Economics, Education, and Politics

Economic status and political views are two of the most difficult topics to learn about in Shung Him Tong and in Hong Kong in general. I was warned by Yee Ling and other friends not to make hasty judgments about a person's economic situation, since a person's wealth is difficult to discern. As Yee Ling explained, someone who lives in a small run-down shack and is always working in the fields may have wealth stashed away for his children's education, for a new house, to spend for a New Year's Day banquet, or to emigrate. A woman who works as a farmer or a construction worker might have her teeth filled with gold and wear expensive jade bracelets, but they may be her only savings. Some people choose to appear wealthy and successful and flaunt their wealth by building new houses and buying new cars, while others choose to appear poorer than they are for fear that they are tempting bad fortune, or arousing the envy of their neighbors. Christians of Shung Him Tong claim they are not afraid of bad fortune, and yet they do not flaunt their wealth.

Of course, one way in which Shung Him Tong people are encouraged to demonstrate their wealth, or at least their generosity, is to contribute to the church. Weekly church contributions are anonymous, but annual contribu-

tions are carefully listed and published in commemorative bulletins, as are onetime donations to special fund-raising drives such as those for the new church building, or for the celebration of the 140th anniversary of the Basel missionaries' arrival in Hong Kong. Reminiscent of the carefully recorded and displayed lists of contributions made for festivals, new temples, and ancestral halls in other parts of Hong Kong, these lists of contributors serve to memorialize one's name and status in the community. The logic from The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Weber [1930] 1958) would suggest that perhaps these contributions—as markers of wealth—are merely indications of "grace." To the people of Shung Him Tong, however, the donations are considered purely altruistic acts of generosity, and any suggestion that the Chinese concept of "buying" blessings from deities is in operation is of course condemned as erroneous (cf. C. K. Yang 1961:321). Nonetheless, as is discussed further in Chapter 6, some Shung Him Tong people believe that those who are "good Christians" are more likely to be "blessed" with success and happiness, though they admit that, in keeping with both Christian and traditional Confucian views, it is wrong to attempt to "calculate" reciprocity in such a way.

Larger contributions are expected from prominent members of the church, and board members are usually more generous than others. Contributing to church fund-raising campaigns serves at least to exhibit and reinforce, if not to raise, one's status in the eyes of the community. I was told of several "model church members" and their "generous contributions" of land and money to the church. People were impressed by contributions that were larger than they expected, and they still remember names of people who contributed money to build the On Lok bridge or land on which to build the church or cemetery.

A Shung Him Tong church member who works for the department of social welfare explained that, although there are some elderly people in Shung Him Tong who are "poor" in that they would qualify for public assistance, they all have sufficient food, shelter, and clothing. Some people who qualify for public assistance may not accept it, he said, "because they are proud and they prefer to work." Another man told me that the Hakka, even more than other Chinese, are too proud to accept charity. A distinction begins to emerge between the charity handed out by the government and the assistance given by missionaries in the past. Help from missionaries was acceptable because it provided education or employment, means through which to improve the future of one's family. Charity as an end in itself is unacceptable.

Many of the descendants of the four older families of Shung Him Tong continue to do well economically and are consistently those who make the largest monetary contributions during church collection drives. Their houses are generally larger and have been remodeled to include more modern amenities than others in the village, though most houses in Shung Him Tong have telephones,

televisions, and indoor plumbing. Descendants of the older families also send their children to expensive private schools and universities, often overseas. Most have professional occupations and own land in the New Territories. Descendants of the four original families have also moved to Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and farther abroad. The overall opinion of these community leaders is that they have been blessed with economic success because they are good Christians. If they were to partake in un-Christian behavior such as gambling, drugs, or illegal activity, they would take the chance of forfeiting their success.

