[ { "id": 205463, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1968", "page_number": 5, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "CONTENTS\n\nEDITORIAL NOTE\n\nPRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR 1967\n\nHON. TREASURER'S REPORT FOR 1967\n\nARTICLES CONTRIBUTED:\n\n✓ Chinese Religion and Rural Cohesion in the Nineteenth Century MARJORIE TOPLEY\n\nThe Hankow Steamer Tea Races - T. J. LINDSAY\n\nNotes on Hong Kong Libraries in the Nineteenth Century - H. A. RYDINGS\n\nFurther Notes on the Sung Wong T'oi Being Caught by a Fishnet; On Fêngshui in Southeastern China\n\nFan Lau and its Fort: an Historical Perspective - ARMANDO DA SILVA\n\nPlover Cove to Taipo Market: A Study in Forced Migration - MORRIS I. BERKOWITZ\n\nSun Yat-sen and Chinese History - STEPHEN UHALLEY, JR.\n\nReview ARTICLE:\n\nCapitalism and the Chinese Peasant; Social and Economic Change in a Chinese Village (Jack M. Potter) H. G. H. NELSON\n\nARTICLE REPRINTED:\n\nChinese Street-Cries in Hong Kong J. NACKEN\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES:\n\nNotes on Some Vegetarian Halls in Hong Kong belonging to the Sect of Hsien-T'ien Tao: (The Way of Former Heaven) MARJORIE TOPLEY and JAMES HAYES\n\nJardine, Matheson & Company's First Site in Hong Kong - DAFYDD EMRYS EVANS\n\nResearch on Family Values and Culture Change in Hong Kong's Modern Chinese Novels - KLAUS MADING\n\nHong Kong's First Government House - DAFYDD EMRYS EVANS\n\nA Reaping Knife from Lantau Island, Hong Kong - JAMES HAYES\n\nItinerant Hakka Weavers JAMES HAYES\n\nThe Tung Chung Fort (Lantau Island, Hong Kong) - JAMES HAYES\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nTHE LIBRARY\n\nLIST OF MEMBERS\n\nPage 1\n\n2\n\n6\n\n9\n\n44\n\n56\n\n67\n\n74\n\n82\n\n96\n\n109\n\n119\n\n128\n\n135\n\n149\n\n154\n\n156\n\n161\n\n162\n\n165\n\n168\n\n178\n\n200", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205545, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1968", "page_number": 87, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "82\n\nFAN LAU AND ITS FORT: AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE\n\nARMANDO M. DA SILVA*\n\nSite and Situation\n\nFan Lau is located at the extreme southwestern tip of Tai Yu Shan or Lantau Island. It is almost equal in distance from Hong-kong and Macau and it is situated about twenty-five miles due east of the latter. Fan Lau can be reached by sampan or fishing boat either from the market towns of Cheung Chau or Tai O, or by walking along the water catchment from Shek Pik reservoir to a point above and beyond Kau Ling Chung, and then by descending a steep stony path towards the settlement. Another route is to strike out from Tai O, taking the coastal footpath through Yi O, and thence to Fan Lau. There is no motor road to Fan Lau.\n\nThe area of Fan Lau includes a headland known as Kai Yik Kok (†) meaning \"chicken wing point\" where an old fort is located (see map 1).† The high point of the Kai Yik Kok promontory rises to about 380 feet above sea level. In the north of this headland lies the cultivated waist of Fan Lau where a small settlement is located. Looming above the settlement is Kai Yik Shan1 from which two streams supply irrigation water to the padi fields. Two fine beaches, Tung Wan and Sai Wan, flank the waist of the peninsula. Tung Wan, though exposed to prevailing easterly winds and a long fetch from the village, can accommodate deep-draught junks.\n\nThe actual territory associated with the village extends beyond the physical boundaries of the settlement. Fan Lau villagers, for example, cultivate fields located in Tsin Yue Wan (see map 1) and records show that, at least in 1904, padi fields in Kau Ling Chung (since abandoned) were also cultivated.\n\nSituated at the entrance of the Chu Kong or Pearl River estuary, Fan Lau enjoyed a strategic location in the past. This position was reflected in the construction of numerous forts and guard stations\n\n* Mr. da Silva has a Master's degree from the University of California at Berkeley and is at present with the Department of Geography, University of Hawaii.\n\n† Maps 1-4 are located at pp. 92-95.