A Documentary History of Hong Kong: Society

396 Pages·1997·22.523 MB·English

by  David Faure

SOCIETY

A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF HONG KONG
SOCIETY
Edited by David Faure
Hong Kong University Press
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Hong Kong University Press
The University of Hong Kong
Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong
© Hong Kong University Press 1997
ISBN 962 209 393 0
All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical includin g
photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system without
permission in writing from the publisher.
Printed in Hong Kong by ColorPrint Production Co.
CONTENTS
Series General Editors' Foreword vi i
Acknowledgements i x
Introduction 1
Chapter One: Early settlement 1 5
a. Villagers and immigrants 1 6
b. Respectability 1 9
c. Residential segregation 2 2
d. In retrospect 4 7
Chapter Two: The Chinese community in early Hong Kong 5 7
a. The temple and its community 5 8
b. Chinese guilds and other voluntary associations 6 1
c. The Chinese community's politics 8 5
Chapter Three: A city of entrepreneurs 11 7
Chapter Four: The people's livelihood in the 1920s and 1930s 14 9
a. Food, wages and other statistics 15 0
b. The strikes of the 1920s 16 0
c. The sale of women 1 74
d. Depression, livelihood and reform 18 0
Chapter Five: The Second World War and the Japanese occupation 20 9
a. War experience 21 0
b. Life in occupied Hong Kong 22 5
Chapter Six: The return to immigrant society, 1945-1966 23 3
a. Restoration of traditional communal institutions 23 4
b. Poverty and the need for welfare 24 8
VI Contents
c. Changes in personal characteristics 26 8
d. Industrialization in the 1950s 27 4
e. Social mobility 27 8
f. Professionalization 28 0
Chapter Seven: Crisis and consolidation, 1966 -1981 28 5
a. Riots 28 6
b. Language 29 3
c. The population transition 29 9
d. New hopes and bold beginning 30 0
e. Hong Kong workers 3 1 7
f. Transforming the rural family 33 5
g. The new poor 34 7
h. As they kept coming 34 8
Chapter Eight: Affluence and beyond 35 1
a. Out of apathy 35 1
b. Rich and poor 35 2
c. The local people emigrate 36 7
d. The survival of customs 37 0
e. How satisfied have Hong Kong people been? 37 2
Index 383
SERIES GENERAL EDITORS' FOREWORD
Impending changes in the political status of Hong Kong have in recent years
brought about considerable interest in Hong Kong studies. Despite the very active
publication of academic works and general books about Hong Kong in the last
few years, there is still a need for a good scholarly general history which takes
account of overall changes in Hong Kong's politics, society, external relations,
education, economy, culture, and many other aspects of life. Indeed many recent
publications are rather narrowly focused on either the Sino-British negotiations
of the early 1980s or the transition of Hong Kong from a British Crown Colony to
a Chinese Specia l Administrative Region . These are subjects that mus t b e
understood within the broad trends of Hong Kong's history, which has remained
relatively neglected.
The future of Hong Kong cannot but be built on its past. It is our belief that as
Hong Kong looks forward, it must also make a dispassionate assessment of its
experience under British rule. No doubt, opinions about this assessment will vary;
it will take time and discussions for Hong Kong, as China's Special Administrative
Region, to come to terms with its colonial past. However, in our opinion, not
only should such discussions be well informed, they should also not be restricted
to specialists. For this reason, we think i t best to produce these volumes that
allow importan t documents to speak for themselves. The existing literature has
not allowed easy access to most of the basic documents on Hong Kong history for
non-specialists, and it is the object of this series to fill this gap.
We hope this series of a documentary history will be sufficiently detailed and
authoritative for specialists, but will remain comprehensible to general readers. It
should be a ready reference which is also readable as a general history. In our
conception, a good documentary histor y i s more than a selective reprin t of
documents. It should present relevant documents with introductory comment s
that will explain their context and highlight their significance in an interpretative
framework. In this series each volume is self-contained and is edited by one or
VIM Series General Editors' Foreword
two specialist s in the chosen subject. It is our intention that each volume will
bring to the ready grasp of the reader documents that are normally accessible
