). On Chan Pak T'o, see int. Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 15.5.81. According to Mr. Chan P'aang Hing 29.5.81, he was the teacher of Chan Ue Kwong's younger brother Min Ue. 35 Mr. Chau T'in Shang 18.5.81, 3.6.81. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 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 126 NOTES AND QUERIES with fa daai across in red/white cotton, pink/white and black/white. The mother of the groom had an artificial red rose and streamers attached to her black sam fu, and the grandmother of the groom, for whom it was an important day also, wore her purple/black sam fu saved for special occasions like this, with a red badge and streamers. The second in line of the five houses was that belonging to the groom's parents. That entrance, and that of the chi tong, or ancestral temple which was fourth in line, had red cloth draped around the doorway, and red paper strips with black inscriptions at each side. The third and fifth house had white paper with black inscriptions at the sides. At the right side of the groom's parents' house was hanging a large leg of pork. This was the payment to the match-maker for arranging the wedding. The groom had lived in Blackpool, England for many years, aged mid-thirties, and had been running the "New World Take Away" Chinese fish and chip shop. He had returned here six months before with the desire to get married. Three months later, a matchmaker had found a suitable mate in the form of a "country girl" from Taipo, horoscopes and other credentials were exchanged and the marriage was on. This was to be the second wife to come to this village from Taipo. As people finish their meal, a gong and cymbals are struck by some men. Food is cleared away, and mah jong is played to the accompaniment of Chinese music on the cassette player. In the old days, the bride would arrive from her village in a red sedan chair, her face covered with a heavily embroidered veil. The groom would tap on the door of the chair with his fan, and the bride would get out. The groom would raise the veil, and view his new bride for the first time. Some traditions change and this groom had gone over to Taipo to collect his future wife in a motor car, leaving his village to the accompaniment of fire crackers being set off. At 11.45 the car returns, and draws up on the opposite side of the road. The car is decorated with the customary rosettes, doll at the bonnet, and streamers seen at many weddings here. But because this was a country wedding, a 5' length of sugar cane was strapped to the left-hand side, to indicate that life should be sweet for the happy couple. A procession of people playing the cymbals ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m 212 DAVID FAURE Dates Name (and village) Mr. Chung P'oon (Wong Chuk Shan) interviewed INTERVIEW RECORD Name (and village) Dates interviewed 13.11.80 Madam Chiu I Mooi (Chek Keng) 7.5.81, 18.7.81 Mr. Chau T'in Shang 13.11.80, Mr. Lau Shaang 8.5.81 (Sai Kung Market) 18.5.81, (Sai Kung Market) 3.6.81, Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 8.5.81, 9.7.81 (Wong Keng Tei) 15.5.81, Mr. Lei Yau 13.11.80, 22.5.81, (Tso Woh Hang) 28.6.81 26.5.81, 31.7.81 Mr. Lee Yun Shau, J.P. 14.11.80 (Man Yee Wan) Mr. Wong Yung Ts'ing 8.5.81, Mr. Tse Kw'an 16.11.80 (Wong Yi Chau) 20.5.81 (Tan Ka Wan) Madam Laai Hung Tai 8.5.81 Mr. Shek Kwong Lin 16.11.80 (Sai Kung Market) (Kau Lau Wan) Mr. Lei Shiu Yam 8.5.81 Mr. Shek Fuk Fung 16.11.80 (Man Yee Wan) (Kau Lau Wan) Mr. Lai Foh 8.5.81 Mr. Chan Shing (Sai Kung Market) 21.11.80 (Tai Long) Mr. Chiu Lin Shing (Chek Keng) 11.5.81 Mr. Cheung Hing 28.11.80 (Tai Long) Mrs. Chiu née Cheung 11.5.81 (presently of Tai Po) Mr. Wan Ts'eung 31.11.80 (Tai Po Tsai) Mr. Lei P'aang Kei 12.5.81, (Shuen Wan) 19.5.81 Mr. Paul Tsui 1.12.80 Mr. Chan T'in Po 12.5.81 Mr. Wan Yat Ngo 15.1.81 (Ho Chung) Mr. T'ong (headmaster, 12.5.81 Yim Tin Tsai) Mr. Tse Ming 15.1.81 (Ho Chung) Mr. Cheng Yip 14.5.81 (Pak Kong) Mr. Uen Chiu Ming 16.1.81, (Mok Tse Che) 13.2.81, Fr. Lau Wing Yiu 18.5.81 7.3.81 Mr. Cheung 19.5.81 Mrs. Uen 17.1.81 (Sai Kung Market) (Mok Tse Che) Miss Fung Ping I 19.5.81 Mrs. Uen 18.1.81, Mrs. Ts'ui, née Lei 20.5.81 (Mr. Uen Tak 24.1.81, (Pak Kong) Ming's mother, 7.3.81 Mrs. Liu 20.5.81 Mok Tse Che) (Sai Kung Market) Madam Yung 18.1.81 Mr. Cheng Chung T'ing 21.5.81 (Mok Tse Che) (Pak Kong) Madam Chan 22.1.81 Mr. Lok Shaang 21.5.81 (Ho Chung) (Pak Kong) Madam Lok 22.1.81 Mr. Hoh King 27.5.81 (Ho Chung) (Nam Shan) 5.6.81 Mr. Chiu Sz 7.5.81 Mr. Chan Tsz K'eung 28.5.81 (Chek Keng) Madam Yung A Lin 7.5.81 (Chek Keng) (Sai Kung Market) Mr. Chan Kei Shang (Yim Tin Tsai) 28.5.81 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m 213 Name (and village) Dates interviewed Mr. Chan P'aang Hing (Ho Chung) 29.5.81 Name (and village) Mr. Lok Foh Kau (Pak Kong) Dates interviewed 20.6.81 Mr. Cheung T'o (Ho Chung) 29.5.81, 15.6.81 Mrs. Lei, née So (Nam Shan) 20.6.81 Mr. Chung (Kau Sai) 3.6.81 Mr. Hoh Shang (Nam Shan) 20.6.81, 24.6.81 Mr. So T'in Loi (Kau Sai) 3.6.81 Mr. Lok Kau Kei (Pak Kong) 20.6.81, 26.6.81 Mr. Lei Chi Hei (Sha Tsui) 5.6.81 21.7.81 Mr. Cheung Ts'oi 20.6.81 Mr. Lam Kaap Shau (Tai Po Tsai) (Tai Long) 8.6.81 Mr. Wong (Shan Liu) 20.6.81 Mr. Cheung Ming Shing 8.6.81 Mrs. Lau, (Leung Shuen Wan) 21.6.81 Mr. Lok Tsau On Mr. Tse Koon K'au (Pak Kong) (Tan Ka Wan) 9.6.81 Mrs. Tse (Pak Kong) 21.6.81 Mr. Tse Wing (Sha Kok Mei) 9.6.81, 20.6.81 Mrs. Kong Lei San Kiu (Lung Mei) 21.6.81 Mr. Hoh Taai (Ko Tong) 10.6.81, 21.6.81, 22.6.81 Mr. Lo Koon Mooi (Long Mei) 23.6.81 Mr. Cheung Kin Wa 10.6.81 Mrs. Wan, née Lau (Sai Kung Market) (Nam Shan) 21.6.81 Mr. Ue (Mang Kung Uk) 14.6.81 Mr. Kong Hei (Lung Mei) 21.6.81 Mrs. Ue (Mang Kung Uk) 14.6.81 Mr. Wong (Tam Wat) 22.6.81 Mr. Shing Ip On (Mang Kung Uk) 14.6.81 Mr. Sung Kw'an (Tit Kim Hang) 22.6.81 Mrs. Lau (Ha Yeung, near Seung Sz Wan) 14.6.81 Mr. Sung (Tit Kim Hang) 22.6.81 Mr. Lau Hing Lung (Pan Long Wan) 16.6.81 Mr. Uen Chan Wan (Ta Ho Tun) 22.6.81 Mr. Lau (Pan Long Wan) 16.6.81 Mr. Sham Kin K'eung (Hung Fa Tsun) 23.6.81, 1.7.81 Mr. Leung Yung Hei (Hang Hau) 16.6.81 Mr. Lei Yiu T'ing (Pak Kong) 23.6.81 Mr. Lei Kau (Pak Kong) 23.6.81 Mr. Lei Kan (Wo Liu) 19.6.81 Mr. Wong Ts'ing (Nam Shan) 23.6.81 Mr. Hui Lam (Cheung Sheung) 19.6.81 Mr. Lei Faat (Kak Hang Tun) 23.6.81 Mr. Wong (Ko Tong) 19.6.81 Mr. Chan Shau (Pak Tam Au) 19.6.81 Mr. Cheng Yung (Uk Tau) 23.6.81 Mr. To (Ko Tong) 19.6.81 Mr. Lau Lui Faat (Pak Kong Au) 23.6.81 Mr. Wong Shek (Ha Yeung, near Ko Tong) 19.6.81 Mr. Tang (Wong Mo Ying) 23.6.81 ================================================================================ 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-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 80 CHAN WING HOI were a fishing family who moved in from Naam Tau. The Chan family started the village. The jung-lei (chairman)* Mr. Wong Man Gwong, a 59-year-old former seaman, provided more information on local history. It was his great-great-grandfather who first came here. The original population consisted of about 60 fishing households. The Hoklo and Chiu Chau newcomers were already there when he was small. The present site of the golf club was occupied by paddy fields. One village, known as Seung Wai, was relocated to present Shek O to make way for the golf club. Mr. Wong pointed out the place when we passed it in a procession in the festival, which was just outside the golf club enclosure. Traces of walls could still be seen, and Mr. Wong remembered going back there to worship the Daai Wong Ye Earth God when he was small. At the time the golf club was built the foreigners were powerful and met with little resistance when they took away the land from the villages. A 39-year-old Mr. Lam, an indigenous villager, told me about the occupations of the original Shek O people. At the beginning, the inhabitants made their living in vegetable gardening and fishing. In more recent times the men worked as seamen. Very few people travelled to the West to work in restaurants, and such emigration started only in the last ten years or so. Most people of his own generation worked in the city. Many of the retired seamen came back and worked as waiters at the Shek O Country Club. He was a seaman himself, a radio officer. A 56-year-old Mr. Lau, the owner of the restaurant where I had a vegetarian dinner, provided additional information about the changes that had taken place in local life. The indigenous people fished with stake-nets (jang-paang). He believed that the golf club was built in the 1930s. It was already there when he was born. But some of the facilities, at least the swimming pool, were still being built when he was small. He remembered that at the age of 7, he was scolded when he jumped on a pile of sand that was prepared for the construction of the swimming pool. Most of the Chinese newcomers at Shek O arrived after the Japanese Occupation. They were Hoklo fishermen who came in their boats. It took only one night to reach Shek O from Hoi Luk Fung when the wind was in... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 86 CHAN WING HOI events of the festival. A committee consisting of the officers (lei-si) of the residents' association was set up to organize the celebration. In the jiu festivals in the New Territories, only indigenous residents are eligible candidates who may be chosen to serve as ritual representatives. Sometimes in the New Territories each participating village has a quota of ritual representatives. Neither restriction applied in the Shek O celebration. More than 70 families, mainly those of Shek O, sent their members to compete for the places of yn-sau this time. The main yn-sau for this celebration had lived there for about 10 years. One of his deputies was a local Punti and the other a Chiu Chau. When I asked if three people were too few for the many tasks in the festival, the yn-sau replied that they did not have much to do. It was the priests who did things. The yn-saus had only to be present. I learned that the ritual representatives were not required to contribute more money. They were also given positions in the organizing committee. Many came to make offerings of incense at the temple and the different compartments of the temporary structure set up for the festival. Many of the older indigenous residents knew the names of the gods in paper images. A woman probably in her mid-sixties told her younger companions the names. She knew the name of Daai Si Wong, Yuk Wong and Yat Gin Fat Choi, and even though those names were indicated in characters she did not have to read them. She was illiterate. Descended from a Shek O family she was married to one of the newcomers to the village. She explained that this was the sixteenth celebration. They held the festival once in every ten years. Once they had had the first celebration, they had to do the same every ten years. The festival was a ping-on jiu. It was for the well-being (ping-on daai-gat) of everybody. For that purpose everyone abstained from meat during the festival. Those who could afford it bought new bowls and chopsticks to ensure a perfectly vegetarian diet. Special attention was given to the Daai Si Wong. I overheard one boy telling his companion to walk under the hips of the paper image. As a result, a child would “grow faster” (Faaigou jeungdaai). T ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 87 I did not record very much about the role of the Hoklo, Wai Chau, Chiu Chau newcomers. They were actually visible mainly through the flags in their honour and the Chiu Chau performers whom they hired to perform on the main day of the celebration. Their participation was more in contributing money to provide performances in their own dialect than in participation in the processions or in preparation of the offerings. The number of persons present in the main-day procession and the procession with the Daai Si Wong was impressive. However, they were more sharing the fun and enjoying the novelty than making a collective, disciplined presence as in the case of the same processions in the New Territories jiu festivals, in which the participants wore special clothing and hats, excluded women and were in general more organized at least in appearance. I did not see many signs of nearby villagers (who did not live in the three participating villages) coming to the jiu to visit or to offer good wishes, as was the former custom. There was a flower basket on display outside the festival office at Shek O. It was presented by the chairman of the rural committee of Cheung Chau. The only fa-paai was from Ma Hang, Laan