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205547, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1968", "page_number": 89, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "84\n\nARMANDO M, DA SILVA\n\nOne could reasonably suspect that the edifice was used more for signalling and coast watching than for outright defence, and as a navigational landmark. The stone walls are made from local material, the porphyritic granite. Certain nearby boulders of this granite have drill markings on them, the drill holes 3 or 4 inches apart. The fort appears to be built on an older stone base measuring some 225 by 130 feet, the walls of which are surmounted by superstructure walls of fired gray bricks (plate 8). A red clay found nearby, when mixed with lime, blocked and fired, could have produced this type of Chinese gray brick. The stone blocks and the gray bricks are held in place by lime cement made of lime mortar mixed with fine sand particles.5 The possibility that the bricks were produced from materials close at hand should not be dismissed.\n\nMany of the stone blocks and gray bricks have subsequently been removed by villagers for their own use. The Tin Hau temple nearby, for example, may have been partly constructed from bricks looted from the old fort (plate 9).\n\nWhen was the station constructed? The San On Yuen Chi makes no mention of any date but hints that law and order were established after troops were stationed at various outposts on the Chu Kong estuary after the order for the Coastal withdrawal (tsin hoi) had been rescinded in 1669. We have a brief mention in that district gazetteer that the Kai Yik Kok fort, as well as the forts located at Nam Tau and Chik Wan further up the estuary, were garrisoned by troops engaged in the restoration of order in \"dangerous\" areas not previously altogether under their control.\n\nThe persistent belief, still current today, that the ruin was of Dutch origin derives from the fact that Dutch ships in the early decades of the 17th century frequently stopped by the offshore islands of the Chu Kong estuary to take potable water. They were denied anchorage in Macau by the Portuguese and prohibited from entering Chinese ports by the Chinese. The myth of Dutch origin has been reinforced by confusion of the name with that of the Dutch fort of Castel Zeelandia built on Taiwan in the 17th century, which is also known as Fan Lau ($), meaning \"foreign building\". It takes no stretch of the imagination to ascribe to the fort at Kai Yik Kok, a Dutch, or Portuguese, or any other foreign origin. Fan\n\n...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205549, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1968", "page_number": 91, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "86\n\nARMANDO M. DA SILVA\n\ndefected to the government cause, and that as a reward, their land holdings were recognized officially by the government. This is a very Chinese approach to the problem of pacification. The Cheng 鄭 family of Fan Lau claims to have ancestral connections with Cheng Lin Fuk 鄭連福 and his son, Cheng Yat 鄭一, both notorious pirates from Tai Yu Shan, who terrorized the Chu Kong estuary during the latter half of the 18th century. The Cheng family still owns the land nearest to the old fort, which may suggest that this family had ancestors who were also on the government side (plate 10). The garrison could not have existed for long without food and it is reasonable to suppose that the padi fields of Fan Lau supported the soldiers from the fort (plate 11).\n\nThere are reasons for believing that the Kai Yik Kok fort may have pre-dated the Coastal Withdrawal of 1662, and that it may have been a Ming rather than a Ch'ing fort. Some confirmation of this is afforded by a series of nautical charts in the Mo Pei Chi (A). The preface to this work is dated 1621, but it was not presented to the throne until 1628. However, it has been shown that the charts almost certainly date from the first half of the fifteenth century.\n\nMany of the place-names in that section of the charts pertaining to the Chu Kong estuary are identifiable when checked against similar or equivalent place-names found in the maps of the 19th century editions of the Kwong Tung Tung Chi, San On Yuen Chi, Heung Shan Yuen Chi and O Mun Kei Leuk, but the reader must be warned on two points. First, place-names may differ in both pronunciation and orthography in different sources. Yung Hai is written as 容海 on the Mo Pei Chi charts, but as 雍海 on the maps of the Kwong Tung Tung Chi. A second point to remember is that adjoining districts on one island are not infrequently depicted as separate islands. The Kwong Tung T'ung Chi carries a map of the San On district, for instance, which marks Tai Yu Shan, Tung Chung and Kai Yik Kok fort as separate islands, whereas the last two places are in fact both located on Tai Yu Shan. It is obvious that the place-names on these maps serve not so much to pin-point localities as to mark well-known landmarks and stopping places. Navigation in these waters depended not on nautical instruments, but on the experience of pilots familiar with key channels and navigational landmarks, such as headlands and mountain peaks.