only i n the archives and major librarie s in Hong Kong, the United Kingdom ,
China, Taiwan and the United States.
Steve Tsang
David Faure
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
For permission to cite from their publications, the editor acknowledges with
thanks Professor Chien Chiao, Professor Nelson Chow, Dr Elizabeth Johnson,
Professor Ambrose Y.C. King, Rev Eric Kvan, Mr M.K. Lee, Mr Kenichi Ohashi,
Professor Janet Salaff, Dr Janet Scott, Mrs Elsie Tu, Dr Thomas P. Wong, the
Centre of Asian Studies of the University of Hong Kong, Chinese University
Press, Columbia University Press, the Commercial Press (Hong Kong), the
Department of Social Work of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the
Department of Applied Economics of the University of Cambridge (for the
use of document Vll.el), the Far Eastern Economic Review, the Hong Kong
Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, the Hong Kong Council of Social Service,
the Hong Kong Government, the Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies
of the Chinese Universit y of Hon g Kong , the Hong Kon g Managemen t
Association, Lingnan College (Hong Kong), the Royal Philateli c Societ y
(London), the Hong Kong Museum of History, Hong Kong University Press,
the Urban Council of Hong Kong, and South China Morning Post
For permission to cite from material in their holdings, the editor thanks
the Public Record Office (London), Rhodes House (Oxford), and Hong Kong
University Library.
Dr James Hayes' continuous support and generosity should be noted,
and in this present work, the editor is particularly grateful to him for making
available the war diary cited in translation in document V.a1. The editor
wishes also to acknowledge with thanks permission granted by Mr Kenneth
Ting for a citation from Mr H.C. Ting's recollections for use as document
Vl.dl. Like others who have made use of the Clementi collection at Rhodes
House, he is most grateful to Mrs A.I. Ovenell for making the collection
readily available for research. Most of the material that goes into this book,
however, was found in the Hong Kong Collection at Hong Kong University
Library, and no-one who has worked there should forget the tremendous
X Acknowledgements
energy that past librarians, in particular, Mr Anthony Rydings and Mr Peter
Yeung, had put into building up the collection, and the admirable effort in
continuing tha t tradition mad e by their successors, Dr L.B . Kan as the
university librarian and Mr Y.C. Wan in overall charge of the Hong Kong
Collection.
Some holder s of copyright hav e specified ho w acknowledgement s
should be worded. I am glad to comply here. I gladly acknowledge that
document l.d i s in the custody of the Public Record Office; that documents
I.c2 and I.c3 are cited from Crown copyright material in the Public Record
Office, London and are reproduced by permission of the Controller of Her
Britannic Majesty's Stationery Office; that document Vl.fl i s reprinted with
permission from the January/February 1965 issue of The Hong Kong Manager,
the officia l journa l o f The Hon g Kon g Management Association ; and
document VII.e2 is cited from Working Daughters of Hong Kong by Janet
W. Salaff, copyright © 1995 by Columbia University Press, and reprinted
with permission of the publisher.
Document V.b1 has been cited from a translation published in Course
Unit 6 of AW213, A Histor y of Hon g Kon g 1842-1984, b y the Ope n
University of Hong Kong. The editor is grateful for permission given for its
use.
The editor has made every effort to locate copyright holders and authors
for the passages cited in this volume. In the few cases where he has not
succeeded in doing this, he would be glad if they would contact him.
The editor is also grateful to the British Academy for providing funding
for the editing of this volume, and much heartened by further funding by
the Lord Wilson Heritage Trust in Hong Kong for four forthcoming volumes.
Thanks are also due to the many colleagues who generously shared
information and offered advice, in particular to Dr Elizabeth Sinn, Rev Carl
Smith, Dr Steve Tsang and Professor Wong Siu-lun. At an early stage of his
research into this book, the editor received much help from Dr Stephanie
Chung in the collection of material. While in his last minute rush to complete
the manuscript, he was given assistance by Dr May-bo Ching, Dr Henrietta
Harrison and Dr Susanna Thornton, all of whom at the time were in an
equal rush themselves finishing their doctoral theses.
For all the help that he received in the preparation of this volume, the
editor is immensely grateful.