Notes on the Lecture "Exploring Past Hong Kong Village Life Through Archives"
When it comes to historical research on villages in Hong Kong’s New Territories, Dr. Patrick H. HASE is undisputedly the leading pioneer. Earlier this month, he gave a 1.5-hour lecture at the Central Library. He treated a crowd of history buffs to a captivating presentation, flipping through perfectly preserved, century-old ancient books while sharing the stories behind the "Yung Sze-chiu Collection." This private collection offers a fascinating glimpse into the village life of yesteryear.
The Renaissance Man of Sai Kung
Yung Sze-chiu (1874–1944) was a prominent village gentry member in Sai Kung. Originally from Huiyang, he was born in Hoi Ha Village. At the age of 16, he began practicing medicine in Sai Kung Market and amassed wealth through side businesses like feng shui consulting and money lending. He had a profound love for literature and spared no effort in developing village education. In his ancestral home in Hoi Ha, he left behind a private collection of over 500 books, covering topics from land transactions, education, and literature to medicine, metaphysics, and numerology.
From Medical Manuals to Talismans
As a physician, Yung owned numerous medical texts. Among them, Ophthalmology: The Pupil of the Eye completely shatters the stereotype that ancient texts are just dense walls of characters. The center of the text features a large, hand-drawn illustration of a pupil. Richly illustrated, it documents the diagnosis, treatments, and prescriptions for various eye diseases.
When medicine fell short, people turned to the power of protective charms and incantations. Yung knew how to draw various types of talismans for different purposes and collected many handwritten books of healing charms, such as The Book of Effective Talismans. Dr. Hase jokingly noted that this was the most frequently borrowed category in the entire Yung Sze-chiu Collection.
The Ultimate "Cheat Sheet" for Couplets
Another A6-sized, thread-bound book contains over a hundred couplets. As it turns out, people in the past would rather accidentally wear the same outfit as someone else than display the same couplets on their doors. Writing couplets for an entire village was no small feat; making sure every household had a unique, original pair was daunting. This ready-made template book, therefore, came in incredibly handy. Indeed, in the villages around Sha Tau Kok today, the "couplet matrix" of So Lo Pun remains a memorable sight, preserving the community's diverse pursuit of never repeating a couplet.
Ancient "Likes" and "Unlikes"
The Tongwen Tang Annotated Four Books was the primer used by village children on their very first day of learning to read and write—and even today, it is not easy to understand. During the lecture, Dr. Hase displayed a student's essay assignment. Written in fluent, elegant Classical Chinese, it proved that village education was about far more than just recognizing a few characters. The teacher had left dense annotations along the margins: "circles" indicated excellent writing, while "dots" meant average quality—essentially the ancient version of "likes" and "unlikes."
Dr. Hase pointed out that village school education back then did not focus solely on passing civil service exams. Therefore, besides the Confucian classics, Yung Sze-chiu also collected and transcribed manuscripts related to daily rural life and practical commerce, such as the Seven-Character Rhyming Guide to Market Groceries and Fish Names and Miscellany of Various Goods and Matters, allowing village children to acquire practical knowledge.
As for women in the village who failed to adhere to traditional moral codes, Yung would write poems about the incidents and circulate them among friends. In an era without WhatsApp, this was how news traveled.
A Twist of Fate: How the Collection Survived
Dr. Hase emphasized that the private books in the Yung Sze-chiu Collection are extraordinarily rare; even mainland China might not possess a similar archive. While it wasn't uncommon for village gentry to collect books, Dr. Hase noted that many villagers he encountered mentioned that after their fathers passed away, all the books were burned.
The survival of the Yung Sze-chiu Collection can be attributed to pure serendipity, and the story behind it is quite amusing. Years ago, when Dr. Hase discovered these ancient texts and manuscripts in Hoi Ha Village, he instinctively knew they were vital. He "borrowed" them from a village woman for research, under the impression that she had agreed. To his surprise, a few days later, Yung’s descendants showed up at his door accusing him of stealing the books.
After much clarification, the descendants offered a condition: help Yung’s youngest daughter obtain an identity card. Dr. Hase personally went to the Immigration Department. It turned out that a card could be issued as long as a witness to the birth made a sworn affidavit. Unfortunately, the original witnesses from back then had all passed away. The immigration officer casually remarked, "Well, why don't you swear the oath for her?" Consequently, Dr. Hase, who was only in his 30s at the time, legally swore to have witnessed Mrs. Yung's birth—even though Mrs. Yung was already in her 70s.
On a similar note, the library also houses the Yau Yuen-cheung Collection. This was a box of books that Yau Yuen-cheung was reading while bedridden before his passing. It was forgotten by his descendants, thereby escaping the fate of being burned. This makes one appreciate just how difficult it is for these rural archives to be preserved.
Connecting the Past to the Present
In fact, the recently published Lai Chi Wo Chronicle by Think Net is also based on a collection of century-old documents from that specific village. The difference is that these documents primarily record the day-to-day affairs of the village. Their value lies in the fact that they witness a system of local self-governance. It reflects both the rural traditions inherited from the southern migration of Central Plains culture, and the introduction of Western culture brought back by villagers who ventured overseas to make a living.
For those interested, you can view the Yung Sze-chiu Collection on the 8th floor of the Hong Kong Central Library, or visit the Siu Ying Story House in Lai Chi Wo to leaf through a hefty, 800-page replica of Lai Chi Wo’s century-old archives.