Hong Kong Hopes to Get Underworld Members to Renounce Triad Secret Societies

In an incense-filled room 20 years ago, the elders of a triad secret society sacrificed a chicken, swore a score of oaths and placed a sword on Ah-Ping’s back to make the teen-ager a member of the Hong Kong underworld.

“It was just like the queen of England making a knight,” Ah-Ping said recently. “It meant I was bound to my big brother (boss) and we would be together until death. I respected him and would lay down my life for him.”

The Hong Kong government hopes to use an equally solemn ceremony to give triad members the chance to break their bonds of brotherhood and loyalty to the crime gangs.

Under a scheme scheduled to start this month in the British colony, a special confidential tribunal can give triad members an “oath of renunciation.”

Their taking the oath will be a secret even from the police. But going through the process means the government will not prosecute them for being a triad member.

Hong Kong’s triads trace their origins to secret patriotic societies founded in late 17th-Century China in an attempt to overthrow Qing Dynasty rulers--regarded as alien because they came from Manchuria--and restore the Ming Dynasty.

They soon shed their patriotism, however, and became involved in blackmail, drug dealing, gambling, vice, loan sharking and protection schemes.

“They are involved in any and every activity where they can make money,” said Ho Kam Fai, a member of the government’s Fight Crime Committee. “They are businessmen and know just how much they can squeeze.”

Police say there is triad involvement in the wholesale fish and vegetable markets, minibus and transport companies, and in house decoration, in addition to the gangsters running restaurants, dance halls, night clubs and brothels.

“It would shock you, the high-class businesses they are involved in,” said former member Ah-Ping.

The government hopes the renunciation scheme will deprive the triads of one source of their power--their membership.

“There are about 100,000 triad members in Hong Kong, but we estimate only 10% to 15% are active,” said Chief Superintendent Dennis Collins of the Hong Kong Police.

“What we must do is give them the opportunity of breaking their bonds.”

Police say there are about 50 triad societies in Hong Kong but only 15 are active. Some of the most powerful are the Sun Yee On, 14K, Wo On Lok and Wo Sing Wo, and for their members the societies represent their whole life.

The triads recruit members from overcrowded, squalid districts in Hong Kong, where 5.5 million people are crammed into some of the most densely populated areas on Earth.

“Children join to get protection and as a status symbol, to get recognition and support,” said Justina Leung, chairman of the Council of Social Service’s Children and Youth Division.

The fact that the government cannot duplicate the social structure of the triads is the flaw in the renunciation scheme, said Ah Ping, who left the triads 4 years ago when he joined a Christian drug rehabilitation program which gave him another life.

“It was only when I found Jesus and a new circle of friends that I was able to turn my back on them. Until I had something to turn to, I couldn’t leave.”