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 HONG KONG BEFORE THE CHINESE 43 as a humble amateur I appeal humbly to the professionals for assistance; and, much less humbly, to other amateurs to take over the gathering of data on Hong Kong before the Chinese.* By Hong Kong, I mean that southern part of the district now known as Po On,1 previously known as San On,122 and still earlier included within Tung Kwun,31 or partly within Tung Kwun and partly within Kwai Shin,60 which today comprises the Colony and leased territory of Hong Kong. By Chinese, I mean such of the inhabitants (and ancestors of the inhabitants) of that territory as would not have been described in a contemporary official document by one of the terms used for non-Chinese, i.e. I Ti Jung Man.67 If this definition appears negative it cannot be helped, since Chinese literature itself does not, until modern times, contain any word which corresponds to our word "Chinese", but has always had several terms for what might be called "Non-Chinese". Although one Chinese-type grave, said to date from the Han151 Dynasty, has been found in New Kowloon, and although one small Buddhist temple has behind it the foundation of a previous structure said to date from the Tsin158 Dynasty, there is no evidence of Chinese settlement before the end of the Tang.139 Up to and including the Tang Dynasty all the inhabitants, and up to the Yuan Dynasty most of the inhabitants of what is now the Colony and leased territory of Hong Kong are described, if described at all, as Man.88 The two Chinese clans with the longest records of continuous local residence (the Tang44 of Kam Tin,56 Lung Yeuk Tau7 and Ping Shan; and the Man of San Tin125 and Cha Hang11) go back indisputably to early Sung;132 and their traditions, to which I shall be referring again, speak of two other clans (Mo5 and Chan17) having been before them. The oldest building, except the temple previously mentioned, of which there is evidence, is the fort of Tuen Mun141 built in the Nan Han99 (Canton) Dynasty in A.D. 958. Another document refers to the appointment of a military commander of Tuen Mun in A.D. 954. I cannot be assailed if I say "Anything before A.D. 900 is, for this territory, before the Chinese." The Frame. The natural question to be asked is "Before the Chinese, who?" Before I attempt to answer this question, there *All local place names are given in the Cantonese pronunciation. Notes giving Chinese characters and romanization in the Barnett-Chao system are given at the end of the article.—Ed. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 42 HUGH D. R. BAKER NOTES This article is based on the lecture delivered to the Society on 1st March, 1965. The material has, however, undergone rewriting, augmentation and excision, firstly for the purposes of a paper read to the Anthropology Colloquium of Cornell University in April 1965, and secondly to suit it for publication in this Journal. When the original lecture was given, I began by pointing out that I could give no more than an outline of the history and conditions of settlement and life of the Five Clans, and that much more work would have to be done on this topic before concrete conclusions could be drawn. I must stress again the tentative and sketchy nature of this article, offering it rather as an inducement to others to continue investigations than as a satisfactory piece of research. Many statements made are unsubstantiated by footnotes, and it should be understood that in these cases I have drawn the material from oral sources and from my own observations during a residence of eighteen months in a village of one of the Five Clans. Chinese names and terms have been romanised according to their pronunciation in Cantonese. 1 Maurice Freedman, Lineage Organisation in Southeastern China, London, 1958; Preface, 2 3 4. 6 X. 7 *, A.D. 960-1127. 8 寶安錦田鄧氏族譜、“干開寶六年宦遊入廣.........遂即遷居于寶安 9. See Sung Hok-pang's articles in the Hong Kong Naturalist, Vols. VI and VII, "Legends and Stories of the New Territories", Parts III and IV, "Kam Tin", for a detailed account of the founding of this village. Strictly speaking, Kam Tin is an area rather than a village, but I shall refer to it as a village. The population is given as 2,150 in A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories, Hong Kong, 1960. Population figures given below are also taken from this source, but they must be taken as a rough guide only, the Introduction to the Gazetteer warning that "the statistics are based on an unofficial census in 1955". Furthermore, the intervening decade has seen many changes in distribution and size of the population. In some cases the total population for one village is not given, and I have had to add together figures from component villages, which I may have selected too arbitrarily for accuracy. 10. Population 2,760. 11. Population 2,840. 12 AЯ. Population 660 including Tai Po Tau Lo Wai ✰ƒ¤★¤, 13 ★★A, also known as Lung Yeuk Tau. The name is that of a group of villages, an area; but I shall refer to this group as a village. Population 2,605, but only a small proportion are Tangs. 14 $*, A.D. 1127-1279. 15 ML, but frequently pronounced Wo Sheung Heung, and sometimes written #. Population 580. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g BOOK REVIEWS 173 and its raison d'être: why we find rows of burial urns placed on the hill-sides of the "Territories, and why more permanent omega-shaped graves are scattered rather than in neat burial grounds. The individualism and competition of geomancy in relation to the ancestors is to some extent balanced in another aspect of ancestral care with which the author deals: ancestor worship itself. But even so, at every level of a complex lineage, it seems, segments may be in competition with each other in ancestor worship. Differences in social status and ambition are shown in the way the very ancestors are admitted to the ancestral halls (through their tablets) and in the performance of the grand rites for such lineage forbears. Two other sections, again well illustrated by New Territories material, should be of particular interest to people here. One is on social status, power and government, and the other on relationships between lineages. We are told of the rivalries between powerful higher-order groups, with illustrations taken from the Tang and the Man groups which have a history of mastery of large parts of the county from which the New Territories were cut out. Most of us know of the Tang lineage in Hong Kong; if not by name, at least by one of its villages in Kam Tin — the walled village often visited by tourists to the Colony. The large Man community at San Tin, near the border, is also becoming popular with visitors. The strength of such lineages was not only in their man and fire power, as the author says, but in the command also of economic resources and call on political influence through scholarly ties with the traditional bureaucracy. But smaller communities might also combine with other weaker groups to form more powerful organizations to stand up to high-order lineages. These groups are what the author calls "yeuk combinations". In Cantonese yeuk (*) popularly means a pact, but it appears the term might have deeper political associations — a question Freedman goes into. Several yeuk combinations existed here: one at Taipo, and others at Tsuen Wan, Sai Kung and Sha Tin. Some of the armed resistance to the British when they first arrived in the 'Territories was bound up with such complexes. The author warns us that this book does not represent the end of the story. I would say, however, that his skill in drawing on Page 180 Page 181 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d CAPITALISM AND THE CHINESE PEASANT 121 less far than one might suppose from the superficial — though very striking changes in the material standard and style of living. This is especially true of the political and economic spheres. To say, as Potter does in describing the activities of one particularly wealthy individual, that "in the New Territories at present, political power is easily translated into wealth" is to oversimplify a complex symbiotic relationship between economic and political power scarcely a new thing in Chinese society. Further consideration of the ways in which different types of peasant society are integrated would have raised some fascinating questions on the particular case of “depeasantization” in the Chinese context. Just how much difference has the great increase in wealth made? Has it, perhaps, intensified patterns of behaviour that were already present? Potter describes the same, or another, wealthy personage as being constantly attended by three or four close business and political associates, almost all of whose entertainment expenses he pays: what is the nature of the relationship between these men? And how does it differ from the analogous ones described in the Chinese novels comedies of manners which could offer new insights to the anthropologist of traditional China? Unfortunately, Potter lacked time and opportunity thoroughly to investigate the Hop Yick Company, a most interesting organisation in the local market town of Yuen Long. Skinner's work on the integration of whole marketing areas is very relevant to the New Territories, and it would be useful to have more detail on the articulation, past and present, of Yuen Long market with the surrounding villages.* One among many important questions raised, but perhaps insufficiently discussed, by Potter concerns the entry of outside capital into a market which previously derived its livelihood exclusively from its function as a focus for the economic and political activity of the surrounding district: what A small point of fact (p. 170): the Hop Yick Company did not evolve from a market organisation controlled by a Kam Tin lineage group, interesting though such a development would have been. It was formed when the other groups of villages in the Yuen Long marketing area became tired of the domination of the old market by the Tangs of Kam Tin. These groups (yeuk or heung) found themselves with the capital and the political integration necessary to throw off the Tangs' control, and to form a new market on the doorstep of the old. (Cf. Hong Kong Administrative Reports, 1917, J.2: "The new market at Un Long proved its utility and incidentally took much of the life out of the old market, where several bankruptcies had to be registered") Kam Tin was excluded from the foundation of the new market. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 40 R. G. GROVES mediate marketing systems schedules are so distributed that one of the possibilities is normally monopolized by the intermediate market. Such a distribution may ... be taken as circumstantial evidence of the systematic genuineness of a given cluster of markets."44 The marketing areas were not equally endowed with arable land. This was reflected not only in the size of the populations supported, but also in the types of political association formed and the extent of lineage organization. Three local lineages in the Yuen Long marketing area played a particularly active part in the resistance movement. These were the Tang (Mandarin: Teng) lineages of Ping Shan, Ha Tsuen, and Kam Tin. The Tangs of Kam Tin owned the land upon which the original Yuen Long market had been built. San Tin, within the Sham Chun standard marketing area, was the home of a lineage of the Man (Mandarin: Wen) clan. At Sheung Shui, near Shek Wu Hui, was the Liu (Mandarin: Liao) lineage, which owned the land upon which this market was built.45 There were two further Tang lineages at Lung Yeuk Tau and Tai Po Tau, near the Tai Po markets. The five Tang lineages comprised a higher-order lineage. The Tangs of Lung Yeuk Tau had founded the original Tai Po market and owned the land upon which it was built. The Man lineage of Tai Hang was the chief rival to the political and economic ascendency of the Tai Po Tangs. In 1893 the Mans succeeded in uniting over seventy villages in an association known as the Ts'at Yeuk (seven Yüeh).46 The association established a new market at Tai Po which rapidly supplanted the original one. These lineages owned some of the best agricultural land in the territory. Their walled and moated villages occupied strategic positions throughout the area, dominating not only the most productive land, but also the major footpath systems. The warlike architecture of the villages suggests the social ingredients which derive from the control of basic agrarian resources; wealth, numbers, complex kinship organization, political influence, and parochial military prowess. It remains to consider the indigenous system of “local government" described by Stewart Lockhart. "If a person is arrested by a village constable, he is taken before the gentry and elders of the village, who assemble in a place specially appointed for the pur- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d MILITIA, MARKET AND LINEAGE 45 danger. Certainly people are dissatisfied at this and have determined to resist the barbarians. If our firearms are not good we shall be unable to oppose the enemy. So we have appointed an exercise ground and gather all together as patriots to drill with firearms. To encourage proficiency rewards will be given. On the one hand we shall be helping the [Chinese] Government; on the other we shall be saving ourselves from future trouble. Let all our friends and relatives bring their firearms to the ground and do what they can to extirpate the traitors. Our ancestors will be pleased and so will our neighbours. This is our sincere wish. Practice takes place every day."57 Less detail is known of the preparations for resistance in the Sheung U Division. However, two centres of organization clearly emerge: the Man Mo Miu at Tai Po (new) Market and the Chau Wong Yee Yuen at Shek Wu Hui. The temple of Chau Wong Yee Yuen had been established to commemorate Chau Yau-tak and Wong Loi-yam, two 17th century provincial officials. Seven lineages held shares in the temple. These were the Man lineages of Tai Hang and San Tin, the Tang lineages of Lung Yeuk Tau and Tai Po Tau, and the Pang, Hau (Mandarin: Hou), and Liu lineages resident near Shek Wu Hui.58 After 1st April this temple served as the resistance headquarters for the north-central part of the Sheung U Division. Instructions were issued from the temple that villages with "trainbands" (militia) should bring them to a state of readiness. A fund was established to finance the organization of the resistance and provision was made for the care of the wounded. Export of grain from the Division was prohibited, although other trade was allowed to continue. The Man Mo Miu (Civil and Military Temple) performed a similar function in the Tai Po area. When the Ts'at Yeuk was established in 1893 it became both an administrative and religious centre for the association. Resistance in the Tai Po area was at first offered almost exclusively by the Ts'at Yeuk, and the temple provided an established headquarters for the co-ordination of military activities. Leaders of the Pang and Man (Tai Hang) lineages participated in the activities of both the Chau Wong Yee Yuen and the Man Mo Miu. Both lineages were 'founder members' of the Chau Wong ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 46 R. G. GROVES Yee Yuen and donated sums to its resistance fund. The two lineages also comprised two yeuk within the Ts'at Yeuk and, as such, were represented in the fighting at Tai Po. At some point after 1st April, leaders from the Yuen Long and Sheung U Divisions went together to the Tung P'ing Kuk at Sham Chun and attempted with little success to enlist wider support for their activities. An agent was sent to Tung-kuan Hsien, where a number of 'bare-sticks' were recruited. In addition, the help of the Tang lineage of Pan T'in, in the northern part of Hsin-an Hsien, was solicited. This lineage appears to have stood in a clan relationship with the Tang higher order lineage within the New Territory. Members of the Pan T'in lineage participated in the fighting within the territory and subsequently felt themselves threatened by the British occupation of Sham Chun. The first confrontation between the Ts'at Yeuk and the vanguard of the occupying force occurred at Tai Po. Since late March, contractors had been erecting matsheds for the Hong Kong authorities on a hill near the market. Work had been obstructed by local villagers who claimed that the hill was private land and that the matsheds would disturb the feng shui of the area. On 3rd April Captain-Superintendent May set off for Tai Po, with a mixed party of Sikh policemen from Hong Kong and a detachment of Chinese soldiers, which had been temporarily assigned to him by the Commander of the Chinese military garrison stationed at Kowloon City. He hoped to get work on the matsheds started again and intended to leave the soldiers as a guard for the construction materials, pending assumption of British authority in the Territory. May arrived at Tai Po early in the afternoon and went to a nearby temple, almost certainly the Man Mo Miu, where he knew he would meet local leaders. A large crowd gathered, both within the temple and in the narrow street outside. His efforts at persuasion failed and the bystanders "became very offensive in their language and demeanour."59 May thought it wise to leave, but hope of a dignified withdrawal ended as soon as the British party reached the street. They were set upon by an angry crowd, wielding brooms, buckets, and other improvised weapons. An escape was made after the soldiers had threatened the crowd with their rifles and the Sikhs had made a bayonet charge to clear a path. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d MILITIA, MARKET AND LINEAGE 47 When the party regained their boat May sent the civilians back to Hong Kong. He took the remainder of his men to the matshed hill, where he intended to spend the night. As May deployed his men on the hillside, men from Fan Leng took the card of Man Cham-tsun—leader of the Man lineage of Tai Hang—to villages throughout the area, asking for help in an assault on his position. When darkness fell, May could see lights in the five villages nearest the hill and more lights moving along the footpaths to the rear of his position. Bombs were exploded in the adjacent valley and parties whistled and signalled as they moved forward. Realising that he could not hold the hill, May withdrew to an adjacent one and from there watched the attack. A signal drum sounded and there was a concerted rush from all sides to the crest of the hill. The matsheds were fired and a search begun for the British party. May and his men hid in a thicket of rushes and cactus until early the next morning, when they were able to escape unobserved. + - + Enquiries made the next day, by Stewart Lockhart and General Gascoigne, showed that the assault had been made by villages from within the Ts'at Yeuk. Of the seven yeuk, only one—Ting Kok Yeuk—appears not to have participated. In retrospect, May estimated that between 100 and 200 men had been involved. He concluded: "what struck me most was the evidently organized manner in which members from the surrounding villages concentrated to take part in the attack... This is no doubt a method... adopted both for offence and defence."60 The Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Henry Blake, took a detached view of the affair. “I am not disposed to attach much importance to this attack upon Mr. May and his party. Such a sudden access of militant irritability is not uncommon in Ireland, and subsides as rapidly as it rises."61 The next ten days were busy ones for the resistance leaders, particularly those of Ha Tsuen and Kam Tin. They visited villages throughout the area and exhorted people to oppose the occupation. Ammunition was purchased in bulk. Captured account books, associated with an ancestral hall at Ha Tsuen, show that gunpowder, ball, and percussion caps were being ordered throughout the earlier part of April. For example, the section for ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 56 R. G. GROVES Kinship ties played a large part in the organization of the resistance. In the Yuen Long area, leadership and probably manpower were overwhelmingly supplied by the three Tang lineages of Ping Shan, Ha Tsuen, and Kam Tin. In the Shek Wu Hui district, it was a matter of cooperation between a number of lineages of roughly equal status. At Tai Po, the Man lineage of Tai Hang provided leadership, within the Ts'at Yeuk, for a large number of smaller lineages. Ties of clanship enabled the Tangs of Yuen Long to enlist the help of the Tangs of Pan T'in. They, in turn, received support from agnates living in Tung-kuan City. The Tang higher-order lineage of the New Territory did not act as a unified lineage during the resistance movement. The leaders of Ping Shan, Ha Tsuen, and Kam Tin were concerned, first and foremost, to consolidate plans for resistance within the Yuen Long area. Leaders of the Tang lineages of Lung Yeuk Tau and Tai Po Tau only subsequently became formally involved with preparations for resistance, along with other leaders from their respective marketing areas. The leaders of the three Yuen Long lineages carefully coordinated their plans. There is no evidence that representatives of Lung Yeuk Tau and Tai Po Tau were similarly consulted. Moreover, the Lung Yeuk Tau settlement, along with others in the Shek Wu Hui area, was threatened with attack by the Tangs of Yuen Long. There is insufficient evidence to materially advance the discussion concerning the relationship between hsiang and marketing areas. However, the data strongly suggest that, for the purposes of resistance, the highest order of effective inter-lineage cooperation among the Tangs of the New Territory was achieved within the Yuen Long marketing community. There is also the possibility that long- or short-standing disputes between the various local lineages of the Tang higher-order lineage inhibited their cooperation across the boundaries of marketing areas during the resistance movement. But this would not necessarily weaken the argument that the standard marketing community was the optimum unit for inter-lineage cooperation. Wakeman, in his discussion of militia, has stressed the importance of gentry leadership. The documents concerning the resistance name 63 people as active in the movement, in that they: (i) took part in the meetings which organized it; and/or, (ii) acted ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 62 R. G. GROVES 44 Skinner, op. cit., Part 1, p. 27. The markets of the northern district of the New Territory seem to have been dependent primarily upon Sham Chun, rather than upon several intermediate markets. This may be an example of what Skinner terms a marketing system in a "topographic cul-de-sac". Ibid., p. 21. 45 Baker, Hugh D. R. "The Five Great Clans of the New Territories”, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. VI, 1966, p. 31. 46 Freedman, op. cit., pp. 82ff., gives an account of the origins of the Ts'at Yeuk. The character yeuk may be translated as 'covenant', or 'agreement'. The seven covenants' were a confederation of seven groups of villages within the Tai Po marketing area. 47 Papers Extracts, op. cit., p. 192. 48 Hayes, "The Pattern of Life.", op. cit., p. 9. 49 Freedman, op. cit., p. 81. 50 Papers Extracts, op. cit., pp. 201ff. 51 Hong Kong 1963, Hong Kong, 1964, pp. 363ff. 52 Papers Extracts, op. cit., pp. 587-8. 53 The following account has been assembled, somewhat in the manner of a jigsaw puzzle, from two sources: Hong Kong. Correspondence (June 20, 1898 to August 20, 1900) Respecting the Extension of the Boundaries of the Colony, Eastern No. 66, Colonial Office, London, 1900; Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, 1899. Despatches and Other Papers Relating to the Extension of the Colony of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1900. Specific references will be given only for quotations. 54 Correspondence, op. cit., p. 261. A brief discussion of the activities of the land syndicate mentioned in the preceding paragraph is to be found in Endacott, G.B., A History of Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, London and Hong Kong, and Paperback Edition, 1964, p. 265, who says: "The main problem of the take-over was not military but administrative. A land syndicate of Chinese among whom it was suspected Ho Kai [Dr. Ho Kai, a Chinese unofficial member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong] was one, had bought land at a fraction of its value by spreading the rumour that the British would seize all land. Blake threatened to restore this property, but the land problem proved too baffling for him to carry out his threat." 55 Correspondence, op. cit., p. 261. Wakeman, op. cit., Chap. V, discusses similar charges made against the British at Canton almost sixty years earlier. 56 One recipient was Liu Wan-kuk, of Sheung Shui. His support for the resistance appears to have been half-hearted throughout. On at least two occasions he protested: "the villages in our Division have no plans. Moreover, our commissariat and arms being insufficient, how can we offer effective resistance? We request your Division [Yuen Long] to decide on the plan of campaign and we will follow your instruction". The dominance of the Yuen Long Division—and of the Tang lineages within it—was to become increasingly obvious as the resistance movement developed. Papers Despatches, op. cit., p. 72. 57 Translated in Correspondence, op. cit., pp. 138ff. 58 Baker, op. cit., pp. 35ff. 59 Correspondence, op. cit., p. 147. 60 Ibid., p. 148. