Then & now: hidden agendas

Secret societies have been a feature of Chinese life for centuries. Intermittently proscribed by law in the mainland, yet quietly tolerated and often shrewdly utilised by successive administrations (due to their wide-ranging political and economic influence), these groups have never been completely stamped out.

In Hong Kong, secret societies were recognised very early on as a serious social menace; the first ever Hong Kong Government Ordinance, enacted in 1845, was designed to suppress them.

Across Southeast Asia, by contrast, Chinese secret societies were regarded at various points as benevolent social institutions, as well as being a useful means of keeping immigrant populations under control in colonial and semi-colonial circumstances.

Gradually, though, the Hong Kong example came to be followed in British territories elsewhere, and in Malaya and Singapore secret groups were steadily proscribed throughout the latter quarter of the 19th century.

During that gradual clampdown, however, some supposedly benign off-shoots were allowed to survive. This was done, at least in part, to mollify Chinese community interests, keep powerful interest groups on side and minimise the potential for social unrest and anti-colonial sentiment.

As parent bodies were progressively outlawed, certain sub-strata remained exempt. Groups involved in "recreation, charity, religion and literature" - a broad enough set of categories to allow plenty of creative blurring of functions - stayed conveniently outside the reach of the law, as they still do.

Have you ever noticed the large numbers of kung fu and other martial arts "academies", lion-dance and kee-lung ("Chinese unicorn") "troupes", athletic and sporting "associations" and so on around town - often in obscure, somewhat unlikely areas? At certain times of the year they come alive - most conspicuously during Lunar New Year - but mostly these "clubhouses" are seldom frequented and do little to bring their activities to public attention.