RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d MILITIA, MARKET AND LINEAGE 57 as leaders during the fighting. Ten of the 63 leaders are identi-fiable as members of the gentry, in the sense that they are men-tioned in the documents as having degrees obtained either by purchase or by examination. examination. Most of the remainder could be termed 'local notables'. Some were substantial owners of agricul-tural land and village houses. Other owned shops in their local markets. It is probable that they were often --as was Man Cham-tsun managers of corporately-owned lineage property. The available information about these men is summarized below. — Table II LEADERS IN THE RESISTANCE MOVEMENT (By Marketing area, District & Village, Surname)* Marketing area District, or other Association of sharing gradu-ates Village, or Surnames No. No. of leaders Yuen Long 5+ Ha Tsuen Tang 12 2 Ping Shan Tang 11 1 Kam Tin Tang 10 2 Pat Heung Tang 2 Li 1 Lai 1 Tse 1 1. +3 15 Shap Pat Heung Chu 1 Ng 2 2 15 Tai Po Tun Mun Ts'at Yeuk Tang 1 Lo 1 Tai Hang Man 3 1 71 Pan Chung Chan 1 Mak 1 - * +3 + ++ 7 ** Fan Leng Pang 1 Sha Lo Tung Li 2 " ** * * 2 Cheung Shue Tan Chan 1 7: * H 3. Hang Ha Po Lam 1 Tai Po Tau Tang * Shek Wu Hui Lung Yeuk Tau Tang I ++ +1 Sheung Shui Liu 1 Ping Kong Hau 2 1 ** Sha Tau Kok Sham Chun Wo Hang San Tin Li 4 Man 1 * All romanisations are in Cantonese. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 173 the kaifong, which was fixed by auction, the keeper of the scale could keep the charges paid for the use of the scale by merchants. The fee was used for the management of the temple and the annual celebration of the birthday of T'in Hau, usually held towards the middle of the Fourth Lunar Month. To prepare for this festival, the committee had to arrange for donations from Sai Kung residents to make the necessary purchases and to contract with a troupe for the opera. Besides the birthday of T'in Hau, the kaifong also had to arrange for a puppet show at the Great King Earthgod's shrine, and the offering of a pig at the temple at the beginning of the year, on the day of the T'in Hau Festival, at the Kwan Tai Festival, and at the end of the year.35 The activities of the kaifong committee became routine. Some time in the 1930's, a younger generation of merchants in Sai Kung formed themselves into the Chamber of Commerce. The leader of this new body was Lei Shiu Yam, of Lan Nei Wan. When World War II broke out, it was this group that was the more active in Sai Kung Market. DAILY LIFE C. 1920 Population The census of 1911 counted 9,243 people in Sai Kung District, which at the time also included Shap Sz Heung and villages near Sham Chung and Pak Sha O. The same census reported that there were 2,633 Punti-speaking, 6,599 Hakka-speaking, and 11 Hoklo-speaking villagers in the district. It probably neglected the boat population, the size of which must now remain unknown. As recorded, the Sai Kung population amounted to 13.4 percent of the total population of the New Territories. Village, lineage, and voluntary association The reported population was distributed through 126 villages. The great majority of these had a smaller population than 100, and many could not have been more than isolated houses. By no means the smallest, Tin Ha Wan had 37 people, Mok Tse Che 51, Tai Nam Wu 33, Ma Lam Wat 43, and Tso Wo Hang 24. Only 21 villages in what is recognized now as Sai Kung ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 194 CARL SMITH felt among the large bodies of emigrants of his own race already in the state, or coming in the spring. The trust of the Chinese community in putting Tong A-chick in a position of leadership had not been misplaced. They had found an able spokesman. WHEN THE CANTON AND MACAU GROUPS 'RULED' SAN FRANCISCO Tong A-chick had become the spokesman for the Chinese community in California because of his natural leadership qualities, his fluency in English and his knowledge of Western manners and customs. The organisation in which he first rose to leadership was the association organised in San Francisco by people from his home district Heung Shan (Hsiang-shan, now Chung-shan). It was one of the earliest of what were eventually six such organisations of people from the Pearl River Delta. The Heung Shan men adopted the name Yeung Wo for their group, meaning Association for Peace in a Foreign Place. Such bodies organised by the Chinese outside China to oversee community affairs were sometimes criticised by the established Government authorities. This was true of the Tung Wah Hospital Committee in Hongkong in the 19th century and it was also true of the Chinese associations or “companies” of San Francisco. In 1853 the California Legislature and a San Francisco Grand Jury looked into the manner in which the Chinese had organised themselves to look after the interests of their community. The report submitted to the legislature by its Committee on Mines and Mining Interests begins with a statement of the reasons the associations were organised. “After the large immigration which took place in 1850, the Chinese, finding that their language, habits and customs were not understood by our people, thought it necessary to establish some system for their better regulation and internal government. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 197 disturbance. Tong A-chick was in charge. Some of the combatants of the previous night were present. They were from the E Shing Society which was a bitter enemy of the Yeung Wo Association, of which Tong A-chick was one of the directors. They questioned his impartiality. Tempers flew, threats were made, and blows exchanged. The climax came when a group of armed men rushed into the meeting from the street attempting to break it up. A-chick sought the nearest exit, a window. Flying through it, he landed on a sheet iron awning which collapsed with a terrible clatter. His unceremonious exit and consequent clatter stopped the turmoil inside the building, but it roused the neighbourhood. In due time the police arrived. The whole lot were hauled into court for disturbing the peace and riotous behaviour. The E Shing group tried to claim that it was all due to the presence of Tong A-chick, who had tried to act as mediator. He, as usual, ably defended himself, “reciting every circumstance of the occurrence in a clear and impartial manner, in the English language, with which he was perfectly conversant.” Occasionally the associations were given a favourable notice in the press. In 1853 a band of desperadoes had been harassing the countryside. A Company of Rangers had captured the leader of the gang, a man named Joaquim, and thus brought an end to the terrorising. Tong A-chick, as representative of the Chinese district associations, presented a cash gift to the Rangers in appreciation. The San Francisco Herald commented: “The Chinese here, although in no manner bound, have with commendable liberality come forward with this contribution of $1,000 in token of their appreciation of the Rangers' services. They have proved themselves in this city on many occasions a liberal and public-spirited people.” Tong A-chick as leader in the Chinese community during its first decade in California guided it through a difficult period. His ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 198 CARL SMITH son, who passed through San Francisco in the 1870s, reported that his father was still remembered by the community with gratitude and respect. WHEN FAME HAS ITS HAZARDS The position of leadership is one of prestige and honour, but as a public figure the leader is also open to criticism by disgruntled members of the community. Tong A-chick, as leader of the Chinese community of California in the 1850s, experienced such attacks. In one case a husband charged him with harbouring his runaway wife. The background of the story indicates some of the difficulties Chinese women had in California. Many of them had been imported as prostitutes. Some had been abducted from their home villages, others had been purchased, and still others had been deceived by false promises. Their lot was not easy. The background of Too A-sung, the woman in the case, is not clear. She had been married in Sacramento to Fong A-lai in September 1856, by the Rev. Lewis J. Shuck, a former Baptist missionary in Hongkong. After the marriage, the couple went to live at Marysville, California. Here A-lai, the husband, began to mistreat his wife. He beat her, threatened to sell her, and, so she claimed, "forced her into the lowest depths of degradation.” He kept her in "constant misery, anxiety and wretchedness." Finally, she was able to run away through the assistance of some friends. She arrived at San Francisco and sought shelter at the business premises of Tong A-chick. The premises were also used as a branch of the Yeung Wo Association, as the association's house was on the slopes of Telegraph Hill some distance from the centre of the Chinese settlement. Tong A-chick was a director of the association, and Too A-sung ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 150 It is scarcely surprising, therefore, that the Hakka villages of this area combined into a number of village self-defence and support alliance groups in the eighteenth century, and under the leadership of the wealthier villages, formed a district association in the early nineteenth, the Shap Yeuk (+) or "Alliance of Ten" (so called from the ten or eleven village alliance groups of which it was formed). The Shap Yeuk's prime aim was local self-government. They sought, therefore, to remove from the area the political dominance of the older Punti clans from the west, which had been a feature of the area in the earlier period: this was successfully achieved in the early nineteenth century. The area had previously marketed at Sham Chun, which was a market dominated by the old Punti clans. The population of the Mirs Bay area, which had been very low in the early eighteenth century, had risen sharply, and, by the early nineteenth century, had reached the point where it could support a market of its own. The Shap Yeuk accordingly founded a market, probably in the period 1825-1835, at Sha Tau Kok, partly on reclaimed land. The successful foundation of this market was a clear public statement of the success of the Shap Yeuk in ridding themselves of the influence of the Punti clans of the Sham Chun area. In the genealogy of the Chan clan of Nam Chung village it states that Chan Hip-tsun (B) (1792-1864) of that clan was the leader in the market project: "The foundation of Tung Wo Market was undertaken at his initiative. He got all the people of various Yeuk together, and secured unanimity." Immediately west of the new town, various wealthy local villagers also joined forces to reclaim a 21 acre island of salt-pans, connected with the new town by tidal fords passable at low water. This reclamation may have been undertaken a little after the foundation of the market. Salt production remained an important part of the town's economy until the 1920s. 10 In the early nineteenth century there were three temples in the area near the new town. One was the Tin Hau Temple at Am King (Anjing, ), which was the community temple of the Luk Heung (Luxiang, A), the area immediately east of the new town. This temple was of early Ch'ing date the latest." Only half a mile from the new market was the Kwan Tai Temple at Shan Tsui, the community temple of the ================================================================================