\n\n*Plates 12 and 13 also relate to this article.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205551, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1968", "page_number": 93, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "88\n\nARMANDO M. DA SILVA\n\nA legend has grown up around this man, and most coastal Tin Hau temples today claim association with him.\n\nAccording to local tradition, Cheung was a lavish patron of the seafarer's temples which, in turn, probably supplied him with shipping intelligence. This pirate was reputed also to have constructed a number of forts, in reality armed camps, and village tradition has it that the Kai Yik Kok fort was once occupied by Cheung's men. There are reasons to believe this may be so. In 1809 a strong Chinese government fleet, assisted by six Portuguese lorchas11 from Macau on loan to the government, ambushed Cheung's pirate fleet at Tung Chung bay12. Cheung fought his way out of this trap only to surrender to the government after he had received peace overtures from the Provincial Governor. In the grand Chinese tradition of rewarding enemy defectors, Cheung was promptly made a paid government official and installed as chief customs collector in Macau. If Cheung's fleet was able to assemble at Tung Chung bay, which was dominated by a much larger fort, it follows that Cheung may have also controlled the second, but smaller, Tai Yu Shan fort at Fan Lau.\n\nIn 1815 the Chinese government, alarmed at the presence of foreign opium boats in the Chu Kong estuary, again began fortifying the coast. Existing forts were strengthened and new coastal strong points were constructed as part of a design to establish full and total control over the estuary. The fort at Fan Lau appears on a contemporary coastal defence map of the Chu Kong estuary. This map, in the 1864 edition of the Kwong Tung Tung Chi, was drawn in 1821 or 1822.\n\nThe Fan Lau fort was conspicuous enough to warrant a brief mention in the sailing directions of a foreign commercial guide on China published after Hong Kong was founded. The relevant passage reads, \"Lantau, the largest island in the estuary below the Bogue is about 15 miles long and 5 in its greatest breadth; its peak is about 3000 feet high, and is the loftiest summit in this region, but foreigners have never been to the top. It has several villages on its shore, and a fort, called Shek Sun pau toi ☎✯✯✯ on its S.E. side. The village Tyho on its eastern shore* has given name to the whole island on our charts, but it is usually called Tai Yu Shan.\n\n* The compiler was evidently confused between E. and W., as Shek Sun and Tai O (Tyho) are at the west end of Lantau. Ed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205553, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1968", "page_number": 95, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "90\n\nARMANDO M. DA SILVA\n\nIt will suffice here to say that the exterior defence of the Chu Kong estuary consisted of a series of forts, customs-stations and guard-posts in the Lo Man Shan 老萬山, Kai Pong 鷄澎, Sam Chau Mun 三洲門, Ngoi Ling Ting 外伶仃, and the Tam Kon ## groups of the outer off-shore islands. The civil administration ruled from Nam Tau, the district city of the San On district. The military administration was centred at Tai Pang, on the western arm enclosing Tai Pang Hoi (Mirs Bay). The civil administration operated on a north-south axis, as against the east-west axis of the military coastal defence system. This is understandable when one realizes that the military could facilitate their control of the coast-line by establishing easy communications by water running the length of the coast-line from strongpoints on strategic head-lands and the offshore islands.\n\n3 For the Chinese characters of place names of some locales in the vicinity of Tai Yu Shan see map 3. For names of places within the present territory of Hong Kong see A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories (Hong Kong, Government Printer, 1960).\n\n4 So far as I know there has been no published study of this fort by Hongkong's local historians, except for a brief mention in one work which states that Kai Yik Kok fort was of Ch'ing dynasty date. Lo Hsiang-lin, Hongkong and its External Communication before 1842, (Hongkong, Institute of Chinese Culture, 1963) p. 172.