Originally published by (UMA) UNIAO MACAENSE AMERICANA, INC. in June 2014
I have always been fascinated by the stories my parents and other relatives told me about growing up in Hong Kong . I also marveled at their descriptions of work and military service, what Macanese family life was like, and how leisure time was spent. Recently I began to collect those stories and synthesize them into a research project that I’m conducting at U.C. Berkeley. In this short essay, I‘ve created a summary that will provide a glimpse of what it was like to live in Hong Kong before World War II.
Life in Early Hong Kong
By most accounts, life in Hong Kong for Macanese residents before World War II was comfortable, but not without challenges. Many Portuguese families from Macau settled in Kowloon, across Victoria Harbour on the Chinese mainland, while working on Hong Kong Island . Following the British occupation of Hong Kong in 1841, Kowloon was ceded to England in 1860 by the Qing emperor, and used for hunting until it was leased for 99 years in 1898. After the Kowloon Wharf was constructed in the early part of the 20th century and the Star Ferry began service, many Portuguese moved to the region.
Portuguese men began working in Hong Kong from the earliest days for large trading houses, like Jardine and Matheson, or merchant banks, like the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, private companies, such as Cable and Wireless, or the British colonial government. One of the earliest recorded work histories belongs to the Barreto family.
Bartolomeu Barretto was a Macau trader who is mentioned prominently in the early correspondence between Opium traders and future Taipans William Jardine and James Matheson in 1827. The firm employed Bartolomeu as a “channel of mediation” to open British trade in South China, asking him to intercede with the governor of Macau and the powerful Hongs, the trade officials appointed by the Chinese government. His brother, Joao Antonio Gonsalves Barretto and his nephew, Bartolomeu Antonio Barretto, also worked for Jardines.
The nephew was one of two bookkeepers in the firm’s early days, and William Jardine’s trusted aide who oversaw accounts in Canton and Hong Kong. Like his uncle, Bartolomeu A. Barretto used his knowledge of Portuguese and Chinese to settle disputes for the company, including those between ship captains and Chinese officials just prior to the Opium War.
In most cases, Portuguese men worked in Hong Kong as mid-level interpreters, clerks, bookkeepers, and accountants. Some of the more enterprising started their own businesses in printing, mercantile goods, and stock trading in the late 19th century. Others became artists and doctors, while some joined the military or entered the priesthood.
A notable exception was Elvira Maria Alvares Marques, the daughter of Eugenio Marciano Alvares, a businessman from Macau. Born in Lourenco, Macau in 1897, Elvira began work as the personal secretary to Pedro Jose Lobo, a powerful businessman and politician in Macau around 1915. In the 1920’s, she was hired by MELCO (the Macau Electric Lighting Company), but not without opposition from the Bishop of Macau, who threatened excommunication if she accepted the position. Headstrong at a young age, Elvira asked her father to intercede, which he did successfully, and soon began working for the firm. In a few years she was hired as the head female secretary at the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce in charge of one hundred other Portuguese women.
A Place in Society
As the economy prospered, many Portuguese found themselves in such fortunate, and at times stifling, circumstances. In the colony’s culture, the Portuguese always “knew their place”, an accepted part of life that permeated all levels of Hong Kong society. This situation originated from the earliest days. One observer wrote about the “separate and peaceful coexistence” of the British, Portuguese, and Chinese in the 1860’s, which continued even after segregation laws were enacted on the pretext of controlling disease at the turn of the century. The same writer noted that the unquestioned acceptance of work, family, and social roles by Portuguese residents made such government policies irrelevant.
In the workplace, clear divisions separated British executives from Portuguese employees, and from Chinese laborers. All English language newspapers in the 1860’s, for example, were staffed by Portuguese compositors and edited by British expatriates. A roster of government and business members around the same time lists committees headed by Englishmen and staffed by one or two Portuguese male secretaries. In the banks and trading houses, Portuguese clerks and bookkeepers also worked under English executives. The shipping lines, telegraph companies, and the military were similarly organized. These hierarchical structures did not change substantially until after World War II.