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d NOTES ON ETHNO-BOTANY IN THE NEW TERRITORIES 127 are tacked onto certain bushes and shrubs having medicinal attributes. Otherwise, it is indeed difficult for an onlooker to tell medicinal from other common plants. Villagers do distinguish, though, between the everyday medicinal plants used for poultices, infusions, decoctions, and tonics, from certain other economic simples that are collected and sold for gain. The collection and sale of the rarer economic simples is a source of village income. The gathering of the plants is the task of women. At Fan Lau, women went early in the morning to the hillside and the ravines and returned with baskets of medicinal plants that were sunned and dried at the village. These were then taken to Tai O for sale. The locations where these simples may be found are usually regarded as village secrets, and many coastal settlements acquire reputations associated with the quality of these simples which, in contrast to the common village medicinal plants, find their way to market. Native Chinese village medicine is divided into two classes. One is known as koon yeuk ("official medicine"), the other as shang tsoi yeuk ("fresh vegetable medicine"). The first is associated with apothecary shops that deal in traditional drugs and medicines, many of which are listed in that Chinese pharmacopoeia of the 16th century, the Poon Ts'o Kong Muk. These are the Chinese pharmacies one associates with bear paws, rhinoceros horns, ginseng, and other dried or prepared medicine. Shang tsoi yeuk, less known, is based on gathered simples that are not sold in powdered, pill, or prepared forms. These are fresh medicaments possessing alleged tonic qualities that assist digestion and relieve "heat" (yuet hei). Some are used as styptic poultices, others to treat simple bruises. Unlike the apothecary shops that deal in koon yeuk, the shang tsoi yeuk stalls are not elaborate. The vendor of shang tsoi yeuk is usually a literate farmer turned herbalist. Many of the shang tsoi yeuk are not even listed in modern Chinese pharmaceutical works, as some of these plants are peculiar to local places, and to local tastes. The following are just some of the shang tsoi yeuk gathered from the hillsides, the ravines, and the beaches of Tai Yu Shan (Lantau Island) during the months of July and August. All of them listed here are collected in their wild state, and none is cultivated. Their market prices vary according to availability, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 174 BOOK REVIEWS tive or sub-administrative area?" So far as the Kowloon school was concerned it served the rural areas immediately east, west, north of and round Kowloon, whose principal villages were linked in yeuk (yueh) (#5) or 'compacts” — though whether the latter were self-organised or instituted by Government is still unknown to me. These villages used Kowloon as a market centre though there were small local markets in some of the yeuk. Together these yeuk do not appear to have constituted either an administrative or sub-administrative area of the county (1) save in the sense that the Kowloon sub-magistrate utilised their existence as a medium of contact and, no doubt, control. Again, whether they had any tuan lien is unknown - though village tradition at Nga Tsin Wai just in front of the Kowloon Walled City has it that, assisted by the Tin Hau goddess from the village temple, whose image glistened with her supreme effort, the villagers 'saved' the City from the Red Turban rebels in the 1850s and their leading elder was given a kung ming (1) by Government in recognition of their part in the defence. In short, the detailed picture remains unfilled but we stand greatly in Mr. Wakeman's debt for having set the scene in such a stimulating and authoritative manner. Hong Kong, 1969, JAMES HAYES HONG KONG: A SOCIETY IN TRANSITION. CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE STUDY OF HONG KONG SOCIETY, ed. I. C. Jarvie, in consultation with Joseph Agassi, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1969, pp xxix, 378, illustrated. A symposium such as this might be approached from one of two angles: its theme could be either an exploration of the conflicts within Hong Kong society, or a comparison between the problems of Hong Kong and those of other areas in a similar situation of rapid and profound change. None of the papers in this volume attempts the latter; and those which attempt the former are noticeably more stimulating and more valuable than those which attempt neither. Hong Kong is a place in which a number of almost totally disparate groups, their interests sometimes diametrically opposed (e.g. the indigenous people and the immigrants in the New Territories), coexist in an exceedingly small compass: an opportunity to survey the relationships, often Page 180 Page 181 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 HONG KONG BEFORE THE BRITISH 163 Tung Kun district, Heung Shan, and Kwangsi. Two brothers of the eldest branch remained in Tung Kun, of their cousins one received lands in P'ing Shan next to Kam T'in and another Tang Yuan Liang succeeded to Kam T'in and to a place called Lung Yeuk T'au in our region, besides lands at Tung Kun, This Tang Yuan Liang led the spacious life that might be expected of a man of widely extended property. He is buried in Tung Kun, but his family lived in Kam T'in and he himself was appointed an official in Kiangsi, near to the original home of his ancestors. His power over all this area was the greater because the Sung dynasty during his time was hard pressed by the Tartars. Tang Yuan Liang had established a kind of outpost in Kiangsi behind which he and his family governed a more or less independent region, officially loyal to the Sung dynasty, but in reality ready to take advantage of its misfortunes. In 1127 the Emperor's family was captured, but one daughter of the royal house escaped as far as Tang Yuan Liang's outposts, where she was taken charge of and sent half captive half refugee to Kam T'in where she married Yuan Liang's son. When the Tartars were driven back, her father became the Emperor Kao Tsung of Sung. He recognised the marriage, received the princess and her husband Tssŭ Ming at the capital, and gave him an official title. The family received a large dowry, tax collecting rights and the monopoly of the ferries in Tung Kun district. The four main centres of the Tang clan at present are Kam T'in, Ping Shan, Lung Yeuk T'au and Ha Tsün. We have already mentioned that one of the "five Yuans" received lands in P'ing Shan. The present Tangs of P'ing Shan are descended from him and are therefore probably the eldest branch in direct descent. The settlement at Lung Yeuk Tau also dates from one of the “five Yuans", that of Ha Tsün appears to be much later though directly descended from the great grandson of Tssŭ Ming and the princess, a man called Shou Tsu who lived in the Yuan dynasty and appears to have been the first of the Tangs to settle permanently at Kam T'in, instead of in Tung Kun district where his ancestors had lived. These four centres can be seen on the attached map (See T'ien Hsia, Vol. XI, No. 4).* It will be noticed that they contain many adjacent walled villages due chiefly to the fact that their houses *Plate 16 at end of this volume. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 164 S. F. BALFOUR became too old to live in and were abandoned by the richer members of the family, who built new ones elsewhere. This alone shows how prolific the Tang family were, but it is not the only sign of their overwhelming influence in our region. In almost every fertile valley including Lantau and Hong Kong islands, there has at one time or another been a settlement of Tang peasants and the inference that I have drawn is that they undertook the deforestation of these regions. There appears to be only one other landholding family with a record that goes back to Sung times. This is the clan of Hou17 who live near to Lung Yeuk Tau in several walled villages. Their family record shows that they came from Pun Yu or Canton in the year 1026 but gives no notice of their migration to Canton from the north. They have always been a humble family in comparison to the Tangs, although intermarriage between them has been very frequent, and their family book contains no references to any connection with government. What is striking about the early history of the Tang family is the kind of feudal power which they exercised. No doubt at the same time in other parts of South China influential families were occupying land and spreading branches in all directions. It requires a study of their family books to make a complete picture of the influx of peasant population into South China. VII. THE SUNG EMPERORS The story of the journey of the last Sung Emperors through this region must be recounted not only for its sentimental value, but also because it really marks an epoch in the history of the population. It was owing to the pressure of the Mongols from the north that the Tang family migrated, but when the same pressure spread south right to the coast, the migration into sparsely inhabited places became even more frequent, and it is also very likely that the large armies of Sung when they were dispersed settled down as agriculturalists. The journey of the last two kings of Sung began when the Emperor Kung Ti was taken prisoner with his court at Hangchow. The two boys who were known as Yi Wong and Wei Wong were 17. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 62 HENRY JAMES LETHBRIDGE had two meetings with the Chinese delegate, Huang Tsun-hsin1, and an agreement was signed at Government House on March 14. On the 16th Lockhart accompanied by the Director of Public Works left for Mirs Bay and proceeded to delimit the boundaries of the New Territory, which were fixed along a line joining the heads of Deep Bay and Mirs Bay, following the Sham Chun River for most of its course. Lockhart had urged the inclusion of Sham Chun and its valley but this was rejected later by the Chinese authorities. On 1 April Lockhart and a party sent by the Public Works Department to erect the posts on the boundaries settled upon were stopped by villagers and informed that if they attempted to get on with their work they would be killed. Understandably, the party withdrew to Hong Kong. At the same time, Wei Yuk# 1 an unofficial member of the Legislative Council, procured a copy of a placard that was being posted up in many villages and market towns; the translation revealed that people in the New Territories were being urged to drill with firearms. This was the first sign that the occupation of the New Territories was not likely to occur without incident. The Governor, Sir William Blake, accompanied by his Colonial Secretary, Lockhart, hastened forthwith to interview the Viceroy at Canton and they secured from him a promise of co-operation and the sending of Chinese troops to protect the two matsheds at Taipo that were being erected for the occupancy of police and officials from Hong Kong. On 3 April, however, F.H. May, Captain Superintendent of Police, and his small party of Sikhs and Chinese guards were set upon by 'villagers', the matsheds burned to the ground, and the group forced to retreat to Kowloon. The Governor immediately despatched troops by motor torpedo boat destroyer to Taipo. The troops were accompanied by Lockhart, of whom the commanding officer later said: 'I have to record my sense of the tact and judgment displayed by Mr. Stewart Lockhart in eliciting information most unwillingly given; and the interpreter whom he brought with him was simply invaluable owing to his proficiency in both English and Chinese and his knowledge of the system of dealing with the natives.' The interpreter was Ts'oi Yeuk-shan, First Chinese Clerk in the Registrar General's Department, a former pupil at Queen's College. Lockhart and the troops returned to Hong Kong later in the same day. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h SIR JAMES HALDANE STEWART LOCKHART 63 On 16 April Lockhart returned to Taipo and in the presence of the General Officer Commanding, Major-General W. J. Gascoigne, and about 500 men, he hoisted the British flag and then read the Order-in-Council and Convention. The territory was now formally occupied. There had been some resistance from the people and from those living in the Sham Chun area. Lockhart had been asked to return to Hong Kong to attend a meeting of the Legislative Council but in a minute to the Governor he stated: 'I have consulted the General Officer Commanding, who thinks it very desirable for many reasons that I should remain here. I am of the same opinion, so propose to remain.'22 Since the situation was still unsettled, the Governor concurred with Lockhart's proposal and Lockhart stayed behind with the troops, accompanying them on a long sweep through the New Territories to make the British presence known. Lockhart and the troops led by Lieutenant-Colonel The O'Gorman pushed on from Taipo on 18 April to Shek Kong; from that village they passed through Kam Tin, Yuen Long, Ping Shan, Sheung Shui, Fanling, and arrived back in Taipo on 27 April. The O'Gorman reported: "To the Honourable J.H. Stewart Lockhart, C.M.G., Colonial Secretary, is due the admirable results that have been attained in the Civil Administration of this Territory during this brief state of turmoil; his measures have been taken with great energy and ability and in a manner that, long experience has shown him, were suitable to the occasion. The result has been a most complete success. Only those on the spot can realise the amount of labour and care he has devoted from early morning to late at night to the discharge of these trying duties. A most hearty co-operation has existed throughout between us and no difference of opinion on any one point has arisen.'23 The Secretary of State, Joseph Chamberlain, in a despatch to the Governor, commented: 'without wishing to undervalue in any way the services rendered by others, it is evident to me that much has been due to the energy of Mr. Lockhart, and to his local knowledge."24 Lockhart remained in the New Territories until July 1899 in order to start the civil administration. The headquarters of the new administration were fixed at Taipo. He was assisted in his task by C.M. Messer, a cadet officer, Ts'oi Yeuk-shan, First Chinese Clerk, and two Chinese assistants. The problems he had to face were at first formidable. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 165 Originally, many Sai Kung villagers owned their land only indirectly. In a system of multiple ownership, the Lius of Sheung Shui and the Tangs of Lung Yeuk Tau, as registered land-owners, collected rent in many places in Sai Kung. Sai Kung villagers who paid rent to them nonetheless held their right to the land in perpetuity, and the registered land-owners merely paid the tax and kept the balance from the rent. When the land was registered by the Hong Kong Government, the Lius and the Tangs lost their tax collection rights, and the Crown Rent that was collected by the Hong Kong Government was usually smaller than the former rent that had been paid. For many villagers, then, this must have meant an increase in income.12 Elderly villagers in Sai Kung still remember the "taxlords". Eighty-seven year old Mr. Wong of Tam Wat had heard of the "great red hats", and Mr. Lam Kaap Shau of Tai Long of the "Koreans" who came here to collect the tax. Mr. Cheung Kau of Ping Tun had heard of the Sheung Shui people collecting rent here, and elderly Mr. Cheung of Tai Po Tsai (near Tai Mong Tsai) of the Lius and the Tangs doing so. Mr. Cheng Yung of Uk Tau called them the "Heung Shui Lo", and knew that they collected rent in his village in his grandfather's days, while Mr. Yau T'aam Shang of Wong Keng Tei actually saw his father among a group of villagers who drove out the rent-collectors from Sheung Shui after the villagers started to pay Crown Rent directly to the Hong Kong Government.13 Yet another influence that affected some villages, although it left no impact on Sai Kung District as a whole (except in the field of education), was the introduction of Christianity. As early as 1861, a Roman Catholic priest had reached Wun Yiu in Tai Po. In 1873, the records of the Roman Catholic Church noted that a priest from Sai Kung visited the San On magistrate. In the 1870's, Sai Kung was noted as one of three centres of the Church in the New Territories, the Sai Kung church being responsible not only for the eastern New Territories but also for Wai Chau and Hoi Fung. By 1934-35, Roman Catholic communities were established in Sai Kung Market, Yim Tin Tsai, Wong Mo Ying, Pak Tam Chung, Long Ke, Leung Shuen Wan, and Kei Ling Ha. There were also converts in the 1930's ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 200 MAURICE FREEDMAN Chinese rule, the remoteness, the danger and the expense of the central courts had left much authority to the local elders, and especially to those entrusted with powers of collecting local taxes: under British rule this authority naturally decayed, though they have continued sometimes to be the medium of dealings with the villagers. But their moral influence has often been of great assistance to the officials in the maintenance of the public peace, and their knowledge of the decisions of questions concerning local customs, disputed successions, fung shui and such like. (Report on the New Territories, 1899-1912, Papers laid before the Legislative Council no. 11 of 1912, p. 45). 17. We shall need to consider who these elders were, but before doing so we must look at a wider context within which local leadership was to be seen. At the time the New Territories were created they were in large part covered by a network of village-groupings, many of them being known under the name of yeuk. A yeuk was a collection of neighbouring villages which had some means of expressing its unity (sometimes in the ownership of property common to the grouping) and which was often combined along with other such yeuk to form what I propose to call a yeuk-complex. This kind of organisation can conveniently be illustrated from material on the yeuk-complex to have survived most fully into our own day. I refer to the Ts'at Yeuk (i.e. the Seven Yeuk) of Tai Po. 18. There for long stood a market town at Tai Po: Tai Po Kau Hui. It was (and physically remains) just by the Tang settlement of Tai Po Tau, but the market was under control of the Tang people further north in Lung Yeuk Tau. As Masters of the Market the Tang taxed sellers and, if the stories told about them now are to be believed as reflecting reality, and not mythical justifications of revolt, they harassed buyers by the exercise of the privilege of claiming choice produce. Their control of the market was from time to time challenged. In 1892, the matter having been brought to the county magistrate's court at Nam Tau, a ruling was given that only the Tang had the right to build shops in the market. This decision (which was inscribed on a stone slab and placed in the local Tin Hau Temple) appears to have been the culmination of a series of challenges to Tang power by the Man of Tai Hang. (Up to 1873, when it was destroyed by a typhoon, the Man had had a settlement next to the market, but by the 1890s their base was Tai Hang). In response to the unfavourable outcome of the lawsuit ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963 201 the Man and their allies rallied local support to form a new market on the other side of what in British times has come to be known as the Kwun Yam River. This was the beginning of the market town of Tai Po in its present form. (The story up to this point is told by Sung Hok-p'ang, 'Legends and Stories of the New Territories. I. Tai Po', The Hong Kong Naturalist, vol. VI, no. 1, May 1935. The stone slab recording the magistrate's decision no longer stands in the temple; when the temple was recently rebuilt the stone was cast into the yard where it now lies, often encumbered with rubbish, a neglected minor monument of late Ch'ing history). 19. The new market in a short time consigned the old one to a decrepitude familiar to anyone who has walked behind the Jockey Club Clinic which now stands next to the Tin Hau Temple. Soon the founder of the new market put up the first of the bridges to span the Kwun Yam River; the subscription list for the bridge is recorded on two stone plaques set into the wall of the Man Mo Temple which had been built as a centre for the new market. A room in the temple still houses the public weighing scales from which the founders and their successors have derived an income. 20. The story goes that the Man who led the revolt against the Tang monopoly called a meeting of the leaders of seven yeuk around Tai Po, each of these taking a share in the new market in the form of shops. The land on which the market was built appears to have been for the most part the property of the Man. Now it is probable that the Ts'at Yeuk dates from this point in time. My informants take this view. And there is one piece of information which tends to confirm it: one of the constituent yeuk is Cheung Shue Tan which, according to what I was told in Sha Tin, was previously a member of a yeuk-complex in this latter area; so that it may well have changed its allegiance at the time of the founding of the new market at Tai Po. But even if the Ts'at Yeuk came into being so recently, the yeuk themselves can hardly have done so for they appear to have been the material out of which the complex was formed. Many locals assert that the yeuk did not antedate the Ts'at Yeuk, but I am inclined to think that we are dealing here with a very old form of grouping, as comparative evidence will suggest. The seven yeuk were Lam Tsuen, Cheung Shue Tan, Ting Kok, Shuen Wan, Hap Wo, Tai Hang, and Fan Leng. Together they had over seventy villages, but the yeuk were of unequal size, so that while, for example, the Man settlement at Tai Hang formed a yeuk ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 202 MAURICE FREEDMAN on its own, Lam Tsuen consisted of twenty-six villages. When the constituent villages of the seven yeuk are plotted on a map they can be seen to form a more or less continuous arc around Tai Po, but there are two striking irregularities in the distribution. First, the three villages making up the yeuk of Fan Leng stand away to the north, being in fact so much out of the immediate Tai Po area that today they fall administratively into a different sub-district and are not involved in local Tai Po affairs except in so far as they remain responsible for the market. Second, about twenty villages in the area of the arc are not members of any yeuk. Some of these are settlements which have come into being since the 1890s, but a few certainly existed at the time the market was planned and were deliberately excluded, or excluded themselves, from the union. Naturally, the Tang settlement at Tai Po Tau is one of them; they were the general enemy. Others were probably clients of the Tang and unable, or unwilling, to participate in the revolutionary move. Were they previously members of yeuk who fell out when these were combined to form the seven? 21. The Tang and the Man are Punti, the former being members of the dominant clan group in the New Territories, and the latter a branch of a clan group whose most important settlement is at San Tin. The Man had for long intermarried with the local Tang (their genealogy book shows that the Tang gave them many women), were rich, and had produced some scholars. (Their main ancestral hall, now in ruins, must have been a splendid building). Their rivalry with the Tang at Lung Yeuk Tau and Tai Po Tau had had a long history. As the story of the market demonstrates, the rivalry was in part commercial; the Tang at Tai Po Tau tell jokingly of the leading Tang and his Man counterpart competing to see who could lay the longer line of silver dollars along the path leading north from their settlement. But the area in which the contest was fought out was predominantly Hakka, and it was necessary for the Man to find their support in Hakka villages. Second in importance to the Man in the founding of the new market were the Hakka Ma of Wun Yiu. They appear to have been a small but well-to-do settlement. (The only crockery kiln in the whole region was in their area, and a Roman Catholic chapel had stood there for at least thirty years before the founding of the new market; they were clearly in a centre of some importance). The last flickers to be seen today of the hostility to the Tang in Ts'at Yeuk circles fail to ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963 203 suggest that the fight over the market was a quarrel between Hakka and Punti as such, and I incline to the view that, whatever may have been in earlier decades the state of feeling between communities speaking the different dialects, by the 1890s local alignments did not depend on ‘ethnic' solidarity. (Indeed, I think too much should not be made today of the cultural differences between Punti and Hakka in the New Territories and of the social cleavages which are presumed to rest on these differences). 22. The first British administrators seem not to have appreciated the local significance of the term yeuk, for when the New Territories were arranged in districts and sub-districts in accordance with the Local Communities Ordinance, 1899, boundaries were drawn round units (themselves labelled with the word yeuk) bringing enemy villages together. Since, however, the ordinance was never fully brought into force no harm was done. The Ts'at Yeuk continued under British rule to be masters of the new market and to dominate local affairs, and it has been only in recent years that a Tai Po Rural Committee has emerged, under government encouragement, to provide a strictly territorial form of local council. The Rural Committee is made up of seven units: six of the Ts'at Yeuk (Fan Leng being excluded because of its remoteness) and a new unit composed of all the scattered villages which are not members of the Ts'at Yeuk. The Ts'at Yeuk and the Rural Committee share the same offices (they were built by the former) and the same officers (the chairman of the one being a vice-chairman of the other and a second vice-chairman being common). In local eyes the Ts'at Yeuk remains dominant, not least because only it has access to the revenue brought in by the public weighing scales. 23. It is possible to piece together sketchy accounts of yeuk-complexes in other areas of the New Territories. One of them operated in the area now covered by the Ta Kwu Ling Rural Committee. This was the Luk Yeuk (the six Yeuk), a union which was cut in two by the new international frontier created in 1898. It appears to have been flourishing a hundred years ago when the father of my sole informant on it (I stress the fact that in this case I was unable to cross-check the assertions made) took part in a battle between it and a village in Chinese territory. Each of the six yeuk had an average of three villages, taking its name from the largest village. The Luk Yeuk had a common estate, most of it now inaccessible in China, which was managed in turn by each yeuk. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 204 MAURICE FREEDMAN Connected with the union there was an organisation which operated a kind of agricultural insurance scheme, making good losses by theft of crops and beasts. Again, the Luk Yeuk was composed of both Punti and Hakka. 