History Seminar: The Social
Development of Hong Kong under
British rule Charities in Hong Kong: changing
time, changing practices
Dr. Elizabeth Sinn
9 March 2010
History/PSHE/CDI
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Charities in Hong Kong:
Changing Times,
Changing Practices
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Who would you go to if you’re poor, sick and
disabled today?
Who would you have gone to if you were poor,
sick and disabled in the 19th century?
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Charity -- Who gives what to whom and why.
• What are the charity activities?
Who are the providers?
Who are the recipients?
Why are such activities necessary?
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Development of Charities in Hong Kong
Three main periods:
1841 to 1945
1945 to 1967
1967/68 onwards
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Five main groups of welfare providers
playing different roles over time
1. Chinese (particularistic) voluntary associations
2. Chinese (general) voluntary associations
3. Christian missionaries and other religious
institutions
4. Non-Chinese non-Christian voluntary associations
5. The government
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1841-1949
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1841-1949
Hong Kong Society
1. Frontier town, single, male-dominated and transient
population
2. Poor, sick, dying, unemployed, kidnapped and victims of
other misfortunes could not rely on government help
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1841-1945
Main Givers
1. Chinese (particularistic) voluntary associations, e.g. native place
organizations (tongxianghui 同鄉會), guilds
2. Chinese (non particularistic) voluntary associations e.g. Tung Wah
Hospital, Po Leung Kuk, Lok Sin Tong
3. Christian missionaries
4. Non-Chinese voluntary associations – Parsee Zoroastrian Charity
Trust, Jewish Trust, Welfare League
5. The government: laissez faire policy, cheap and small government, not
to attract more destitute people to HK.
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1841-1949
Christian missionaries
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
education
hospitals (St Francis, Matilda, Nethersole, Canossa)
orphanages
blind
reformatory for boys
spiritual needs
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1841-1945
Charity Work
Guilds and native place associations (tongxianghui 同鄉會）
1. provide shelter for unemployed
2. relief for sick
3. burials and repatriating bones.
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1841-1945
Non-particularistic Chinese voluntary associations
Tung Wah Hospital
a. history – emergence from I-tsz 義祠
b. medical and non-medical work
c. Social impact
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1841-1945
Tung Wah Hospital
Medical Work – Chinese medicine for Chinese
Non-medical work –
local
for Chinese emigrants,
for China
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1841-1945
Tung Wah Hospital
Non-medical work -- Local
i) free school
ii) shelter for poor and repatriation of sick
and poor
iii) shelter for rescued women and children
and repatriation
iv) free coffins and burial services
Charity for the living, charity for the dead
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1841-1945
Tung Wah Hospital
Non-medical work for Chinese emigrants,
i) rescue victims of emigration abuses, kidnapping
ii) repatriating women sold overseas
iii) took care of sick and poor returned emigrants
iv) putting coffins on ships – taiping guan, gold
mountain guan 金山棺
v) repatriation of emigrants’ bones and coffins
(yizhuang 義庒)
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1841-1945
Tung Wah Hospital
Non-medical work for China
i) Raising funds for famine, floods,
drought in China
ii) Organizing relief
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1841-1945
Tung Wah Hospital
Ideological basis
i) Confucian
ii）Buddhist
Some phrases, terminologies used
盛德 天下事可以饜眾生而行久遠
普濟眾生 廣福慈航
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1841-1945
Tung Wah Hospital – social and political significance
1 Relationship between Tung Wah Hospital and Hong Kong
government: Cheap way to solve social problems—social
stability
2. Elite status of merchants in a colonial society (no gentry)
British Government awarded honours to encourage Chinese
donation and participation – indirect rule
3. Legitimacy of community leadership based on providing community
needs according to Chinese principles.
4. Composition of Tung Wah Board deeply embedded in Hong Kong’s
economic structure (also financial support)
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1841-1949
Po Leung Kuk
Protection of women and girls
Kidnapped women
muitsai 妹仔, prostitutes and concubines
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1949-1967
1949-1967
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1945-1967
Government’s new role:
i) Welfare Office 1948 (to coordinate efforts of different
voluntary agents) and Welfare Department 1958
ii) Resettlement and housing
iii) Supported “kaifong associations” that provided schools,
education and other community movements.
iv) Social work training – beginnings of professional social
work [course in social work began at HKU 1950]
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1945-1967
• Particularistic Chinese volunteer associations:
Change of focus for native place
associations –
more localized, especially schools
(schools encouraged by government
subsidies) and clinics
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1945-1967
Tung Wah Hospital
1. Hospital and subsidized schools, etc.
1. More new services, e.g. convalescent home, for
mentally handicapped children.
3. Western medicine became mainstream.
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1945-1967
Po Leung Kuk
1. No longer involved with muitsai
2. More on educating than “protecting”-schools
3. Child care
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Post 1967
Post 1967
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Post --1967
Government
1. Change in government policy – need for
community building: Hong Kong as home.
2. Scope of welfare widened – medicine, education,
youth work, housing, leisure and culture
3. Expansion of Social Welfare Department
Public assistance: cash payment for poor and
disabled and infirmed.
4. More subsidies for voluntary associations (NGOs)
5. Community Chest
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Post 1967
Charities -- TW, PLK, churches
1. Continued diversification:
e.g. rehabilitation, youth service
2. Work modified by
greater government
participation
more affluent society
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Some Conclusions
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1841-1949
Charities:
• missionary-led and merchant-led,
• transnational and status-conferring
• little government involvement,
reflecting commercial, “bachelor” and mobile society
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1949-1967
Charities:
more localized and rooted because of
closing of China
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Post 1967
Government main welfare provider:
Greater direct and indirect participation of
government in welfare provision-effort at community building
Much wider scope of welfare:
Reflecting more affluent society
Other channels of social advancement
besides charities
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