Within these organizations, Portuguese clerks reported to a Head Clerk or a Chief Accountant, often a long time Portuguese employee, the highest position to which a worker of his or her race could aspire. There was little choice. Above the Head Clerk, department heads were reserved for British expatriates, many of whom stayed in Hong Kong only a few years. Below were teller and labor positions, always occupied by Chinese workers. Custom, family pressures, and traditions based on years of ethnic stereotypes prevented Portuguese workers from descending lower in the organization. Company and colonial policies created barriers to moving any higher.
The same social ordering is evident in military service before and immediately after World War II. The colonial militia was first organized in 1854. The modern force, called the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corp, was reorganized in 1933 in response to the threat of war with Japan. It consisted of separate Portuguese, Chinese, Eurasian, and Scottish infantries. By 1941 there were two companies of Portuguese volunteers in the Defence Corp, both of which fought with British and Canadian troops during the Japanese invasion. Racial divisions were tolerated for the most part. As Horatio Ozorio, a resident of Hong Kong before the war, wrote,
“As long as I was not too ambitious, as long as I could accept the system of government there, as long as I “knew my place,” and despite being disenfranchised, life was pleasant enough. But eventually it was not. In the makeup of the population I was ethnically sandwiched between the privileged minority Caucasians, who held the power, and the majority Chinese citizens, who were oppressed. In-between these two groups were the non-Caucasian, non-Chinese segment of the colony’s population. I was ethnically Portuguese, “classified” as a Macanese … so I belonged in that segment. It had its pluses and it had its minuses.”
Family Life as a Refuge
One of the few shelters from such conflicts was the family. Most Macanese women left the turmoil of the workplace and politics to their fathers, uncles, husbands, and brothers. Many accepted traditional roles as wives, mothers, and critically, as managers of large extended households. The pattern was a carryover from traditions begun in Macau.
The Alvares family, shown above, consisted of eleven siblings and other family members from three marriages who lived in the same household in Macau in the early years of the 19th century. In 1862 Lisbello de Jesus Xavier was born into another extended family of ten siblings and other relatives in Macau. His son, Paulo de Gama Maria Xavier, was born in Hong Kong in 1899 as the fourth youngest in a family of twelve.
Father Jose “Zinho” Gosano recalled a similar life in 1930’s Kowloon.
“…besides the 9 of us plus Mother, we had 2 of Mother’s brothers living with us. Mother was also looking after another 4 orphans – her brother’s children (a boy and 3 girls), and then another family of my mother’s (relatives) … including 2 boys. …, about 18 or 19 at one stage. “
Such large families would not have been possible without Chinese “amahs”. As Ozorio wrote:
“… , each family had two amahs, one to cook and the other to do the rest of the chores. Larger families had a third amah to care for the children. When a family was exceptionally large, say eight or more children, there might be a fourth amah whose main duty was the laundry. In the high humidity tropical setting of the Far East a heavy load of laundry every day or two was usual. “
To accommodate these households, most Portuguese family dwellings were built with multiple floors. On the ground floor were sitting rooms and parlors, with kitchens and servant quarters in the back. On the next level, or the “first” floor, were usually relatives’ and older children’s rooms. The “second” and “third” floors consisted of the main bedrooms for the head of the household and his wife, their younger children, and perhaps small rooms for “baby amahs”, who helped care for them. Rooftops and balconies on each of the upper floors allowed places to dry laundry, play areas for the older children and vantage points to see other relatives’ houses.
Portuguese households also made up part of a larger community. Fr. Gosano’s description of his neighborhood was typical:
“We lived on Soares Avenue, Homantin, where there were quite a few Portuguese people who bought the houses around us. … The house … was two-storied. It was attached to number 9 Soares Avenue, which was occupied by … the Sequeiras. Next door to us, Number 13, was occupied by another Portuguese family called the Barros. In between this house and the next was one … occupied by a Portuguese family called Guterres. Next door to the Guterres’s was where the Yvanovichs lived …”
Community Life
Much like their family lives, the community life of Portuguese before World War II was similarly cloistered. Macanese children almost always went to Portuguese schools in Kowloon or Hong Kong that were organized by Catholic missionary orders, such as Jesuits, Christian Brothers, Franciscans or the Canossian Sisters. There were some instances in which children were sent to Macau to learn Portuguese language and customs, or to Shanghai prior to 1939 to be tutored in French, Spanish, or other languages. But as Hong Kong grew and Macanese families prospered, education in the colony became the accepted practice.