24. There are other 'numerical' yeuk-complexes: the Four (Sz) Yeuk of Tsuen Wan, the Six (Luk) Yeuk of Sai Kung, and the Nine (Kau) Yeuk of Sha Tin. In these three cases, however, we see the influence on rural organisation of an urban and administrative centre. The walled city of Kowloon was the only official seat in that part of San On to be converted into the New Territories. It held the yamen of a deputy magistrate and certain military officials, no doubt acquiring some of its importance as a centre of government in the second half of the nineteenth century from the proximity of the British Colony. The Kau Yeuk of Sha Tin appears to have consisted of forty-eight villages, of which the five largest were Punti and the rest Hakka. The Ch'e Kung Temple (now the property of the Secretary for Chinese Affairs in his part as a corporation sole) belonged to the Kau Yeuk, according to one account, but was taken over by the S.C.A. when a dispute was precipitated by a claim put forward by one village to control it. On the Sz Yeuk of Tsuen Wan I have discovered little more than that it existed. Sung Hok-p'ang once told a Chinese scholar, who has since committed the statement to writing, that the area now called Tsuen Wan was in late Ming or early Ch'ing times known as Tsuen Wan Yeuk and that formerly all the villages in the area from Ting Kau to Kowloon City belonged to it. The Luk Yeuk of Sai Kung, however, has left clearer traces. I cannot define its composition exactly, but I have been told that Ho Chung, Pak Kong, Sha Kok Mei, Tseung Kwan O and two settlements in Shap Sz Heung were the six yeuk. Once again, both Hakka and Punti were involved. The three yeuk-complexes of Tsuen Wan, Sha Tin, and Sai Kung were in some fashion tied in with a council, formal or informal, in Kowloon City; and it appears likely that the local deputy magistrate used this organisation to make contact with the villages in his neighbourhood. In 1879 (according to its own records) there came into existence in Kowloon a body known as the Lok Sin Tong; members of the three yeuk-complexes were represented on it. Its primary object seems to have been to promote charity, public works, and education, while in character it would appear to have been an association of local gentry. The Lok Sin Tong still exists; indeed, it has grown ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963 205 greatly in importance in recent times, but it is now, as far as I can see, a large-scale charitable organisation of business men which, while it rests in theory on the representation of villages falling within the area once covered by the old yeuk-complexes, is in fact essentially both city-based and city-run. (At the present eighteen villages appear to be represented in the Lok Sin Tong: one in Sha Tin, one in Tsuen Wan, and eight each in Sai Kung and New Kowloon. But I am not sure that the representatives are members of the villages they represent). 25. Yeuk existed also in the Sha Tau Kok area (note the Nam Yeuk mentioned in the early British records) and in the area of Ho Sheung Heung (Hau Yeuk). It will be seen, therefore, that at the time of the advent of British rule many central, southern, and eastern areas of the mainland part of the New Territories were covered by a network of yeuk which, while certainly not including every village, nevertheless generally affected the political organisation of these areas. The striking omission is the west, that is to say, roughly the modern Yuen Long District. As far as I have been able to discover (my enquiries in this area were cut short by my premature departure from the Colony), the term yeuk has no traditional meaning here. (I stress 'traditional'. The British used the word for their own purposes; demarcation districts for land and the broader administrative districts were called yeuk after the new regime was established; and, as a result, by hearing the word used today one may be misled into thinking that it has a longer local history than it in fact has). Similarly, I know of no evidence that there were yeuk in the islands. Groupings of villages there certainly were in the Yuen Long area, under the names of heung (although I am not sure how old this usage is) kung shoh, just as these groupings sometimes appear in the areas where yeuk also existed; but the absence of yeuk seems to call for comment. 26. If we look again at the evidence on yeuk-complexes, we may perhaps conclude that they were formed to protect the interests of the weak against the strong. The powerful Liu of Sheung Shui were never members of a yeuk. Indeed, on their own they were the enemies of the Luk Yeuk of Ta Kwu Ling. Similarly, the Tang of Lung Yeuk Tau (in which name, incidentally, the character for Yeuk is not the one we are concerned with here) and Tai Po Tau stood aloof from yeuk. It is probably significant that the Man of Tai Hang formed a yeuk on their own when they assumed leader- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 206 MAURICE FREEDMAN ship of the struggle over the market; for up to that point they were perhaps strong enough to be independent, becoming a yeuk (and so assimilating themselves to an older pattern) in response to the needs of the new situation. (I may add that the Man of Tai Hang, the Liu of Sheung Shui, and the Tang of Lung Yeuk Tau were three particularly prominent clans in the area, and that their interrelations probably fluctuated as their respective fortunes waxed and waned. When the Man and their allies ruined the old market a Liu of Sheung Shui wrote a poem congratulating the Man leader; the poet was clearly pleased to see Tang 'arrogance' humbled). The villages in the Luk Yeuk of Sai Kung were subject to Tang landlords or taxlords (which they were it would not be possible to decide without a long debate on the relation between rent and the taxes exacted, officially or otherwise, by strong clans), and they may have used their contacts with the Kowloon organisation to protect themselves. In a part of the Empire where the state could certainly not be relied upon to redress wrongs and protect property and lives, the weaker communities were forced to seek among themselves (and sometimes, as the case of the Ts'at Yeuk illustrates, with the aid of a stronger one) protection against oppression by local powers. In many parts of what were to become the New Territories the Tang were regarded as being unduly dominant, their riches, scholarship, and connexions with officialdom being the bases of their strength; and smaller communities banded together against them. But on their home ground in the Yuen Long area Tang dominance was so complete that yeuk could not emerge. That, at least, is one possible conclusion. 27. It is time now to examine the word yeuk more closely. It can be taken to mean a pact or agreement, and several of my informants interpreted yeuk and yeuk-complexes as contracts or joint enterprises freely entered into. (It is like a business partnership, one man told me, in which people take shares). But in fact it is possible to argue that what we have been examining at the end of the Ch'ing dynasty may not have been some spontaneous and popular form of grouping so much as a development of an official and imposed system of control. Yeuk is an abbreviation of heung yeuk (‘hsiang-yüeh'), a term with a long history in Chinese local government and administration. It appears first in the Northern Sung period when (late eleventh century) a Confucian scholar set out a scheme for a kind of village self-government in which country people were to ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963 207 promote among themselves morality, education, social solidarity, and mutual aid. The plan seems to have enjoyed some vogue in the Ming dynasty, but the early Ch'ing rulers took over the term to give it a new meaning: 'hsiang-yüeh' became a public lecture system by means of which the masses were to be indoctrinated with the political ethics of Confucianism. Yet by the nineteenth century 'hsiang-yüeh' had once again undergone a transformation, a lecture system developing into a framework of state control to the point where 'hsiang-yüeh' was sometimes taken to be synonymous with 'pao-chia' and 'li-chia', the state organisations for security and taxation. On the other hand, a contrary process of evolution was also at work moving ‘hsiang-yüeh' back towards the kind of self-government which had been originally conceived under its name. It is on record that in places in Kwangtung the heads of 'hsiang-yüeh' assumed roles of local leadership in such a way as to take command of local affairs. In addition, 'hsiang-yüeh' were used as a setting for organising ‘regiment and drill corps' ('t'uan-lien') for local defence, and it is an interesting speculation that just as the 'ke yüeh hsiang-yung', the village braves of the several yeuk, rallied to the defence of Canton against the British in 1842, so we might find on closer inspection that some of the armed resistance to the first British in the New Territories was bound up with the Ts'at Yeuk and other yeuk-complexes. (There are of course many sources, both Western and Chinese, for the history of 'hsiang-yüeh'. The best and most convenient is Hsiao Kung-chuan, Rural China, Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century, Seattle, 1960, pp. 184, 205). 28. My tentative view of the matter is that, while early Ch'ing policy may have popularised the term heung yeuk in the course of spreading the public lecture system, at the time we are concerned with, at least in our part of Kwangtung, yeuk were looked upon by the people who engaged in them as instruments of local control independent of state supervision. They might be used for treating with the state, as seems to have been the case especially with the three yeuk-complexes oriented to Kowloon City, and might have allied themselves with officialdom in the face of banditry or attack by outsiders, but they were far removed from being mere instruments of state control. Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, whose home was in an area of Kwangtung which may be regarded as being in many ways comparable to San On, laid stress on the heung yeuk as a basis for a high degree of local independence and self-government in his ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 208 MAURICE FREEDMAN own region. (See his History of Chinese Civilisation, in Chinese, Taiwan Chinese Book Company, 1956, pp. 57-60. Hsiao, op. cit., pp. 345ff., translates a large part of this section of Liang's book but fails to indicate that Liang makes modern rural independence rest historically on heung yeuk). 29. Early British reports on the New Territories speak not only of yeuk but also of tung, ‘cave', a term which in some contexts may be translated as a valley. When the social history of the New Territories comes to be written the significance of the groupings going under the names of heung, yeuk, and tung will need to be carefully gone into. (See Hayes, op. cit., pp. 9-12, 14, 25 for statements based on Lockhart's material. I am myself sceptical about some of Lockhart's data on local organisation and local tribunals, but I have not yet marshalled enough historical material to be able to enter into a debate on these topics). For the moment, confining ourselves to the data, such as they are, on yeuk, let us consider the kinds of leadership which were implied in the old system of inter-village relationship. Rich and powerful clans, of which the Tang were a supreme example, were—the paradox is superficial—so tightly connected with officialdom that they could act independently of it and use their power to dominate their neighbours. (In one account I received of the founding of the Tai Po new market the ability of the Man to establish a rival to the Tang market was attributed to the 'pull' they were able to exercise, through a high Man official, at Canton. There was a limit to the influence which any one clan or clan grouping could exert on the state, for officialdom played off one local power centre against another). But dominance could be expressed in some contexts as leadership, for up to a point weaker communities were content to be guided and instructed by stronger, making use of their favours vis-à-vis officialdom, looking to them for protection against other strong communities, and submitting their disputes to them for mediation. (The Man of Tai Hang got themselves into this position of leadership; they had something to offer to the other six yeuk). Past a certain point, however, dominance became oppression, and then the weaker communities might band themselves together. The leaders of such unions (except when, as in the case of the Ts'at Yeuk, a relatively powerful clan took a hand) were not gentlemen but country people (farmers and small business men) whose claims to prominence rested on their economic substance and ability as organisers and spokesmen. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n TWO ESSAYS ON THE CH'ING ECONOMY OF HSIN-AN 77 administration" was first implemented in the Sheung Yu Tung (**). The Land Court recognized the status of fourteen tax-lords, and granted them a total of 252.33 acres of unclaimed crown land. The taxlords, however, were in no hurry to select the land, and it was only after considerable prodding (over a period of several months) that they made their choices. The problems which arose over the plots selected were to plague district officers for years. Information regarding potentially profitable land was secured from bribed government clerks, with the result that speculation on railway land became rampant. Another problem arose when taxlords staked claims to "fung shui" groves and proceeded to extort and blackmail neighboring villages by threatening to chop down the trees for firewood. As a result, taxlord schedules for the tung were not completed till August, 1909; references to taxlord claims crop up in CSO reports well into the 1920's.20 By the time the Land Court got around to hearing the Un Long claims, little sympathy existed in the colonial service for the compensation plan. It is not surprising, then, that the Tang claims were dismissed as invalid, a decision which elders in the neighborhood still relate to the fact that the Tangs led the resistance. Official records regarding this decision have apparently been lost;29 thus, our only data on the nature of taxlordism refer to Sheung Yu Tung.* The most complete account of the taxlord settlement is provided in CSO6269 of 1909. Of the fourteen taxlords compensated throughout the tung, nine are dealt with in this file, which was compiled over the period 1904-1910. The table below summarizes these nine settlements. Table II: Taxlord Settlements, Sheung Yu Tung Taxlord Amount granted Located in: Tang Yung Peng 45.0 acres Fan Ling Liu Yin Yu 13.0 acres Man Lai Ngam Man Fung Chi 9.5 acres Tang Yui Shan 16.0 acres Pang Shin Han 65.0 acres Fan Ling, Hau Yeuk Fan Ling 9.0 acres 60.0 acres Ho Sheung, Lam Tsun Luk Yeuk 11.0 acres Hau Chak Wing Hang Chung Hin 4.8 acres Man Cham Tsum *The claims by Tangs over Tsing Yi Island were originally labelled. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 182 NOTES AND QUERIES TANG Fu-hip must have lived to a venerable old age because during his lifetime he established a famous school not far from present-day Kam Tin and had close contacts with the officials and gentry of his day. After the death of TANG Fu-hip, the Sung dynasty was much in decline. Plagued by official corruption from within, the dynasty was also hard-pressed by the Mongols without. When the pressure became too great, the emperors would buy temporary relief by giving up more territory to the enemy. In one of the customary evacuations before the advancing Mongols, 160 persons of the royal court, mostly women and children, were either drowned or scattered with fate unknown. TANG Yuen-leung (††), the great-grandson of TANG Fu-hip, was garrison commander of the northern Kiangsi town of Kim Chau (M). The situation was very tense: the imperial army fell back constantly and refugees were streaming south. He did his utmost to alleviate the suffering of the refugees and spared no efforts to repatriate those who wanted to go back to their homes in the north. In one of the flood tides of refugees, he came across a teenage girl on whom he took pity. He adopted her, and the girl did much to hide her true identity. Afterward, he retired from the army and returned to his native Kam Tin, bringing the refugee girl with him. Only at that time was he told the refugee girl was one of the princesses of the royal family of Sung. He married her to his son TANG Wai-kap (x). By this marriage, four sons were born, whose descendants founded most of the Tang clan's branch settlements in Ha Tsuen, Yuen Long, Tai Po Tau, and Lung Yeuk Tau, all in the N.T. When TANG Wai-kap died, he was buried on a small knoll just to the left of the present Au Tau crossroads leading from Yuen Long to Fanling. The site of the grave is named Wu Lei Kuo Shui (£), “the fox is swimming the river”, because there is indeed a small creek in front of the knoll to the present day. The princess was not buried in the same grave as her husband. She was buried in a grave on Lion's Hill near Shek Tseng (G&#) in Tung Kwun County (✯) to the north of Hong Kong. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n NOTES AND QUERIES 209 20. b. Structure B. An organic/alliance model which stresses relationships of an egalitarian, contractual nature. Power is not usurped, but "won" through cooperation/conflict of equals. This structure, represented prior to 1898 by the Tung (董) system [especially the Tai Ping Kuk (太平局) of Sham Chun] has become the dominant polar type of the modern New Territories (examples: The Yuen Long Hop Yick Co. and The Tai Po Yeuk alliances, which dominate local markets to the exclusion of the Tangs; these alliances only become possible with the cooperation of Hakka and Punti, great clan and small clan alike.). 20. c. Both these structures (ideal types) existed as systems of unofficial control in Southern San On prior to British occupation. 21. The period dating from the beginning of Suen Tak (宣德) to the end of Sing Fa (成化) reigns of the Ming Dynasty, roughly from 1426-1487 A.D., was a period of great prosperity and expansion for the Kam Tin Tangs. 21. a. During this period, the Tangs moved out of their "neighborhood" of Sham Tin and took over complete dominance of the settlement. We can think of the settlement at this time as being a multi-lineage settlement, with at least three surnames present, Tangs, Lais (黎) and Shams (沈). The Tangs apparently drove out the Lais (turning them into "sai chuk") and enslaved the Shams (as "sai-man"). How they accomplished this is related in the Lai vs. Tang tale transcribed and appended below.* 21. b. The members of the 2nd fong (descendants of Hung-yi's 2nd son) constructed Ying Lung Wai (應龍圍), and from this wai they controlled the access to the Pat Heung (八鄉) valley and eventually established Yuen Long Old Market. 21. c. The building of Ling Wan Tsz (靈雲寺) at the head of Pat Heung valley can be viewed as part of the general process of expansion by which the Tangs gained control of the entire valley [that area now included in Demarcation Districts nos. 103, 106, 107, 109, 113]. A Tong (堂) was established to finance the upkeep of the temple, to which the Kam Tin Tangs contributed up to the early years of the Republic. The nuns continue to perform important * Not available. † Demarcation Districts are survey districts, the sheets and registers pertaining thereto being kept in the District Land Offices of the New Territories Administration. Page 225 Page 226 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p BOOK REVIEWS 329 Augustus K. K. Siu and Anthony K. K. Siu, Studies on Chinese Genealogies and the History of the Hong Kong Region, Fung Chin Institute, Hong Kong, 1982. This book consists of eleven essays on the Hong Kong region (Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, the New Territories, and neighbouring areas). Four of them deal with genealogies, six principally with the history of the New Territories, and the last with boat people's songs. The central theme is that genealogies are valuable source materials for writing the history of this area, and this theme is illustrated with numerous examples. There should be no dispute on the central theme: the question is how to put it into practice. The essay on migration into the Hong Kong region (chapter 5), despite the misleading reference in the title to all immigrant lineages as "guest lineages", is a useful example. In this essay, the authors list the time periods during which fifty-three surname groups first settled here from evidence recorded in their genealogies. The Tangs of Kam Tin, Lung Yeuk Tau, etc., and the P'aangs of Fan Ling came at the end of the Sung dynasty, the Lams of Shek Po Tsuen, and the Lius of Wu Kai Sha came in the Ming, and so on. The list is a useful first approximation, but obviously much more needs to be done. Another interesting essay (chapter 4) describes ten historical “events” recorded in the genealogies. They include the marriage of the Sung princess to the ancestor of the Tangs, several famines and piratical attacks, the coastal evacuation from 1662 to 1668, the establishment of Tai Po New Market, the burial of a Chinese Christian at a Protestant cemetery on Hong Kong Island in 1854, the establishment of charity schools by philanthropist Fung Ping Shan, and flooding in Tsuen Wan in 1954. Similar "events" are discussed in greater detail in four other chapters (6, 8, 9 and 10), i.e., the establishment of the "five great clans" of the New Territories, the legend often referred to as "letting go of the wooden goose", the experience of the Southern Sung court in Kowloon, and the Tsuen Wan village feud of 1862 to 1864. Quite a few of these events have been discussed by other authors, notably Lo Hsiang-lin and James Hayes. These later chapters make use of stone tablets and oral ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 330 BOOK REVIEWS interviews as well as genealogies, and show how these different sources are complementary. The last essay in the book (chapter 11) includes a number of boat people's songs and shows how much can be learnt from them. Discussion of historical "events" from evidence contained in genealogies in this way is useful, and, indeed more such discussion, of more "events" is needed. Nonetheless, something is missing from these essays, such as a discussion of the genealogies as family, rather than historical records, of the limitations of oral accounts as accurate reconstructions, of the particular problems posed by tablets as being records designed to be publicly known and so forth. Missing also is a reconstruction of the purposes for which the genealogies were drawn up in the first place and the politics of lineage and inter-lineage groups that played such an important part in their construction and transmission. The study of genealogies is indeed an important element in the study of lineage history and organization, but it is much more useful if an anthropological perspective can be incorporated. The historian does, of course, have an important part to play in studying genealogies. As well as discussing the historical implications of material included in the genealogies, he can study them textually, compare them and sort out their inter-relations. The authors of this book have not yet done enough of this sort of work. The Lung Yeuk Tau Wan genealogy, for instance, that provides some of the most important passages quoted in this book, is not, as is suggested in the book, a genealogy of any Wan lineage, but is an early version of the Lung Yeuk Tau Tang genealogies. It is, in fact, one of the earliest genealogies relating to this area extant, and as such is very important for the study of the early Ch'ing and even the late Ming in the New Territories. The historian can also supplement the genealogies through interviews, but it is important to note the sources of these accounts. The reference to a Kaak Chun market on page 45, alleged to have been set up by the Haus of Ho Sheung Heung and Yin Kong, for instance, would be more valuable if the source of the information i.e. from which lineage and which village - had been given. The four chapters (1, 2, 3, and 7) on genealogies include a record of Hong Kong University's efforts in collecting these ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 204 九龍文獻: 第一册 PETER YEUNG 吳氏家乘 民國廿六年丁丑裔孫煥琪子美畧述 英琪子齡重修 (衙前圍村吳揚森先生藏) 吳氏族譜 翟家族部庚午年立 第二册 關於九龍城衙前圍立村之事跡 (衙前圍村李富村長藏) 論延陵堂來歷詩一首 (沙莆村的吳世明先生傳 現住鳳凰新村) [吳氏族譜] 吳氏重修族譜 民國七年戊午歲孟秋月吉日 廣東第五軍副司令裔孫鏡如敬送 新界文獻補編: [厦村鄧氏族譜] (Genealogy of the Tang lineage at Ha Tsuen) [歌書,廖潤琛藏] (Song book, held by Mr. Liu Yun Sam, J.P., Sheung Shui, collected by Chan Wing Hoi) 幼學信札 廖康雞 (Letter formats, held by Mr. Liu Yun Sam, J.P., Sheung Shui) [對聯集錄] (Village handbook, held by Mr. Liu Yun Sam, J.P., Sheung Shui) [西貢地契,許舒收集] (Land documents collected by James Hayes from Sai Kung) 廿元月會會友芳名 孔聖誕派肉部 辛巳(一九四一年)八月初八立 (元朗新墟合益公司辦事處藏) 厦村鄉十年例醮功德部 民國六十三年歲次甲寅二月吉立 廈村鄉鄧鈞澤先生借出 (Handbook used in the Ha Tsuen ta-tsiu, copied by Segawa from manuscript, winter 1984 [Masahisa Segawa, 瀨川昌久]) [丙崗侯氏族譜] (Genealogy of the Hau lineage at Ping Kong; copied by Lee Lai Mui from manuscript held by a member of the village) (Deeds of Mr. 新界白沙澳海下村翁朝先生地契與地契目錄 Yung Sz-chiu of Pak Sha O Ha Yeung Village New Territories with index) 迎聖科禁垴科 (Two religious texts used in the Lung Yeuk Tau ta-tsiu in winter 1983, copied by David Faure) 魷魚灣村地契 (Land deeds from Yau Yu Wan given to James Hayes) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 鍾氏系譜(萬屋邊村鍾國材先生藏) [帖式](元朗南邊圍陳濤先生藏) 205 呈報田地口峈總册 侯紹箕堂名字列 大英---千九百年正月日立 (Account book from the Hau lineage at Ping Kong copied by Lee Lai Mui from manuscript held by a member of the village) 錦田鄧氏族譜(錦田泰康圍鄧滿堂先生) 容川祖進支數部 大振家聲 光緒三十三年正月吉日 (錦田泰康圍鄧滿堂先生贈) 帖式(錦田泰康圍鄧滿堂先生贈) [帖式] (Village handbook, Lung Yeuk Tau) Guide to microfilm locations: Rolls 1 to 3 Historical Literature of Sha Tin, vols. 1 to 9, 11 Rolls 4 to 6 Roll 7 Roll 8 and 12 沙田文獻第一至九、十一至十二册 Historical Literature of Fan Ling, vols. 1 to 13 粉嶺文獻第一至十三册 Historical Literature of Tsuen Wan, vols. 1 to 3, 荃灣文獻第一至三册 and Walter Schofield's Collection of Cantonese Songs Historical Literature of Sai Kung HAXH, and Historical Literature of Sheung Shui, vol. 1 上水文獻第一册, Historical Literature of Kam Tin, vol. 1 錦田文獻第一册,and Oral History Records of Kam Tin 錦田區口述歷史資料. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 NOTES AND QUERIES THE PO TAK TEMPLE IN SHEUNG SHUI MARKET The Po Tak Temple (Temple to repay a virtuous deed), also known as the Ts'un Foo Temple (The Governor's temple), in Sheung Shui Market now occupies only a small flat in a multi-storeyed building on Tsun Fu Street, but it was a sizable building until it was burnt down in the fire in 1955. For a long time, it was also the political focus of the Punti villages in the northern and eastern New Territories. The temple was built to commemorate Chau Yau-tak (H), Governor-General of Kwangtung and Kwangsi from 1670 to 1673, and Wong Loi-yam (E), Governor of Kwangtung in 1669, the two officials who were instrumental in petitioning the Emperor to end the coastal evacuation from 1662 to 1669. No-one remembers when it was built. According to the 1819 edition of the San On Gazetteer, it was one of three temples devoted to these two officials in the county, the other two being located north of Sham Chun Market. This record must not be taken to be exhaustive: there was at least one more devoted to these two officials in Kam Tin (the Chau Wong I Kung Shue Uen). Village elders remember that before the Second World War and in the 1950s sacrifice was offered annually at the Po Tak Temple to the two officials by two separate but overlapping groups referred to as the Old Alliance (Kau Yeuk) and the New Alliance (San Yeuk). The Old Alliance sacrificed on the nineteenth of the Fifth Month and the New Alliance on the first of the Sixth Month. The account books of both groups are fortunately extant, and they provide valuable documentation on these two important inter-village organizations. Two copies of the Old Alliance account book are available. Both have written on the front covers: Po Tak Temple temple celebration volume, 12th year of the Republic, Lung Shaan copy (報徳祠神誕冊,民國十二年立,龍山冊). We have compared the introductory texts, and they are identical. It seems ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 272 NOTES AND QUERIES that one of these is an earlier version, including the annual accounts for only 1911 to 1913. A photocopy of this one was given to James Hayes by the Chairman of the Sheung Shui Rural Committee in 1972, and Dr. Hayes kindly made it available to the Oral History Project at the Chinese University. It is now incorporated into the volumes on Sheung Shui in the Project's Historical Literature of the New Territories. The other copy is held by the British Library, and includes the annual accounts from 1923 to 1960. The British Library also holds the only copy of the accounts of the New Alliance, on the cover of which is written: Temple celebration of the New Alliance, opened on the 1st of the Sixth Month in the 1st year of Hsüan-t'ung, Lung Yeuk Tau copy (新約會神誕,宣統元年歲次己酉六月初一日✰✰✰). It includes the annual accounts from 1906. Both copies held by the British Library are originals, not photocopies. According to these account books, member villages held shares in these alliances, managed the communal property by annual rotation among the shares, and participated in the annual sacrifices that were paid for from income derived from the communal property. The Old Alliance was made up of four shares and the New Alliance of six. The four villages of the Hau (侯) lineage (Kam Tsin, Ping Kong, Ho Sheung Heung, Yin Kong) together held one share in the Old Alliance, and so did the Liu (廖) lineage of Sheung Shui, the Wan Shing T'ong (雲升堂) of Sheung Shui (a sub-lineage trust of the Liu lineage), and the Tang (鄧) lineage of Lung Shaan, i.e. Lung Yeuk Tau. According to oral tradition in Sheung Shui, the Wan Shing T'ong bought its share from the Man (文) lineage. This is corroborated by an undated document entitled, "Eulogy of the four surnames of Hau, Liu, Tang and Man on the foundation of the Po Tak Temple”(侯、廖、鄧、文四姓立報德祠頌詞) published in a recent commemorative volume (Liu Yun-sham, Commemorative Volume on the History of the Venerable Chau and Wong 廖潤深,周王二公史蹟紀念專輯 Hong Kong, 1982, p. 13). We have not seen the original of this document, but its title suggests that it was written for the Old Alliance at a time before the Man lineage sold its share to the Wan Shing T'ong. In the New Alliance, the four Hau villages, Sheung Shui, Lung ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 NOTES AND QUERIES 273 Yeuk Tau, Fan Ling (surname P'ang), and San Tin (surname Man) each held a share, and Tai Hang (Man) and Tai Po Tau (Tang) together held another share. Thus, in the New Alliance, but not in the Old, all the five major punti lineages of the northern and eastern New Territories were represented. Included in the account books of the Old Alliance is a set of regulations, a translation with brief annotation of which we give below: 1. Management is to be rotated annually in the following order: first, Kam Tsin heung, Ping Kong heung, Ho Sheung heung, Yin Kong heung; second, the Liu surname of Sheung Shui; third, the Wan Shing T'ong of Sheung Shui; fourth, the Tang surname of Lung Shaan. 2. Each heung is to keep an account book. When it is its turn to take care of the affairs of the year, ten days before [the annual sacrifice] it should send invitations to the shan-sz of each and every heung, and there must be no delay. [The word heung is clearly not used consistently. In regulation 1, it is used in the sense of a single village. In this regulation, it is used for the groups of villages that together held a single share. We have also not used any English equivalent for the term shan-sz because of the controversy over the term. In an area with a strong tradition of scholarship such as Sheung Shui, a shan-sz before the abolition of the official examinations in 1905 would probably have been a man who possessed an official degree, won in the examination or purchased. It is conceivable, though, that the term was used less rigidly in villages that did not produce a degree-holder.] 3. Each heung must have contributed [a sum to be used as] capital, that is, ten dollars from each surname. [The text specifies that the money must have been contributed on a "previous day". This is probably a clumsy way of stating that only a contribution at the time of the foundation of the alliance constituted a share.] 4. To facilitate checking, the field names, rents, and mortgage prices of all plots of land mortgaged or purchased from the different surnames are to be recorded. The right for rent ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 278 NOTES AND QUERIES joined and added one share, making the total six shares as they are now. For each share 25 silver dollars were paid to establish the Sheung Ue tung ferry for the convenience of passengers. [The operation of] the ferry has been given to the highest bidder by auction each year. [Money received] is kept for interest so that sacrifices may be paid for. Sacrifices should be paid for in accordance with former regulations. [Sheung Ue tung was another name for the Sheung Shui area, and the ferry in question took villagers across the river to Sham Chun Market as we found out in interviews in Fan Ling and Lung Yeuk Tau. The passage is, of course, not as clear as it could be. It would seem that except for the half share held by Loi Tung, other shares held before 1908 counted for something in the reconstitution of the yeuk in that year. This something was not necessarily much more than a right to re-join, and Loi Tung was thus effectively barred from re-joining.] 3. Management for the year should be rotated in the following order First, the Hau surname, Ping Kong, Ho Sheung Heung, Kam Tsin, Yin Kong; Second, Lung Shaan heung; Third, Tai Hang, Tai Po Tau; Fourth, Fan Ling heung; Fifth, San Tin heung; Sixth, Sheung Shui heung. 4. Each share [in the alliance] is to keep a book, and in the year it is in charge, ten days before [the sacrifice], it should send invitations to the shan-sz in the villages. There must be no delay. 5. On the occasion of the celebration on the 1st of the Sixth Month, each share is to send four shan-sz to worship the gods. There should also be sufficient masters-of-ceremony and managers. [We know for a fact that some of the member villages of the New Alliance did not have degree-holders: the term shan-sz in this clause, must therefore include people without a degree.] ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 72 40 Hong Kong Government Gazette, 6th May, 1899, p. 701. Mok Man Cheung's book, retailing at $8, was unusually expensive. There clearly was a market for books attempting to bridge the social and linguistic gap between the Chinese and British communities. Also in 1899, for instance, a Lo Sing-lau published his English Self Taught for Chinese at $1 per copy and this went into a second edition in 1904 and a third in 1905, 1904, the year in which Mok Man Cheung produced his English Made Easy, also witnessed the publication of Tang Chi Kun's A Step in English Tongue ($0.80), 41 Letter to the Editor, signed by "X", Hong Kong Daily Press, Thursday, 17th January, 1901, p. 2. 42 This assumption is further strengthened by the fact that he made out his will on 28th December, 1917, and that its Probate Number is No. 68 of 1918. I owe this information to Professor Dafydd Evans who also points out the relatively high proportion of "death bed” wills among the Chinese in Hong Kong at this time. The will itself is serial no. 3135, deposit no. 4, in series 144. It confirms that one of Mok Man Cheung's aliases was Mok Cheuk Lim. An examination of the actual will shows that it was, indeed, a deathbed will and that Mok Man Cheung actually died on 30th December, 1917. The Declaration by Executor before Probate, dated 13th March, 1918, indicates that "the whole of the personal estate of the said testator amounts in value to the sum of $21,075.53”, certainly no mean sum at the time. 43 There appear to be no locally-published Chinese language newspapers extant for this period of time. Although the Wah Tsz Yat Po was certainly in operation, unfortunately there is a break in the surviving copies from 18th January, 1917 to 16th February, 1918. 44 The acronym for Queen's College, which was (and is) the current name for the school Mok Man Cheung had attended as "the Central School". 45 These are very clear and characteristic indications of his prominence in Hong Kong Chinese society. See, for example, H.J. Lethbridge, Hong Kong: Stability and Change, (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1978), especially pp. 52-102, and Carl T. Smith (1985), especially pp. 139-171. Confirmatory evidence that he was a member of the Committee of the Po Leung Kuk, elected on 20th March, 1909, using his alias, Mok Yeuk Lim, is found in the Hong Kong Government's Administrative Reports for that year, p. C39. If one can assume that another of his aliases was Mok Yuk-chi, confirmatory evidence about his membership of the Committee of the Tung Wah Hospitals can be found in the Administrative Reports for 1913. 46 Even though Mok Man Cheung was certainly successful in a material sense, his name appears neither in Arnold Wright's Twentieth Century Impressions nor in S.L. Woo, The Prominent Chinese in Hong Kong, (Hong Kong, The Five Continents Book Company, 1937) which, though written long after Mok Man Cheung's death, contained reference to several deceased merchants who had been born before 1865. Moreover, he does not appear to have been a member of the District Watch Committee, posited by Lethbridge as the Chinese Executive Council of Hong Kong (Lethbridge 1978, pp. 104-129). On the other hand, Carl Smith's justly-famed index cards reveal that he was involved in many property deals and was, for example, co-proprietor, with Tang Lap Ting and Mok Kun Hiu, of the Wanchai Godown. 47 In London, a Colonial Office minute in 1907, for example, declared that “I don't think that the fact that Mr. Hee has found an Englishwoman foolish enough to marry a Chinaman is an argument for increasing his salary [as Headmaster of Wanchai District School] (CO129/341, p. 342). In Hong Kong, the official defini- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 288 always been so. [For the method of selecting managers at this shrine, see the account given in the article cited above]. I asked about the drums used by the teams. It seems that horse hide is used for drums used for watch and ward, and for military use; but that cow hide is more usual for lion and other dance troupes, on account of its higher and sharper pitch. Peel Street This shrine, unlike the one at Sheung Fung Lane which dates back to the nineteenth century, is of post-war origin. It comprises an altar under a canopy on one side of the steps which form this part of Peel Street, with a small management office in a temporary structure opposite. The shrine has only been at this location since the mid-1960s. It was first kept inside and then at the doorway of a house at 31 Elgin Street, before being put in the street outside that address in a small temple-like structure. It was moved here upon the demolition of the old house in Elgin Street. The shrine serves a group of Hoklo persons originating from the Hoi Fung (海豐) area of north-east Kwangtung. Of the ten interested parties with whom I spoke in 1974, two came to Hong Kong in 1934, five arrived here in 1945-46, two in the 1950s and the last in 1962. The oldest was 65, and the youngest 37. The altar is in the form of a black granite tablet inscribed with the characters #2£âZī. It is said to be old: the estimates ranged from "several generations" to "100 years" to "200 years". All agreed that it had been brought from a large temple known as the Pak Kung Miu (北帝廟) located in the small market town of To Tong Hui (陶塘墟) in Hoi Fung, just after the War. The town served as the market for between 30 to 40 surrounding villages, and in Ch'ing times the area was known as To Tong Yuek (陶塘約). The shrine was established without authority, like many of its kind in the post-war period. The managers had to be persistent, and brave the disapproval of the Squatter Control Division of the Resettlement Department, whose duty it was to control the spread ================================================================================ 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 DAVID FAURE'S REJOINDER: There is much in this review that I dislike how can Chun take me to task, on the one hand, for dabbling in Anthropology, and on the other hand, conclude that I think “local history can be understood simply by looking at events and personages as they take place on the ground”? However, let me answer the several criticisms that I think touch on some of the major issues. First, Chun thinks I do not have a salient criticism of Freedman's thesis. Let me reiterate that much as we have learnt from Freedman, I found him wanting for not being able to incorporate village religion into his lineage framework, and for being sloppy in his use of terms such as "local lineage", "higher-level lineage" and "clan". I think my argument for the importance of "settlement rights" salvages his concept of the "local lineage". Second, Chun does not present here accurately my argument concerning the grandiose freestanding ancestral halls built in the official style. I do not argue that there was a "period" of the "Five Great Clans” not even in the eastern portion of the New Territories. I think the linkage of lineage groups across settlement, and the adoption of a code of conduct that included the compilation of written genealogies and that was consistent with officially prescribed standards, took root as a change in style that began in the sixteenth century and gradually worked its way from the richer and more powerful lineages to the poorer ones. This process took fully three centuries, and during this period different territorial groups dominated different parts of the eastern New Territories. In a nutshell, Lung Yeuk Tau (Tang surname) was overlord of all this area, with minor concessions to the Haus of Hung Leng and Ho Sheung Heung, up to the end of the Ming dynasty, The Lius of Sheung Shui sprang into prominence in the early Qing, nibbling into former Tang terrain, while possibly some time in the eighteenth century, the Hung Leng Haus lost their holdings. Of the other two surnames in the “Five”, the Fan Ling P'aangs did not achieve prominence until the nineteenth century, and while the Tai Hang Mans were taken into account by Lung Yeuk Tau, Sheung Shui and Ho Sheung Heung when the Po Tak Tz Old Alliance was formed in the early Qing (possibly eighteenth century), its influence declined subsequently until it became a party of the Kau Yeuk, along with the P'aangs, that founded Tai Po new market in the late nineteenth century. This history notwithstanding, my argument is quite simply that the ancestral worship one sees the villagers practise ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h CONTENTS PRESIDENT'S REPORT HON. TREASURER'S REPORT HON. LIBRARIAN'S REPORT ARTICLES: Dan Waters LIBRARIES 138 1937. vii AR In the Steps of Lu Pan: Reminiscences of Building in Hong Kong K.J.P. Lowe Hong Kong, 26 January 1841: Hoisting the Flag Revisited Keith Stevens The Jade Emperor and his Family, Yu Huang Ta Ti Keith Stevens - Fukienese Wang Yeh (Ong Ya [Hokkien]) P.H. Munro-Faure The Kiukiang Incident of 1927 A.D. Blackburn Hong Kong, December 1941 July 1942 Chan Ka-yan Joss Stick Manufacturing: A Study of a Traditional Industry in Hong Kong P.H. Hase Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz, An Old Buddhist Nunnery in the New Territories and its Place in Local Society J.H. Haan Thalia and Terpsichore on The Yangtze, Survey of Foreign Theatre and Music in Shanghai 1850-1865 Fred Dagenais John Fryer's Early Years in China: I. Diary of His Voyage to Hong Kong Chan Wing-hoi The Dangs of Kam Tin and Their Jiu Festival xxi xxiii 8 18 34 61 77 94 121 158 252 302 NOTES AND QUERIES: E. Sinn Notes on the Robert Hart Papers at the University of Hong Kong Library 376 P.H. Hase A Song from Sha Tau Kok on the 1911 Revolution 382 P.H. Hase The Mutual Defence Alliance (Yeuk) of the New Territories 384 P.H. Hase - More on The Man the Emperor Decapitated 388 Issei Tanaka The White Tiger 389 Keith Stevens - British Chinese Labour Corps Labourers Buried in England 390 Anthony Siu Kwok-kin The History of Hong Kong: From A Village to A City 391 Anthony Siu Kwok-kin Historical Records Anthony Siu Kwok-kin BOOK REVIEWS Tai Yu Shan from Chinese 394 A Tung Lo Wan 399 400 V ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 122 usually considered private in character, and hence the entrances are such that the general public can be excluded as desired.2 In smaller institutions, the buildings tend to form only a single range, and the Buddha Hall is built in the middle of it. Even here, however, the range of buildings will usually front an enclosed courtyard-garden, and the Hall will be raised up a few steps higher than the other buildings. 1 Although the great majority of Buddhist monasteries and nunneries in Hong Kong were founded in the last 80 years, a few are older, founded by indigenous groups before the coming of the British. Five are known to me in the mainland New Territories3 — the Ching Shan, or Pooi To (#4 · *) monastery at Tuen Mun, (certainly in existence in the fifth century*), the Ling To () monastery at Ha Tsuen (probably founded or refounded in the Ming Dynasty), the Ling Wan () nunnery at Shek Kong (an early Ming foundation4), the Lung Kai () nunnery near Lung Yeuk Tau (probably an early Ch'ing foundation5), and the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz (££‡), near Man Uk Pin on the old road from Sha Tau Kok to Sham Tsun (Shen Zhen). The subject of this article. Of these ancient foundations, the Ching Shan monastery was rebuilt in 1918 and several times since, and the Ling Wan nunnery was rebuilt between 1919 and 1927. These now show the standard Buddhist plan mentioned above. The Lung Kai nunnery is a total ruin, following abandonment and the stripping of the roof during the last War. The Ling To monastery was rebuilt in 1928, and again (from the foundations up) in 1970. It is believed that both rebuildings used the foundations from the 1861 rebuilding, but the interior layout of the present structure is only a shadow of the original. Only the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz survives unreconstructured and undamaged as an example of a Buddhist institution in the area from before the twentieth century influx of immigrant monks and nuns. Because of this it seemed worth studying the monastery in some detail. The old road from Sha Tau Kok to Sham Tsun ran more or less along the line of the present Sha Tau Kok road from Sha Tau Kok to the Wo Hang Au above Sheung Wo Hang. It then cut to the north-west of the present road, passing Man Uk Pin village, and thence on through the mountains by a low pass called Miu Keng (M, "Temple Pass''), past Ping Yeung village, to cross the Sham Tsun river by the bridge ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 132 and then went through Tan Tsz Hang to join the Sha Tau Kok to Sham Tsun road just before the nunnery. The other went through Lung Yeuk Tau to Hung Leng, before turning north along a line close to that of the present-day Ta Kwu Ling road, to join the road from Sha Tau Kok at Kan Tau Wai. The section of road past the nunnery, therefore, was part of the most important east-west route in the county, and at the same time part of one of the most important north-south routes, as well as being of great local significance. Sha Tau Kok was, in effect, the port for Sham Tsun to the east. Most of the fish for Sham Tsun was landed at Sha Tau Kok and carried inland by coolies. The 19 acres of saltpans at Sha Tau Kok produced considerable quantities of salt, and most of it was, again, taken inland by coolies to Sham Tsun for sale in the town and from the town to the other markets further north. Excess rice, too, from the whole of the Mirs Bay area, was landed at Sha Tau Kok and sent to Sham Tsun, which was the centre of a rice shortage area. There was, therefore, in the early part of this century, a steady flow of people passing the nunnery, and eager to avail themselves of the rest and shelter it offered. This traffic must, presumably, have been less in the eighteenth century, when local populations were much lower, and the infrastructure not yet fully developed - the saltpans, for instance, were only established in the years after 1825 - but was probably significant from early on. It remained significant right until the Law Fong bridge was effectively closed in 1950, although coolie traffic had by then been declining steadily for some time in favour of rail traffic over the Lo Wu bridge and truck traffic over the Man Kam To bridge, particularly after the opening of the Sha Tau Kok road in 1928. But at all dates from the late eighteenth century to 1950 the nunnery's shelter was a significant local factor. The role of the nunnery as a place of shelter is stressed in the couplet placed at the main entrance to the monastery at its reconstruction in 1868. This reads: 長亭惜別古道膽歧雨笠麈襟人日日 山鳥鳴春寺公送曉煙鍾風我年年 * Or, 長亭惜别占道臨歧雨等應襟人日日。山島鳴春寺聲送嶢煙鋪風磬我年年, See A (Ming Pao) 10.10.1991. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 137 Cheung (張) lineage of Wong Pui Ling. The area, however, was fertile, rich, and, by the later eighteenth century, becoming relatively densely populated. Growth of stronger and less politically quiescent inter-village groupings could be expected, and the clearest evidence of this comes from the nunnery. The nunnery was founded by the villages of the Ping Yuen Hap Heung on the one hand, and Loi Tung and Man Uk Pin on the other. Loi Tung was a tight lineage alliance of three large villages of the Punti Tang clan (Loi Tung Lo Wai, San Wai, and Tai Tong Wu), and Man Uk Pin was a single, large Hakka village, predominantly of the Chung clan. The nunnery lay in six shares: Ping Che, Ping Yeung, Wo Keng Shan, Loi Tung, Tai Tong Wu, and Man Uk Pin. Of these, the Wo Keng Shan and Tai Tong Wu shares were probably there to reflect the greater size and strength of the Chan and Tang lineages within the grouping. In practice, however, the nunnery was controlled by the four clans of the Mans, Chans, Tangs, and Chungs, and normally probably had one Manager drawn from each lineage.” This group of eight villages, most of them large and wealthy, clearly represents a new generation of inter-village grouping in the Ta Kwu Ling area. The importance of the road through the Miu Keng pass has been discussed above. The position of the nunnery on the road was not only of value to travellers seeking shelter, it was also of major strategic and political significance. The road was the only passage through the hills, and could not be by-passed. Whoever controlled this pass controlled much of the Sha Tau Kok to Sham Tsun road. The foundation of the nunnery was the result of the grouping together of a few villages which were clearly seeking to capitalise on their strategic location, and thus to increase their local political leverage and district significance. The political significance of the foundation should not be downplayed. The religious impetus behind the foundation should not, of course, be ignored, but the strategic significance of the grouping is too strong to be overlooked. The nunnery-founding group of villages seems to be, in fact, an early example of a Yeuk (約) mutual defence and support inter-village alliance. The villages which had founded the nunnery seem to have worshipped there together at the Yu Lan Festival in the summer, when vegetarian food was served to the elders and faithful in front of the nunnery. It is likely that the Ping Yuen Hap Heung people used their alliance with the groups east of the pass to strengthen their position as against ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 138 the "major lineages". If, as seems likely, the foundation of the nunnery represented, at least in part, a political move to strengthen the villages near the pass against the "major lineages", then it was the first step in what was to become open inter-village warfare two or three generations later. The Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz and the Ta Kwu Ling Luk Yeuk In the nineteenth century, local politics in the New Territories area were marked by the struggle for local political dominance between the rich and ancient “major lineages", and the mutual defence inter-village alliances, or Yeuk, which set out to combat the "major alliances" by uniting the strength of villages too weak to oppose them on their own. The struggle for dominance was centred on control of the markets, and of the vital roads which linked them. 24 Within the eastern New Territories the villagers of the area around Sha Tau Kok formed a network of Yeuk alliances which was responsible for the foundation of the market at Sha Tau Kok about 1825, and which controlled all the roads in the area immediately around the market. The villagers formed ten inter-village Yeuk alliances, and this Yeuk network was called the Shap Yeuk (+*, "Alliance of Ten'') in consequence. The Shap Yeuk owned the market at Sha Tau Kok communally, and their interest in keeping open all the roads which served the market, but especially their vital road to Sham Tsun, is obvious. The Shap Yeuk was united enough, and strong enough, that it was able to ensure that the "major lineages” had no significant influence within the Sha Tau Kok area, but it was never strong enough to control the whole of the road to Sham Tsun. To the south, the area around the ancient market town of Tai Po had been dominated by the Tang lineage of Tai Po Tau since the Ming dynasty. The Tangs not only controlled the market, but also owned