In 1950 D. Y. Ling (Lin[g] 1951) conducted a study of the economic situation of sixty farming families in the Fanling region. Twenty-eight of the families surveyed were from Shung Him Tong, where he found an extremely high tenancy rate of over 95 percent (1951:32, 19), higher even than those of coastal parts of China in 1945, which never reached 90 percent. Shung Him Tong residents told Ling in 1950 that tenant farming had greatly increased since 1920, when 50 percent of the farmland was cultivated by its owners (1951:19). The main reason for this shift was the source of labor. The "big" landowning families such as Tsui, Pang, and Ling never farmed their own land. At first poorer relatives farmed the land of their wealthier kin and eventually were able to buy small plots to farm themselves. By 1949, the large influx of refugees who fled to Hong Kong from China provided a cheaper source of labor. Land that had been used for rice cultivation shifted to vegetable crops that were in higher demand because of the rapidly expanding population and increasingly efficient transportation.

In 1950, the number of absentee landlords in Shung Him Tong was extremely low. According to Ling, in places such as Shung Him Tong, where the landlord typically lived on the farm with his tenants, "the effect [of tenancy] on the economy of the place, is not as bad" (1951:32). In Shung Him Tong, tenants and landlords seemed "to live [together] in a rather happy partnership or relationship; and this happy partnership has resulted in the development of some local cooperative effort quite useful to the life of the community" (ibid.). What appeared to Ling to be a happy partnership between his landlord relatives and their tenants might appear to other, more critical observers as exploitation facilitated by kinship ties (see R. Watson 1985), as well as religious ones.

Today, farming around Shung Him Tong is done almost exclusively by Cantonese emigrants from Guangdong who do not belong to the church (see Strauch 1984:192; Topley 1964). Some of the older church members once farmed for Shung Him Tong landlords, but today most of them have retired. The great majority of people from Shung Him Tong work outside of the community in a wide variety of occupations, including shopkeeping, factory work,

construction work, architecture, business, banking, real estate, teaching, law enforcement, civil service, medicine, and so on. Some commute to work in Kowloon or on Hong Kong Island, while others work in nearby market towns or industrial estates.

Unlike emigrants from nearby villages who return to Hong Kong to live when they retire, it is said that former residents of Shung Him Tong seldom build new houses there. Many come back to visit, but few to live. There are several reasons for this. Shung Him Tong people believe that, because the church provides them with greater exposure to western ideas and education, they are better adapted to life in western communities. Many Shung Him Tong people already speak English and have attended North American or European universities, and thus they assimilate more easily in America and Europe. In contrast, people of Shung Him Tong believe that villagers from elsewhere in Lung Yeuk Tau never learn English, stick more closely to Chinese relatives and acquaintances, and never feel at home in overseas communities—so they return to retire in their native villages.

Shung Him Tong people also believe that they fit in better overseas because they can activate an extensive network of church connections, which helps them to integrate into the community. Indeed, several households, motivated largely by the shift in government in 1997, have recently emigrated to Vancouver and Toronto, where they already have kin and friends from Shung Him Tong, and where they have joined Hakka churches established by people affiliated with the Tsung Tsin mission. Their social networks have a broader foundation than those of non-Christian Chinese, which are based more exclusively on kinship.

Another important factor is that emigrants from Shung Him Tong are not usually "working class" and do not settle in urban "Chinatown ghettos," but instead are more likely to live in middle- and upper middle-class suburban neighborhoods. A number of emigrants from Shung Him Tong work overseas in the restaurant business (a common phenomenon in the New Territories; see J. Watson 1975), but a large number are very well educated and work as ministers and missionaries in overseas Hakka churches, or in other professions.

One indication of overseas returnees to the New Territories are the three-story Spanish-style "villas" that have sprung up in many areas. In Shung Him Tong there are relatively few new houses of this kind. In addition to the reasons already given, Shung Him Tong people are discouraged from building houses because they do not share the rights and privileges of the Punti or "indigenous" villagers. Villagers with indigenous status have the legal right to build houses in their village for all male descendants. Unlike indigenous villagers, Shung Him Tong people today must petition for the right to build

houses, the dimensions of their houses are strictly regulated, and they must pay fees from which native people are exempt.

Although many people consider themselves well rooted in Shung Him Tong, to others it is not the Hakka Christian promised land. Despite efforts to build the ideal community, they are still marginalized by government restrictions and regulations that prevent them from having the same rights as the Punti. When people return to Shung Him Tong, it is to visit the church and their friends, not because of material incentives to build a home there. This fact has important implications for the future of the community and its growth.

