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to find there is an image of the great Ch'ing emperor Ch'ien Lung (reigned 1735-1798) on the altar!
My own experiences in Hong Kong have highlighted this feature of Chinese religious life. Examples that come to light include the many images washed-up from the sea and placed in temples or shrines (Shaukiwan and Ngau Chi Wan, East Kowloon), the Kwun Yam image in the Tai Ping Shan temple to that goddess, and the Kwun Yam image that started the Kwun Yam Temple at Tung Shan, east Kowloon. These examples, readily multiplied here and elsewhere, amount to "cults of numberless description".
30 There is much relevant background in the long chapter on Chinese religion in
Vol. II of Latourette, op.cit., especially at pp. 124-132, 139-140, and 162-167.
31 See Hong Kong Standard [ ] February 1986, with photographs, for a recent example at Shun Fung Village (Fui Sha Wai), Yuen Long, occasioned by the tree in question having to be felled to make way for the construction of the Light Rail System.
32 William John Townsend, Robert Morrison, The Pioneer of Chinese Missions (London, Partridge & Co., n.d. but my copy presented in 1892), pp.266-267. John Crawford also singles out the women for special mention in the journal of his embassy to Siam and Cochin China in 1821-22, where he cites from the Manuscript of Monsieur Chaigneau, "The religion of Cochin China is, with little difference, the same as that of China. The lower orders, the women, the ignorant, follow the worship of Buddha; while persons of rank, and men of letters, are of the sect of Confucius”. See John Crawford (with an Introduction by David K.Wyatt) Journal of an Embassy to the Courts of Siam and Cochin China (Singapore, Oxford University Press, 1987), p.500, fn.
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to find there is an image of the great Ch'ing emperor Ch'ien Lung (reigned 1735-1798) on the altar!
My own experiences in Hong Kong have highlighted this feature of Chinese religious life. Examples that come to light include the many images washed-up from the sea and placed in temples or shrines (Shaukiwan and Ngau Chi Wan, East Kowloon the Kwun Yam image in the Tai Ping Shan temple to that goddess, and the Kwun Yam image that started the Kwun Yam Temple at Tung Shan, east Kowloon. These examples, readily multiplied here and elsewhere amount to "cults of numberless description".
30 There is much relevant background in the long chapter on Chinese religion in
Vol. II of Latourette, op.cit., especially at pp. 124-132, 139-140, and 162-167.
31 See Hong Kong Standard [ ] February 1986, with photographs, for a recent example at Shun Fung Village (Fui Sha Wai), Yuen Long, occasioned by the tree in question having to be felled to make way for the construction of the Light Rail System.
32 William John Townsend, Robert Morrison, The Pioneer of Chinese Missions (London, Partridge & Co., nod. but my copy presented in 1892), pp.266-267. John Crawford also singles out the women for special mention in the journal of his embassy to Siam and Cochin China in 1821-22, where he cites from the Manuscript of Monsieur Chaigneau, "The religion of Cochin China is, with little difference, the same as that of China. The lower orders, the women, the ignorant, follow the worship of Buddha; while persons of rank, and men of letters, are of the sect of Confucius”. See John Crawford (with an Introduction by David K.Wyatt) Journal of an Embassy to the Courts of Siam and Cochin China (Singapore, Oxford University Press, 1987), p.500, fn.
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