the extremely important ferry over the Kwun Yam river in the town, over which all traffic from Kowloon to the north had to pass. This control by a "major lineage” was very irksome to the other villages of the area, who had been trying to seize control of the area since early in the nineteenth century. The foundation of the New Market (Tai Wo Shi, ) at Tai Po, which was to have no Tang involvement, and the building of a new bridge ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 139 26 + to replace the Tang's ferry (1892-1896), by a new grouping of inter-village Yeuk mutual defence alliances, the Tsat Yeuk (±§, “Alliance of Seven''), must be seen in this context." After the foundation of the New Market at Tai Po, the influence of the "major lineages" in this area was sharply curtailed. Thus, of the major nodal points of the area, two, Sha Tau Kok and Tai Po, became politically dominated by alliances of minor lineages during the nineteenth century. The importance of the roads through Ta Kwu Ling has been discussed above, and the political significance of the inter-village grouping centred on the Miu Keng pass has been noted. The foundation of the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz represents a successful attempt to ensure that external “major lineages" could not control the road through the mountains. But, for the Ta Kwu Ling villagers, this route, while important, was not as vital as the crossing of the Sham Tsun river and the route to Sham Tsun, Sham Tsun was too big for any “major lineage” ever to dominate it entirely for long; it was usually an “open market” at least in practice. However, the roads to the town could be controlled. The two main routes through Ta Kwu Ling met at Kan Tau Wai. North-west of Kan Tau Wai is an area of marshland, criss-crossed with drainage channels. To the north of that runs the Law Fong river, which drains the entire Ta Kwu Ling area, and cuts through the mountains which ring the area by a gorge about half a mile north-west of Kan Tau Wai. The Law Fong river joins the other main branch of the Sham Tsun river immediately after passing through the gorge. The crossings of the river were by ferries owned by the Cheung clan of Wong Pui Ling. The ownership of the ferries allowed the Cheungs to control all the roads out of Sham Tsun to the east. It is probable that the market at Sham Tsun was founded quite late. The 1688 Hsin An County Gazetteer (Ch. 3) records a number of markets in the Sham Tsun basin, including Sham Tsun, although only Sham Tsun survived to be recorded in the 1822 Gazetteer. One of the markets which died was at Kim Ho (金河), between the two river crossings. This market must have been owned by the Cheungs. As the Cheung market declined, and the importance of Sham Tsun and its approach roads increased, so the value of the ferries to the Cheungs grew, Passage over the ferries cost one cash per person, plus one additional cash for any goods carried. It is unlikely that the clan earned ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 141 less than $400 a year clear from the ferry." The power of the Cheungs can be seen from the map. For several miles around their village, no other settlement was ever established. The whole area from the outskirts of Sham Tsun (the village of Heung Tung, ô, Xiangdong) to the Sham Tsun river, and back to the mountains, was Cheung territory. Outsiders entering this territory along the road were required to recognize this. This, however, the Ta Kwu Ling villagers refused to do. In the mid-nineteenth century, they initiated a programme to improve the road from Kan Tau Wai to Sham Tsun. Bridges were built across all the marshland ditches, and a causeway was provided across the marsh. They then proceeded to start bridging the main river, across the line of the Cheungs' ferry. This the Cheungs could not accept. They would not only stand to lose $400 a year clan income, but the successful building would demonstrate publicly that their control of their territory was not as absolute as they had always maintained. The result of the Ta Kwu Ling people's insistence on proceeding with the bridge was outright war between them and the Cheungs.28 The need to respond to very bitter fighting demanded a complete rearrangement of the local structure of inter-village alliances. Previously, as noted above, the strongest and best-organised area was the Ping Yuen Hap Heung, and its wider alliance centred on the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz. This area, however, was furthest away from the likely fighting area near the bridge, which was precisely the area where inter-village alliances had previously been weakest. The villages decided to establish a network of Yeuk, centred on Kan Tau Wai. Any invading force had to negotiate the bridge over the Law Fong river and the causeway over the marshes before it could arrive at the road intersection at Kan Tau Wai and the paths that ran from there along the higher ground to the other villages. Just north of Kan Tau Wai, a small hillock rises out of the marshes (just opposite the present Ta Kwu Ling Police Station). Here the villagers stationed a watch with an alarm drum to alert the area if the Cheungs attacked. This hill was called Ta Kwu Ling (‡T, “Drum Beat Hill”), and gave its name to the whole area. When the alarm was given, Kan Tau Wai had to send out runners along all the roads and paths out of the village to alert the other villages further away. The individual Yeuk were arranged as long, thin strips along each of these paths so that the villagers would respond, village by village, as the runner reached them, and thus their defenders reach the critical Kan Tau Wai area in ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 142 steady waves. This sensible and pragmatic defence plan lead to the villages near Kan Tau Wai being formed into five Yeuk, which radiate out from Kan Tau Wai like the spokes of a wheel. The villages to the north-east, furthest from Kan Tau Wai, formed a sixth Yeuk: its duties were to guard the other entrances to Ta Kwu Ling, the Fan Li Au and to keep an eye on the Cheung's allies in the area, especially Lin Ma Hang and Sai Ling Ha. The arrangement of the area into six Yeuk lead the area to be called the Ta Kwu Ling Luk Yeuk ("Ta Kwu Ling Alliance of Six"). The Yeuk seem to have been very united in their opposition to Wong Pui Ling — the deaths of villagers in the fighting were very evenly shared between them. 29 + These arrangements required the Ping Yuen Hap Heung to be split, Ping Che joining Tong Fong and Kan Tau Wai in one Yeuk, centred on the Ping Che Road, and Ping Yeung with Nga Yiu Ha and Wo Keng Shan forming another centred on the Miu Keng road. The Loi Tung villagers had no interest in the Law Fong bridge, and did not join the Ta Kwu Ling alliance; their political interests lay elsewhere. Similarly, the old grouping of Kan Tau Wai, Lei Uk and Tai Po Tin had to be split, with Lei Uk and Tai Po Tin being joined with Shan Kai Wat further along their common access path. These arrangements seem to have been introduced no earlier than about 1850, and were limited to defence and mutual assistance matters; ritual and other arrangements continued to operate according to the older groupings. Hence the management of the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz was unaffected, and even though Loi Tung and Man Uk Pin were probably friendly with Wong Pui Ling, the political contacts of the villages near the pass did not end, and probably helped to stop the dispute escalating too far. Although it is something of an irrelevance to this article, it is, perhaps, worth saying something further about the Luk Yeuk. The alliance was successful in its war with Wong Pui Ling: the bridge was built (it was a very fine, three-span granite structure), with an inscription set up at the bridge foot detailing the donors. Wong Pui Ling had to accept defeat, and see its influence disappear throughout Ta Kwu Ling and beyond. The Ta Kwu Ling villagers, after peace had been secured, set up an organisation to ensure that the area could go back onto a “war footing” at short notice if required. This was the Shing Ping She ("Peace Secured Society"). This organisation ensured that all the young men were trained in martial arts, and that patrols "to keep the peace" ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 143 were maintained throughout the area. How long the watch on the Ta Kwu Ling was maintained is unclear, but a watch of some sort on the entrances to the area was kept up for a long time. 33 The Shing Ping She was probably managed by a management committee, composed of one representative from each of the six Yeuk. The names of the committee appointed in 1924 survive. Below the management committee, there seems to have been a manager or managers for day-to-day activity. 14 The villagers wanted spiritual protection as well as physical protection for the area. The Ping Yuen temple at Ping Che watched over the Ping Che road, and the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz over the Miu Keng road. The Shing Ping She established a third temple, the Kim Ho Temple, between the two bridges, where the Sham Tsun road passes through the gorge. This temple was built where the extinct Cheung market had been, and may have been a re-foundation of an older temple, since most markets in the area had temples. The re-foundation or foundation would, in any case, have marked very clearly the ending of Cheung power in the area. The Kim Ho temple was a Tin Hau temple, and the divinity was invited to the new temple from the Ping Yuen temple. This linked the new temple with the old one. In addition, a nun was appointed to live in the Kim Ho temple and conduct Buddhist rituals in a side-hall. Thus the three main entrances to the Ta Kwu Ling area were well defended spiritually, and ritually connected together into one system. The Shing Ping She also rebuilt the temple at Ping Che. It was rebuilt as a temple in two parts, the main worshipping hall, with the altar to Tin Hau, and its side-halls, and a second worshipping unit consisting of a Heroes Shrine, to commemorate the young men who had died in the fighting with Wong Pui Ling. After the rebuilding, the temple was returned to the Ping Yuen Hap Heung for management. The Heung continued to own the main worshipping hall, but the Shing Ping She owned the Heroes Shrine, as a couplet in the Shrine, commemorating a repair in 1915, confirms. 15 The Shing Ping She worshipped communally at the Heroes Shrine at Ping Che at the Spring and Autumn Rituals, followed by a communal vegetarian meal in front of the temple. Similar rituals then took place at the Kim Ho temple. 36 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 144 The Shing Ping She was thus required to maintain the Kim Ho Temple, and at least the Heroes Shrine part of the Ping Yuen Temple, and had to meet the costs of the rituals it conducted there. It also had to maintain the bridges and roads, and to meet the costs of the patrols it sponsored. However, it had no land at the time of the Block Crown Lease (1905). Apart from the temple itself, the Ping Yuen Hap Heung owned no land at that date either. Similarly, none of the individual villages of the area owned any significant amounts of communal land. The Shing Ping She did, however, have enough income to buy a good deal of land within the New Territories later — five and a half acres was bought, together with a house, between 1911 and 1920, at a cost of $1,272.50 for just over three of the five and a half acres. Villagers believe the She also bought land at Wang Kong Ha during this period. 18 The She seems to have imposed a grain tax on all householders and cow owners within the patrol district. At least in the 1930s, as the elders recall, some of this grain was passed to the nuns at the Kim Ho temple and the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz for their sustenance, but most was sold. The villagers claim that the Shing Ping She also bought from the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz all the nunnery's lands within Ping Che and Ping Yeung, at a date somewhen in the 1920s, but without changing the registration of the land in the Land Registry. This is possibly why the She's programme of land purchase in its own name comes to an abrupt end in 1920. This claim may well hide a more complex situation. As mentioned above, neither the Shing Ping She nor the Ping Yuen Hap Heung held any communal land in 1905, although they had significant communal commitments: Loi Tung, equally, seems to have had no communal land to provide income for the needs of the Loi Tung Yeuk. At the same time, the nunnery land does not seem to have been used to meet nunnery needs. After the fire, the abbess repaired the roof by seeking donations, not by selling or mortgaging part of the land, and this was clearly the position also at the time of the 1868 rebuilding, since the inscription in the temple records the donors. In the 1930s, the nuns' rice came from donations from the Shing Ping She, not from rent. It seems very likely that the Ping Yuen Hap Heung and Loi Tung people had placed their communal lands under the name and protection of the Buddha. This is not uncommon in the area; such an arrangement made it more difficult for managers to embezzle the land entrusted to them, and protected it from external... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 146 the client relationship Lung Yeuk Tau wanted them in. Loi Tung, despite its genealogical connection with Lung Yeuk Tau, was always regarded by Lung Yeuk Tau as a "poor relation", and classed with the "small villages". Lung Yeuk Tau was, in addition, a member of the Po Tak Temple (#) Old Alliance: this alliance was of the "major lineages” of the area (Lung Yeuk Tau, Sheung Shui, Ho Sheung Heung, and Tai Hang), and was a specifically gentry body, whose influence was certainly antagonistic to the “small villages". The Sze Yeuk, therefore, divided into Lung Yeuk Tau to the west, interested mostly in its enmity to Fan Ling, and an eastern group, which had interests to the north. In the Shap Yeuk area, Man Uk Pin, the westernmost of the ten or eleven Yeuk of the Shap Yeuk, was also part of the Sze Yeuk, in which organisation it did not form a Yeuk by itself, but was merely a subordinate part of the Loi Tung Yeuk. Man Uk Pin was a long way from Sha Tau Kok market, and, again, looked in a different direction from most of the rest of the Shap Yeuk. To Man Uk Pin the road through the Miu Keng pass was essential, and the villages on the other side of the pass were, therefore, of more interest to it than would have been the case with the other Shap Yeuk villages. areas ― Peripheral areas, on the boundaries of the Yeuk inter-village alliance areas, were always more conscious of interests outside the Yeuk areas than villages closer to the centre of local political activity. The Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz is built where the Luk Yeuk, Shap Yeuk, and Sze Yeuk meet. The area is peripheral to the centre of interest of all three Yeuk - the Law Fong bridge, the Sha Tau Kok market, and the river crossing between Lung Yeuk Tau and Fan Ling. The continuing existence of the nunnery committee, and the continuing inter-relationship of the villages holding the six shares of the nunnery, was a standing brake to any attempt by hot-heads to provoke enmity between the three Yeuk alliances as units; if such a thing had happened, the three groups of "front-line" villages would have been unlikely to have been very enthusiastic participants. It is probably this factor which led to there never being any outright fighting between these three alliance areas as a whole, despite the Sze Yeuk and Shap Yeuk friendliness with Wong Pui Ling. Equally, the capacity to look for support from outside the Yeuk area must have strengthened the position of Loi Tung, Man Uk Pin, and the Ping Yuen people within their respective Yeuk areas. The influence of the Magistrate and the gentry in the area was minimal. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 147 The Magistrate's influence seems to have deferred the success of the Tsat Yeuk in by-passing the Tai Po ferry from about 1840 to 1892, but otherwise it does not seem to have played any significant part. The Magistrate seems to have played absolutely no role at all in the dispute between the Luk Yeuk and Wong Pui Ling. The main gentry organisations in the area were the Po Tak Temple Old Alliance and the Community School (1) in Sham Tsun, which was managed by the Tung Ping Kuk (T5, "Council for Peace in the East"), consisting of all the Punti degree holders in the Sham Tsun area, who sat in the school in rotation to adjudicate disputes. The political effectiveness (as opposed to their effectiveness in settling inter-personal disputes) of these gentry bodies in ordinary times was slight. The predominant membership of the Community School rota was from Sheung Shui, Lung Yeuk Tau, Wong Pui Ling and Sham Tsun itself, and their mutual enmities rendered it helpless in most major local political crises. The Po Tak Temple was similarly divided. The Sham Tsun Community School was, furthermore, ignored by the Hakka degree-holders, who had a similar, but weaker, body connected with the school in Sha Tau Kok, and known as the Tung Wo Kuk (†1⁄2, “Council for Peace in the East”). 41 The Nuns and Their Background The nuns of the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz were local Punti girls. This was a common feature of the pre-British Buddhist institutions in the area. The Ta Kwu Ling villagers believe that all the nuns, at all dates, were Punti. They were "women who refused to marry". This was the same at all the indigenous nunneries in the New Territories. The Tang lineage owned three nunneries: the Ling To nunnery being owned by the Ha Tsuen branch of the lineage, the Ling Wan nunnery by the Kam Tin branch, and the Lung Kai nunnery by the Lung Yeuk Tau branch. Village elders of all three villages say that, before they were taken over by immigrant monks (or, in the case of the Lung Kai nunnery, became ruined), they were all houses of nuns, and that, while girls from other places were not debarred from becoming nuns there, effectively all the nuns were Tang girls from the branch of the lineage owning the monastery in question, girls, that is, who “refused to marry". Similarly, the nuns of the Kim Ho monastery at the Law Fong bridge were, according to Law Fong village elders, girls from Punti ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 13 153 PP. 12 The inscription recording the rebuilding is at Faure, Luk and Ng, op. cit. Vol. I, 128-129, but it is unreadable through weathering, except for the heading and date. (4). Loe An-lim (羅安廉) (42), Qianren Wenxian (千人文献), ÑÍAL. [Collected Writings of Men of Past Ages], unpublished manuscript collection, Vol. 2, ff. 75a. (Copy in library of Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, Kowloon Central Library, Hong Kong). Lee An-lim was a villager of Sheung Wo Hang. (3) Lee An-lim, Qianren Wenxian, op. cit. ff 73-78. + As honour board recording the donors to the 1920 repair has recently been found. It lists the donors by village. Every village in Ta Kwu Ling donated (except Ping Che, Chuk Yuen, Nga Yiu Ha, very probably included with their lineage brethren in Tong Fong, Law Fong, Ping Yeung), as did the villages close to the road both in the Sha Tau Kok area (Shan Tsui, Yim Tso Ha, Yim Tin, Wo Hang, Nam Chung, Luk Keng, Wu Shek Kok and Sha Tau Kok Market) and in the Sham Tsun area (Sham Tsun Market, Lo Wu, and Wong Pui Ling). Shek Wu Hui from further away also donated. See Win Wen Wei Pao (SCHEW) of 17 September, 1991. U¿÷ 16 Detail from the tablets commemorating the departed leaders of the monastery, and from information given by the recently deceased resident nun. The tablet of Kuk Shan Kit reads: 羅浮山寶積古寺監裤正宗第上三代主持上谷下山潔老和尚莲座. The tablet Kuk Shan Kit placed to commemorate his deceased predecessors names the "ordained monks" HIBA · MAZA + J # and Ki£*, all of whom were dead by the date of erection + 1 of the tablet, and ✯, at that date still alive, as well as predecessors as rulers of this monastery" ALLKILMINER and "those monks who founded this monastery", A WILDFORIKA BAIMM- L 17 See P.H. Hase, “Notes on Rice Farming in Shatin', in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 21, 1981, pp. 196-206; D. Faure, The Rural Economy of Pre-Liberation China: Trade Increase and Peasant Livelihood in Jiangsu and Guangdong, Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, 1989, pp. 46-57 and 212; and Hong Kong Annual Report: Report by District Commissioner, New Territories for Year Ending 31st March, 1950, Noronha and Co., Hong Kong, 1950, p. 5. TH The Ho clan of Tsung Yuen Ha descends from Ho Chan, the Earl of Tung Kuan in the early Ming, and the Ho family history (CBMGKR — a manuscript volume in the University of Cambridge Library) suggests this area was in Ho Chan's hands before the end of the Ming. It was certainly in Ho family control before 1393 when Ho Chan's family were proscribed. The Tang family has occupied the Lung Yeuk Tau villages, Loi Tung and Tai Tong Wu since the fourteenth century at the latest. A Tang clan also occupies Au Ha (PUF Aoxia) and Wang Kong Ha (Huanggangxia). I have not been able to discover if these two villagers are genealogically connected with the Loi Tung and Lung Yeuk Tau clan, although this is unlikely. The Man family has occupied Ping Che for **18 generations", according to village elders, i.e. probably from the fourteenth century. The same family occupies Tong Fong, Heung Yuen Wai, and Lin Tong, Liantang), and a branch of it was resident at Man Uk Pin (**Man Family Houses") before the present residents, the Chung (鍾) clan moved there in the early eighteenth century. The To clan has been resident at Chau Tin village for **500 years". Local villagers consider that the Lei family has been resident at Lei Uk for as long as the To and Man clans have been at Chau Tin and Ping Che. All these clans are Punti, although sections of the Man clan at Tong Fong, and those at Heung Yuen Wai and Lin Tong, now speak Hakka. Shan Kai Wat (Lam surname, 林), Fung Wong Wu (Yip surname, 葉), and Law Fong (Law surname, 羅), are all included in the list of villages in existence in 1661 included in the 1688 Hsin An County Gazetteer, along with Au Ha, Tsung Yuen Ha, Ping Che (Ping Yuen 平遠), and perhaps Ping Yeung (坪洋) (Gazetteer, Ch. 3, f 12-13). Other Punti clans in the Ta Kwu Ling area (Wong, 黃, Chan, 陳, and Law, 羅, at Kan Tau Wai, and Hau, 侯) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 154 19 , at Law Fong) are believed to have entered the area after 1700. See Map of Ta Kwu Ling. It is interesting to note that, of the 21 villages in the Ta Kwu Ling area, seven are purely Punti, nine are purely Hakka (including two of originally Punti but now Hakka speaking Mans), but five are of mixed Punti and Hakka residents, including the large village of Chau Tin (which has only a tiny handful of Hakka residents), Fung Wong Wu, Kan Tau Wai, and Law Fong, and Tong Fong which consists partly of Punti speaking Mans, and partly of Hakka speaking Mans. + 1 Yeung, and Ng, at Fong Wong Wu; Siu, and Ho, at Chau Tin; Wong, at Kan Tau Wai; Pang, and Au, at Tai Po Tin; Fu Lau, (and others) at Wo Keng Shan; Yiut, at Chuk Yuen; Chan, and Yiu, at Law Fong (Luofang); Chau at Wang Kong Ha; Yeung, and Kwu, at Sai Ling Ha (Xilingxia), and others. 21 The temple bell, of Chien Lung 21 (1756) was donated by "all the faithful people of the Ping Yuen Hap Heung... ...to stand for ever before the altar of the Lady Tin Hau*. Faure, Luk, Ng, op. cit., Vol. 3, p. 670. The only earlier dated item in the temple, a Cloud Gong of 1727, was donated by a single family from Ping Che, Faure, Luk, Ng, op. cit., Vol. 3, p. 661. The temple continued to be owned and controlled by this group of villages. Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society: Lineage and Village in the Eastern New Territories, Oxford Univ. Press, Hong Kong, 1986, p. 104 is incorrect in saying that the temple was owned by Ping Yeung. In the Block Crown Lease, the Manager of the temple was Man Shan-fung, of Ping Che. The Tong Fong people, although closely related genealogically to the Ping Che people, were not part of the Ping Yuen Hap Heung, and did not take part in the Ta Tsiu.22 Faure, op. cit., p. 103. + + 23 The four managers at the time of the Block Crown Lease were Tang Hung-wai (a houseowner of Loi Tung), Chan Shing-pong, called a houseowner of Ping Yeung in a District Office report of 1979), Man Ying-shau (probably a villager of Ping Che, a relative of the houseowners Man Ying-kei, Man Ying-wai, and Man Ying-fat), and Chung Choi-wah (a houseowner of Man Uk Pin). These died in 1938, 1926, 1925, and 1942 respectively, according to a report made to the District Office in 1979. The abbess, Wong Tik-yuen, was appointed a manager in 1926, but she died in 1931. After the War, the lack of managers caused trouble on a number of occasions. A temporary manager was appointed in 1968. In 1979 the Chairman of the Sha Tau Kok Rural Committee and others were appointed as managers, although he, as a Lin Ma Hang villager, had no connection with the nunnery. This seems to have been with a view to rebuilding the nunnery. This proposal has led to a string of vigorous complaints from the elders of the six villages with shares during the last three years, but the situation remains, at present (1991), unresolved. 24 See Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society, op. cit., pp. 100-127, for a discussion of the Yeuk. 25 The only alternative was a dangerous, difficult, and often impassable waist-deep ford, as the 1896 Kwong Fuk bridge tablet makes clear. See Faure, Luk and Ng, Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 298. 26 See Robert G. Groves, "The Origins of Two Market Towns in the New Territories", Aspects of Social Organisation in the New Territories, Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, Symposium Report, 1964, pp. 16-20, and Alice Ng Lun Ngai-ha, "Xianggang Xinjie xushi zhi xingqi yu shuailao: Dabuxu yanjiu" [The Foundation and Decay of Market Towns in the New Territories of Hong Kong: A Study of Tai Po], in Chinese Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2, 1985, pp. 633-655. The very widespread support for the Tsat Yeuk can be gathered from the list of donors shown on the Kwong Fuk bridge tablet, Faure, Luk and Ng, loc. cit. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 155 27 As noted above, 20,000 people a month used the Miu Keng pass. Probably as many again used the road from Ping Che to Kan Tau Wai, or started their journey within Ta Kwu Leng. 40,000 users of the ferry a month is a likely figure. Probably 25% of them carried goods. This represents more than $50 a month income, or about $600 a year. Even depreciating heavily for the salary of boatmen and costs of maintenance, $400 a year clear profit seems likely. The date of this war was probably in the 1860s, as Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society, op. cit., p. 104, shows. 