ABSTRACT
Originally founded in the 1880s, the first Sanshui organization in Hong Kong was the Dunshantang, and significantly, in light of the third arena of interaction discussed above, the occasion giving Sanshui natives the opportunity to express their Sanshui identity was the need to build a grave for the unclaimed bones of Sanshui natives repatriated from Southeast Asia. (In fact, from the 1860s to the 1880s, a number of tongxiang groups in Hong Kong were also formed as a result of having to build ‘communal graves’ for co-regionals repatriated from abroad, thus stimulating the trend of tongxianghui formation.) This shows that Sanshui natives had, since the nineteenth century, identified not only with those residing in the homecounty, nor only with those in Hong Kong, but with those in other localities as well.
