marriages in the United States: two people live together, sometimes have
children and are regarded by themselves and their friends as married,
unless they should grow weary of each other and part. In Hong Kong,
however, a concubine is sometimes added, making the institution look
something like a house of cards with an annex. Foreign Marriages, or
unions contracted abroad and according to the laws of the country where
the couple formerly lived, present few legal obstacles. If they were
married in Red China, and the marriage was registered there, the union
is monogamous; when the couple move to Hong Kong, their marriage has the
same standing as that of an American or European couple living in the
colony.
The complications arising from this matrimonial disparity have been the
subject of intensive study since World War II. In earlier days, the
marital customs of the Chinese community were of little interest to the
British. One did not associate with the Chinese unless it was required
for the purposes of political window-dressing. But the glacial snobbery
of old colonialism suffered a disrespectful mauling during World War
II from which it has never quite recovered. At that time the Chinese
penetrated all but the tightest circles of Hong Kong society, and
hundreds of British and Chinese intermarried without loss of “face” in
either group. This last was the boldest departure, for while it was true
that outcasts of both races had intermarried since the founding of the
colony, a socially acceptable member of either race who attempted it was
snubbed by both English and Chinese.
British-Chinese intermarriages are monogamous, and in spite of the
inevitable interference of aunts, uncles and cousins, have generally
worked out better than either race would have expected them to two
decades ago. Of themselves, these mixed marriages are not a social issue
in the colony, but they have indirectly breached the barrier between
the two racial communities. Marriage laws of all sorts have become the
concern of the entire colony population.
The 1948 Committee on Chinese Law and Custom defined many of the marital
contradictions which persist to this day. Then, as now, one of the
most vexing questions was the legal status of the “secondary wife”
or concubine sanctioned by Chinese Customary Marriages. The English
meaning of “concubine,” connoting a mistress or secret paramour, was not
applicable to the Chinese concubine; she joined her husband’s household,
with or without the principal wife’s consent, and it was his obligation
to support her. Her children were legitimate, but her husband could
divorce her more readily than he could his principal wife.
But what were the rights of real and pseudo-concubines? Could they and
their children be discarded without support? To what extent might they
challenge the rights of the real wife? The 1948 Committee produced no
definitive answers to these questions, nor did it urge any precipitate
action to change the status of concubines. It did recommend that after a
certain date, the taking of new concubines be declared illegal.
Sir Man Kam Lo, a Chinese member of the Hong Kong Executive Council,
subsequently wrote a dissent to the 1948 report, saying that he believed
the concubine should be allowed to remain in cases where the principal
wife was ill or unable to bear children. As he noted, the birth of a male
heir is of the greatest importance to the succession of a Chinese family.
Very few families, he felt, would regard an adopted son as a suitable
heir.
Arthur Ridehalgh, former Attorney General, and John C. McDouall,
Secretary for Chinese Affairs, made a detailed study of Chinese
marriages in the colony in 1960 and submitted a variety of
recommendations intended to clear up some of the ambiguities and
contradictions.
It was their proposal that the government set a definite date for
outlawing Chinese Modern Marriages and to validate all marriages of this
type which had been previously contracted as monogamous unions, provided
that neither spouse was lawfully married to anyone else. The so-called
concubines of husbands who had been parties to a Chinese Modern Marriage
would receive no further legal recognition, and in fact they had never
been entitled to any.
Regarding Chinese Customary Marriages, the study favored the recording
of these marriages to establish their validity, and the banning of all
future marriages in which either partner is under sixteen years of age.
As to Reputed Marriages, the study advocated remarriage of the couples
under colony law with the right to back-date the marriage to the time
they had begun to live together.
The Ridehalgh-McDouall report also favored several changes in the
divorce laws. One change would permit a principal wife in a Chinese
Customary Marriage to get a divorce with maintenance until her death
or remarriage if the husband, after a date to be set by law, acquired
a concubine without the principal wife’s consent or knowledge. Another
recommendation, after a date set by law, would bar divorce in a Chinese
Customary Marriage without the free consent of both parties.
