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21 This is present day Maoming in western Guangdong province, not too far from the Liaozhou peninsula leading down to Hainan.
22 A city in south eastern Guangdong province, half way between the Liaozhou peninsula and the Pearl River.
23 Note that there are two different deities, Longwei Shenggong worshipped by the Hainanese and Longwei Shengwang worshipped by the Chaozhou people. The latter is, to all intents and purposes, a local Earth God.
24
25 Laomu, Old Mother [or Elderly Matron], is a title often mentioned in popular stories. In Xue Dingshan's Campaign to the West Laomu was Fan Lihua's teacher who, in eight years, taught her the art of moving mountains and raising armies from a handful of beans.
An elderly Chaozhou man in a Kowloon temple confided that Lishan [‘Fan Lihua' he called her] is a fictional character to support the story of the two generals Xue, and that much of their legends have little or no historical basis.
26 Xue Dingshan's father, Xue Rengui, also a general, was an early Tang hero who not only also led an expedition to the west, he also served in the Korean campaign of Tang Tai Cong. Xue Dingshan, otherwise known as Xue Gang, is claimed to have saved the life of his emperor and is now a Fukienese cult deity, the face of whose image is characterised by extraordinary and colourful decorations.
27 William Mesny relates that recumbent iron images of oxen were believed to be a protection from floods when these images were placed along the banks of river courses and lakes likely to overflow. He noticed several along the banks of the Grand Canal in 1874 and was told that they had been placed there by Liu Bowen Mesny's Chinese Miscellany: Vol. IV: Shanghai: 11 February 1905.
28 As in Taipan, the Senior Boss.
29 The shrine and its images disappeared, doubtless into a high rise flat, though it could have gone the way of so many minor cults and disappeared due, perhaps, to the aged temple keeper's demise.
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21 This is present day Maoming in western Guangdong province, not too far from
the Liaozhou peninsula leading down to Hainan.
22
A city in south eastern Guangdong province, half way between the Liaozhou peninsula and the Pearl River.
23 Note that there are two different deities, Longwei Shenggong worshipped by the Hainanese and Longwei Shengwang worshipped by the Chaozhou people. The latter is, to all intents and purposes, a local Earth God.
24
25
Laomu, Old Mother [or Elderly Matron], is a title often mentioned in popular stories. In Xue Dingshan's Campaign to the West Laomu was Fan Lihuw's teacher who, in eight years, taught her the art of moving mountains and raising armies from a handful of beans.
An elderly Chaozhou man in a Kowloon temple confided that Lishan [‘Fan Lihua' he called her] is a fictional character to support the story of the two generals Xue, and that much of their legends have little or no historical basis.
26 Xue Dingshan's father, Xue Rengui, also a general, was an early Tang hero who not only also led an expedition to the west, he also served in the Korean campaign of Tang Tai Cong. Xue Dingshan, otherwise known as Xue Gang, is claimed to have saved the life of his emperor and is now a Fukienese cult deity, the face of whose image is characterisedby extraordinary and colourful decorations.
27 William Mesny relates that recumbent iron images of oxen were believed to be a protection from floods when these images were placed along the banks of river courses and lakes likely to overflow. He noticed several along the banks of the Grand Canal in 1874 and was told that they had been placed there by Liu Bowen Mesny's Chinese Miscellany: Vol. IV: Shanghai: 11 February 1905.
28 As in Taipan, the Senior Boss.
29 The shrine and its images disappeared, doubtless into a high rise flat, though it could have gone the way of so many minor cults and disappeared due, perhaps, to the aged temple keeper's demise.
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