Panel 4-1 The Social Significance of the Earth God Sharing out Pork Meat /Sidney Cheung

Sidney Cheung
Professor, Department of Anthropology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

　　The custom of pork meat sharing is commonly practised during the annual spring and autumn ancestral worship in Hong Kong’s New Territories; with portions of pork meat distributed to descendants after offering to ancestors. This is a local tradition mostly found in single surname villages. Being distributed in units of “family” and “male,” pork meat signifies not only the blessing of their ancestors, but also symbolizes the sharing of clan wealth and identity. However, here I will discuss a case from South Lantau Island, where the “distribution of pork” is derived from the tradition of mixed (multiple) surname villages with Earth God folk beliefs as the core. These villagers were compensated for their relocation from large villages and temples caused by the construction of reservoirs. From the perspective of its social significance, this practice not only appears to represent the unity of the remaining families in the village, but also has becomes a custom in the new village more than 60 years after the village was relocated because of the establishment of the Shek Pik reservoir. Again, the ceremony shows us the resilience of village identity in the local context.

Keywords: folk belief, land, village relocation, adaptation, South Lantau, Hong Kong


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