The study warned against any all-out banning of concubines in Chinese
Customary Marriages, but supported gradual restriction of the right
to take concubines. As for mistresses in other types of marriages who
posed as legal concubines, the study urged the government to expose the
practice as a popular fallacy with no lawful basis. It also gave its
backing to laws which granted a legal concubine full rights to seek a
divorce and obtain maintenance for her children, and legislation which
empowered a principal wife to sue a husband for divorce and support of
herself and children.
Other recommendations proposed added protection of the rights of wives in
Chinese Modern Marriages against infringement by pseudo-concubines, and
legal provision to assure the support of illegitimate children.
All these findings are still being weighed by the colony government
and quick action on them is unlikely. To a large degree, the proposed
changes in marriage laws represent a new offensive in the long war for
women’s rights, and it might be noted that the women of this century have
compiled an impressive list of victories in this regard. With enough
nagging and prodding, they should be able to carry the day in Hong Kong
too.
In the discussion of such pervasive issues as the difference between
Chinese and British marriage customs, it is convenient to view the
Chinese as a single group of people constituting 98.2 percent of the
colony’s population. Since 95 percent of the population speak Cantonese,
it would seem to follow that Hong Kong is a homogeneous community, except
for a light top-dressing of “foreign devils.” But this superficial
impression is as wide of the mark as the saying “All Chinese look alike.”
There are scholars who object to the word Chinese as the description of
one people, arguing quite persuasively that there are so many racial
strains in China that no single label adequately describes them. The
point is drawn a bit fine for the majority of Western observers, yet
anyone who spends a few weeks in Hong Kong will begin to appreciate the
racial diversity of the Chinese people.
By the unverified judgment of the eye, the colony’s Chinese people are
two or three inches shorter than the American of average height, and
noticeably taller than the average Japanese or Filipino. But that is
perhaps the limit of any valid comparison between Americans and Chinese
as far as appearance goes.
The Chinese one sees on the street range from jockey-sized runts to
towering giants; from tiny women weighing perhaps 90 pounds to queenly
six-footers; from the palest of white skins to a deep walnut brown. Many
have features which seem more Slavic or Polish than anything classifiable
as Chinese. There are almond eyes and pop eyes; slit eyes and bug-eyes.
Noses tend to be a little less prominent and less sharply defined than
European noses, but exceptions occur. The bloated red nose of the
dedicated drinker never shows itself, except on a Caucasian face. Dark
hair is almost universal and bald heads less common than in an American
crowd. Pudgy types occur with some regularity, but tremendously fat
people are rarely seen.
About half the people who live in the urban areas were born in the
colony and most of their ancestors came from Kwangtung, the Chinese
Province immediately north of the Hong Kong border. Kwangtung was also
the birthplace of the majority of the recent refugees from Red China.
Eight-tenths of the city-dwellers speak the dialect of Cantonese used
in Canton City, where the British traders were based before Hong Kong
became a colony. This dialect and others closely related to it are
the _lingua franca_ of the colony’s urban Chinese, but there are 96
Cantonese dialects in existence, many of them unintelligible to users
of the Canton City dialect. The babble of urban tongues includes Hoklo,
Sze Yap and Hakka, all from different parts of Kwangtung, Shanghainese
(chiefly heard at North Point and Hung Hom in the colony), Chiuchow (in
the Western District), Fukienese (at North Point) and Kuoyu, or Mandarin
(near Hong Kong University and at Rennie’s Mill Camp).
In the New Territories, where even a Westerner can detect differences of
dress and custom, the Cantonese hold most of the flat, fertile farmland
and speak a dialect which puzzles city Cantonese. Ancestors of the
Cantonese farmers have lived in the New Territories for nine centuries.