29 For the arrangement of the Yeuk, see map. The information in this section comes from Mr. Chan Yau-tsoi and Mr. Chan Wa-chun of Ping Yeung, Mr. Man Kam-muk of Ping Che, Mr. Yeung Choi of Fụng Wong Wu, Mr. Man Lei-wa of Tong Fong, and Mr. Hau Foh-tai of Law Fong, all very knowledgeable elders. I met them as a group, and include here only what they were unanimous in agreeing was the case. I would like to express my particular thanks to them for the several hours of discussion they had with me. As to Sai Ling Ha, this village, although it lay within the Ta Kwu Ling hills, supported Wong Pui Ling in the fighting, I was told. It had no part in the Luk Yeuk. However, when the Communists took over, most of the inhabitants of Sai Ling Ha crossed into Hong Kong, and set up homes in Ping Che. They were then allowed to become part of the Luk Yeuk, as part of Ping Che Yeuk. The account of the Luk Yeuk given here differs in detail from that given in Faure, op. cit., pp. 103-104. +1 - 30 The deaths are recorded in the "Heroes Shrine" () in the Tin Hau Temple at Ping Che, which was the community temple of the Ta Kwu Ling area. 23 names of the **Heroes who died in protecting the villages, who knew how to perform the duties of filial piety", or the "Heroes who defended the Yeuk" as they are named in two inscriptions *澳四總鎮源樂友例段英雄履考之神位 and "MX") are recorded. Of these, 3 (all surnamed Chan) came from the Ping Yeung Yeuk, 4 (3 surnamed Tang and 1 surnamed Chau) from the Lin Tong Yeuk, 4 (1 surnamed Chau and 3 surnamed Lei) from the Lei Uk Yeuk, 4(2 surnamed Yiu and 2 surnamed Hau) from the Law Fong Yeuk, 2 (both surnamed Yip) from the Lo Shue Ling Yeuk and 4 (2 surnamed Wong and 2 surnamed Man) from the Ping Che Yeuk. One Law died he came either from Law Fong (Law Fong Yeuk) or Kan Tau Wai (Ping Che Yeuk). A Lau Ah-ngau (劉亞牛) also died -- he could have been from Wo Keng Shan (Ping Yeung Yeuk), where there was a tiny clan of Laus, or could possibly have been a servant, as his name suggests his name is entered last on the tablet. 23 deaths suggests very bloody fighting. It is unlikely that the population of the whole of Ta Kwu Ling in 1860 was higher than 1750 (representing an average village population of about 80, or perhaps 12 households), and the adult males could not have been more than a quarter of that (440). The young men of fighting age were probably no more than about 200. 23 out of 200 is about 11.5% deaths of those involved, which is a very high percentage. The population of the Ta Kwu Ling villages within the New Territories totalled 1441 in the 1911 Census (Sessional Papers, 1911, no. 17, Noronha & Lo, Hong Kong, 1911, "Report on the Census of the Colony for 1911”, Table XIX p. 103 (32)). + - Loi Tung, with its lineage brethren of Lung Yeuk Tau, and the small villages between them, formed the Sze Yeuk (四約, “Alliance of Four''), which was, to a large degree, designed to ensure that the ancient enmity of the Tangs of Lung Yeuk Tau and Loi Tung with the Pangs of Fan Ling was tilted in favour of the Tangs. The Pangs supported the Luk Yeuk in its fight with the Cheungs this almost certainly means that the Sze Yeuk supported the Cheungs, as did Sheung Shui, the other ancient enemy of the Pangs. Man Uk Pin was a Yeuk of the Sha Tau Kok Shap Yeuk, as well as forming a part of the Sze Yeuk. The Shap Yeuk were dubious about the activities of the Luk Yeuk. Free travel between Sha Tau Kok and Sham Tsun was vital to the Shap Yeuk. With the Cheung Shan Kwụ Page 180 Page 181 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 156 Tsz people controlling the pass and the Cheungs controlling the river crossing; no one group had total control of the road; but if the Luk Yeuk controlled both the pass and the bridge, then the Shap Yeuk's interests could well have been at risk. Lin Ma Hang of the Shap Yeuk actually fought alongside Wong Pui Ling; the rest of the Shap Yeuk was probably friendly to the Cheungs, or at least neutral in the dispute. The Sze Yeuk were allied with the Tangs in their opposition to the establishment of the Tai Po New Market by the Tsat Yeuk; as is to be expected, Fanling and the Luk Yeuk supported the Tsat Yeuk. 32 33 It is unclear if the inscription still survives or not. They were Man Fuk-ting (Tong Fong, Chairman); Lei Yi-wa (Lei Uk); Chan Kwok-cheung (Ping Yeung); Tang King-shiu (Au Ha or Wang Kong Ha); Law King-fan (Law Fong); To Kan-yeung (Tin). 14 Between 1911 and 1924 Chan Ping-kei (Chau ...) and Chan Tai [or Ting]-cheung ... (+ [Chinese characters unknown]) were managers, and as such appear on the Land Memorials. 35 It was put up by Lin Tong and Wang Kong Ha villages, in "The Shing Ping She Shrine of Righteousness".ĦTH, Faure, Historical Inscriptions, op. cit., Vol. 3, p. 850. 36 37 Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society, op. cit., pp. 104-105. Chau Tin village owned a small temple, or San Teng (神廳), as did Kan Tau Wai and Law Fong. Kan Tau Wai in addition owned a small house as a meeting place for its elders. None of these communal facilities had any income-producing land attached to them, except for the Law Fong and Kan Tau Wai temples, which owned 0.05 and 0.12 acres respectively. The Ping Yuen temple manager was registered only for the single temple building, but not for any income-producing land, although the temple did buy a piece of land (0.72 acres) from a Ping Che villager in 1906. See DD82, houselot CT20; lot 759; DD78, lot 1158; DD82, houselot KTW13; houselots PC1-3; Memorial 2744. Memorials 24058 (20 April 1913), 27471 (4 June 1914), 45919 (7 December 1920); see also Memorial 17779 (17 October 1911) for the succession of the She to a house at Tong Fong. 19 For the Po Tak Old Alliance, see Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society, op. cit., pp. 128-140. 40 41 See R.G. Groves, "The Origins of Two Market Towns'', loc.cit. For the Tung Ping Kuk and the Tung Wo Kuk, see Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society, op. cit., pp. 128-140. 42 (唔出嫁嘅女) 43 44 Sung Hok-p'ang, Legends and Stories of the New Territories: Kam Tin, op. cit. It should be noted that these nunneries are often called Tsz (寺) in ordinary speech and documents. This character strictly means "monastery", but, in this area, this does not necessarily imply that the religious living there were men. Thus the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz is almost always so called, as in the document printed in the Appendix. The use of the more correct character Am (庵, 'nunnery') is almost entirely limited to Ch'ing official documents (especially the County Gazetteer) and, sometimes, on bells. 45 46 loc.cit. See Faure, Luk and Ng, Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong, op. cit., Vol. 3, p. 669. It is called Miu (廟, "temple") in Hsin An County Gazetteer, 1922, ch'uan 4 and 7, pages 49-50 and 82 of the Chung Lap Pao edition, 1979, and in the 1688 Gazetteer. 47 Ling To is called Tsz (寺) in the Hsin An County Gazetteer, 1819, at ch'uan 18 and 21, pages 148 and 174 of the Chung Lap Pao edition, 1979, and, given the care with which... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 305 Faat, who was an official of the Song Dynasty. His great-grandson Fu-Hip was the first to settle in Kam Tin. One of his two sons moved to Dongguan county and the other, named Seui, stayed. The two had a total of five sons whose descendants were known as the “five main branches”. In a time of chaos, a grandson of Seui married a daughter of the Song Emperor Gaozong. This member of the royal family was better known by her descendants as Wong-gu because her brother later became the Emperor Guangzong. Her husband was called the Gwan-ma. The Wong-gu sent one of their sons to see the Emperor, who granted official titles to her husband and sons and gave her some farm land as a gift. Present-day Dangs attribute their wealth to this event. Her descendants moved to different parts of Dongguan and Xin'an counties, including Lung Yeuk Tau, and Tai Po Tau in the New Territories. The nearest common ancestor of the present-day Dangs of Kam Tin, Hung-Yi, was a seventh-generation descendant of the youngest son of the Wong-gu. Hung-Yi's brother Hung-Ji was the ancestor of some of the Dangs of Ha Tsuen. Hung-Yi did not leave much property, and there is no ancestral hall dedicated to his worship. We do not know much about Hung-Yi. Oral tradition has it that in 1393 he was sent on penal servitude on behalf of his younger brother Hung-Ji. Before that, he had married a Miss Jeung and had three sons Yam, Jan, and Yeui. He survived the (unknown) period of servitude and obtained a teaching job in a wealthy family. His employer married him to a servant girl of the surname Wong. Miss Wong bore him a son by the name of Gyun. Upon his death, she brought his ashes and the son to Kam Tin. The son Gyun died soon afterwards, and subsequently Yam gave one of his sons as Gyun's heir. Yau-Leun Tong in the present Kam Tin Shi was the hall in honour of Hung-Yi. But there was no tablet for him in the tong. To explain the absence of a spirit tablet, one elder said, "Because Hung-Yi did not have much property, the fund was small. There was no spirit tablet for him in the tong. His spirit tablet was housed in the ancestral hall of his grandson, [i.e., the ancestral hall for Ching-Lok, see below.]" Another provided a different explanation. It was because the Fung Sheui was poor for the purpose. Whatever the reason, Yau-Leun Tong was not a place for setting up a spirit tablet. It was a place for gatherings only. Some younger villagers told me that the hall was once rented out, and once used as a kindergarten. Page 330 Page 331 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 318 of money, he would go up to Canton. This also surprised people, for they supposed that one spent money in Canton. But Chi-Naam would go to meet officials in Canton, and earned, so the story goes, much money on each trip by handling cases for clients. Another story of the same informant told of Chi-Naam's influence. Once upon a time, soldiers were sent to Kam Tin. These men were very impolite. They urinated in the open. Chi-Naam was angry and told his brothers to beat the soldiers up. The case was brought to a local official, who decided to take away the academic title of Chi-Naam's younger brother, who was held responsible. Chi-Naam asked the official if he had authorisation from his superiors. The official therefore dared not carry out the penalty. An informant related that Chi-Naam was once the head of the Dung Ping Guk, the council for the eastern section of the county established as the unofficial administrative and judicial organization for the eastern part (Dung-Lo) of the county, which decided local cases. 15 Dang Ting-sam played important roles in many lawsuits which involved the Dangs of Kam Tin and outsiders. We have documents of some of these lawsuits and oral stories for others. The earliest datable one I know of took place in 1854, when he brought a case to the Dongguan County Magistrate to request action against some Heungs who had kidnapped some of the Dangs who went to worship at the wong-gu's grave in Dongguan. I shall refer to the other cases later. 16 II. THE DANGS VS RIVALS AND TENANT COMMUNITIES The Dangs of Kam Tin had conflicts with their neighbours over various matters, especially land ownership, rent, and irrigation rights. These conflicts took the form of lawsuits and fighting. Those who died in fighting with enemies of the community were worshipped as "heroes”. A jiu festival document of 1895 indicates that up to that time 80 persons were recognized as "heroes" to whom special offerings of paper clothing were to be made in the festival. This kind of fighting (da-saat) was common in the area. Elders of Kam Tin told me that there had been fighting between Kam Tin and the alliance of Ping Shan and Pat Heung. This had taken place long ago, even before the birth of an elder born in 1900. Through fighting, Kam Tin lost much of its land holdings, because they had to sell land for money to pay as compensation for lives lost. In the past, people entered yeuk alliances for this kind of fighting. Pat Heung was part of the Ping Shan alliance. ================================================================================ 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 384 亞哥剪辮 亞哥又興弟又興 新買銅鐘莫冇聲 新買銅鐘莫有聲 不怕滿州使劍刀 革命打贏哥剪辮 餓死滿州冇肚腸 餓死滿州有肚子 炸彈一去就冇毛 P.H. HASE NOTES These are the papers of a local village scholar (1874-1944) from Hoi Ha Village in North Sai Kung, and are now on deposit in the Sha Tin Public Library. Regional Council. The pamphlet is entitled "A New Three Character Classic", and has the classification number R802.81 0132. I am obliged to Mr. M.Y. Lee for assistance in transcription and translation. Papers laid before the Legislative Council of Hongkong, 1912, (Sessional Papers), No. 11, "Report on the New Territories, 1899-1912”, para. 88, page 56 (G.N. Orme, District Officer, 9th June, 1912), and Hong Kong Administrative Reports for the Year 1911, Appendix I, "Report on the New Territories for the Year 1911, A. - Northern District”, page I, 5. (G.N. Orme, District Officer, 20th June, 1912). THE MUTUAL DEFENCE ALLIANCE (YEUK) OF THE NEW TERRITORIES It is well-known that the traditional society of the eastern New Territories was dominated by inter-village mutual defence alliances, or Yeuk, and that the political structure of the area was dominated by further, higher-level alliances, or "unions", of Yeuk. The Sai Kung area, for instance, comprised six Yeuk, which formed a single, higher-level "union" centred on Sai Kung market; the Sha Tin area was similarly a "union" of nine Yeuk; the Sha Tau Kok area one of ten Yeuk; and the Ta Kwu Ling area one of six Yeuk. These areas were, in consequence, known in the late nineteenth century as the Luk Yeuk ("Union of Six Yeuk"), Kau Yeuk ("Union of Nine Yeuk”), etc. Recently I discovered two copies of a document in the Yung Sze-chiu collection from Hoi Ha village in North Sai Kung by which a group of villages constituted themselves into a Yeuk. Because of the interest of this document, I append a copy and translation. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 388 goods- true and absolute proof. I now repent. If my own personal appeal that I escape being sent to the Magistrate for formal examination is accepted I will with sincerity go through the punishment imposed publicly by the community. Afterwards I will always obey the advice and rules of the Yeuk. Should there ever be a time when I again do anything improper, then let the community send me to the Magistrate to face trial. I request this. Furthermore, I shall follow the rules of the Yeuk, and shall never dare to be overcome by shame and harm people or do anything of the sort. Because we fear verbal agreements, we have put this in writing, and have also kept several copies as evidence. P.H. HASE NOTES Faure, in his The Structure of Chinese Rural Society: Lineage and Village in the Eastern New Territories, Hong Kong. Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, 1986, pp. 100-127. has discussed these arrangements in detail. The documents from the Yung Sze-chiu collection are now held in the Sha Tin Public Library, Regional Council. The documents are to be found in two volumes, both with the number R802.79 4431, both with the title ([D] (A Collection of Exemplars of Documents and Couplets]). Accession numbers of the two volumes are 622670 and 622679. My thanks are due to Dr. David Faure and Mrs. Nga-ching Miller for assistance with the translation. The two versions show minor variations in wording: these are not noted here. MORE ON THE MAN THE EMPEROR DECAPITATED In Volume 28 of the Journal, David Faure printed various folktales from the Eastern New Territories relating to the history of Ho Chan, in a Note headed "The Man the Emperor Decapitated".' Recently, a further story of the same sort was given to me by Tsim Foh-sang, a village elder of Tsap Wai Kon village in Sha Tin. Mr. Tsim was born about 1918, and was educated in his village. This story was written down by Mr. Tsim in 1981 as an interesting note on the history of Kau Sai. Mr. Tsim's story shows that stories about Ho Chan were current in Sha Tin as well as Kat O and Sai Kung, and were probably current throughout the Eastern New Territories. Tsim Foh-sang's note reads: I was told that there is a Fung Shui site in the sea near Kau Sai. The name of this site is "A Golden Bell Hanging on a Silk Thread" (金鐘絲線) (#Bâ£), and it belonged to Ho, the Minister of the Left (左相). It was one of the ninety- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 35 An analysis of the rituals performed. Segawa shows that observation of the Jiao festival reveals not only traditional territorial alliances, but also past rival relationships among communities. Looking at the case of Pat Heung as an example, he illustrated that the Jiao closely reflects the past feuds between a village alliance and its neighbouring landlord community, Kam Tin. He argues that, besides its ritual and symbolic meanings, the Jiao can be seen as a "rite of solidarity”. That is, the community maintains its unity through regular worship of the heroes and feud victims, at the Jiao festival.“ 45 Besides traditional alliance-rival relationships, a study of a Jiao festival also reveals a society's internal social conflicts. Group consciousness and inter-group competition, which are obscured by modern city life, can be observed from the Jiao's organizational and symbolic representation. The deliberate exclusion from the "Hang Fu” [a ritual to purify every household at the end of the Jiao festival] ritual of some households in Lung Yeuk Tau reminds one of the existence of "Hahu" or bondservants in the community in the past. In Cheung Chau, the Tanka boat people are denied participation in some rituals. The festival area that is to receive the purification, blessings and protection from the gods does not include the site of traditional Tanka settlement." 46 My paper in Bunka Jinrui Gaku (Cultural Anthropology) no. 5 shows the family structure and kin relationships of different communities through a study of name lists posted at Jiao festivals. Through a comparative analysis of the name lists of three communities, it was shown that the structure of a community is clearly reflected in their name lists. The names of members of a single lineage community are written according to the principle of lineage. In other words, members of a registered unit are linked by a focal ancestor. On the other hand, in a typical name list of a multi-lineage community, be they settled in one or more localities, names are listed in the structure of a family, extended or nuclear, whose members are related to a surviving parent." 47 Studies of Jiao festivals provide an excellent source of reference to the understanding of social and political changes. A Jiao festival shows not only the ritual and social lives of the villagers, it reveals also the community's internal and external relationships. As shown in Table 2, at least 28 communities in Hong Kong celebrated Jiao ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 39 Kat Hing Wai and Wing Lung Wai terminated their own independent Jiao but continue to participate actively in the Jiao of the whole Kam Tin community. Still others, like Tai Wai and Tin Sam, celebrate their own Jiao festivals on the one hand but also participate as members in the Jiao celebrated by the Sha Tin Kau Yeuk (Sha Tin Village alliance). Reasons such as the Japanese occupation or economic recession given by villagers themselves cannot explain the diversities found in the New Territories. All villages experienced the Japanese occupation. With regard to economic constraints, a community like Ping Shan, though as prosperous and powerful as Kam Tin and Ha Tsuen, stopped the celebration for some unknown reason. Therefore, the continuity or discontinuity of the Jiao festival depends on the effectiveness of the festival's communal structure and organization. In Lam Tsuen, the Jiao festival is a means to reconfirm the roles of its alliances (the Luk Hap Tong [Lui He Tang] “Hall of the Six [Sc. Village Clusters] United"). In Kam Tin and other single lineage communities, the Jiao plays an essential role in re-establishing the structure of the segmented lineage as well as in re-confirming membership in the branches. The question of whether Jiao festivals will survive after the 1997 take-over is in fact a question of whether or not there is a need to preserve such a tradition in the community. NOTES Liu Zhi-wan, "Taiwan Taibeixian Zhonghexiang Jianjiao Jidian" Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica 33 (1972): 135-64. Tanaka, Issei, Chugoku Kyoshon Saishi Kenkyu: Chihogeki no Kankyo [Village Festival in China: Background of Local Theatres] (Tokyo: Tokyo Univ. Press, 1989), 799. Some fishing villages in Hong Kong like Kau Lau Wan, Tap Mun and Kat O name their Jiao festivals "An Long Qing Jiao" meaning the Jiao celebrated to pacify the earth dragon. Tanaka claimed that originally "Qi An Jiao" was celebrated only when there was need to pray for peace (Ibid., 799). However, evidence in Hong Kong, at least, shows that the festival is celebrated in a regular cycle. The shortest cycle is the Jiao of Cheung Chau where it is celebrated yearly. The longest is Sheung Shui and Shuen Wan where the Jiao is said to be celebrated once every 60 years. In some fishing villages in the New Territories, it is celebrated once every two or seven years. A five-year cycle is also practised in some agrarian communities like Tai Hang. However, a ten year cycle is the most popular in agrarian communities. Nonetheless, the method of counting also differs from one community to another. For instance, Lam Tsuen claims to celebrate the Jiao once every ten years but they actually celebrate it once in nine years. Their Jiao festival was celebrated in the following years: 1963, 1972, 1981, 1990. Mr. Cheung Chi-fan (Zhang Zhi-fan), JP, and Mr. Chung Chi-leung (Zhong Ji-liang), interviewed by author, Lam Tsuen, Dec. 1, 1990. According to Dean, about 80,000 Chinese yuan was spent on the Jiao in a village in Zhangzhou, Fujian in 1986. See ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 42 disasters. the second is for those who died because of plague. The final reason is to thank the benevolent governors Wang Lai-ren and Zhou You-de of the beginning of the Qing dynasty. In my opinion, all these reasons can be integrated into the first one. (d) Chan Wing-hoi "The Tangs of Kam Tin and their Jiu festival", Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 29 (1989) 302-375, a rich and detailed account of the lineage, its temples and villages, and the festival which draws them together. Dr. Faure gradually switched his interest to the Pearl River Delta while Prof. Tanaka, as I was told, is now looking at Sichuan province. Talk on publishing a book on Hong Kong Jiao festivals has been going on for years by members of the "Research Circle of the Regional Society of Southern China''. In 1990, the editorial board of the society set up a schedule to compile a book focusing on the Jiao festival. It is expected that papers on various aspects will be completed by the end of April 1991. (Correspondence from the society dated 28.12.1990) Schipper, Kristofer M., "The Written Memorial in Taoist Ceremonies" in Wolf, Arthur P. (ed.) Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974), 324, For example, according to Chan Wing-hoi, villagers of Shek O celebrated their 16th Jiao in 1986 (Chan, 78). The Dengs in Kam Tin claimed to have celebrated their Jiao since 1684 (Tanaka, 918). See for instance Basel Mission Archives, doct. Al-6, No. 51 (1869), and doct. Al-7, No. 51 (1870) and Der Evangelische Heidenbote, July 1867, in which a missionary describes how he was forced to go to the Magistrate to get his support before he could avoid having to pay his share of the Jiao expenses. All these cases are from Hsin An County. The Sha Tin poem will, it is hoped, shortly be published by Dr. P.H. Hase. These two series are part of the 15 series of historical documents collected by Dr. D. Faure and others in the New Territories. Copies of the collections are kept in the libraries of CUHK, Hong Kong University, Sha Tin Regional Council Library, and Institute of Oriental Culture, Tokyo University. 31 Tanaka Chugoku no Sozoku to Engeki [Lineage and Theatre in China] (Tokyo Univ. Press 1985), 608. Jiao festivals celebrated by the powerful communities in Hong Kong like Kam Tin, Ha Tsuen, Lung Yeuk Tau etc., were all performed by the Zhengyi Taoist group, led first by the late Master Lin Pei and now by Master Chan Kau. Another Zhengyi Taoist group is led by Master Chan Wah. However, many Taoist priests work for both groups. There are also other Taoist groups who performed for the Jiao festivals, like a Cantonese group which performed for Ho Chung and a Heklo group for Cheung Chau. In 1983, four out of five Jiao festivals were performed by monastery Taoists. It is not clear whether it was because of tradition or out of economic reasons. A comparison of the two Taoist groups has yet to be made. 14 Choi Chi-cheung **Sho matsuri no jinmei risuto ni mirareru shinzoku ban'i” [Kinship as seen in the name lists of Jiao festival] Bunka Jinnú Gaku 5 (1988): 131, table L. 35 **Shinshi men" [Section of Believers] in Fanling Wenxian (Historical Literature of Fanling) vol. 8. This brief account records details of the arrangement of the Jiao area, including the contents of couplets, names of deities invited, location and direction of matshed stages, and the sacrifices prepared etc.. See n. 32 for the depositories of Fanling Wenxian. 36 See (1972) Lin Chuan [Lam Tsuen] Xiang Taiping Qingjiao huiyi jilubu in Dapu [Tai Po] Wenzian [Historical Literature of Tai Po] vol. 1. (see n. 32 for depositories) 37 Tanaka Issei's three books, all published by the Tokyo Univ. Press are: Chugoku Saishi Engeki Kenkyu [Ritual Theatres in China] (1981), Chugoku no Sozoku to Engeki [Lineage and Theatre in China) (1985), and Chugoku Kyoson Saishi Kenkyu: Chihogeki ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 no Kankyo [Village Festival in China: Background of Local Theatres] (1989). The Jiao festivals studied by Tanaka are as follows: Communities Year Cheung Chau 1979 1979, 1983 Recorded in 1981:74-99 1985:227-302 Ha Tsuen 1981 1985:199-226 Hung Hom, Kowloon *1 1978-80 1981:771-780 Kam Tin 1985 1989:915-996 Lam Tsuen 1981 1985:359-528 Leung Shuen Wan, Sai Kung 1980 1981:99-113 Lin Fa Tei *2 1967 1985:558-572 Lung Yeuk Tau 1983 1985:609-720 Sha Tin, Kau Yeuk 1985 1989:1041-1112 Sha Tin, Tai Wai 1987 1989:977-1040 Sha Tin, Tin Sam 1986 1989:1040 Tai Po Tau 1985 1985:121.131-138 Tuen Tsz Wai 1986 1989:817-913 Yuen Long 1983 1985:139-198 43 *1: From the context, this festival, held on the 14th of the seventh moon, can be best seen as a ghost festival organized by the Hoklo dialect group. *2: Tanaka did not attend this festival. Analysis of the festival was mostly based on the 1967 account collected by H. Baker. See map for the location of places. JH Tanaka, Ritual Theatres, 5. 