Lai Wan, Stanley and Tai Tam Tuk, which are nearby. Near noon time on the main day some guests did come. One of them was a police officer, probably the head of the Chai Wan Police Station. Another was the District Officer for South District, who came with some assistants. Married-out daughters were expected to come back for the festival too. On the bus back to town on the main day of the celebration, I overheard a middle-aged woman telling someone that if a married-out daughter did not come back for the jiu, she could not come back until ten years later, presumably during the next celebration. Other than the villagers, participants at the jiu included the professionals, among whom the most important were the priests. The yn-sau, or his companion, explained to me that they had hired a team headed by the priest Chan Wa as they did for the last celebration. I had thought, when he explained this was because Chan was 'familiar', he had in mind familiarity with the local ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 90 CHAN WING HOI Daai Si Wong and Baak Mou Seung, an altar for the dead to receive blessings, an altar for Tin Hau and local earth gods, paper images of Yuk Wong and his underlings, and the festival office. Except for the dead, the spirits noted on the altars were the usual ones found in jiu festivals. Among Tin Hau and her companions were gods of Shek O itself. The Daai Si Wong, a deity related to the underworld like the Baak Mou Seung, had the important role of overseeing the ghosts which came for the offerings. On one of the altars, there were 105 spirit tablets of ancestors to whom offerings were to be made. Mr. Lau, the restaurant owner I talked to, did not think this a new feature of the festival. But he associated the spirit tablets with the Chiu Chau and Hoklo newcomers. Those immigrants had left their ancestors at their native places. Because it was not easy to return to these places to sacrifice to them, it was necessary to entertain and make offering to the ancestors through the festival. The indigenous villagers had no need to set up the spirit tablets of their ancestors there. They worshipped their ancestors at home where they had set up their altars. Whatever the validity of the reasoning, what Mr. Lau said suggested that very few of the locals had put up spirit tablets for their deceased relatives in the ritual. More than half of these tablets bore only the characters hin-hau or hin-bei, indicating they represented only either the father or the mother. I think this indicates that the other parent was living, and this must mean that these tablets were set up for the recently deceased rather than ancestors of old. In the case of many jiu festivals in single surname settlements, the spirit tablets of the common ancestors were included on one of the festival altars. Here the ancestors were parents of people who had paid for the privilege of leaving the tablets there. In a broader sense the ritual site should also include the other areas delimited by flag posts (faan-gon). There were four of those posts at Shek O, marking out the north, south, east and west corners, I was told. In addition, there were two each at Tai Long Wan and Hok Tsui. We learned from the New Territories that faan-gon posts were indications set up for wandering ghosts to inform them they might enjoy offerings at the jiu. However, responding to my question about the faan-gon posts, a local woman replied that the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 91 lanterns affixed on the posts shone on Shek O and Tai Long Wan people. The priests and ritual representatives visited the faan-gon posts and made offerings three times a day in a procession called haang-chiu (audience procession). When I followed one of those processions in Shek O, however, I discovered that not all four of the faan-gon posts were erected at the corners of the settlement. The first faan-gon post in Shek O visited by the haang-chiu procession was between the school playground and the quarters of the cleansing unit of the Urban Services Department. One of the local members of the procession volunteered the information that the post was set up there because three years ago a fatal accident took place at the spot. Two young boys who lived in the quarters of the cleansing unit were playing there when a stone pillar fell down suddenly and killed both of them. V. The local gods The Tin Hau was represented by her wooden image at the centre of the altar. Behind the image was a piece of red paper on which the titles of ten local deities were written. With the exception of the Sea Goddess (shui sin) of the small temple at one edge of Shek O Beach, they were Baak-gung and Daai-wong earth gods of Tai Long Wan, Shek O, and Seung Wai. One of them, styled jang-paang daai-wong (earth god of the stakenets), was a reminder of the former fishing activities of the local residents. Many others had probably existed for the protection of villagers in fishing and farming. The change in land use is evident in the reply given by Mr. Wong, the local leader, when asked where the god's place was. He said, "Below the number 10 alley of the Westerners' residences of Tai Long Wan," linking the god with the change that had taken place in the locality. He gave the same description for the location of another god, the Earth god of the Banyan Tree Place. For the Seung Wai daai-wong, he explained that it was below no. 1 alley, which had become a residential area for Westerners. It used to be the villagers' settlement which was removed to Shek O for the construction of the golf club. There were also three gods whose names were not known to Mr. Wong. He believed that those were from Hok Tsui, the village which joined in ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 93 VI. Some of the events A series of Taoist rites followed the opening ceremony on the afternoon of the first day. Repeated three times a day on the three days of the celebration were the small processions to make offerings (haang-chiu), and the chanting of the scripture for repentance (baai-chaam). Each day had its additional unique rites. The ones most important to the villagers, according to my experience in the New Territories, included the procession on the main day, posting the list of participants, and the concluding offering to the ghosts. The procession on the main day at Shek O included a variation from other jiu processions I had seen: it was a procession carrying Tin Hau's image. It started around 1:30 in the afternoon when the rain had become less heavy after continuing for the whole morning. The procession included a lorry carrying flags commemorating the present and previous celebrations, the image of Tin Hau held by a "lucky and knowledgeable” women in another lorry, two lion dance groups, a lorry carrying the two pairs of piu-sik, a more-than-thirty-strong Chiu Chau ceremonial music group and many local villagers. The procession first went to pay respect at the Tin Hau Temple. It then went uphill to a place called Shek O Saan Jai (Shek O small hill) and went down again. It was greeted by women holding incense sticks outside their homes. Two women even walked up to the image of Tin Hau. Many families made offerings on tables set up outside their houses. Then the procession started for Tai Long Wan. The rain abated, and later I overheard the comment, “It was raining, but the rain stopped once Tin Hau came out." When they arrived there at about 2:30, there were many local villagers waiting, mainly women. Inside the village a table of offerings had been prepared for the Tin Hau. Villagers came individually to make offerings of incense. Then the priests and ritual representatives went to make offerings at the places of two earthgods. I was told that one of the two worshipped was the old earthgod and the other the young earthgod. Before the procession departed, the two lion dance groups performed choi-cheng outside the Tai Long Wan residents' association where there were boxes for the incoming mail of each house. The procession returned to Shek O without going to Hok Tsui because there was not enough time. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 94 CHAN WING HOI The procession of the daai-si-wong prior to the offering to the wandering ghosts. "Walk around the legs (of the daai-si-wong) and you will win the Mark Six lottery." ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 97 saw a young man carrying the paper image of a horse, and another young man chasing him. Both were running in the direction of Tai Long Wan. This was part of the se-su (letter of pardon) rite. I learned subsequently from one of the ritual representatives that the two were expected to pass the same spots as the procession of the previous day did. The priests read the memorial after the horse and chaser returned. The rite was followed immediately by a brief performance of Floating the Water Lanterns, the usual rite preceding the final Offering to Ghosts. There were more than a dozen middle-aged women preparing paper offerings for the Offering to Ghosts. They claimed to be indigenous residents. This was confirmed by another person I asked. The villagers present were well aware of what was going to take place: "This evening the daai-si-wong is going to be paraded to as far as Tai Long Wan, and the priests will chant until midnight.” At Tai Long Wan where I went with the priests and the ritual representatives for the haang-chiu procession in the early afternoon, I overheard one young man telling somebody to send someone to Shek O to prepare the Tai Wong Ye [daai-si-wong] for the procession. The procession started at about 6:15 in the evening. The daai-si-wong was carried by young men down the main streets of Shek O and then to Tai Long Wan. I later noticed that Mr. Wong and the other leaders in the festival were in the crowd. Most of the participants were young men. At Shek O a few women came out from their homes to greet the procession. Mr. Lam, the seaman, was among the crowd with his wife, but only as an on-looker. He told me that half the participants of the procession were indigenous villagers and half more recent settlers, and that the man who gave command through a loudspeaker was a Tanka whose parents had moved here almost 20 years ago. (He said descendants of newcomers like him mostly worked in the civil service. "They are indistinguishable from us the indigenous boys.”) Many children and some married women followed. I heard some of the latter making the remark to themselves "gan-jy haang, haang hou-wan” (follow the daai-si-wong and have good luck). When the procession started for Tai Long Wan one woman came to relay the warning that women were not to follow the daai-si-wong, or at least not ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 98 CHAN WING HỘI to see it face to face. Some of the others replied that there was nothing to fear, as it had been the practice for several hundreds of years for women to take part. Later when the procession was returning to Shek O I noticed a little boy with his ball and a young couple with their children in a pram. The comment was heard: “gou-hing, tai-ye” (Have a nice time and look at interesting things). The women were chatting all the way, and there were many young girls too. When the procession had gone down Tai Long Wan Road, I heard three or four women talk among themselves about Seung Wai, where their homes had been. A young one recalled that they used to have banana trees there, which produced good bananas and some rice-like stuff, which, her grandmother had told her, was good as chicken feed. The place being more spacious, they had been able to raise chicken too. Her grandmother had pointed out to her where the daai-wong-ye's place was — near where the paddy fields were. At one point the bus from Shek O approached, and the young man with the loudspeaker called out to the driver by name “Come on, it is all right if you want to switch on the headlights." I noticed many cars were hindered from proceeding before the bus, but this did not seem to have bothered the young man at all. The procession made way for the bus to pass, neglecting the other vehicles. When the procession reached the edge of Tai Long Wan village, the daai-si-wong was put down on the ground facing the village. Many individuals, mainly middle-aged and young women, came to make offerings of incense. A table had been set up for the purpose. Some older women and men looked on. Children were led to walk around the legs of the paper image for good luck. Someone said, “Walk around the legs and you will win the Mark