The Hakka people, whose women may be identified immediately by their
broad-brimmed straw hats with a hanging fringe of thin black cloth,
settled the same area at about the time of the earliest Cantonese, but
were pushed into the less desirable farmland and generally dominated by
the Cantonese. They fought each other intermittently for centuries, but
the feud has died down and they now share several villages peacefully,
frequently intermarry, and restrict their warfare to husband-wife
squabbles. The Hakkas of the eastern New Territories operate their own
single-masted, high-hull boats for hauling farm produce and ferrying
passengers.
The Hoklos, a smaller group with a knack for handling light, fast boats,
once lived entirely on boats and worked as shrimp fishermen. They moved
ashore many years ago and now have their chief settlements on Cheung Chau
and Peng Chau, a few miles west of Hong Kong Island.
By the testimony of historians, the Tanka people, who dominate the
colony’s fishing industry, are the oldest surviving group in Hong Kong.
Antedating the Chinese, they lived in the area when the Cantonese came
along to push them off the land and generally treat them like despised
inferiors. They lived entirely on boats, and when the British traders
arrived, the Tanka had no compunctions about dealing with them in
defiance of the Chinese Emperor’s orders. Over 90 percent of them speak
Cantonese, with a small number speaking Hoklo and other dialects. Hardy
and conservative, they avoid city ways, live on their junks and sampans
and follow their own distinctive festivals and religious ceremonies.
Since World War II they have begun to send their children to schools
ashore and to become more directly involved in the economic life of the
colony.
World War II provided a turning point in the fortunes of those boat
people who operated cargo lighters in the harbor. Heartily disliking the
Japanese, they used false-bottomed boats to secrete food stolen from
their cargoes and then distributed it among the half-starved population
ashore. They were the only residents permitted to eat in the large hotel
restaurants like those at the luxurious Peninsula in Kowloon. Most of
them, wholly unfamiliar with chairs, ate by squatting on the chair-seats
as they had squatted on deck while eating at sea. Nowadays, they are more
sophisticated, and in spite of their non-Chinese origin, as intensely
Chinese as any group in the colony.
Because of the floodtide of tourists which has swept into Hong Kong in
the last few years, it has become a conversational bromide to say that
the influx will soon destroy its colorful Chinese community. To accept
such a doctrine is to overestimate the impact of tourism and underrate
the resistance of the Chinese.
The Hong Kong tourist is a highly localized phenomenon. Except for a fast
motor tour through the main roads of the New Territories and a short
whirl around Hong Kong Island, he rarely wanders more than a mile from
the island and Kowloon terminals of the Star Ferry. He shops, gawks, eats
at a few restaurants which are more tourist-oriented than Oriental, and
is gone, leaving nothing but the click of the shopkeepers’ abacuses to
mark his passage.
It may seem incongruous to characterize nearly one-fourth of the human
race as clannish, but it is undeniable that the Chinese, no matter where
they have lived, have retained their home ties, customs and culture. They
are rock-ribbed individualists rather than nationalists, but when they
live abroad, whether in Hong Kong or the Chinatowns of San Francisco and
New York, they remain distinctly and unalterably Chinese. In Singapore
and Manila they are resented for their commercial shrewdness and their
stubborn insistence on remaining Chinese. If their next-door neighbors
can’t change them, what reason is there to believe that the tourists of
Hong Kong can do so?
There are certain comic aspects to the relations of the British and
Chinese in Hong Kong. Living side-by-side for 121 years, they have told
each other—sometimes directly, more often by implication—“You can’t
change me!” To a large extent, they have both held out, like a silent
couple eating at opposite ends of a long dinner table. Lately the table
has been contracting, but the prospects of a cozy twosome are still
somewhat distant.
Meanwhile, the Chinese go on living by their own calendar, celebrating
festivals and family events according to their traditions, and following
their ancient religions. The rural people cling to their belief in
fung shui (literally, wind and water), a form of geomancy which guides
them in locating their houses and burial places on the particular site
most pleasing to the living and the dead. On the other hand, the old
superstitious fear of Western medicine has been overcome; in the 1961
Hong Kong cholera outbreak, 80 percent of the population flocked to
government centers for inoculations.
