[
    {
        "id": 205104,
        "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-1966",
        "page_number": 60,
        "title": "RAS-1966",
        "content_text": "SINO-WESTERN CONTACTS\n\n55\n\nthere, one which it takes one month to cross, the other one whole year. Their ships are so big that they can hold between 50 and 100 men. These people presented a wine beaker made from the egg-shell of a sea bird. If one poured wine into it the wine became warm immediately... The emperor was very pleased that these people had come from so far and gave them liberal gifts of gold and textiles.\n\nThis is quite an extraordinary story. But it is, in more than one way, typical of most descriptions of foreign countries in the Middle Ages. It is always the fanciful and fantastic that is given predominant attention, and travellers seem always to have made a point of telling yarns that they knew would impress their foreign listeners. This entire problem of cosmography in the Middle Ages, European and Chinese, cannot be understood without investigating some of the basic underlying concepts that invariably show up in descriptions of regions and peoples at the end of the world. The unknown is full of marvels, of mirabilia and portenta. But there is equally, as a rule, some factual basis for even the most fantastic notion, distorted as it is by transmission and tainted by preconceived concepts about the world. I should add here in an aside that the description of the Mongols in the European medieval Latin sources shows the gradual transition from the apocalyptic Gog and Magog concepts, derived from late Hellenistic lore, to the sober accounts of the travellers and missionaries. The Franks at Kublai Khan's court evidently tried to impress their Mongol and Chinese hosts by some tall stories. But there are certainly a few factual data that can help to elucidate this curious report. The reference to the constant daylight seems to imply that these people came from Northern Europe because of the short summer nights there. In my opinion these blonde and blue-eyed men were traders from either the Scandinavian countries or, which seems even more probable, from some Northern trading center like Novgorod. It remains a question what is meant by the two seas they had to cross. Did they reach Shang-tu by sea, that is via the Indian Ocean? Or are the two seas the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, or the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea? We do not know and perhaps never shall. The curious remark about flies and mosquitoes being born from wood reminds one strongly of the Medieval European notion, derived from Aristotle, according to which insects like flies and fleas come from wood.3\n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 207242,
        "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-1975",
        "page_number": 10,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "2\n\nwhich followed his talk. In May, Mrs Carole Morgan talked on Dogs and Horses in Ancient China, a subject for which she is preparing a doctoral dissertation for the Sorbonne in Paris, and also in May we were invited by the Hong Kong History Society for a cultural evening. It was an Indian occasion, with a talk by Mrs Raj Ghose on Buddhist Art, followed by curry at the Gaylord Restaurant in Kowloon and a film on Rock Carvings. In October we invited Mrs. Raj Ghose back to talk to the Society and her subject was Tibetan Iconography. In September we had a talk by Miss Helen Perrell on Mandarin Squares, and in October our members were invited to the Fung Ping Shan Museum of the Hong Kong University to hear a talk on the museum given by the curator, Dr. Michael Lau, to University staff. In January Mr. John Myers, another doctoral candidate, for the University of Pittsburgh, talked on his field research into Chinese spirit-medium cults in Hong Kong's urban area. Mr. Myers is currently with the anthropology section of the Sociology Department, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.\n\nThree other talks have been organised so far this year, all on China. One, also in January by Professor Cheng Te-k'un, scholar of international renown in the field of Chinese archaeology and art, was on Chinese export ceramics, and was illustrated with beautiful slides. In February Professor Hsieh Chiao-min talked on contemporary problems in modern Chinese geography. Professor Hsieh is on sabbatical leave from the University of Pittsburgh and honorary visiting professor in the Geography and Geology Department, University of Hong Kong. Finally in March Professor Noah Fehl, Chairman of the Department of World History of the Chinese University and a long time resident of Hong Kong, talked about the work and thought of the philosopher/scholar Tsou Yin, who matches Aristotle in period of time and some of his ideas. All our talks drew good size audiences and from the variation in their constitution from lecture to lecture it would appear that our policy of variety to suit different interests is a correct one. During the period, then, we were fortunate in being able to borrow the talents of many visiting and resident scholars.\n\nEXCURSIONS\n\nMr. James Hayes, one of our Vice-presidents was as usual active in organising many of our excursions during the period. In",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d",
        "rank": 0
    }
]