Six lottery". The procession was back at the main ritual area at about 8:30. The daai-si-wong was left facing an altar used by the priests, where an extra table had been set up for the concluding rite. Many came to make offerings at all the altars, but they paid more attention now to the daai-si-wong. Many more, not only small children, but ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 99 also young women, walked around the legs of the paper image. I heard a man say, perhaps as a joke, “Girls who walk under the legs will marry quickly.” The concluding rite known as Great Offering to Ghosts started at about 9:00 p.m. The priests chanted and sang while about 60 people watched. About the same number of people, mostly young, were looking at photos they took on the previous days. They left soon afterwards. When the chanting finished, the villagers, including many middle-aged women who had prepared the paper money, took the offerings to the main beach where a huge hole had been dug. Incense and paper offerings were burnt. The daai-si-wong and his companion, yat-gin-faat-choi, were later taken there, with their faces towards the sea. The final burning was supervised by some of the priests. The photographer Mr. Yue remarked that there were more people at this rite than in the case of Kam Tin. However, in this case, most of those present were onlookers rather than worshippers. The head priest had advised in the previous evening the leader Mr. Wong that roast pork and other specified kinds of pork (seung-yuk, laam-yuk) in specified form and quantities were needed for the rite in the morning. The rite is presumably chau-san, Thanksgiving to the Gods. The local gods would be sent away two days later because the day after the main rites was an unlucky day (po-yat). I heard in the procession in the previous evening the comment that those who had contributed more than a certain amount of money were entitled to a meal and roast pork to take home. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 100 CHAN WING HOI NOTES Besides "three-day jius", there are more elaborate “five day jiu” celebrations in the New Territories. The annual ritual takes place typically in Chiu Chau, Wai Chau and Hoklo settlements to make offerings to uncared-for dead spirits. 1 The oldest dated object in the Tin Hau Temple, which housed the main god of the festival, was about one hundred years old. I shall refer to this again later. 6 There could have been more than one "chairman". Probably part of the golf club, or otherwise a similar establishment. Tanaka Issei 田仲一成, Chugoku saishi engeki kenkyū 中国祭祀演劇研究 (Tokyo: Institute of Oriental Culture, University of Tokyo 1981) p. 891. 7 The Fuk-Wai-Chiu immigrants had their own gods and their operas in the Tin Hau festival. According to Tanaka, eleven or twelve gods other than Tin Hau were sacrificed to (op. cit., pp. 891-3). One of them, the Daai Wong Paak Gung of Naam Bin Chyn, is attributed by Tanaka to the Hoklo residents. Tanaka also points out that the Fuk-Wai-Chiu members of the organizing committee were alone responsible for a special part of the festival, that is, the performance of Wai Chau and Chiu Chau operas. 8 Piu-sik are usually carried on frames at a height far above that of the audience in a parade. Because of the rain during the procession this time they stood in a lorry instead. About half of the gods sacrificed to in the Tin Hau Festival, including the Fuk-Wai-Chiu deity mentioned above, were not found among the spirit tablets in the jiu festival. 10 "Picking green". In this case the two lions competed in capturing a bank note hanging near the entrance to the house. Glossary Choi Paak Lai 蔡伯勵 choi-cheng 採靑 Dai Wong (Ye) 大王(爺) ba-wong-dei 霸王地 Chiu Chau 潮洲 baai-chaam 拜懺 Baak Mou Seung 白無常 Baak-gung 伯公 Bak Dai 北帝 Bao'an 寶安 bui 杯 bin-ngaak 匾額 Chai Wan 柴灣 Chan Wa 陳華 Cheung Chau 長洲 Daai Si (Wong) 大士(王) daai-gat 大吉 diu-lau 碉樓 Dongguan 東莞 fa-laam 花籃 fa-paai 花牌 Faaigou jeungdaai ... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q T'sing (i) dynasty, when the "History of Sun On District (ïZ)" was finally revised by the district magistrate Shuc Mau Koon (47), all written references to the place used the words Taai Po (X#). (See Note 1). But since that date Taai Po (iii) has been the generally accepted name, although Taai Po (4) meaning big wharf was occasionally written on account of a wharf having been built there. The earliest known history of Taai Po refers to the finding of pearls in the sea nearby, in the fourth year of Hoi Yuen (72) A.D. 761 of Tong (WF) dynasty, and in the fifth month of that year. The method of collecting the pearls was crude, a man with a weighted rope was dropped over the side of a boat, and left until he was hauled up again at the discretion of those in charge of the boat. The loss of life was enormous, and after some time a high official of beneficent character named Yeung Paan Shan (PME) called attention to the fact, and the collecting was stopped. It was started again, however, in the Naam Hon (M) dynasty when Kwangtung and Kwangsi became one kingdom, separated from the rest of China. In the sixth year of Taai Po (A) A.D. 964, the emperor changed the name of Taai Po to Mei Ch'uen To (I) beautiful stream town, raising it to the status of a military post and stationing 8,000 soldiers there to protect the pearl industry. Not only were pearls collected in great number, but tortoise shell of great value was obtained from Taai Po, and sent up to the capital Canton, then called Hing Wong Foo (EA) and used for decorating the emperor's palace there. In A.D. 969 the Naam Hon dynasty came to an end, the palace with all its beautiful decorations was destroyed, and in the fourth year of Hoi Po (BH1%) A.D. 971 of Sung (*) dynasty the industry was again stopped. The soldiers who formerly guarded the pearls were turned into a form of police to protect the countryside and keep order. At the end of the Sung dynasty when the Mongols came down from the North and the Yuen (6) dynasty began the emperor Chi Yuen (DC) in the seventeenth year of his reign, A.D. 1280, ordered the pearls to be collected again. In A.D. 1299, the third year of Taai Tak (A$) it was suggested by two men, Lau Tsun (3) and Ch'ing Lin (DE) to appoint more than seven hundred families of boatmen ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 74 Tang family had the right of building shops there, and a stone with an inscription to that effect, was put up in the temple of T'in Hau Kung(g) which can still be seen in old Tai Po market. When the Man family lost their case a wealthy friend called a big meeting of the elders of the seven districts round about Taai Haang (林村), Fan Ling(K), Lam Ts'un(#1), Yip Woh(), Sheung Wan(), Ting Kok(TM) and Cheung Shue Tan(). At his suggestion, and financed by him, they built a new market where the present market now stands. It was called Taai Woh Shei (utmost friendship market)(★Fifi) and was officially opened on the twenty-third day of the 6th month of the twentieth year of Kwong Sui, A.D. 1894. All the trade at once went to the new market and the old one gradually fell into disuse and can now be seen as a very poor and derelict village. Note. 1. The district of Sun On was formed in the sixth year of Lung Hing() A.D. 1572 of Ming dynasty. Fourteen years later the **History of Sun On District** was written by Yau Tai Kin the district magistrate. It was revised for the first time in the eighth year of Sung Ching(), but this edition was not published until eight years later when a third magistrate Chau Hei Yiu(2) added slightly to it. A second edition was published in the eleventh year of Hong Hei(E) A.D. 1672 of Ts'ing dynasty, a third appeared sixteen years later, and the present edition was published in A.D. 1819. Note. 2. The second character(W) is read yeuk in Cantonese but in the New Territories dialect it is read as Kwat. # Note. 3. Lam Fung is "Limahong" (= Lim a hong, not Li ma hong) whose name is already mentioned in the history of the Philippine Islands. It is also translated as in some Japanese books, and Limahong or Lin Ah Hong in some of the European books. = Lam Fung Limahong was a native of Raoping district(ATM) In the 10th month of the 2nd year of Lung Hing(), A.D. 1568 of Ming dynasty, he took sixty-two battleships with 2,000 sea-soldiers, 1,500 women, and a large store of food and ammunition to attack the Philippines. He was defeated and his fleet dispersed by the soldiers of ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 76 LEGENDS AND STORIES OF THE NEW TERRITORIES [E TS'ING SHAAN UI OR CASTLE PEAK* SUNG HOK-P'ANG The original name of Tsing Shaan was Yeung Haang Shaan (meaning "Sheep or Goat Ditch Hill", and nearby there is still a village called Yeung Siu Haang "Sheep or Goat Little Ditch", but later on the Peak was called simultaneously Shing Shaan “Saint Hill", and T'uen Moon Shaan “Military Colonist Gate Hill". The latter name was given because in olden times the Chinese Emperor sent soldiers there to cultivate the soil, and at the same time protect the countryside from the numerous pirates that infested the coast. In A.D. 428 a certain monk named Pooi To became abbot of the monastery, and then the name of Pooi To Shaan was used. Nearly five and a half centuries later, in the 12th year of Taai Po of Naam Hon dynasty, on the 18th day of the 2nd month (A.D. 969) the Emperor gave the hill the special name of Sui Ying Shaan "Good omen hill", and caused a stone tablet to be erected on which was carved the history of the monastery. This stone recorded that in the 11th year of K'in Woh A.D. 954 a military officer named Ch'an Ts'un had paid a stone mason to carve a figure of Pooi To which he put in a cave near the monastery, and which can still be seen. In the 4th year of Yuen Yau A.D. 1089 of Sung dynasty a general in Canton named Tseung Chi K'ei wrote an account of the hill, and put it on a stone tablet in place of the old one. This second one has now disappeared, but fortunately the account is in the "History of the Sun On District", and from it can be learnt that formerly there was a castle at the north of the hill, and to the west * The Hong Kong Naturalist July 1935. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 83 after he died. The wife of a worthy man, Ts'ai Haai (M) was ill, and all hope of her recovery was given up. As the doctors appeared no good, Tsai Haai asked the priests to come and pray for her. They could not help. Then one of them said, “Why not ask Pooi To to come?" When Pooi To arrived, he wandered into the room, looked at the woman and said quietly, "Easy". Then he muttered to himself for a while and gradually the woman was cured. Tsai Haai after that insisted on Pooi To staying with him in his house, and treated him with the greatest of respect. In the ninth month of the third year of Yuen Ka (元嘉) A.D. 426 of Sung dynasty, Pooi To went off to a lake in the East called Ch’ek Shaan Woo (赤山湖) where he became ill, and died. Tsai Haai took his corpse and buried it in a hill called Fook Chau Shaan (U) "upside down boat hill", which is somewhere to the north-east of Nanking. Two years later, one day in the third month, Tsai Haai was in his house with his family, when to his surprise the door opened and Pooi To walked in. He talked pleasantly for a short while, when there was a knock at the door and a priest appeared. He beckoned to Pooi To who followed him, but before he left Pooi To told the family that he had to go to Kaau Kwong (交廣) (now Kwangtung, Kwangsi and Annam) and would never come back to them. He then threw his cup into the sea and he and the priest sailed away in it, to the Monastery of Tuen Moon Shaan (Castle Peak), where as has been already said, he became Abbot. Pooi To is reputed also to have lived for a while in another hill nearby called Ling To Shaan (靈渡山) “miracle across the Sea Hill", and there is still a monastery there bearing the name of Ling To Tsz (靈渡寺). Nothing further is known about Pooi To and there are no stories about him after he came to Castle Peak, but it is supposed that the monastery there was carried on by Buddhist monks for many years after his death. There is nothing recorded to give any indication of how long the monastery continued to exist, but it must have fallen into disuse by the reign of To Kwong (道光) 1821-1850 of Ts`ing (清) dynasty because the Taoists built a monastery then on the site of the old one, and called ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 86 TS'IN, FUK (津復)* (being an account of how part of the coast of South China was cleared of inhabitants from the 1st year of Hong Hei (康熙) 1662 to the 8th year of Hong Hei 1669.) Sung Hok-P'ANG (宋學鵬) + The word "Ts'in" (遷) is a short form of "Ts'in Hoi" (遷海) a historic term which means "to shift inland people living by the coast". "Fuk" or Fuk Ts'uen (復遷) means "allow the people to return to their own villages", and the two words together is the term applied to that incident in Chinese history when part of the coast of South China, including the New Territories, was completely cleared of inhabitants by order of the Emperor. Although an incident of not much importance in Chinese history as a whole, yet the Ts'in Fuk caused much suffering and loss of life to many people. In the book Kwong Tung San Yue (廣東新語)* by Wat Taai Kwan (屈大均) a great scholar of early Ts'ing (清) dynasty, there is a passage referring to Ts'in Fuk which says **自有粵東以來 生靈之禍,莫慘於此** "since the establishment of the province of Kwangtung none of the calamities of human beings can be worse than this". The cause of Ts'in Fuk was Cheng Shing Kung (鄭成功) a Ming (明) general and native of Naam On (南安) district in Fukien province who since the rise of the Manchu Emperors continually attacked the coast of South China with his powerful navy. Using Formosa as his base he harassed the Ts'ing army from Kiangsu to Kwangtung and found the inhabitants of the country on the coast very sympathetic towards the Ming cause, and ready to help him. Cheng Shing Kung's father, Cheng Chi Lung (鄭芝龍) was responsible for the first Chinese settlers in Formosa and had been made P'ing Kwok Kung (平國公), a title conferred on him by the Ming Emperor Lung Mo (隆武). When Lung Mo was killed at Foochow by the Ts'ing army in the 3rd year of Shun Chi (順治) 1646, Cheng Shing Kung put his navy at the disposal of Emperor Wing Lik (永曆), his successor. Fifteen years later Cheng took Formosa, * The Hong Kong Naturalist November 1938. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 88 panic; many of the people abandoned their homes without taking food or money, and with their wives and children were driven towards the boundary. Destitute, many of them died on the road, while a few managed to escape to Kwai Shin district and other places as far away as they could. A year later the boundary was moved a further 30 Chinese miles inland. The new boundary ended to the west at Taai Ch'ung Hau and Sha T'ong Fong and to the east at Taai Shaan Ha and Paak T'au Shaan, a flag being put up at each of these places. Almost immediately the district magistrate of Tung Kwun made a personal inspection of the places where the flags were erected and he reported that the people in Taai Chung Hau had not moved so the flag was taken from Sha Tong Fong and hoisted on top of Shek Shaan. Thus the six villages Ch'ung Hau, Lau Ka Haang, Chaak Mei, K'iu T'au and Tau Ch'ung all had to be moved, but at Kiu T'au a rope was put between it and the boundary and half only of the village was shifted. The Viceroy Lo Shung Tsun quite sympathized with the people, and joined with other high officials in sending a memorial to the throne, stating how miserable the people were, and begging that fewer villages should be caused to move. In the 10th month of the same year (1663) two head boatmen, Chau Yuk and Lei Wing revolted against the Ts'ing Government in Kwangtung. These two men were the owners of fleets of several hundreds of junks that usually fished in the rivers of Poon Yue district. All the junks had long oars as well as three sails so they were very fast. In addition they stored a lot of arms on board. Both Lei and Chau had a military title of Yau Kik bestowed on them by the P'ing Naam Wong, as their sailors had proved themselves of great assistance in fighting sea-battles against the Ming soldiers. When, however, the order was issued preventing boats from putting out to sea the junks of Chau and Lei were detained in the rivers and their families forced to live in Canton city. Chau and Lei pretended to get leave to go home and bury the bones of their ancestors. Secretly they took their families away from Canton, and collecting all the boatmen they put out to sea. Then openly they attacked the Ts'ing forces, capturing many of their ships and burning the guard stations along the coast. They never ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 89 touched anything belonging to the people, however. They then ventured up the Canton river, burning ships and attacking Canton itself. At last Chau was captured by the Ts'ing general, Cheung (), and Lei put out to sea again and kept his junks near Taai P'aang (A) now Kowloon city. In the 3rd year of Hong Hei, 1664, a battle was fought off Kowloon city between Cheung and Lei. The latter was beaten, and was forced to take refuge at Tung Ch'ung (Hafi) on Taai Ue Shaan (AMBULI), Lantau Island. There now followed a time of great distress for the unhappy country people. More villages were forced to move, and the people treated with great harshness. Many of them who refused to go or even hesitated were killed by the soldiers. At the beginning of the Ts'in Fuk the people imagined that it was only a temporary measure and they managed to keep together with their wives and children. But after three years had passed they found themselves without means of livelihood. So the husbands left their wives, the fathers left their children, and the elder brothers younger brothers, each pushing north in the hope of finding work, leaving behind them the sound of crying and sorrow. In the 8th month of the 3rd year of Hong Hei a man named Yuen Sze To (AP48), a Foo Muk (11) (an official title meaning "Head of relief and soothing of the people") disobeyed the order to move over the boundary, and collecting a crowd of discontented country people, he made a stronghold in Lik Yuen (HM) a village near Sha Tin. He had other quarters in Kwun Foo (1fif), now Kowloon city and his followers acted as bandits robbing and killing as they pleased. They gave much trouble to the Ts'ing government, as when the soldiers were sent out to search the solitary parts for people hiding in order to avoid being moved, they were often set on by Yuen's band and either robbed or killed by them. Eventually they were exterminated after a long time by an officer named Tseung Wang Yun (1479) who was sent with a large company of soldiers to Sha Tin for that purpose. The following year a system of beacons was started along the coast to be used as signals in case of attack. In the same year the retiring Viceroy Lei Sut T'aai (4) in his Wai Soh (6) a valedictory address to Emperor Hong Hei, asked him not to press too firmly the question of removing the people over the boundary. "When I was in ================================================================================ 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-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 308 TABLE 1.3 Partial Genealogical Chart of the Second, Third, and Fourth Branches of the Dang Lineage of Kam Tin Yeul Gyun (Mau Ging Tong) (See Table 1.1) Ting-Jing Naam-Kai (adopted from First Branch) Siu-Geui Chung Chung-You Jak-Sa Kei-Fong Gia-Tin 0—0—0- Generation 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Gam-Lei Sung Gok Gaai Yur (Geui Haam) ↓ Man-Wai (Chyun-Am) Ng-Sang O (Lei (Gwong Yu Tong) Ging↓ Tong) Jaap-Fan Naap-Am (Ji Ga Tong) Kyun-Hin Chung-Shaan Ming-Lyun Yu-Glai (Ming Hok) ↓ Ting-Sani (Chi-Naam) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 310 in Guangxi, Documents preserved in genealogies testify to his involvement in clan matters. He was credited with having compiled a genealogy. He and his son headed the short name list on the new grave stone for the wong-gu prepared in 1471. A preface he wrote in 1472 for a genealogy written by a certain “clan uncle” can be found in many existing genealogies. They also record accounts of the wong-gu and her husband written in 1489 by a jeun-si of the surname Lau from Dongguan at Ting-Jing's request. The Xin'an gazetteer of 1688 named Hung Yi as the tax-payer for two local ferries. The two ferries had most probably provided income to an ancestral fund in his honour. But it was unlikely that his trust had any significant income. Present-day elders remember that in earlier days the expenses for the worship for Hung-Yi had to be shared among the villages of Kam Tin. In terms of ancestral trusts and ancestral halls, however, the lower level ancestors in whose names the segments of the lineage below the branches were organised were probably even more important. Besides the annual worship at the ancestral halls and graves, such segments had various ways of reinforcing their solidarity and maintaining their network of information. In the case of Ching-Lok jou it used to be the case that the managers, heads of the main branches (ga, or "family") and the accountant were invited to a banquet on the day before each of the major festivals of the year. A member of Ji-Ga Tong, another lineage segment, mentioned to me a customary get-together of all the male members on one day at the New Year. I have heard of a similar practice in another segment, Gwong-Yu Tong. They hold a get-together on the first day of the New Year at their ancestral hall from early in the morning, and again worshipped at the Daai-Wong Temple, a temple the founding ancestor had started, on the seventh day of the First Month. C. Wan Guk and the Ching Lok Ancestral Hall The senior branch (descended from Yam) was the most successful until late in the seventeenth century. Hung-Yi's eldest son Yam had three sons. Yam had the second, now known as Naam-Kai jou, adopted to be heir of his (Yam's) youngest brother Gyun. The two remaining sons of Yam were Ching-Lok and Loi-Sing (alias Gwong-Yu, but not to be confused with the Gwong-Yu of Gwong-Yu Tong). Ching-Lok had four sons, the eldest of whom was Wan-Guk. According to oral tradition ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 317 Gaai jou was still studying when his brothers had already built for themselves many big houses. When he got married he got his share of his father's estate, which amounted to more than one thousand daam of rent rice. Oral tradition has it that Sou-Lau Yun was used as a yamen during Dang Kyun-Hin's time when Dang Sin, a provincial official, came to investigate bandits in the county. This segment dominated nineteenth century lineage and community life in many ways. They have at least ten spirit tablets in the Mau-Ging Tong ancestral hall, and Chung-Shaan and Yu-Gaai were among the five men whose descendants got extra portions of ritual pork in the ancestral worship at the same tong in recognition of their contributions. I have already mentioned that a letter dated 1941 from the head of the clan and others referred to Yu-Gaai's contribution in managing the property of Naam-Kai jou. The only piece of property had been a broken house in the county town which gave an income of 20 yun. Yu-Gaai sold that house and lent the proceeds at interest. In this way he expanded the property to farm land holding that gave a rental income of more than 200 sek of rice. Dang Kyun-Hin and his third son Ming-Lyun donated an incense burner to the Hung-Sing Temple in Shui Tau in 1821. Chung-Saan (alias Ming-Hok) donated another religious article in 1829 and a grandson of his donated an incense burner to the same temple in 1900. Dang Ting-Sam (known to his descendants as Chi-Naam), a son of Dang Ming-Lyun and a grandson of Dang Kyun-Hin, was an important figure in lineage affairs as well as county politics. He was a sau-choi, and his descendants explained that he was prevented by the death of relatives from taking the examinations for the higher degrees. One story tells how Chi-Naam revealed upon his death that he was the reincarnation of the Mountain God of Tai Mo Shan, which probably explains why he was so clever. Another anecdote is concerned with Chi-Naam's influence. When he married a lady named Ho from Sham Chun to his son, the procession carried banners saying "keep silent and stand aside” (suk-jing wui-bei) and sounding gongs. Some trouble-makers asked who this was. They were told that it was Chi-Naam of Kam Tin. The would-be trouble-makers were scared and went away. A descendant of one of Ting-sam's cousins knew the exact title of his degree. In this version Ting-sam was a laam-sang, but never attempted higher examinations. His classmates (rung-hok) always wondered why. He spent most of his time enjoying himself at home. When he ran out ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 321 These accusations were made at the county magistracy. The Kam Tin Dangs got news of the accusation and arranged that all their young men