班 Tanaka, Lineage and Theatre, 11. 40 fbid., i-ii. 41 Tanaka, Village Festival, i-iij. 42 Faure, David, The Structure of Chinese Society: Lineage and Village in the Eastern New Territories, Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Oxford Univ. Press, 1986), 81. 4.3 Segawa, Masahisa, "Daa Chiu: matsuri ni arawareru Hon Kon no mura no sugao” [Da Jiao: facets of villages in Hong Kong as shown in the festivals] Kikan Minzoku Gaku Ethnography Quarterly 33 (1985): 21-35. 14 Segawa, Masahisa "Ta-tsiu [Da-Jiao], feuds, and village alliances: the case of Pat Heung" (unpublished manuscript, 1991). 45 Choi, Chi-cheung, “Chi o urai ekibyo o harau taihei shinsho" [Jiao festival: to wash: the land and remove illness] Kikan Minzoku Gaku 40 (1987): 90-105. 4 40 Choi, Jiao festival", 1046. 47 Choi, "Kinship", 147-149. 4# Though Tanaka wrote that only a few communities in the New Territories celebrated the festival during his seven and a half years' observation (Tanaka, Lineage and Theatre, 608), we are still unclear as to how many communities continue to celebrate it. For instance, the Cheung Long Wai case was not mentioned by any informants. It was known only by an occasional visit to the village. A likely source is the Police since theoretically every festival celebrated in Hong Kong has to receive permission from the police for security measures. The district offices in the New Territories are another source of information. Certainly there were in the past other celebrations which have now ceased for one reason or another (e.g. at Sha Tau Kok, Shuen Wan and Ta Kwu Leng). 49 Segawa, "Daa Chiu', 35. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 238 Company joined Dairy Farm and became known as the Dairy Farm, Ice and Cold Storage Company Limited, following the merging of the food sections of Lane Crawford and Dairy Farm. Because records were lost little is known of the company's history between 1920 and 1942. The directors who were not killed fighting the Japanese in 1941, however, did manage to hold a minuted board meeting, on June 1st, 1942, in Stanley prison camp. They later held a joint meeting with the directors of Lane Crawford's when it was suggested the two firms should co-operate after hostilities ceased. This idea materialised in 1960 with limited success. In 1972, Hong Kong Land acquired Dairy Farm in the first contested takeover bid in Hong Kong. The old building on Lower Albert Road, used by the Dairy Farm Ice and Cold Storage Company Limited until 1978, now houses the Foreign Correspondents' Club and the Fringe Club. In the late 20th century milk is tankered into Hong Kong mainly from China. Watson's Another of the few firms that is as old as Hong Kong itself is A.S. Watson's. It is connected with the Canton Dispensary which operated from 1828 to 1858. The Hong Kong Dispensary was opened in a matshed at Possession Point by Doctors (Peter) F.H. Young, a naval surgeon, and Alexander Anderson. The latter became the first Colonial Surgeon of Hong Kong. Doctor John Morrison, son of Doctor Robert Morrison who founded the Canton Dispensary with Doctor Livingstone, was also involved. In July 1841, a bad typhoon destroyed the Dispensary's matshed at Possession Point as well as other structures in Hong Kong. The main purpose of Di Yeuk Fong (†) (big medicine shop as it was then called) was as a dispensary for soldiers and sailors. On 1st January 1843 it moved to Captain Morgan's Bazaar, and the same year a Doctor Samuel Marjoribanks, a surgeon, joined as a partner. In 1845 the dispensary moved to permanent premises, in Queen's Road, and Doctor James Hume Young (a relative of F.H. Young) became manager. The first member of the Watson family to go East was Thomas ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 265 Kok and Ta Kwu Ling people had established a trust to collect cash and construct this bridge: Chan Sheung-yan (of Luk Keng in the Sha Tau Kok area), and Lei Tsok-san (of Lei Uk in the Ta Kwu Ling area) were the two Chief Managers of this trust, representing the totality of the people of the two areas. P.H. HASE I NOTES "Cheang Shan Kwa Tsz. An Old Buddhist Nunnery in the New Territories, and its Place in Local Society”, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 29, 1989, pp 121-158. The documents are contained in a recently recovered genealogy of the Chan clan of Luk Keng. I understand that a copy of this genealogy will be placed on record in the collection of Hong Kong historical documents held at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in due course. I am indebted to Mr. Chan Wing-hoi for drawing my attention to these documents. II I am indebted to Mr. P.L. Lau for assistance in the translation of this document. The Sha Wan River, unlike the main branch of the Sham Chun River, which flows in a deep and well-defined channel, was a shallow and ill-defined stream, which meandered through a broad valley which it often flooded. This river has now been dammed off to form the Shen Zhen Reservoir. See the paper at n. 1 for details of the loss of life in this War. A VILLAGE WAR IN SHAM CHUN The Rev. Carl Smith has drawn attention to the great wealth of material available in the Basel Mission Archive on the history of the Hakka people of Kwangtung Province. When looking through his notes and summaries of important documents I saw a summary of an important document on an inter-village war in Sham Chun (深圳). Through the courtesy of the Mission Archive, a photostat of the document was received, translated, and is published below. Sham Chun lies at the centre of a broad and fertile valley, drained by the Sham Chun River. This river has four main tributaries: the stream which drains the Ta Kwu Ling valley (this stream is considered as the headstream of the main river), the Sha Wan River, which joins the first stream at Kim Hau (or) at the entrance to Ta Kwu Ling, the Sheung Yue (or Beas) River which drains the Sheung Shui/Lung Yeuk Tau area and which enters the main river ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x CONTENTS PRESIDENT'S REPORT. ARTICLES: 1 Keith Stevens A Jersey Adventurer in China: Gun Runner, Customs Officer, and Business Entrepreneur and General in the Chinese Imperial Army, 1842-1919 ... Vii P.H. Munro-Faure - Behind the Front Lines in Burma, The Marches of the Salween Border, 1942-1944... 113 Wei Peh Ti A Peek Backwards into the Jewish Community of Shanghai. 149 James Hayes - Old Chinese Graves from the Tsuen Wan District of Hong Kong's New Territories ... 164 David Faure An Exploratory Study of Pingshan, a Hakka Village Cluster to the East of Shenzhen ... 180 NOTES AND QUERIES: David Faure - China Resurgence of Folk Religion in Western ... 193 Denis Bray - Growing up in China: Lecture to the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, 14 May, 1993 ... 199 P.H. Hase Bandits in the Siu Lek Yuen Yeuk ... 214 Alvin P. Cohen First Meeting of the Warring States Working Group, University of Massachusetts ... 216 BOOK REVIEWS ... 218 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 151 Sam Heung (三鄉), the area immediately west of the new market. While there is no evidence as to the date of this temple, it is likely to be as old as the Am King temple.2 The third temple was the Tin Hau Temple at Wu Shek Kok some miles west of the new town. Almost certainly, the district ferries left from the deep-water harbour immediately in front of the temple, from at least Ming times to the 1830s. This site is remote, with no houses or residences within a half mile, just the hill behind and the sea in front. The temple would, therefore, have provided essential shelter for people waiting for the ferry, as well as casting the protection of the Goddess over those embarking. There is no surviving dating evidence from this temple, but it is probably old.14 Founding a new market was a risky and expensive business, and it is not surprising that the villagers felt that the deities should be propitiated before work began. The Sam Heung villagers accordingly founded a large new Tin Hau temple at the seafront near the new market site, probably about 1815-1820. They also started a decennial Ta Tsui (打水) at the new temple to placate any spirits who might be offended by the work on the reclamation and the new market.15 All markets in the area have temples, but the three older temples were too far away to serve the market. The new temple was probably designed to be the main market temple. As part of the foundation of the new town, the Shap Yeuk moved the ferry pier into it from Wu Shek Kok. It is unclear who owned the ferries before the 1840s, but certainly the Shap Yeuk was fully in control of them from that period at the latest. It was clearly felt that the new ferry pier at the new town should, like the old one, be sanctified by the presence of the Goddess: not surprisingly, therefore, the new ferry pier was built on the foreshore immediately in front of the new temple. The genealogy of the Wong clan of Shan Tsui village states that Wong Yin-tung (黃賢東) (1779-1867) of that clan managed the temple foundation project: 'Throughout his life he was upright and firm; he took the lead in the first construction of the Tin Hau Temple at Sha Tau Kok.' The Sam Heung villagers ran the temple through a trust, the Sam Wo Tong (三和堂, "The Hall of Three at Peace"). A further, small Tin Hau Temple was found by the investors into the saltpan reclamation project, to assist in the protection of this area, which ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 155 to the front of the school building, to double the defences of the bridge, probably some time in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. 27 The building of the gun-towers, the school, the Man Mo Temple and Meeting Hall, and the communal grave, is evidence for the prosperity and vitality of the town, and the village society in which it was set, in the later nineteenth century. By 1904, the market had about doubled in size, and in the number of shops operating, from its situation fifty years earlier. From its foundation in 1830-1835, in fact, the prosperity of the town seems to have increased steadily until 1898, with the only check being the very temporary set-back of the Taiping attack. The Market and the New Frontier The leasing of the New Territories to Great Britain in 1898 was traumatic for the villagers of the Sha Tau Kok area. The line originally proposed for the new frontier would have run along the Sha Tau Kok River from source to sea. This would have put two of the eleven village alliance areas of the Shap Yeuk into China, the market and the other village alliance areas into the New Territories. This was unacceptable to the Chinese authorities, who were unwilling to allow so significant a place as Sha Tau Kok to become part of the area administered by Britain. Eventually it was agreed that the frontier should run along the Sha Tau Kok River from the source down to the Sha Tau Kok bridge, and then be diverted from the bridge down the centre of the bridge access road to the sluice at Yim Liu Ha, then in a straight line to the sea, and thence east along the high-water mark to the mouth of Mirs Bay.* This line was drawn very close to the northern and western edges of the market. As such it isolated the market from the rest of Chinese territory; its only access was either over the bridge, which was half in Hong Kong, or through Hong Kong territory, or by sea through Hong Kong waters. In the late nineteenth century, China controlled imports and exports through customs regulations, enforced by the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service. By the drawing of the frontier where it eventually was, the normal, day-to-day trade of Sha Tau Kok market suddenly found itself * See Map 4. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 157 The villagers in the central part of the northern New Territories, accustomed to marketing at Sham Chun, were able to make do after 1899. They had the old satellite market of Shek Wu Hui (Sheung Shui) within British territory; as soon as the new frontier came into effect, Sheung Shui saw its business boom - it quickly replaced Sham Chun as the primary market for this area. At Sha Tau Kok the population within British territory accustomed to shop at Sha Tau Kok had no alternative but to continue to do so. Problems abounded. Village memories of the Customs are uniformly bad. The Customs officials caused the goods of the merchants to be seized unless bribes were paid. They demanded a payment of 18 bushels of rice from each merchant. The villagers from the New Territories would come to the market to have their cloth dyed. Even if the amount of cloth was very small, 25 or £10 would be charged as a licence fee - if it was not paid, the goods would be seized and the villagers penalized. As for the merchants, if they sold a pig, or if a seed-pig was bought for rearing in the villages, when they went to the Customs they would have to pay $40 per tan as registration fee for the pig. At festivals, the village ladies would come to the market to buy oil or local sugar in small quantities. They would have to pay 50 or 60, or even 120 or 130 cash (#5 - #13) as fee before they could get an export licence. For cattle, for every cow crossing the frontier - in either direction for farm work, a Certificate had to be issued, at $20 Haikwan. And, if the Certificate was lost, there was heavy punishment, and a replacement had to be taken out, to avoid confiscation of the cow. Further, at the harvest, if the crop was carried across the frontier, you had to pay what was demanded - it is said that a percentage of the crop was taken. The Customs swallowed money whatever purchases were made. These sorts of evil practices caused the villagers to hate the Customs to the very pit of their stomachs. 12 It is unlikely that the Customs were as corrupt as they are often portrayed by the villagers. The payments complained of were all reasonable, if it was accepted that the transactions were "imports" or "exports". The villagers could never see that their day-to-day marketing should be so regarded - they were only doing what their ancestors had always done. The elders of the Shap Yeuk petitioned the District Magistrate on 19 April 1899, begging that the lease of the New Territories be not proceeded with. Their concern was, essentially, that if it did proceed, then they would be faced with “excessive taxation", especially Harbour Dues and Marine Fees, given that the waters off Sha Tau Kok would become Hong... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 158 Kong waters. This petition was probably written because of fears as to the practical problems they would face if they lived in British territory, and their market was in Chinese territory. "In the early years after the lease, grievances over the Customs remained at high heat. In the winter of 1906, the villagers from the New Territories went on strike, and refused to go to market. In 1907 there was a full-scale riot, triggered by a Customs official beating a villager for not paying duty. Later that same year, the elders of the Shap Yeuk petitioned to the authorities at Canton, begging that the Customs officials at Sha Tau Kok be restrained.4 Later, relations with the Customs improved a little, but the duty demanded from villagers remained a major irritant and grievance throughout the period from 1899 to 1951. Another irritant, and brake on economic development, was the political chaos in the border area of China. As can be seen from the Calendar of Border Disturbances at Appendix 1, political trouble in this area began even before the Revolution of 1911. An abortive rebellion in the Wai Chau (Huizhou,H) area in 1900 saw the Ch'ing Government lose control of the wild lands east of Yim Tin. A second abortive rebellion was centred in these hills, at Sam Chau Tin (Sanzhoutian,E), in 1904-1905. A second period of disturbance came after the Revolution, during the years 1911-1928, when the area immediately north of the frontier was the plaything of various competing political groups and would-be warlords, passing from one to the other week by week - 'In those days, when we went to market, the soldiers would be wearing yellow, but the next week, they would be wearing brown'. This period was marked by large-scale banditry, piracy, and general turmoil. With the large garrison of Customs and military personnel at Sha Tau Kok, bandits never threatened the town itself, but the Yim Tin Customs post was sacked by bandits in 1913 and (three times) in 1916, Nam O (Nanao,) Customs post at the entrance to Mirs Bay, was sacked in 1913 and 1914, Chan Hang in 1915, and, a little east of Chan Hang, Kai Chung (Xichong,) Customs post was sacked in 1916 and 1917. The Customs post at Sha Yue Chung (Shayuchong,) was sacked in 1919 and 1920, while the Sha Yue Chung Ferry (the lifeline of the market to the east) was captured by pirates in both 1921 and twice in 1922. For nearly one and a half years in 1918-1919, indeed, all the Customs Stations in Mirs Bay east of Yim Tin were forced to close, so lawless had the area become. The irregular soldiers ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 180 the town would bring baskets of vegetables to sell retail on street in Wang Tau Street. Some sold their vegetables at Yim Liu Ha - even before the hawkers started to migrate across the frontier there was some trading here. The saltworkers had no fields, and had to buy all their food - since there was about 100 of them, this represented quite a market. Usually, those villagers trading vegetables with the saltworkers at Yim Liu Ha would exchange their vegetables for salt, which they then hawked around the villages away from the market. One or two villages specialised in this vegetables and salt trade. Yet others specialised in exchanging vegetables for fish (usually the poorer quality, or broken, fish), which they then hawked around villages away from the market. The villages further from the market found the vegetable trade difficult, and they usually did not take part in it. Their specialty was fuel. The villages near the market had cut all the trees in the vicinity of the village, except for the untouchable Fung Shui groves, long before, and they were seriously short of fuel as a consequence. The remote mountainside villages of the Shap Yeuk area, however, still had plenty of wood, but were usually short of cultivable land. The economy of these villages depended, essentially, on exchanging firewood for rice. Village women would leave these villages at day-break, carrying loads of about 75 catties of wood, cut and dried, and prepared to suit the particular needs of the specific market aimed at. The boat-people required wood cut into very small and even billets, to fit the tiny stoves on board their boats. The saltworkers needed wood cut to larger sizes to feed their furnaces and stoves. Individual villager or shopkeeper households needed wood cut to medium sizes. Individual fuel-selling villages tended to specialise in one or other of these markets. The best-placed fuel-selling villages, those whose wood reached the market first, tended to sell their wood in whole loads, 75 catties at a time. Those who reached the market later tended to have to sell their wood retail, catty by catty, originally in Wang Tau Street, later from the Railway Station forecourt. It was the custom that, if someone bought a whole load of wood, then the seller had to carry it all the way to the buyer's house, no matter how far from the market. Individual seller villages tended to develop a close relationship with individual buyer villages and households - often buyers would look out for sellers they knew, and order a load of fuel for the next market day. As with vegetables, so villagers who sold fuel to the saltworkers or fishermen sometimes exchanged their wood for salt or fish, which they then hawked through the villages away from the market. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 184 preoccupied with the fuel trade to have any spare time to enter the carrying trade. Especially in the 1930s, one of the biggest coolie trades was smuggling, although it was of significance earlier as well. Villagers smuggled their own purchases back over the frontier (the bridge carrying the footpath over the border river near the Sha Tsui temple was a commonly used route, as it was not continuously guarded by the Customs), but bulk smuggling (mostly of sugar, kerosene, tobacco, and also opium) was organised by the shops in the market, especially the tobacco dealers. These treated their trade as any other carrying trade, with village women being hired ad hoc to carry loads to customers across the frontier, or across the lines to Sha Yue Chung. Most village women active in the coolie trade took part in this smuggling business. The society of the market at Sha Tau Kok was entirely dominated by the local Hakka of the surrounding villages. The Tanka - the boat people - were, as always, regarded as somewhat second-class, even though their presence was essential to the economic success of the town. The perceived inferiority of the boat-people may well be the reason that few of them lived in the market at Sha Tau Kok: they preferred to live at Kat O, a few miles off-shore, outside the Shap Yeuk area. Even more regarded as second-class, however, were the Hoklo saltworkers. These groups of workers, living for the term of their contract away from their families in their miserable huts on the saltpans, had no status at all. Of the total population of the town, perhaps as many as one fifth were saltworkers (assuming five workers per salt-works). The Hakka villagers owned the salt-works, but left them entirely to the contract overseer and his hired staff, so long as the rent was paid. No-one remembers the names of any of these salt-workers, nor can anyone remember any marriages between local Hakka or Tanka girls and these Hoklo labourers. The villagers kept away from them, and their only contact was the exchange of fuel or vegetables for salt at Yim Liu Ha. The salt-workers were important to the economy of the town, but they were treated as being the very bottom of the social scale. At the other end of the social scale were the teachers at the Tung Wo School. The Shap Yeuk elders had wanted to ensure that the district had at least one first quality school, and had consequently built the school to ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 185 high standards, and took care to employ good teachers. The school must always have had several teachers - the building is just too big to have been feasible for just one. In 1923 there were five teachers. Three were Shap Yeuk area people. One, Chan Kan-cheung, from Luk Keng, was a returned student from USA - he taught English and Physical Education. Another teacher from Luk Keng was Chan Ping-long, a graduate from Canton. He taught "the new books". The third teacher from the Shap Yeuk area was Lau Woon-kwong, from Keng Hau (Jinghou) in the Chinese part of the Shap Yeuk area. He taught classical Chinese and Music. The other two teachers were outsiders: Lei Wai-lau was a Sau Tsoi from near Yuen Long, a Punti speaker - he taught classical Chinese. The fifth teacher, Wu Fan-ng, was from Shaoguan in the north of Guangdong. He had lived for many years in Sha Tau Kok, and spoke and taught in Hakka. He, like Chan Ping-long, was a graduate from Canton, and taught "the new books". Right down to the 1930s, the desire to keep their school one of the best and most advanced in the region was a major aim of the elders of the Shap Yeuk. In the 1920s, the standard of the school was as advanced as the Government schools which the Hong Kong Government had started to open in the major centres of the New Territories. By having this group of well-educated and cultured men living in the market, the elders of the Shap Yeuk demonstrated that their town and district comprised a full and viable community - not only having artisans and labourers and merchants, but scholars and gentry as well. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 193 H Details of the early Hakka examination successes are known from a recently recovered genealogy, of the Chan (陳) lineage of Nam Chung. It is understood that a copy of this genealogy will be deposited with the Hong Kong Museum of History. I am indebted to Mr Chan Wing-hot for drawing my attention to the information in this genealogy. Q Seen 8 At the time of the Block Crown Lease (1905), 12.68 acres of saltpans were recorded. However, the serious inadequacies of the first survey here led to another being conducted in 1912, when 17.11 acres were recorded. However, in 1912 two areas were left unclaimed, probably because storms had breached their bunds and ruined them. These two areas totalled about 3.3 acres. In addition, there were about 0.6 acres of houses, huts, and waste within the saltpan reclamation, which, therefore, totalled about 21.2 acres. The saltpans were very valuable property in the nineteenth century - the Basel missionaries (see below, n. 17) record the sale of a share by a Tam Shui Hang villager in 1882 for "several hundreds of dollars" (Basel Mission archive, doc. AT-16, Nr. 45). In the 1920s, however, and still more in the 1930s, cheap imported salt caused ever-growing problems, which led to the closure of the saltworks before the War. A bridge was built to the saltpans in 1934 (Administrative Reports for the Year 1934, App. J, "Report on the New Territories for 1934", p. J17). After the War, the abandoned saltworks became the site of a major squatter settlement, recently cleared. Today, the saltpan area has disappeared under new reclamation, and all that remains is a new Tin Hau Temple, replacing the old one previously on the saltpans, built on a new site on the new waterfront. For details of the history of the temples in the area, on the settlement of the Hakka in the area, the reclamation projects they undertook, the founding and management of the market at Sha Tau Kok, and the functioning of the Shap Yeuk as the district management body, see P.H. Hase, "The Alliance of Ten Settlements and Polities in the Sha Tau Kok Area", in D. Faure and H.S. Siu, eds., Down to Earth: The Territorial Bond in South China, Stanford University Press, 1995. 