As one person contemplating a move to Canada explained, the Hakka are emigrants and are always looking for better places to settle; they still remember the discrimination their families faced in China and are making plans to emigrate before reunification in 1997. Since the failed Democracy Movement in the People's Republic of China in 1989, even members of prominent village families who claimed they would never leave Hong Kong have recently attained visas and are applying for foreign citizenship. Mr. P., a board member in his sixties, explained that he plans to get foreign citizenship as an "insurance policy"; later he will make the decision of whether to continue to reside in Hong Kong.

Just as attaining scholarly status and positions in the government bureaucracy by passing imperial examinations reflected well on the entire Chinese lineage in the past, so are university degrees and high government posts generally thought to reflect well on the people of Shung Him Tong today. Shung Him Tong is well known in Hong Kong for the large number of "scholars" it has produced. Among its most renowned are Paul Tsui, the first Chinese person to serve as secretary for Chinese affairs of the Hong Kong government, D. Y. Ling, the first president of Chung Chi College at the Chinese University of Hong Kong; and a number of other government officials. Even before the 1950s, the Ling family alone is said to have produced over twenty graduates of American universities. Many members of the educated elite of Shung Him Tong have died or emigrated, but they are still considered members of the community and go far in reinforcing the image of the "successful Hakka Christian."

The Rural Committee, composed of village representatives, was formed by the British government in Hong Kong in order to provide representation to indigenous (pre-1898) New Territories villages. Village representatives were selected from Punti and old Hakka families and only the heads of household of indigenous families were entitled to vote. In 1982 the law was changed and people who had been village residents for more than seven years were given representation (Strauch 1984).

Unlike residents of other regions of the New Territories, however, the people of Shung Him Tong have shown little interest in village-level politics in recent years, for a variety of reasons. One is the drastic decline, mentioned earlier, of ethnic conflicts and competition in the region. Although several well-respected members of the church board would seem to make likely candidates for the office of village representative, they explain that it would not be worth their while. Mr. P., a descendant of one of the founders and a respected member of the church community, would be an obvious candidate, but as several people said to me, "Why would he want to? It's too much trouble and not really any power." One church member said that Shung Him Tong people do not consider the village representative system a way of gaining power and prestige. Representatives have to bother with settling minor disputes that take up a lot of time.

As Shung Him Tong villagers pointed out, the Rural Committee is more important to indigenous Punti villagers, while they themselves "have the church to depend on." Several board members are long-term friends and acquaintances of higher-level government officials and still have ready access to other networks of communication with the government, although there has been little need to activate these networks in recent years. When I asked for examples of how these networks are useful, informants could only provide cases from the early decades of village history. As Tin explained, "for example, when Shung Him Tong wanted the bridge built across from On Lok, Pang Lok Sam went right to the government and the bridge was built."

In the church community there are numerous people who have attained high government positions by virtue of their education; village representatives are usually less well educated. The process of becoming a village representative is also thought to require certain "immoral" activities of which the people of Shung Him Tong disapprove: one must, as one man explained, "pay people for their support which is not agreeable to church people."

Shung Him Tong has a village representative and a vice-village representative. These are elected positions, but so few people are interested in them that the same representatives have been reelected for as many terms as they are willing to serve. Many people feel that the man currently serving as the village representative "is not very interested in the position." He is the descendant of the Catholic Tsuis, is not a member of the church, and is rarely seen in the village. The vice-representative is more active in the community and is considered partially responsible for initiating such projects as the widening of the road and erecting new streetlights in the village. Because no one else wants the job, he is considered satisfactory, but not a model member of the community. He is a distant relative of the Lings and a nominal church member, but not a member of the church board. His reputation suffers because his family does not regu-

larly attend church, and they run the corner shop, "which attracts bad characters" and where people from outside the church go to play mahjong.

To established members of the community today, in contrast to Pang Lok Sam's time, involvement in the village level of local government is not considered worthwhile. New residents of Shung Him Tong village who hope to become integrated into the community as full-fledged members must place greater value on church affairs. They cannot risk charges of corruption if they want to be considered good Christians. It is only to more marginal members of the church community, or to those who do not belong to the church at all, that local government seems worthwhile.