gathered in the various ancestral halls and temples to read, so as to deceive the investigators from the county government. The county magistrate was deceived, and believed that the Kam Tin Dangs were all scholars and would not give any time to the accusation. Therefore he did not pursue the case any further. Some of the Dangs believe that the fighting between the people of Kam Tin and those of Pat Heung was over agricultural resources such as irrigation water. The Dangs of Kam Tin used only one bei reservoir, the one called Fui Sha bei. The water flowed from Pat Heung, near Lin Fa Tei, and the Pat Heung people could stop the water. One recent (about 100 years ago) example of a dispute over agricultural resources was the Ngau Wong Wui association which had been started to organize the cowherds of Kam Tin, to protect them against their Pat Heung counterparts, and to preserve Kam Tin pasture rights. One piece of documentary evidence of the conflict between the Dangs and their Pat Heung tenants has survived. It is a stone inscription dated 1777 found in both the Daai-Wong Temple of Yuen Long Old Market and the Jau and Wong Temple of Kam Tin. It records a rent dispute. Five Dangs are named as the landlords in this inscription. In general terms, the document calls the landlords "the Dang surname", and the land "the land of the clan". It is therefore clear that the landlords were all from the same lineage and the property was considered as linked to the lineage as a whole albeit it was probably individually owned. Four of the five names can be found in various documents from Kam Tin. All four appear in a silk embroidery presented to a Dang of Kam Tin to celebrate his birthday in 1771. We have more specific information about two of them: one, Dang Si-Daan, was a descendant of Yam's second son Gwong-Yu, and the other, Dang Chung, is a descendant of one of the other sons of Hung-Yi, most probably Gyun. It is therefore clear that one of the parties to the dispute were many of the Dangs of Kam Tin, including members of different branches and represented in general terms the Dang lineage. A few names are also given of the tenants. There were about the same number of Dangs and non-Dangs among them. While the landlords were referred to as members of a lineage, the tenants were referred to as ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 330 A. Early History of Settlements The present relationship between lineage segment and settlement is roughly the same as that recorded by Sung (1974: 168-70) concerning who started and walled which village and when. Village Started by Genealogical Position Walled in Kat Hing Wai Baak-Ging Son of Chyu-Yin and Gwong-Yu Jik Gin Kangxi (1662-1721) by Chyu-Yin and two others Wing Lung Wai Siu-Geui and seven others Tai Hong Wai Chung Shui Tau and four others Kei-Fong and Kei-Wa, both from Tai Hong Wai and Gwok-Yin One of the Man-Wai and five sons of Gaai-Yut Naam-Kai Son of Chung-Yut Gam-Tin jou, son of Hak-Sa Shui Mei Suk-Leun and Wan-Guk Sons of Gwai-Ting, Gwong-Yu Son of Ching-Lok Kam Hing Wai Yut-Man of Ko Po Kat Hing Wai and Pui-Hing of Tai Hong Wai Jau-Man +34 of Kat Hing Wai Sung has indicated that Kat Hing Wai, Shui Tau and Shui Mei were ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 332 Lung Wai. We know that Dang Man-Wai's period was 1627-1693. The move of his people to Tai Hong Wai, then, must have taken place in the 17th century. Various information suggests that the merger of Gau Ga Chyun into Wing Lung Wai took place in the same period. The only Dang genealogy (a Ha Tsuen one) that I found to have included Sa Bui Leng among the settlements of Hung-Yi's descendants named Gau Ga Chyun as well. The elder I talked to said that the residents moved to Wing Lung Wai more than ten generations ago, which was Gwok-Yin's time. Sung named Gwok-Yin as one of the two who walled Wing Lung Wai at the time when Man-Wai walled Tai Hong Wai. Probably it was Gwok-Yin himself who moved to Wing Lung Wai. 37 16 It is interesting that, if my guess is right, then the two mergers both took place during the period of the Coastal Evacuation, in which the Dangs of Kam Tin established their central temple as well as an ancestral hall for the three junior branches. Although the reasons given for the merger were in one case very vague and in the other supernatural (“fung-sheui"), they would, in effect, have been part of the Dang response to the disorders of the times. C. The development of Tai Hong Wai 38 At present, only the descendants of Dang Man-Wai and his brothers (known as Sung-Gok jou, after Dang Man-Wai's father) live in Tai Hong Wai. They all live in the village and its extension. But people from other segments used to live there. From the stone inscription for a bridge built by a filial son Dang Jeun-Yun we know that some descendants of Chung-Yut lived there around the end of the 17th century. It was Dang Jeun-Yun's grandfather Gaai-Yut who, together with Dang Man-Wai, walled Tai Hong Wai. Jeun-Yun named Shui Tau as his home. So probably the family had moved from Tai Hong Wai to Shui Tau in the time of his father. Tai Hong Wai became settled solely by the descendants of Dang Man-Wai and his brothers only from about 100 years ago. The head of the only household that is descended from the senior segment of the descendants of Gyun is remembered to have recalled moving when he was very small from Tai Hong Wai to Tsi Tong Tsuen, where his family now lives. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 337 The Jau and Wong Temple also used to house spirit tablets to "heroes". The tablets (three in total, without names) were moved to the Yau-Leun Tong from the side altar in the temple about 50 years ago because they were siu-yan (“small people”), and it was unseemly to house them in the same temple as the two great men (daai-yan). As mentioned before, villagers agreed that the “heroes” were those who had died in fighting (da-saat) between Kam Tin and its enemies. Kam Tin has quite a number of other temples. There are the Man-Cheung Temple and Hung-Sing Temple in Shui Tau, and the Tin-Hau Temple in Shui Mei. Many of the other villages, e.g. Kam Hing Wai, Tai Hong Wai, Kat Hing Wai, Tsi Tong Tsuen, and Wing Lung Wai, which do not have “standard” temples, have a san-teng, a house with an altar for a spirit tablet for about ten popular temple gods. The gods of some of the vanished temples, which include a Yeung-Hau Temple and a Bou-Dak Chi in Shui Mei, and the Hung-Fan Taam Temple of Shui Tau, are still worshipped in the jiu festival, as are the gods of two nunneries, in Shui Mei and Tai Hong Wai respectively, which no longer exist. These temples and nunneries hold tablets or images of some 20 different gods, if we are to include the Earth God for temples, and Wai-To for Buddhist establishments. The other 18 include the popular temple gods Yeung-Hau, Tin-Hau, Bak-Dai, Man-Cheung, Gwun-Yam, Gwaan-Dai, Hung-Sing, the God of Wealth, Gam-Fa, Taai-Seui, the Dragon King, and the Buddha. The Bou-Dak Chi housed spirit tablets for Jau and Wong. There is not much information about this other temple dedicated to Jau and Wong, but it was worshipped probably only by the villagers of Shui Tau, where it was situated. Fui-Sing, and Fa-Gung Fa-Mou are probably respectively responsible for success in imperial examinations and the health of children. Hoi-Saan Suk-Lou is a title found in some other local temples as well, and represents the earliest settlers of the place. Hong-Wong is a title that I have not seen elsewhere in the New Territories. The titles of localized gods found in most of the Kam Tin villages include the God of Earth and Grain, the Water God of wells, and the Earth God for the gates of the walled villages. There are, in some of the villages, a Tree God and Earth Gods for bridges and for the gate to a complex of houses. In addition, there are Ngau-Wong and Pun-Gu, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 338 two less common gods. The villagers have very little to say about the gods per se. They have more to say about who is responsible for worshipping which god. For example, when I asked who Ngau-Wong was, the response was "Ngau-Wong is Ngau-Wong", and I could not get any further than that. But the informants have very interesting things to say about who worshipped the god. The Ngau-Wong of Naam-Bin was worshipped by an association known as Ngau-Wong Wui. The Wui was started by a group of cowherds who spent their time on the same hilltop during their work. They gambled using coins. They decided that each time a person won he would give a portion of the money to a fund. This money accumulated and with it farm land was bought to endow the association so that descendants of the members would get their share of pork in the annual celebration. The place is an ordinary stone on the hill top, which they did not worship until the association was started." There is another Ngau-Wong near Shui Mei, whose responsibility it is to worship the god. Before each jiu festival the ritual representatives of Shui Mei will fetch the god from his place on the top of a hill, and walk him back afterwards. The only story about the god a knowledgeable elder could tell me is that, in a previous jiu celebration, the person responsible for walking the god home neglected his duty. Without reaching the hilltop he went home. He got sick soon afterwards, and as if in possession revealed the anger of the god. Probably the most important thing about any god is its place in the social framework. 45 Neither Juk-Yun Nunnery nor San-Sin Fu, the two nunneries within Kam Tin, exists any more. Still extant is Miu-Gok Yun, which was built by the [Dang] Tung Fuk Tong. The tong was a charitable association which collected unburied human bones and buried them in a charity tomb (yi chung). "It was started to collect gam-taap bones that were not worshipped by anybody. Some of those containers would have been broken, and animals might eat them". The Tong also cares for the Temple for Dei-Jong Wong, whose role, similar to that of Daai-Si Wong in the Offering to Ghosts ritual in the jiu ritual, is to watch over the ghosts. The date and the circumstances in which the Tung Fuk Tong started is no longer remembered. There were Dangs who had shares in the association. They contributed towards buying some landed property as endowment to the Dei-Jong temple. The nunnery with an altar for the Buddha was built in 1936, before which time there were already some monks and nuns resident at the temple. They did not rebuild the temple ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 339 but moved the Dei-Jong Wong inside the Buddhist hall instead."7 After the building of the Buddhist hall two of the nuns were added to the managers of the trust, and since then the Dangs did not have much to do with the nunnery except that the related ritual associations go annually to worship at the charitable grave. B. Household and village worship Everyday worship is local and is mainly performed by women. Such is the case of a family of Tsi Tong Tsuen who gave me information on this point. This family seldom worshipped in any temple. For weddings they worshipped at the Mau-Ging Tong ancestral hall, where the head of the family also went when he was small for the annual worship, and to get his shares of the ritual pork. This he no longer does, having stopped a few years ago. In some years he also joins the ancestral grave worship in Tsuen Wan. On Ching Ming and Chung Yeung his family went to worship their own near ancestors. On festivals his family worshipped at Tsi Tong Tsuen's shrines to the Earth God and the God of Earth and Grain and the place for the Well God. I was able to talk with some of the older women. One Tai Hong Wai woman born in the 1910s told me that ordinarily her family worshipped at home. They went to neither the Jau and Wong Temple nor the Hung-Sing Temple. They had no share in the Hung-Sing Temple. They did go to the Daai-Wong Temple at Yuen Long, early in the first month of the lunar calendar, but it is the business of their men only: the temple belonged to their distant ancestor. Similarly, an elderly Kat Hing Wai lady told me that Pak Wai Tsuen (i.e., Shui Tau and Shui Mei) people worshipped at the Hung Sing Temple. I have witnessed part of a waan-san (“thanksgiving”) ritual in Kat Hing Wai, which took place at the san-teng. I was told that for impromptu religious activities such as divination, some of the Kat Hing Wai women went to a temple at Tai Shue Ha [which is, as far as I know, not otherwise of interest to the Dangs of Kam-Tin] and some went to