Neither the British, the Nationalist Republic, nor the Chinese
Communists—all of whom favor the 12-month Western calendar—have been able
to wean the colony’s Chinese people from their ancient lunar calendar.
The old calendar was supposedly devised in 2254 B.C. by astrologers
working under the orders of Emperor Yao, who wanted it to serve as a
crop-planting guide for his predominantly agricultural subjects. It is
the gauge by which all festivals are set and varies in length from 354
to 385 days. The years proceed in cycles of twelve, each being named
for a particular animal such as the rat, rabbit, rooster and horse
until the twelfth animal is reached and the cycle repeats. Each year is
subdivided into 24 solar “joints and breaths,” which being based on close
observation of weather and the growing season, tick off the seasonal
changes with remarkable accuracy.
Because of its variable length and its nonconformity to Western ideas of
what a calendar should look like, the Chinese calendar causes endless
confusion for foreigners. Most of them cling firmly to the Gregorian
calendar and keep a close eye on the colony’s newspapers to learn when
the next festival is due. The religious significance of the festival
means nothing to them and it does not need to; the ceremonies and
celebrations attending the day are so animated and colorful that they can
be enjoyed for their spectacle alone.
Chinese New Year, generally occurring between the middle of January and
the third week of February, is celebrated on the first three days of
the First Moon. It marks the beginning of spring, and gives the Chinese
population sufficient time to recover from the shock of seeing the
Westerners booze it up on New Year’s Eve. Chinese employees receive
a bonus of an extra month’s pay, the shops close and firecrackers,
permitted by colony law for a two-day period, keep up an unending
cannonade. A tourist wandering into the uproar feels like a dude in a
frontier saloon; everybody seems to be shooting at his feet.
Red papers lettered with gold are stuck on boats and the doors of shops
and houses inviting the lucky spirits to lend a hand. The fearful din of
the firecrackers is a pointed hint to malicious spirits, advising them
to get out fast. All debts are paid, finances permitting, and the past
year’s feuds and grudges are wiped out, so far as human nature will allow.
The heart of the observance takes place in the home, with all members
of the family dining together on the last night of the old year and the
children receiving “lucky” money in red envelopes to assure them of safe
passage through the coming year. After dinner, everyone adjourns to the
courtyard where branches of sesame, fir and cypress have been strewn;
these are stepped on and burned as a symbol of the departing year.
Firecrackers are set off to discourage the prowlings of the Skin Tiger,
a kind of reverse-action Robin Hood who steals the cakes of the poor to
give them to the rich; as the Skin Tiger views it, the poor have lived
off the wealthy all year, so isn’t it time to square accounts?
A lighted lamp is placed before the shrine of the Kitchen God, who is
expected back from his trip to divine headquarters. Every door is sealed
and locked until 5 A.M. the next day, when the entire household gets up
to see the master of the house reopen the doors, remove the seals and
extend a welcome to the New Year. Incense sticks are lighted, Heaven,
Earth and the family ancestors are honored and the Kitchen God, now
returned from his journey, is properly greeted. New Year’s Day is the
occasion for a complete family reunion, with outsiders being excluded. No
meat is eaten, since the use of a knife on this day would imply cutting
off a friendship, and no sweeping is done, for a broom might sweep away
good luck. Later, gifts are exchanged, with baskets of food being rated
as thoroughly acceptable. The season’s greetings—“Kung Hei Fat Choy”—ring
out everywhere.
In Hong Kong, a local newspaper and the radio promote a Fat Choy Drive
to provide a New Year’s feast for even the poorest families. When the
family phase of the celebration is over, there is a day for visiting
friends, and with true Chinese practicality, a final day to worship the
God of Wealth, making certain that he does everything divinely possible
in the year ahead to boost the family’s fortunes. In former days it
was customary to prolong the observance for fifteen days or more, but
the demands of modern business limit it to three or four days in most
instances.