\n\n5 The principal ingredients of this cement are clam and oyster shells which are crushed and burnt to produce slaked lime. The lime is then mixed with fine sand to produce a holding cement. Shells and fine sand are common to many local beaches and are, apparently for this purpose, used in lime kilns.\n\n6 San On Yuen Chi, kuen 22, under section on Coastal Defence reads:\n\n看復界後海絮籹寧而設險更捻周密雖今之汎地 及設兵皆與舊制不同而大嶼山雞翼角炮臺南頭 炮臺赤濘炮蠱最為餓要\n\n7 Fan Lau is also known as Shek Sun meaning \"boulder growths\", a reference to the numerous residual boulders at Kai Yik Kok,\n\n8 Luis Gomes, Monografia de Macau (Macau, 1951), a Portuguese translation of the O Mun Kei Leuk p. 70. \"No 7° ano de long Tcheng (1730) construiram-se fortalezas nas duas montanhas, distribuiram-se as guarniçoes para a sua defensa e foram reforçadas as tropas que guarneciam Tai-U-San formando assim como que um angulo semelhante ao que e constituido pelos chifres dum boi, para servir de defensa exterior de Macau e o Boca Tigre\",\n\n9 J. J. L. Duyvendak, \"Sailing directions of Chinese voyages\" T'oung Pao, vol. 34 (1938) pp. 230-237; and \"The true dates of the Chinese maritime expeditions in the early fifteenth century\", T'oung Pao, vol. 34 (1938), pp. 341-412.\n\n10 The district of San On (新安) was formed in the sixth year of Lung Hing (隆慶) ie. 1572-73, Fourteen years later, in 1587, the San On district gazetteer was written by Yan Tai-kon (縣太君), the District Magistrate. Various editions followed. The latest edition was published in 1819. This gazetteer provides the best primary source of information on pre-British Hongkong. Chapters (kuen) XIV and XXII deal with Coastal Defence. These are chapters of special interest to historical geographers.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205826, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1969", "page_number": 132, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "126\n\nARMANDO DA SILVA\n\nThe large leaves of this plant reputedly have healing qualities that arrest the growth of leprous sores.\n\nVillagers are very conscious of some plants that can, if necessary, be eaten without ill effects, the so-called famine foods. Wild plants are classified into shoh (#) covering edible plants in general, and sut (†) a term describing wild medicinal plants. The distinguishing line between these two is hard to define as many medicinal plants are suspected of being famine foods to which are attributed tonic qualities. Their leaves, stalks, or succulent sections are usually added to soup or congee to impart taste and body. An example of a famine food is the pulpy fruit of Rhodomyrtus tomentosa. In August and September this shrub yields a sweet purple fruit which is picked and eaten. The local name for the fruit is kong ním (¥) but its other name of pei kwan kong (¤) meaning \"the berry that one eats when fleeing from soldiers\" strongly suggests that it is indeed one of many famine foods of this area.3\n\nTo keep insects from ruining crops, village cultivators often use insecticides derived from plants. A rotenone extract, injurious to insects but not to man, is derived from the tuber roots of Derris trifoliata, called locally tuk yue tung (“fish poison vine\"). The insecticide extract is diluted in water and sprinkled on crops, particularly the leaves of the sweet potato.4\n\nThe castor oil plant, Ricinus communis, called pei ma (¦) is a plant that was formerly widely used by villagers. The seeds were crushed to make an illuminant oil, and the leaves are still used as poultice for foot sores. It is still a common plant about villages. Most non-economic medicinal plants associated with home remedy are usually regarded as communal property. While these plants are not specifically protected by the villagers, neither are they uprooted without cause. Thus the castor oil plant exists because some of the more conservative villagers still rely on it to supply leaf poultices for leg sores.\n\nMany older villagers still place a greater reliance on plant medicine than on patent medicine and pills. Again for this reason, many plants that to outsiders seem of no useful significance are tolerated, though not purposefully cultivated for their curative qualities. The god of medicinal plants, Shun Nung (µ) is honoured on Chinese New Year when bits of red paper or cloth", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 } ]