Ling-Wan Ji. They went to the Jau and Wong temple mainly during the jiu, and the temples at Shui Tau and Shui Mei were for their respective villagers alone. A san teng was probably considered to be of central importance to its village. When I walked with an elder to his house we passed the san-teng of Tai Hong Wai. He explained to me that it was the wai-jyu, and he compared its status in the village to that of the most senior and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 342 The festival was estimated to cost a total of more than one million dollars. The opera cost $357,000, paper images $150,000, temporary structures $150,000, and the puppet theatre $110,000. The opera was paid for, as is the tradition, from the funds of two lineage trusts, those of the Naam-Kai jou and Ching-Lok jou. Each contributes $180,000. For the other expenses, each of the villagers paid a subscription of $300, with the no. 1 to no. 15 ritual representatives each paying an extra $500, 50 The main participants were the Dang villagers of Kam Tin. For the purpose of organizing the jiu the villagers were divided into five gu sections. Each section corresponded to a village, except that the Tai Hong gu included, besides Tai Hong Wai, Ko Po, Kam Hing Wai, Tsi Tong Tsuen and Tai Hong Tsuen. Also taking part were the villagers of Ying Lung Wai, the settlement of the second branch of Hung-Yi's lineage outside the heung of Kam Tin. They paid half subscriptions and got the last three places among the 60 ritual representatives. Some of the non-Dang residents in the heung also participated. Those include the Sa Bui Leng villagers and post-War and later immigrants from China who operated farms and shops in Kam Tin. These "outsiders", however, could not become ritual representatives. The ritual representatives were to stand for all the villagers in the Taoist rites and in some of the rites the villagers performed on their own. There were also religious activities conducted by every household. At three points of the festival, i.e. the opening day, the main day, and the concluding day, every household came, family by family, to worship at the various ritual sites, and a priest visited each house on the last day to purify the family altar. In addition, each and every person was named in the ritual memorials which were read aloud and sent by fire to heaven, with a copy posted in the ritual area for all to read and check. Many other villagers in the area were also peripherally involved. They offered their congratulations by having fa-paai banners set up in the festival site, and by paying a formal visit to the site on the main day with their lion/unicorn dances. To wait to receive them the elders of Kam Tin lined up in cheung-saam, B. Ritual Area The festival site was beside the Jau and Wong Temple. A large paang temporary structure was erected. Outside the main structure were three small linked temporary structures for first-aid, the fire services, and the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h Ching Lok Ancestral Hail Faan Posts Site for fetching water Faan Posts N Mau Ging Tong) Ancestral Hail Jau & Wong Temple Site for posting the name list Paak Mou Seung Wing used as kitchen General Gods Jade Emperor & City God Faan Posts A 8 Site for offering to gods Guardian Gods Yau-Saan Daai Si Wong Gwon Yam Compartment for villages Compartment for villages C Ancestral altar 0 Puppet altar Theatre A-B-C-D Main paang Later used for opera (Map taken from Tanaka 1989) The Kam Tin Jiu Festival Ground 343 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 344 police. A cluster of smaller temporary structures were built to house the paper images of the Jade Emperor, the City God, the Daai-Si Wong and Baak Mou-Seung. The Daai-Si Wong, also known as Gwai-Wong (King of Ghosts) is a transformation of the goddess Gwun-Yam, who has a fierce appearance befitting his role in the ritual: to oversee the ghosts when they come for the offerings. The Baak Mou-Seung, literally the White Unpredictable, is one of the two Unpredictables, both members of the Underworld bureaucracy who take peoples' spirits when they are to die. Further away from the main paang was a larger structure for general gods, which was to house most of the gods invited from local temples and shrines. Decked out with many fa-paai banners from the villagers and outsiders, the main structure had several partitions. At the entrance in front were two huge paper images of two armed gods, who served as the supernatural guardians of the paang. Beside them were two horses with attendants, and a pair of lions. Furthest from the entrance was a stage divided into three sections, all facing the entrance. The middle one is the Taoist altar where the priests performed many of their rites. To the right was the altar for the Dang ancestors Hung-Yi and his two wives. On the left side was the puppet stage, on which plays were performed. On both sides of the central area of the paang were rooms for each of the five gu villages/groups of villages, plus Ying Lung Wai. On the same rows were two rooms for the guards for the festival site, one for guards drawn from the young men of Bak-Bin and the other from those of Naam-Bin. Nearer the front on the right side was a temporary altar for Gwun-Yam. On the left side was a large partition dedicated to four separate groups of paper images, many with pottery/ceramic heads. The area was known as the yau-saan, a place to harbour ghosts. Each of these groups was divided into three levels. Two large groups depicted the ten Kings of the Underworld on the topmost level. Under the Kings on the middle level were ten shops, each with signs indicating the business: barber's, brothel, sundry goods shop, pawnshop, second-hand clothing, department stores (two), tailors, porters, and “cool” drinks. On the lower levels were some devils, ghosts under torture in the Underworld, and many shoppers. The subjects of the two other groups were more difficult to identify. One of them was labelled Zizhu Lin, “Purple Bamboo Grove”, the place associated with the Goddess Gwun-Yam. She and her male and female attendants were recognizable among the images on the topmost ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 345 level. The rest of the group (on the middle level) included a scene from the story of the Baishe Zhuan, the legend of the love between a snake-turned beauty and a virtuous scholar. The episode represented was that of the monk exercising his supernatural power to kill the lady, so as to free the scholar from the seduction of the demon. The other group bore the sign Wudan Shan, at once one of the famous mountains of China and a well-known place for Taoism. The top level of the group included the Jade Emperor. On the lower levels of these two groups were a temple, runners escorting a sedan chair, and the scene of the Eight Immortals Turning the Sea Upside Down. 51 Decorated with embroidery hangings, the Taoist altar had at its centre portraits of the Three Pure Ones and on either side the Heavenly Master and Taai-Yut Jan-Yan. Further from the centre were portraits of four minor “generals", named “dragon", "tiger", "fire" and "water". On the inner walls of the partitions hung pictures of the ten Kings of the Underworld. There was also a backroom to the altar, where the priests stayed between rites. Hanging in this room was an umbrella-shaped object with many charms trailing from it. There were, a priest told me, 28 in all, one for each of the 28 sau constellations. It was called the luo-tian, which meant, he said, the same as xian-tian, the Taoist primordial heaven." In the room was a temporary altar set up for the Three Pure Ones, plus a place with two red slips of paper saying "May Tao be popular with people" and “Good Luck in the rites". 52 On the day before the seven-day period of rites, the villagers decorated the room for their own gu in the main paang. Before each of the rooms stood a Luk Gwok flag, which was the same as the flag used in the Cantonese opera of the same name to announce the identity of a player; and a lo-gu ga; i.e. “drum and gong holder". Hanging from the top of the opening were mechanical "hanging puppets". Inside near the front was a heung-on incense burner set of the siu-cheng type. The tables inside were decorated by toi-wai embroidery that hung from the edges. Hanging from the "ceiling" were similar pieces of embroidery known as waang-mei. Some of the villages put on displays in these rooms of relics of their illustrious ancestors. In the room for Shui Mei was the screen presented to Dang Git-Sau by relatives and friends to congratulate him on the occasion of his 61st birthday, which I mentioned previously. In the room for Wing Lung Wai was a series of scrolls presented in 1919 to celebrate ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 346 the 71st birthday of Dang Nga-Chyun, a member of a rich family descended from the mou-geui-yan Dang Ying-Yun. Also on display in the same room were other scrolls of calligraphy and painting. Put on display for a couple of hours were relics of the wong-gu. As many of the Dangs were proud of telling, there were two of them (1) a set of twelve small paintings known as Gwai-Fei Tip, believed to be the work of Fu Qing, a lady-in-waiting in the Song court; and (2) a painting of an eagle, reputed to be the work of the Emperor Song Huizhong; both given to the wong-gu as souvenirs.54 Although they were put on display during a visit by about 200 members of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, to put those two antiques on display had always been part of the tradition.55 Each of the villages was decked out with fa-paai banners too. In most cases there was a fa-paai presented by all the members of the village in celebration of the ten-yearly jiu. In the case of Tai Hong Wai there was one from all the descendants of Sung-Gok jou (father of Dang Man-Wai and his brothers) as well as one from the "youngsters" of Tai Hong Wai. The village gate had red slips of paper saying Fast (tsai-gai) and Clean (git-jing). C. Ritual Representatives It was explained to me that the people in each gu divided into family groups (chu). In some cases, the nearest common ancestor such a "family" group could trace was more than ten generations distant. For example, under Mr. Dang Tim-Kau's entry were his blood brothers, the sons of his father's brothers, as well as others who were more remotely related to him. The nearest common ancestor of the chu as a whole was Git-Sau jou, who was, from the standpoint of Dang Tim-Kau's grandsons, 12 generations up the lineage tree. The selection of ritual representatives was done by divination with bui.56 The theory of an elder is that each chu chooses its own candidate for ritual representative. But, according to a younger ritual representative, if a man failed in the divination, then his son would try his luck in the same selection process. The candidate who got the longest series of sing-bui would be the no. 1 ritual representative. The others were chosen and ranked in the same manner. But there were additional rules. Each gu section must have one man among the no. 1 to no. 5 ritual representatives, and each had to have three men among the no. 1 to no. 15 ritual representatives. The last three places (58-60) were, as a rule, alloted to the Ying Lung Wai people, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 354 [**posting the memorial”] which will start at about 8 a.m., and a meal. The procession is to cover the 5 wai and 6 chyun of Kam Tin, paying respect to the gods. It will end at about 5 p.m. There will also be a ceremony to be officiated by James Hayes at 4 p.m. The procession on the next day will go all the way to Yuen Long, taking about the same amount of time. But as it can start earlier there is no need to wait until a preceding rite is over it will probably end a bit earlier... the daai-yau [“Great Offering to Ghosts"] on the last evening of the jiu will start at about 7 p.m., and end at about 3 a.m. T — The four rites named were the events which many of the villagers took part in, and the routes of the procession were unique to Kam Tin. It is therefore not surprising that the no. 1 ritual representative could estimate their timing with some confidence. Of the other rites performed by the priests, he did not seem to know much. He told me that to have a better idea of what the schedule would be, I had better talk with the priests. The answer of the priest I talked to on the telephone was that he would not know until he and his colleagues got to Kam Tin, as Kam Tin had a written record