12. No details on the earlier history of the temple survived the very full restoration of 1894, but Shan Tsun elders believe it to be very old. 13. In the 1688 Gazetteer (Ch. 3) a ferry “along the coast” is mentioned called the "Ma Tseuk Ling Ferry". There can be no doubt that this is the ferry to Sha Yue Chung (Shayuchong, etc.), 12 miles down the coast. Ma Tseuk Ling, at the head of Starling Inlet, is the nearest old village to the Wu Shek Kok Temple (Wu Shek Kok village - probably a foundation of the early nineteenth century). The coasts of Starling Inlet within two or three miles of Ma Tseuk Ling were blocked with mudflats and mangrove everywhere except at Wu Shek Kok, where alone a hill falls steeply into the sea. Wu Shek Kok is, therefore, the only possible site for a "Ma Tseuk Ling Ferry" landing place. The Ma Tseuk Ling villagers owned the Wu Shek Kok Temple, and the Ma Tseuk Ling military post (1688 Gazetteer, ch. 7), was at Shek Chung Au, just a few hundred yards from Wu Shek Kok. These Ma Tseuk Ling connections with the Wu Shek Kok area strongly suggest that the Wu Shek Kok hill was regarded as forming part of the Ma Tseuk Ling area. Later, Wu Shek Kok formed part of the Ma Tseuk Ling Yeuk of the Shap Yeuk. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 1850-1911, op cit 71 See P H Hase, "Sha Tau Kok in 1853”, op cit 72 The largest shops were Kwan Tau (144) the household goods shop (Nai Wai, Niwei, in Luk Heung) 2 Wang Hap (Z) the household goods shop (Yung Shue Au) 3 Kwong Yue (M) the grocery (Fung Hang) 4 Yuen Tai (54) the grocery (Tong To) 5 Sam Lung ( ) the grocery (Wo Hang) 6 Yan Hong (10) the grocery (Yim Tin) 7 8 Cheung Ding (FL) the fishmonger (Kwun Lo Ha, Guanlouxia, in Luk Heung) Wa Shong (4) the fishmonger ("Sha Tau Kok" probably Sha Lan Ha) 9 10 Tak Ding (120) the tobacconist (Luk Keng) 11 Tsui Cheung (4307) the silversmith (Tsai Muk Kiu) 12 I San Cheung (1) the tailor and cloth dealer (Yim Tin) 13 San Lung (954) the tailor and cloth dealer - the largest shop in the market - (Au Tau, Aotou, in Luk Heung) 14 Tung Yue ( ) the carpenter (Sau Hang, Xuokeng, in Luk Heung) 15 Jung Hing ([]) the carpenter (Sha Tseng Tau, Shajingtou, Luk Heung) 16 Cheung Sze (12) the boatbuilder (Sha Tau Kok Sha Lan Ha) 17 Sze Fong Ting (P44) the gambling house (Wo Hang) 18 Nung Sang Tong (WE7) the doctor (Yim Tin) 19 Wo Hing Tong (ABU) the pawnshop (Yim Tin) Thus, of the largest shops, five were owned by Luk Heung people, four by Yim Tin Yeuk people, two by Wo Hang Yeuk people, two by Sha Tau Kok (Sha Lan Ha) people, two by people from the Thi Tin Yeuk (the area south-west of Sha Tau Kok across the sea, around Luk Keng and Nam Chung), and one each by people from the Hing Chun Yeuk (around Lai Chi Wo), Kuk Po Yeuk, and Sam Heung. Thus, in 1925, not only were the largest shops all operated by people from the Shap Yeuk area, but ownership of these larger shops was spread around most of the Yeuk areas of the Shap Yeuk. The Basel missionaries make it clear that the shops in the market in 1853 were also all owned by people from the surrounding villages see P H Hase, “Sha Tau Kok in 1853", op cit 71 See J W. Hayes, The Hong Kong Region, 1850-1911, op cit for the places of origin of shop-keepers at Tai O and Cheung Chau, and J W Hayes, The Rural Communities of Hong Kong, op cit for those at Kowloon city. D Faure, loc cit gives details on those at Tsuen Wan and Sai Kung. The fisher ports in the Islands (Tai O, Cheung Chau), and, to some degree Sai Kung on the mainland, had the largest percentage of non-indigenous shopowners, but Sha Tau Kok had fewer "outsider" shopowners even than Tsuen Wan. 74. A contact from Tsat Muk Kiu village, for instance, said that she would go to the market with her wood, sell it, buy what she needed in the market, and return home, passing on her way home the women from Wang Shan Keuk still carrying their wood. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g 9 By their differences in dwellings and occupations, already observed, these four communities can be grouped into land-dwellers and sea-dwellers, the Cantonese and Hakka being the former and the Tanka and Hoklo the latter. 43 The Cantonese, or Punti as they are sometimes called, had their origins in North China and speak a Chinese dialect of the western section of the Yueh language which evidences their claim to be of pure Chinese stock. There is no record of their arriving in the province of Kwangtung, which they colonised, earlier than the Sung Dynasty (960-1278 A.D.). In the van were a clan surnamed Tang who settled in the Yuen Long district of the New Territories late in the 11th century. This clan became the largest landowners with their main centres at Kam T'in, P'ing Shan, Lung Yeuk Tau and Ha Tsuen. They exercised "a kind of feudal power, and the tradition they had brought with them was so strong that they not only became the founders of the Cantonese settlement but to this day exert a great influence in affairs. The Cantonese occupy most of the two principal plains in the northwest sector of the New Territories, and own a good deal of the best valley land in various other areas. Villages in the Tung Chung and Shek Pik valleys, on Lantau Island, date back to the early Yuan dynasty in the late thirteenth century. The livelihood of the Cantonese is dependent mainly on the cultivation of rice. The Hakka migrated originally also from North China and, moving gradually southwards through Fukien and Kiangsi in the 10th century, reached Kwangtung Province during the latter years of the Southern Sung Dynasty. They speak two dialects or sub-dialects of the eastern section of the same Yueh language that the Cantonese speak. Arriving after the Cantonese, the Hakka settled usually upstream of them, that is, on the poorer ground. They have, however, steadily over the centuries encroached on the land first occupied by the Cantonese. For example, after the Manchus in the 17th century had evacuated the entire population of the China Coast inland to guard against the fleet of the Ming Dynasty based on Formosa, the Hakka apparently took the opportunity of resettling in the abandoned coastal area. Again, Hong Kong island is said to have been originally occupied by the Tang clan but the British in the 19th century found it almost entirely inhabited by Hakka. A third example of Hakka encroachment is said to be Lantau Island which in recent times was depopulated by... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 75 market towns can be, as noted above, identified by their imbalanced populations, as can villages specialising in incense pounding, stonecutting, and salt-working (Yim Liu Ha, and perhaps Tsing Shan and Tsing Shan Po in Tuen Mun) Some fishing villages (especially Kau Sai) show what is probably a seasonal population imbalance, with the male population boosted by the temporary presence of "foreign" fishing vessels at the Census date. In all these cases, as with the market towns, the opportunities for wage-paying employment must have led to a certain degree of temporary male immigration into the village in question. Some other villages may have been "industrial" in 1911 without this being so clearly confirmed by oral evidence as in these cases. Thus, Sheung Wo Che in Sha Tin was the site of the Sha Tin Railway Station; the excess males recorded here, with the nearby Pak Tin and Wang Pok, may have been working on the construction of the railway. However, when all the urban and industrial villages are discounted, there remain numbers of villages with excess males where there seems little likelihood of immigration, and where some other factor or factors must be at work. A number of very poor villages in the eastern part of the New Territories have more males than are to be expected. It may be that some of these villages were just too poor to pay the fees required to let their young adult males emigrate, and equally too poor to arrange marriages for them until there was land available for them to inherit. On the other hand, a number of very wealthy Punti villages, especially those in the Sheung Shui plain (including Loi Tung, Lung Yeuk Tau, Ping Kong, with others at just below the 56% cut-off point) also have high male-female ratios. The reasons for this are unclear. It may be no more than a particularly strong unwillingness to report unmarried girls in these villages. J.L. Watson, however, has shown that some at least of the wealthier Punti villages had a “bachelor sub-culture”, in which poorer members of the lineage tended not to marry, but to drift into a society of bachelor clubs centred on the lineage self-defence force. This system, in which unmarriageable poorer lineage sons were nonetheless given a positive role in local society, may have induced higher than average male-female ratios in such villages; emigration was not the only option available to the excess males.13 No evidence of such a “bachelor sub-culture” seems to exist for the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 254 of death rituals, rites of passage, gender role, festivals and customs, ancestor worship and feng shui, Constable illustrates that the Shung Him Tong Hakkas' attempt to reconcile Hakka-Chinese and Hakka-Christian identities is an ongoing process. This ongoing process is also demonstrated in the continuous transforming images of Hakka characters. The older generation emphasises Chineseness despite being Christians; the younger generation tends to allow Christianity a far more obvious role in their lives (Chapter 6). Chapter 2 is devoted to a discussion on Hakka migration and the Taiping Rebellion, both events thought to have been important in the construction of Hakka identity. According to the book, the former provides the Hakkas with a historical mechanism to identify themselves as "Orthodox Chinese," and the latter provided, other than lineage, an "organisational structure that helped bring together those who became influential in inventing and articulating Hakka identity” (p. 38). If these two historical events were so crucial to the construction of early Hakka identity, one would expect to know more about how they were told and utilised by the Shung Him Tong Hakka Christians to reconstruct their own Hakka identity, not through records by historians of European missionaries. Without this, it is difficult to relate the construction of early Hakka identity and the reconstruction of the Hakka-Christian identity in Shung Him Tong. Shung Him Tong is located near Lung Yeuk Tau, a village compound dominated by the powerful Tang lineage. It is also situated close to two other influential localised lineages in the New Territories of Hong Kong: the Pangs of Fanling and the Lius of Sheung Shui. Though the political influence of the early founders of Shung Him Tong is mentioned, Constable does not explain how the marginal situation of the village contributed to the survival of the community, which is Christian and Hakka (as against Chinese and indigenous Punti villages like Lung Yeuk Tau, Fanling, and Sheung Shui). It is also unclear how, unlike the Lius of Sheung Shui, who had to change their ethnic identity from Hakka to Punti, this marginal nature of the community is manipulated by the Shung Him Tong Hakkas to reconstruct their own unique Hakka-Christian identity. There are also some minor imprecisions. One of which is Qing Ming, which does not fall in “Spring during the third month of the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 69 project, about 1,924 acres of agricultural land in Fanling and Sheung Shui were reclaimed.22 Besides, in 1982, thirteen acres of the Pangs' agricultural land were then resumed to build a park. By surrendering their lands to the government, the Pangs received cash compensation. The land records show that, for example, Pang On Sun in 1981 surrendered agricultural lands with a total area of 2,168 square feet and received $224,334 at a rate of $103 square feet. In the same month a plot of agricultural land of 3,610 square feet, owned by Pang Chung On, was reclaimed by the government, and he received $372,860 cash compensation. Besides, the Pangs since the late 1970s have also been granted cash from their corporately-owned land trusts when the trust land was resumed by the government. The villagers say that a trust member has been granted more than twenty hundred thousand dollars in total or so from their trusts since the 1980s. As they received cash compensation, many of them saved up for building houses. After the 1980s, however, the Pangs find that they do not have enough land to build ding wu, as most land has been resumed by the government. Moreover, the government has not provided any building land for them in or nearby Fanling Wai. Consequently, by 1990, the number of applications for purchasing Crown land to build ding wu had increased to 300. In 1994, a new set of selection criteria was drafted by the District Officer and the Village Representatives for evaluating the applications.3 Those additional criteria included the applicant's family size, financial competence to pay the construction costs of building house, contribution to the village and so forth.4 Besides, the Village Representatives recommended that the applicants residing in the village or in Hong Kong took priority for having their applications granted over those overseas applicants, as they were said to be in greater need. As a result, 69 villagers were selected from among approximately 300 applicants under this new selection system.2 25 Pang Yeuk Lung was one of the successful applicants. He was a village committee member from 1985 to 1994 and a member of Da jiao committee in 1990. His payment for the construction costs largely came from the cash dividends of his ancestral trusts in the 1980s. He said the amount he could save from his job was little, as most of it was spent on the family. Pang On Sun was another successful applicant. He was a seaman from the 1950s to the early 1980s and remitted a large part of his salary to support his family. His savings for building a ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 78 47 # Government Press The total land area of Fanling and Sheung Shui was 13,184 acres (20.6 square miles). See Heung Yee Kuk, Xin Jie Xiang Yi Ju Cheng Li Lu Shi Zhou Nian Jin Dian Te Kan (The Special Issue for the New Territories Heung Yee Kuk's 60th Anniversary [published in 1986]), p. 182 A name list of successful applicants was posted on the village notice-board in 1991. A total of 69 ding houses were allowed to be built. But unsuccessful applicants tore down the list and then submitted objections to the District Office. They complained that some successful applicants were found to be living abroad, some came from the same family, and that most village council members of Fanling Wai (cun wei hui cheng yuan) were successful applicants. The result was considered unfair because many of these successful applicants were said to have bribed the Village Representatives for their applications. So the District Officer and Village Representatives had to set up new criteria for reconsidering the applications. "The detail of the criterion is as follows (Data collected from the Fanling Wai village notice-board in 1994): (1) Villagers having large families and those whose present living conditions were comparatively less desirable. (1) Villagers who could afford the construction costs of the houses and were unlikely to dispose of the completed houses to outsiders. (11) Villagers who were enthusiastic towards serving fellow villagers and were benevolent towards the affairs of the village. (iv) Villagers who had submitted applications before June 1989. (v) Applicants who were or had been members of either the village committee, or Da Jiao Committee or Village Guard would be considered to have served their fellow villagers and to be benevolent towards the affairs of Fanling Wai. (Da Jiao is a lineage-based religious festival, see footnote 10). (vi) Where two or more applicants having a father and son relationship were successful in this selection exercise, only one application would be selected for allocation of a Small House site. "Some villagers anticipated that their building rights would not be realized in their lifetime due to the keen competition or to their lack of money, so they decided to sell their "right to build" (ding quan) to land developers to profit. That is, land developers have offered villagers money to make use of their building rights to apply to build houses elsewhere. During my fieldwork, I found a total of seven Pangs who had successfully applied to build ding houses outside Fanling Wai. Six were built in San Wai of Lung Yeuk Tau (the Tang lineage settlement in Fanling), and one in Long Chai, Fanling. In fact, the phenomena of selling ding quan by villagers to make a profit has been a common one. For example, according to the Far Eastern Economic Review, ten villagers living abroad who had no intention of returning to Hong Kong made a total profit of $500,000 by selling their ding quan to land developers (1982: 55, quoted in Allen Chun, op. cit., p. 222). * In 1976, in order to discourage villagers from making profits by selling their ding wu, the government amended the policy to pay the government full market value premium if houses are sold within five years of the end of construction work. 27. The emigrant Mans also built new village houses in San Tin as the ultimate proof of their stake in the community of their birth. See James Watson, op. cit., p. 165 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 64 27 See P.H. Hase "Bandits in the Siu Lek Yuen Yeuk", in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 32, 1992, pp. 214-216. 29 I am indebted to the interview notes of Dr James Hayes for this incident. 29 The traditional land-law of the New Territories divided the land-ownership rights into subsoil rights and topsoil rights. The topsoil landowner had the right to till the land, or to sell or mortgage that right. The subsoil landowner had the right to take a rent-charge from the topsoil landowner, and he resumed the topsoil rights should the topsoil owner fail. It was the subsoil owner who was responsible for paying the land-tax, if any. The British declared the system inappropriate, and declared the topsoil owners the sole owner, and personally responsible for the Crown Rent. For the Nga Tsin Wai sub-soil rights in Kowloon City, see J.W. Hayes The Hong Kong Region op.cit. pp. 167-168. 30 See J.W. Hayes, The Hong Kong Region, op. cit, pp. 168-171. 31 The information in this section is taken from the Chan clan Tsuk Po, and from information given me by the Chan clan elders. See also B. Williams, "The Chan Family of Tseung Kwan O", in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, Vol. 7, 1967, pp. 158-160, which gives additional material taken from the information given by the elders in the 1960s. 32 See J.W. Hayes, The Hong Kong Region, op. cit. p. 171. 33 See J.W. Hayes, The Hong Kong Region, op. cit. pp. 167-168. 34 For these inscriptions, see D. Faure, B. Luk, A. Ng, The Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong, op. cit, Vol. 1, pp. 75-78, 114-116, 184-188. 35 Information from the recently revised Tsuk Po. 36 Information in this paragraph is taken from the Census of 1911, and from information given by elders of a number of villages. See P.H. Hase, “Traditional Life in the New Territories: The Evidence of the 1911 and 1921 Censuses", in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, Vol. 36, 1996, pp. 1-92. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 429 Executive, with what he sees as the inevitable concomitant to these developments of a ministerial system - are made fascinatingly clear. Hong Kong was immensely lucky to have had Denis in senior positions throughout the formative years of modern Hong Kong. Without innovative, intelligent, and vigorous officers like him, what would the place have been like? At the same time, Denis, too, was lucky. For much of his early career, he had the sympathetic support of Ronald Holmes as his immediate superior: almost the only man with the imagination to countenance Denis's guerrilla attacks on the shibboleths of administration, and, more importantly, with the intelligence and drive to support them when he was satisfied they were needed. Had Denis had a succession of stolid and lazy lame-brains as his superiors, how long would it have taken for him to have been black-listed as just someone who "rocked the boat," who was "too clever for his own good”? I wonder if anyone with his flair and instinctive feel for the needs of ordinary people could survive in the Administrative Service of today? Denis comes over in this book as a man of great intelligence and charm, wit, and decency. His 'horror and disgust' at the things disclosed by the Independent Commission Against Corruption come through, for instance, very clearly. Having worked for him for a couple of years, I know that the book shows the real Denis. The book is very well printed by Hong Kong University Press. There are a few errors that should have been caught by the copy-editors (for instance, 'Rodean School' and 'the Ordinance Survey,' both on p. 151). Denis states that he is no historian, and there are a few places where there are minor errors of historical fact, although none that affect the overall value of the book. Among them are the names of the Seven Yeuk of Tai Po (p. 96), the date of the New Market at Tai Po (founded 1892, and not after the building of the Tai Po Road a decade later, as suggested on pp. 96 and 170-171), and the date of the Tolo Harbour arable reclamations (almost all in the nineteenth century, rather than the late eighteenth as suggested on p. 61). All in all, this is a book of considerable charm; thoroughly to be recommended to anyone interested in today's Hong Kong. PATRICK HASE ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 6 incorporating the existing country park in Ma On Shan, marine park, hiking trail, holiday camp, water sports centre and festival market in the town. Moreover, Tai Long Wan - a traditional dwelling with its nearby beautiful beach in the eastern part of Sai Kung - was also included in its developmental guidelines for selected areas pending the preparation of Outline Zoning Plans (OZPs). However, the contested issue in Tai Long Wan is going to be the first case I will introduce. Tai Long Wan is especially well known among hikers and trail-walkers due to it being situated on the way from Long Ke to Pak Tam Au, forming the MacLehose Trail Stage Two. Nonetheless, we realize that the Town Planning Board (TPB) also deferred the Tai Long Wan zoning decision which was included in the SENTDSR for the intensive tourism/recreation and conservation/landscapes planning in Sai Kung area. After the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) rejected plans to build the Sheung Shui to Lok Ma Chau spur line project and the Lantau North-South Road link between Tai Ho Wan and Mui Wo, it perhaps was not surprising that the main reason for the postponement of the decision was the existence of certain rare plants in the area. And, TPB worried that natural resources in the proposed village zone area, in which indigenous people want to build houses, would be negatively affected in relevant development. A closer investigation of the situation in Tai Long Wan highlights the significant role of the government and implications of its policy and plan in balancing indigenous livelihood and the natural conservation. Tai Long Wan Tai Long Wan is a traditional settlement consisting of five villages and villagers with different surnames living together. It was probably founded more than 200 years ago even though we are not able to tell whether they came before or after the Coastal Evacuation 1662-1669.* Historically speaking, in 1899, there were already 700-800 villages including tsuen (not walled) and wai (walled) in the New Territories, and the two major dialectic groups were Punti who spoke Wai-tau language, and Hakka who spoke Hakka language. Those villages were grouped together in different regional alliances; however, after the official land registration at the beginning of the British colonial regime, the previous Chinese administrative units of heung and yeuk were strongly affected as well as weakened. In South China, the heung, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 7 which contained tsuen and wai, was an important administrative unit; yeuk were alliances formed by weak lineages as a means to oppose the stronger lineages. Tai Long Wan belongs to the Sai Kung Nam Yeuk (meaning Sai Kung South Alliance) which is originally formed by more than thirty Hakka settlements spreading all over the south-eastern part Sai Kung peninsula. Likewise, such groupings of Hakka communities were commonly found in the eastern part of the New Territories (about a similar traditional Hakka village settlement in Sha Lo Tung in Tai Po, also see Gee 1995). Divided by the mountain range on the eastern side of Pat Heung that is almost in the middle of the whole area, we find the north-western side of the New Territories is fertile flat land consisting of a few early settled clans such as Tangs, Mans, Haus, Lius, and Pangs. As distinct from the lineage-oriented village settlements of the north-western part of the New Territories however, we find the eastern and south-eastern parts of the New Territories are characterized by settlements that were regionally grouped in multiple lineages/villages together. As informed by Mr. Cham, one of the indigenous inhabitants of Tai Wai (sometimes called Tai Long by non-residents), one of the five villages in Tai Long Wan, there are altogether 700 to 800 villagers currently belonging to Tai Long Wan, even though most of them did not live inside the village. He estimated that about 500 villagers are now living in the UK and about 300 villagers are now living in the urban areas of Hong Kong. So many residents had moved out of Tai Long Wan because of the inconvenient transportation between the villages and the residents' working places and their children's schools. Mr. Cham told me that villagers from Tai Long Wan were mostly poor, and this explained why the last one-storey small-house built in Tai Long Wan was in the mid-1970s. Therefore, even though the villagers were asking for house land available for 370 units, he mentioned that the actual number would be much smaller and the potential applicants might be more in the next ten years. Regarding the indigenous rights in small-house policy, he emphasized that although 70 per cent of the potential applicants were living in UK, their rights to build houses on the homeland should be respected. Furthermore, he added that some retired villagers even came back to Hong Kong 2 to 3 times a year and some villagers had work that there might come back every year as well. ================================================================================