In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

152 9 the well-being of purchased female domestic servants (mui tsai) in hong kong in the early twentieth century pauline pui-ting poon By the early twentieth century, human beings in China had been purchased like a commodity for many centuries. They were wanted for adoption, domestic servitude, marriage, prostitution, and overseas indentured labor. Generally for the Chinese community, the buying and selling of human beings were morally acceptable so long as the transaction was aimed to alleviate the financial difficulty of poverty-stricken families. Filial piety and interest were inherent in the concept of patriarchy—an ingrained social practice of the Chinese. The ideas of individual entity, freedom, and rights were all alien to the Chinese.1 The purchase of mui tsai entailed one such socially justified transaction of human beings. the mui tsai system A mui tsai, Cantonese for little sister, was a girl transferred to another family to be a domestic servant. Money was advanced by the prospective master or mistress to the girl’s family. A mui tsai seldom received a regular wage, but her master was obliged to provide her with lodging, clothing, and medical care, and to arrange marriage for her when she reached a marriageable age, usually eighteen. If the mui tsai’s parents or other family members desired to recover the girl, they had to repay the master the money they received during the transfer.2 The system, if not abused, saved many surplus daughters purchased female domestic servants (mui tsai) in hong kong 153 whose poverty-stricken parents could not support them from being left to die. It was therefore considered a charitable practice. The age-old mui tsai system was still prevalent in Hong Kong, as it was in China itself and in Chinese communities abroad, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Since mui tsai were seldom paid wages, their masters could come from either wealthy or relatively poor classes. Some of them were wealthy and sold precious Chinese medicines like ginseng and pilose antlers, or owned rice shops, groceries, or charcoal shops; others were shoemakers, blacksmiths, shop assistants, or hairdressers.3 This implies that the cost of procuring and raising a mui tsai was not high, and by extension, that families who sold their daughters were usually in dire poverty. According to the census for 1921, the only census containing statistical information about mui tsai in the colony, there were 8,653 mui tsai in Hong Kong, of whom 5,959 were under fourteen years old. Being a mui tsai was one of the most common occupations of the day, both in the Chinese community as a whole and among Chinese females.4 Notwithstanding the theoretical moral obligation of masters to look after the girls, some mui tsai were maltreated. In Hong Kong in the early table 9.1 Major occupations of Chinese in Hong Kong, 1921 Occupation Number Engaged Coolies (road, cargo, coal) 30,918 Shop assistants 16,327 Needlework 14,392 Cooks 13,069 Hawkers 9,142 Mui tsai 8,653 Carpenters 8,600 table 9.2 Major occupations of Chinese women in Hong Kong, 1921 Occupation Number Engaged Needlework 14,326 Domestic servants 10,284 Mui tsai 8,653 Cooks 4,362 154 pauline pui-ting poon twentieth century, the Po Leung Kuk (Society for the Protection of the Innocents, founded in 1878), the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Mui Tsai (1921), and the Anti–Mui Tsai Society (1921) were the main Chinese organizations concentrating on the rescue of maltreated mui tsai. Since the registration of mui tsai was loosely enforced, it is difficult to know how extensive this mistreatment was. But documents in the Po Leung Kuk archives clearly show abuse within the mui tsai system (see table 9.3).5 table 9.3 Types of abuse handled by Po Leung Kuk, early twentieth century Nature of abuse Year No. of cases Masters inflicting gross cruelty on mui tsai 1901 10 1923 22 1929 56 1930 34 Masters reselling or intending to resell mui tsai as prostitutes 1901 3 1923 2 1929 3 1930 2 Girls abducted or decoyed to be sold to other masters as mui tsai or prostitutes 1901 19 1923 21 1929 11 1930 5 Mui tsai sexually harassed by masters or males at workplace 1923 3 1929 1 the po leung kuk By 1940 a number of ordinances had been enacted that legitimized the work of the Po Leung Kuk against the abuse of the mui...

Share