prescribing its own requirements for the jiu. I had the opportunity to read the manuscript in detail. It included contracts for the priests, paang construction contractor, paper image and offerings maker, puppeteer and opera troupe, among others. It also listed the rites, giving details of the offerings and other arrangements required. A few copies of the manuscript from previous celebrations were still kept. While the manuscripts provide much useful information, the responsible villagers do not seem to use it fully. While the contract for the paper image maker specified the figures to be included, the elders probably had no idea what there should be besides the images of the ten Kings of the Underworld. They had no idea that in the contract they required several dozen sets of paper clothing for use as offering to "heroes". The record had a diagram showing the proper arrangement of the temporary altars to be set up for the ying-sing rite, which had been in practice in the previous celebrations, but this time the layout no longer agreed with that in the record. Part of the confusion must have been due to the fact that a few different ================================================================================ 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 360 of the Lineage, or his representatives, went to Ching-Lok Ancestral Hall for Hung-Yi. Each party took with them sets of paper clothing, fruit, tea, wine, yun-bou and a gong. I was told that the two officials Jau and Wong would be invited from the temple before the first five ritual representatives went to the Ling Wan Monastery. They departed for Ling-Wan Ji on a goods vehicle. A nun was there to meet them. The nun said that in the celebrations in the past they always heard the sound of the party's gong before the ritual representative's party arrived, this time the party was so quiet that she had no warning of their approach. (She had known that the jiu was to take place, though). A brief worship was conducted by the nun at the main altar. After that the paper clothing was burnt, and the ritual representatives made offerings of incense, tea, wine and a plate of vegetarian food. Then temporary spirit tablets of paper prepared in advance by the villagers for this occasion were each inserted into a piece of Chinese carrot and put on the altar table. There were a total of seven gods, including Gwaan-Dai, Fui-Sing, Choi-Baak-Sing-Gwan and Man-Cheung. Upon the suggestion of the nun, they added a temporary tablet for Gaam-jaai, a god to oversee observation of vegetarian diet. A concluding baai-san was accompanied by the villagers' gong and the nun's “chime”. Among the gods from Ling-Wan Ji, only Gwun-Yam was invited in the form of an image. Next the party went to the Pat Heung Temple. A woman of about 70 met them and the Kam Tin men explained that they were inviting the gods to see the opera and they would be brought back afterwards. The gods were Tin-Hau, Yeung-Hau, Gwun-Yam and Wa-Gwong. The woman instructed them to make an offering and burn yun-bou before they fetched the gods, which they did. Here they took no statue of the gods. Then they went to the Yuen Kong Temple. The ritual representatives had expected the presence of a temple keeper, probably for guidance. But none was to be found. Only Yeung-Hau and Bak-Dai were fetched, although the Kam Tin men made offerings of incense to the other gods of the temple too. After this the party went back to Kam Tin. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 364 They left the festival site, passing Tai Hong Wai and Ko Po, where those who took part were offered drinks. They next reached Ying Lung Wai, where they were met by the lion dance of the village, and treated to soft drinks. They first worshipped at the altar of the God of Earth and Grain of Ying Lung Wai, then the san-teng and the village gate. They proceeded to Tung Tau Tsuen, where they worshipped at the Tin-Hau Temple and then the Gwun-Yam Temple. No one came to meet them. But nearby two elderly ladies exchanged these remarks among themselves, "The two temples belong to Kam Tin fellows, they wanted to repair them, but Tung Tau Tsuen would not let them". They proceeded to the Old Market. First they worshipped at the market gate then at the Bak-Dai Temple, and then at the Daai-Wong Temple. Then they moved on to Nam Pin Wai, where they worshipped at the altar of the God of Earth and Grain, the san-teng and the village gate. A man in his fifties sitting under a tree cursed the Dangs when he saw the Ambulance which was in attendance in case anyone was overcome by the heat. He said, "Right. Let this Ambulance carry these Kam Tin fellows". At the nearby Sai Pin Wai they worshipped at an altar for the God of Earth and Grain. There was a reception. They proceeded to a Lam Yi-Hing Tong” inside Sai Pin Wai, and then the village gate and an altar of the God of Earth and Grain. The procession finished with the Old Market and the surrounding villages, and went on to Yuen Long New Market. When they reached Sau Fu Street, they were offered soft drinks by people who had come from Kam Tin for that purpose. From there they walked back to the festival site at Kam Tin. F. The Procession with the King of Ghosts The procession with the King of Ghosts took place during the evening before the Great Offering to Ghosts. In the first stage the Bak-Bin villagers carried the huge image of the Daai-Si Wong through their villages. Their Naam-Bin counterparts waited near Kam Hing Wai to take over the paper image for the second part of the procession. These were 22 young men, many carrying long bamboo poles with metal ends ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 365 for supporting the back frame of the King of Ghosts. From their conversations I learned that the procession was to exorcise "dirty" things. Such evil spirits resided at places such as waterfronts where people had been drowned and the sides of the road where traffic accidents had taken place. Such spots were "cleansed” by letting the King of Ghosts face them for a short moment. The procedure was referred to as "shining on [the dangerous place]" (jiu) by the villagers. As in the other rites where ghosts were involved, speaking peoples' names out loud in the procession was taboo. One of the young men told his companions to phone the Ko Po people, "Tell them not to speak peoples' names", as it was unauspicious to do so. Although those young men gave the impression of a taboo against women seeing the King of Ghosts in the procession, this was denied by an elder and a middle-aged lady whom I talked to. According to the elder it was unlucky only for pregnant women to see it. The lady told me that some women, including herself, were afraid of the ghosts, and therefore would avoid seeing the Daai-Si Wong. The procession was accompanied by simple gong patterns played by one of the villagers. The exact pattern to use was made clear near Tai Hong Wai when the gong beater was told to correct the rhythm. The pattern he was beating was that for funerals (which was a quick succession of beats). The appropriate rhythm was two medium quick beats followed by a short pause, which sounded, to me, the same as the one used in processions with the statues of the gods. At about eight o'clock in the evening the Bak-Bin team arrived with the King of Ghosts, which was about 25 feet tall. The first thing their Naam-Bin counterpart had to do was to take over the gong and continue the beating. The paper image was lowered from the supporting poles of the Bak-Bin villagers and was carried flat before it was raised on the poles of the Naam-Bin team, who performed the second part of the procession. The Naam-Bin procession went towards the Mung Yeung School, avoiding trees and lamp-posts on either side of the narrow road. From near the school they proceeded towards Ko Po on the main road. On the way they turned the paper image occasionally towards either side of the road. Once they were in Ko Po the team shouted to a few young girls who watched, “Close your doors, and do not come out to look”. Page 390 Page 391 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 368 Sung, Hok-p'ang et. al. (1984), pp. 1-9. 1973 "Legends and stories of the New Territories: Kam T'in', JHKBRAS xiii, 1973, pp. 28-40. 1974 "Legends and stories of the New Territories: Kam T'in", JHKBRAS xiv, 1974, pp. 160-185. Taga, Akigoro Tanaka, Issei 1982 Chugoku Sofu no Kenkyu, vol. 2, Tokyo. 1985 Tsui, Bartholomew Watson, Rubie S. Wolf, Arthur P. (ed.) A Chiu 亞潮(?) baai 拜 baai-san Baak Mou-Seung Ú Baak-Ging Baishe Zhuan Lineage and Theatre in China. Interdependence of Festival Organization, ritual, and theatre in the lineage society of South China, Tokyo. 1989 Village Festivals in China: Backgrounds of Local Theatres. Tokyo forthcoming "Daojiao Yili ya Jishen Kiju zhijian de Guanxi”, forthcoming "Taoist Ritual Books of the New Territories". 1985 Inequality Among Brothers: Class and Kinship in South China, Cambridge University Press. 1974 Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society, Stanford. GLOSSARY chiu-gaan chiu-dou * Chiu-Yip # chu 柱 Chuk Yuen 竹園 Chung E Chung Yeung 重陽 Chung-Saan U Bak Bin 北便 Bak Dai 北帝 bei 陂 bong 榜 Bou-Dak Chi #AM bui cha-gwo 茶果 Chan Gau 陳九 Chan 陳 chau-san + Chenghua 成化 cheun-ding T cheun-fu 巡撫 Cheung-Cheun Yun cheung-saam Chi-Naam Ching Ming U Ching-Lok Chung-Yut Я chyun 村 Daai-Si Wong ✰± Daai-Wong E daai-yan ★A daai-yau daam daam-jung da-jai 打仔 da-jiu 打醮 dan 躉 Dang 鄧 Dang Chung 鄧璁 Dao 道 da-saat Dei-Jong Wong E ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h deui-lyun dim-dang Wif ding-hau T`LI Dongguan 東莞 dong-ji Dung Ping Guk 東本局 faan Fa-Gung Fa-Mou (EAEN fa-paai TEMP Fau-Ng ởH Fong 兒 fong fong-jeung Fu Qing (47 fu 伏 Fu-Hip gwan-ma 郡馬 Gwok-Yin Gwong-Yu K Gwong-Yu Tong Gwun-Yam #E Gyun 銷 Ha Tsuen 厦村 Ha Che 下崟 haang 坑 ha-fu F Hak-Sa ha-yan FA Hei-Ye 起野 heui-lok Heung heung Fui-Sing !! Fung Yuk-Daan MƒU!! Gaai-Yut gaam-sang Gai-Jau # heung-on Ho fil hoi-dang EH hou 號 Hung-Fan Taam gam-taap Gam-Tin Gaozong h Gau Ga Chyun **† hung-jeuk FL Hung-Ji 孔子 Hung-Ji 洪贄 Hung-Sing # Hung-Yi 洪儀 geui-yan git-jing #7 Git-Sau gu l Guangdong MAC Guangzong 光宗 guk 榖 gung-chou Y gung-sang Gwaan-Dai BNR Gwai-Ting gwai-waan (?) Gwai-Wong E gwan 棍 Gwan-Haak 7K Gwan-Leung R jaap-fo 雜貨 Jai Baak-Fu Jan 鈞 Jan-Ting Jau M Jau-Man B jau-tung 州同 Jeung Hoi Jeung 張 Jeung-Luk A jeun-si 進士 Jiangxi 江西 Ji-Ga Tong #18 2 Jik-Gin jiu BE Page 369 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 370 ji-wai-deui K jou jou-se 做社 juk-jeung Jung Gaai 中街 Jyu-Jai #ff jyu-lou 主腦 Kam Hing Wai MAB Kam Tin B Man Kam To Man-Cheung Man-Wai Mau-Ging Tong Ming 明 Ming-Hok Ming-Lyun Miu Gok Yun 妙覺園 mou-geui-yan #^ Kam Tin Shi mou-leuk-le-wai Kangxi 康熙 Kat Hing Wai 吉慶圍 Kei-Fong Kei-Wa ✩✩ kiu-fu 轎伕 Kwun Yam Shan 觀音山 Kyun-Hin # laam-sang laat Lai Ga Dei Lai 黎 Lai-Gaan Tong Lam Choi 林財 Lam Pui *** Lam Ngau-Jai *4# Lam Yi-Hing Tong # Lam-Mau ** lat 甩 Lau 劉 Lei-Ging Tong Lei-Wik Leung Leung Gwan-Daat Leung Tung 梁同 lo-gu ga 4 Loi-Fu * Loi-Sing Tong *** Lok-Sin Luk Gwok 六國 Lung Yeuk Tau ✯✯✯ luo-tian mu畝 Mui Jai Yun 梅仔圜 Mung Yeung 蒙養 Naam Tau 南頭 Naam Bin Teng # Naam Bin 南便 Naam-Kai Naam-Teng E Nam Pin Wai Ng Sing-Chi f** Ng 伍 Nga-Chyun R Ngau-Wong [Wui] () paang 棚 Pat Heung 八鄉 Ping Shan 坪山 ping-on 平安 Pou-Am Pui-Hing Pun-Gu qimen dunjia 奇門遁甲 Qing 淸 Sa Bui Leng 沙貝嶺 Sa Jeng 沙井 Sai Pin Wai 西邊圍 sai-man ME San Tin 新田 San Sin Fu 神仙府 San Wai 新圍 San-Fung san-teng ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h san wui Sap Pat Heung -|- A sau宿 sau-choi 3 sek Zi Seui 瑞 seui-jeun-si :: Sha Tau T Sha Po 沙埔 Sham Chun 深圳 Sheung Che 1: Sheung Tsuen Sheung Shui 1: Shing Moon San Tsuen Shun Fung Wai MAN Si-Daan MILL sing-bui Sing-Ngok ! siu-cheng Siu-Geui siu-yan 小人 sona 嗩吶 Song 柒 Sou-Lau Yun VTMN Tin-San toi-wai 枱圍 Tong Fong #† tong Tsi Tong Tsuen Tsiu Keng 蕉徑 Tsuen Wan # Tung Tak 通德 Tung Tau Tsuen Tung Fuk Tong Wa Bou 華寶 waang-mei (?) waan-san Wa-Gwong #* wai wai-jyu Wai-To 韋陀 Wang Toi Shan Wan-Gaan S Wan-Guk Wan-Yu H wing-bou ping-on *RTE Wing Lung Wai 永隆圍 Wing-Sau 永壽 Wong E Wong Loi-Yam E wong-gu Wudan Shan 武當山 suk-jing wui-bei Suk-Leun #KA Sung-Gok Taai-Seui Taai-Yut Jan-Yan AZHA wui Tai Shue Ha AMF Tai Hong Wai Tai Hong Tsuen 泰康村 Xin'an A Yam Tai Kiu 火樾 Tai Mo Shan 1 Tai Po Tau 大埔頭 yamen 衙門 yan-hau A Yau-Leun Tong yau-saan Tim-Kau Yeui銳 Ting-Jing NVI yeuk # Ting-Sam Tin-Dei-Seui-Yeung Tin-Hau G Tin-Gwun Chi-Fuk X Yeung 楊 Yeung-Hau A yi * Yi-Chung Wui 371 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 372 yi-chung Ying Lung Wai ying-bong ying-sing 迎聖 Ying-Yun 英元 Yongzheng 雍正 Yuen Kong 元崗 Yuen Long 元朗 Yu-Gaai Yu-Ji 4* Yu-Jung 遇宗 Yu-Man yun 元 Yun 袁 yun-bou 元寶 Yun-Fan yun-sau 綠首 yung-fu seung-yan A Yut-Man # NOTES Sung Hok-p'ang, "Legends and Stories of the New Territories". 