Within the schools, students whose predominant language was Portuguese were often separated from those who spoke mostly Chinese, and from other children who spoke a mix of Portuguese, English, French, Russian, Filipino or the Macanese patois. While accommodations were made, such divisions were observed for practical and cultural reasons. Most Macanese parents, for example, wanted their children to learn English or Portuguese for advancement in business and higher education. For some Chinese families, the purpose was to learn the language of the colonizer.
The closeness of the Macanese community also was evident among its social organizations. The most well known were the Club Lusitano, the Club de Recreio, and the Little Flower Club, all established in the late 19th century in Hong Kong by Portuguese men and women. While my research is still preliminary, the purpose of the Lusitano was to create places for Macanese businessmen and their families to meet and celebrate holidays. The Recreio provided venues to play recreational and organized sports, while the Flower Club concentrated on charitable projects.
The Club Lusitano was established in 1866, but was later moved to downtown on Ice House Street near the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The Club de Recreio was founded by many of the same businessmen, but remained in Kowloon because land was available for playing fields, swimming pools, and tennis courts.
The Little Flower Club was a women’s organization which welcomed new families and helped raise funds for the Church. Theresa M. da Luz, a former member, described its origins as a “Catholic Action Ladies Club”. At first, they would meet in a little room in the rectory of the Hong Kong Catholic Cathedral and as they recruited more members, they moved to rented quarters in Jordan Road, Kowloon, and eventually to their permanent location at King’sPark, right next door to Club Recreio. Other less known institutions were also popular, including the Socorros Mútuos Association, which aided less affluent Macanese.
These organizations, along with Portuguese hospitals, schools, workplaces, churches, and even cemeteries helped to create a protective cocoon for the Macanese community. Within it, apart from the turbulent and structured world of colonial commerce, many lived out their lives by following a well-traveled path from birth to the grave.
Given this history, some important questions remain about Hong Kong society and the place occupied by the Portuguese community.
Conclusion
How did Hong Kong become so socially stratified? What purposes, if any, did class and racial divisions serve? The answers to these questions are complicated by the fact that, despite sporadic worker discord and volatile world events, Hong Kong prospered as a center of “free trade” in Asia throughout most of its history.
The blending of social rigidity and open markets apparently worked, but not without some costs. Prior to World War II, for example, there were few instances of worker protests, strikes or union organizing. There is also minimal evidence of public assistance, insurance, or healthcare programs during that period. Without those pressures, government spending on social programs was low. Taxes and wages were also kept to a minimum. Fewer taxes on business and low personnel costs meant less capital spending and more revenue.
As a result, most Macanese enjoyed comfortable lives while working in mid-level jobs, benefiting from the low cost of living, cheap labor, and the general acceptance of the social order. Class and racial barriers in Hong Kong society, however they were established, did not seem to limit the colony’s commercial success at all. In fact, they may have contributed to it.
The separation of ethnic communities in such a highly structured environment was an advantage for commercial and government interests. A major reason why trading houses and banks were successful was because British, Portuguese, and Chinese employees always “knew their place” and worked together. As a result, public criticism of any company or colonial administration before World War II was rare. The absence of criticism among the Macanese could have been a relic of Portuguese culture, or related to fears of reprisal, or a combination of factors. But the weight of expectations on them by family, their community, the Church, and the workplace was enough for most not to question the status quo.
Politically, an implicit policy of “divide and conquer” by colonial governments, supported by favorable Portuguese stereotypes of the British and unfavorable Chinese stereotypes, had the effect of creating a “buffer” between the two groups in which the Macanese community languished for many years. In some cases, Macanese leaders were relied upon to help maintain colonial stability in times of crisis. Only the coming of World War II, revolutions in China, and the migration of young Macanese to the west disrupted this social order.
Geo-political explanations, however, do little to capture the collective sense of loss in post-war Hong Kong, or the shock of refugee life in Macau as experienced by members of the Portuguese community. Only their stories, placed within an historical context, allow us to understand the impact of those experiences on the community as a whole. That will be the goal of future articles.