The birthday of Kuan Yin, the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy, is celebrated
on the 19th day of the Second Moon, and she is regarded with such
affection that practically all of the Taoist temples honor her as well.
Legend describes her as the youngest daughter of an ancient prince who
attempted to force her into marriage to perpetuate the family line.
She objected, was murdered by her father in some ambiguous fashion and
descended to Hell, where by sheer charm she transformed the place into a
paradise. Returned to earth, she found her father dying of a skin disease
and cut off parts of her own body to preserve his unworthy hide. Women
are especially devoted to her, bearing birthday gifts of food, paper
clothing, chickens and roast pig to her image in the temples. Until the
thirteenth century, Kuan Yin was often represented as a male divinity,
probably with the connivance of early defenders of male prerogatives,
but she has become exclusively female since then, for only as a woman
could she possess an ear sympathetically attuned to the troubles of
mortal women.
The Ching Ming Festival, occurring toward the end of the Second Moon or
at the beginning of the Third Moon (late March or early April in our
calendar), provides an occasion to honor one’s ancestors. The worship of
ancestors is the keystone of Chinese religious beliefs, as well as the
strongest link binding them together as a single people. Its profound
influence on every phase of Chinese life is seldom fully appreciated by
foreigners, who regard it as morbid, backward-looking and intellectually
sterile. But even foreigners in Hong Kong share some of the Ching Ming
spirit by using the day to tidy up the graves of their own departed and
place flowers by the headstones.
The Chinese do no cooking and eat no hot food on the day preceding Ching
Ming, acting in deference to a long-gone official who was accidentally
burned to death by his dunder-headed confreres. Women and children wear
a sprig of willow on the day itself to safeguard themselves against the
posthumous horror of returning to this life in the form of dogs. The
family visits its ancestral graves, makes any needed repairs and sets out
a feast for the dead. Paper replicas of money and clothing are burned to
let the deceased know that their interests are being looked after, and a
little diversionary fire is lighted nearby to distract evil spirits and
keep them from butting into the main sacrifice. Having made its gesture
of feeding the dead, the family then falls to and eats the feast itself.
Because land is scarce in the colony, graves are rented only for a
limited period. Six or seven years after a member of the family has
died, his survivors obtain an exhumation permit and visit the grave
on Ching Ming to dig up his coffin. The bones are removed from the
coffin, carefully sorted and cleaned with sandpaper, and packed into an
earthenware urn with the skull on top. The undertaker, accompanied by
members of the family, then removes the urn to a hillside site in the New
Territories, selecting a location with a favorable fung shui, where the
deceased presumably will be able to enjoy a pleasant view.
Chinese coffins are a massive, rough-hewn product, resembling a four-leaf
clover in outline; if they are still in sound condition after their first
tenant is evicted, they may be resold at a discount for rehabilitation
and put to use again.
Many Occidentals would pale at the thought of sandpapering and
reassembling the last of Aunt Matilda, but the Chinese entertain no such
qualms. They take a calm and realistic view of death, handling the bones
of the dead with complete respect, but without morbidity or gloom. Ching
Ming is a time of remembrance rather than lamentation.
T’ien Hou, the Taoist Queen of Heaven, celebrates her birthday on the
23d day of the Third Moon. For the boat people, it is the most important
festival of the year; T’ien Hou is their chief patron, keeping her benign
eye on such matters as a good catch and fair weather. Her shrines are
in the cabin of every junk, and her 24 temples stand in every village
that overlooks the sea. In her earthly days, the story goes, she was a
fisherman’s daughter. Once she fell into a trance while her parents were
far out at sea. Dreaming that a storm was about to drown them, she roused
herself and pointed directly at their boat. It was the only one in the
fleet to return safely.