1974, pp. 168-9. 2 Included near the end of the Si Kim Tong genealogy. A different version of the early history named Hon-Faat as the first ancestor to settle in Kam Tin. See Faure (1984:240). In the custody of Mr. Dang Yu-Hing. The names are Gam-Tin (1474-?) and Gam-Lei (1512-?). 6 The Ching Lok Ancestral Hall ritual manual. I have consulted Taga (1982), which has some details about this segment on p. 19 and p. 91. He sounded less sure of this later, and a knowledgeable elder of a closely related segment knows nothing peculiar about the house. The petitions are included in vol. 2 of the Kam Tin Historical Documents, the Oral History Project Collection, (copy at Chinese University of Hong Kong) I had the opportunity to work out a chart for the Sing-Ngok segment from a fragment of their genealogy and compare the names with those in the petitions. 01 See Faure (1984). See the genealogy in Kam Tin Historical Documents vol. 1, and also Faure (1984:26-27). ET I did not have the opportunity to see the piece of embroidery which probably bears a useful name list. 12 An examination of the ritual handbook for the ancestral hall (included in the genealogy in Kam Tin Historical Documents vol. 1) shows that among the three branches it was the Naam-Kai jou people who dominated. 13 According to the Yeui branch genealogy in Hugh Baker's Collection of Genealogies and Taga (1982). 14 The Fenggang Shuyuan. See Ng (1983:60) about this school. 13 According to Mr. Yun Mui, whose great grandfather, he said, had held the position before Dang, 16 See the announcement from the Dongguan county magistrate included in the genealogy in Kam Tin Historical Documents vol. 1. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 121 birthday and would have brought bad luck. Nor did he celebrate his birthday that year. Presents were returned with an explanation. The third tsat (three times seven ceremony) fell on the 27th of the month. If a tsat falls on the 7th, 17th or 27th of the Chinese calendar this is propitious. Close relatives also attended the fourth tsat and there was a great deal of banter, such as, 'Hello Mummy, how are you!' in front of the altar in second daughter's home. The most important of these weekly rites was the fifth tsat held at the Buddhist Hall where the dead person's ling paai (spirit tablet), complete with small photograph, was placed. The function was advanced by one day and 2.00 to 7.30 pm was selected by the fortune teller as a propitious time. (Buddhist and Taoist priests sometimes supplement incomes by telling fortunes). Conforming with Buddhist doctrine close relatives were not allowed to eat living things before the ceremony. They also bathed in water purified with pomolo leaves. With the old Chinese day divided into 12, two-hour periods, it starts at 11.00 pm. One could thus bathe any time after that. Sexual intercourse was still forbidden (齋戒沐浴). Close relatives wore the same white clothes and shoes as before, but the hemp surcoats had been burned after the funeral service. The same picture was placed on the altar and many mourners maintained the deceased looked stern when they arrived. Her appearance became cheerful as the service progressed. A cigarette was kept lit on the altar. There was food, such as cookies and oranges. It was an impressive spread so the dead woman could invite ancestors. The altar was surrounded by wreaths and paper offerings sent by friends. Many came to pay respects. One ceremony was conducted by six nuns. A monk led the invocations. Some knew the long mantras by heart. At appropriate times the leader threw coins and flowers. Any mourner who caught one was considered lucky. The chanting Buddhist nuns were quite young with shaven heads. They wore green and the leader a red robe. For most of the 5½ hours, various ceremonies, some long, were conducted. Also, continuously, friends and relations painstakingly folded paper ‘gold bars'. A 'charade' was later acted out by close family members. The deceased person's new spirit shrine (one had previously been cremated) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g 126 Hong Kong newspapers, stories and reports mentioning or quoting Pidgin (or Anglo-Chinese, as it came to be called) gradually disappear in the 1960s. The most recent book we have been able to obtain which teaches English in Pidgin pronunciation is "English and Chinese Dialogues" or "Ying Yue Chi Nam" by Wong Lui Hing, first published in 1927, and re-published continually until the 17th edition in 1974. The character set used to spell English in this publication are the same as those in Tong. What was China Coast Pidgin of the last century like? First, it was not pronounced in a consistent way by Chinese and English speakers, nor was it pronounced consistently among the Chinese themselves. When first learned by Chinese, words would be pronounced as their individual Chinese characters. As the speaker got more experience of speaking to foreigners, he would mould his pronunciation closer to the English, as far as he was able. Tong's materials show that there was no contrast in Pidgin (as he spoke it) between aspirated and unaspirated consonants, even though such contrasts exist in both Chinese and English. Thus in the word for “price”, pou-laai-si and bou-laai-si were in free variation, “Proper” is rendered ba-lap-bu, pou-lap-ba or pa-lap-ba. The stock of consonants used in Tong are b/p, d/t, g/k, h, j/ch, l, m, n, r/l, s, v/f, and w. One of the innovations claimed for Tong's book was that he was the first to draw attention to the full range of proper English pronunciation, in contrast to the conventions of Pidgin. The vowels are those of standard Cantonese. However, long and short vowels and diphthongs are not generally contrastive (although Tong points out on one occasion that the English word "die" should be pronounced daai in English but dai in Pidgin). We believe this reflects quite accurately the perception by the average Cantonese speaker not frequently exposed to English: the timbre and energy used in distinguishing aspirated and unaspirated sounds in normal English is much less than that in Chinese. Lacking the reinforcement of the printed word, the distinction must have been largely lost on the learner. Likewise, long and short diphthongs are not contrastive in English, and it would have occurred correctly to Cantonese ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 86 step (Baker; 1981,15). The matshed consisted of a light bamboo frame clad with thin metal sheets, which are more fire resistant than the old rattan mats that were used years ago (see Figure 1). A compartment at one end housed four henchmen and their god, called by the villagers Tai Wong Ye, sometimes translated as 'Great Ancient King' (Myers; 1975,19)(see Plate 3). The same god in urban Hong Kong is usually called Daai Si Wong (Baker; 1979,121). Different names for the same god can cause confusion. The matshed faced southeast (feng shui south), in the direction of the Kwan Yin Ancient Temple. The number of Taoist priests taking part in the ceremony inside the matshed, with some arriving late, fluctuated from five to seven. Even priests get caught in traffic jams. There was a small group of musicians in the matshed playing, between them, a trumpet, gongs, cymbals and a small drum. Percussion instruments took pride of place. The matshed also contained dishes of fruit, to be offered up to the gods, and paper offerings. Joss sticks were burned. There was a great deal of incantation, much read from a book taken off the altar, and some kneeling. Rice wine was deliberately spilled on the floor in the process of purification and offering it up to the gods. The gods of east (the Green King), south (the Red King), west (the White King), north (the Black King) and centre (the Yellow Emperor) were beseeched, in rising and falling tones, to come down to protect the district in words that were not easy to link together and to understand. The Chinese animal sign of the year is said to represent a direction. There the planet Jupiter is located (Lo; 1992,162). This has important feng shui implications. One should not disturb the earth in this direction. The Taoist priests who perform such ceremonies are often called, in slang, naam moh lo.$ Looking at Figure 2, in the bottom right-hand corner one can see a metal container in which are situated the five bamboo talismans on which, during the ceremony, are written the respective entreaties to the appropriate gods. Also on the crudely framed timber altar (see Figure 2), draped with a red cloth, are bowls of fruit, three cups of tea, three cups of wine and various items used during the ceremony." They include a book of chants, a crown worn by the head priest, musical instruments and sticks for the musicians to strike the percussion ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 89 called. 'hair vegetable), is a homonym for 'get rich'. This basin-meal lunch was the final item on the agenda for the day that the main ceremony was held. With this having taken place on the Wednesday at Sheung Tsuen, and the god, Taai Wong Ye, having been burned the same evening, the bamboo-framed matshed was dismantled the following day. As follow up, the Author thus decided to return to the village three days later. The five tun fu pots filled with sand, with a single, split-bamboo talisman with prayers written on it in each pot, had been placed circling the old banyan tree (see Plate 7). Tied to the top of each talisman was a golden (foil) kam fa and a red ribbon - both auspicious colours. There were remains of joss sticks burned by villagers. 10 Further follow up visits by the Author revealed that, on the 1st and the 15th of every Chinese month especially, joss sticks are burned near the tun fu pots largely by elderly women on behalf of their families. Nevertheless, the pots often give the impression of not being particularly well looked after. The site is untidy. This is a pity. The new West Railway line, of the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation, is planned to come into operation in November 2003. The tunnel is due to be finished in 2002. The pots will be left for the full duration of its construction and, if they cease to be effective, a nuen fu ('warming' of the talismans) "revival ceremony" may be needed. If so, Taoist priests will again officiate. Comparisons of various tun fu ceremonies How does the Pat Heung ceremony compare with other tun fu ceremonies that have been conducted elsewhere (Baker; 1980, 21)? Unfortunately the Author has not been able to find any written information, nor has he heard any oral accounts of tun fu ceremonies conducted outside Hong Kong although he gathers they do take place in places like Taiwan. Often in Hong Kong, like the one mentioned earlier (see Endnote 1) on Ma Wan Island, or those that the Author has seen in places like Sha Tin and Kam Tin, the pots were placed near earth-god shrines. All these ceremonies were much smaller than the main ceremony at Pat Heung described in this paper. No matsheds were erected at these smaller gatherings. Sometimes ceremonies are held close to tsz tongs (ancestral halls), although not normally inside. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 102 REFERENCES Baker, Hugh 1979, 'Daai Si', Ancestral Images, A Hong Kong Album, South China Morning Post 1980, 'Magic', More Ancestral Images, A Second Hong Kong Album, South China Morning Post 1981, 'Trees', Ancestral Images Again, A Third Hong Kong Album, South China Morning Post Burkhart, V R 1982, Chinese Creeds and Customs, South China Morning Post Chan, Eliza 1997, 'Jyuht Fohng Neuih Female Inheritance and Affection', The Anthropology of a Chinese Metropolis, eds. Grant Evans and Maria Tam, Curzon Chan, Selina Ching 1997, 'Negotiating Tradition: Customary Succession in the New Territories of Hong Kong', Hong Kong: The Anthropology of a Chinese Metropolis, eds. Grant Evans and Maria Tam, Curzon Cheung, Sidney C H 1999, 'The Meanings of a Heritage Trail in Hong Kong', Annals of Tourism Research, a social sciences journal, vol. 26, no.3, Pergamon Chiu, Vivian 1999, April 5, 'The "Fresh Meat" Market', South China Morning Post Doyle, Christine 2000, April 10, 'The Placebo as Panacea', Hong Kong Standard Endacott, G B 1958, A History of Hong Kong, Oxford University Press Evans, Grant and Maria Tam ================================================================================