[ { "id": 204236, "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-1961", "page_number": 4, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n1\n\nTHE HONG KONG BRANCH OF THE\n\nROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY\n\nThe Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society was originally founded in 1847, but it ceased to exist at the end of 1859. Exactly a century later, on December 28, 1959, it was resuscitated with the approval of the parent society in London - The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland.\n\nThe Royal Asiatic Society was founded in March 1823 \"for the investigation of subjects connected with and for the encouragement of science, literature and the arts, in relation to Asia\". It received its Charter of Incorporation as a royal society from George IV on August 11, 1824. The Royal Asiatic Society is the oldest and most important Society of its kind in Europe, and its standing as the doyen of Societies promoting the study of Asia has been maintained by the devotion of generations of eminent scholars, explorers and others who have contributed through its Journal, in public addresses and in many other ways, a rich harvest of knowledge, both academic and practical, in the service of Western understanding of the East.\n\nA large part of the Society's work has always been done through its branches and affiliated Societies in the East. Branches were formed at Bombay and at Madras about 1838, and in Ceylon in 1845. The Hong Kong Branch followed in 1847, the North China Branch at Shanghai in 1857, the Japanese in 1875, the Malayan in 1878, and the Korean in 1900, etc. etc.\n\nTHE HONG KONG BRANCH grew out of a Medico-Chirurgical Society founded in 1845. This Society, however, in accord with the contemporary spirit of inquiry and the enthusiasm for better knowledge of Asia in general and China in particular, had contemplated setting up a Philosophical Society; but the movement ended in the establishment of the Asiatic Society with laws drafted by Andrew Shortrede, Editor of the China Mail, framed on the model of those of the Royal Asiatic Society. Sir John F. Davis, the Governor, by reason of his known literary and scientific acquirements rather than his official rank, was asked to be President. He suggested that the Society should seek to be admitted as a Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society with which, as a founder member, he was in close touch and with whose active President, the Earl of Auckland, he had discussions on these lines before he left England.\n\nSo in January 1847 the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society was founded, and all the members of the Medico-Chirurgical Society who wished to join were admitted without ballot or entrance fee on condition of their Society's apparatus and books being handed over to the new body.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204304, "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-1961", "page_number": 72, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\n68\n\nVol 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nBUDDHIST SOURCES OF THE NOVEL\n\nFENG-SHEN YEN-I\n\n:\n\nLIU TS'UN-YAN. PH.D.\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nThe Feng-shên Yen-i, or 'Investiture of the Gods,' is a long novel consisting of 100 chapters. Its authorship had long been unknown, until in 1931 Prof. Sun K'ai-ti discovered in the Japanese Cabinet Library a Ming edition of this novel labelled \"compiled (pien-chi) by Hsu Chung-lin, styled Chung-shan I-sou.\" Many scholars therefore concluded that Hsü Chung-lin was the author. For instance, Lu Hsün in his A Brief History of Chinese Fiction (Chung-kuo Hsiao-shuo Shih-lüeh) mentioned Hsü as the author, though he added that he had not seen the original preface and therefore could not ascertain the date of the novel. This attribution of authorship is not reliable, for in Ming times the term \"compiling” (pien-chi) was rather freely used, and sometimes booksellers would reprint a book with slight additions and alterations and label it as being \"compiled\" by a new writer. In view of this, from 1935 to 1956, I tried to find out the true author of this novel, and my researches led me to the conclusion that the author or compiler of the novel was in fact Lu Hsi-hsing (1520-1601?), a Taoist priest of the Chia Ching period.\n\nLike the Hsi-yu-chi (\"Pilgrimage to the West\", also known to Western readers as \"Monkey\"), the Fêng-shên Yen-i is a work of fiction dealing with the supernatural. It was produced during the time when Chinese fiction was evolving from the prompt-books (hua-pên) of story-tellers to long novels. Its plot is based on the historical events related to the defeat of King\n\n1 There is no English translation of this novel. The German translation by Wilhelm Grube and Herbert Mueller, Die Metamorphosen der Götter (2 vols., Leiden, Brill, 1912) contains only chapters 1-46. Chapters 47-100 have been summarized by Mueller. The novel is mentioned in E. T. C. Werner, Myths and Legends of China (London, 1934) and in Sir J. C. Coyajee, Cults and Legends of Ancient Iran and China (Bombay, 1935).\n\n2 Chung-kuo Hsiao-shuo Shih-lüeh, Ch. 18, p. 176 (1953); also the English translation entitled A Brief History of Chinese Fiction by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, p. 220 (1959).\n\n3 Details of my evidence and arguments are contained in my unpublished thesis, \"The Authorship of the Feng-shen Yen-i\", a copy of which is in the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University.\n\n4 Cf. James J. Y. Liu, \"The Knight Errant in Chinese Literature\", in this volume, pp. 30-41.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204839, "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-1964", "page_number": 142, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "A RECONNAISSANCE OF MA WAN\n\nNOTES\n\n117\n\n1 For a more detailed account of British trade to Canton at this period see J. L. Cranmer Byng, An Embassy to China. Being the Journal kept by Lord Macartney during his Embassy to the Emperor Ch'ien-lung 1793-1794 (Longmans, Green, 1962), 4-17.\n\n2 Macartney's own journal printed in J. L. Cranmer Byng, op. cit.,\n\nFor Parish and Alexander see Appendix A, 313-16.\n\n111-112.\n\nJ. L. Cranmer-Byng, “The Defences of Macao in 1794: a British Assessment\" in Journal of Southeast Asian History Vol. 5 No. 1 (1964).\n\n4 Printed in H. B. Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China 1635-1834, 5 Vols. (O.U.P. 1926-9), I., 237.\n\n5 This report is preserved among the Macartney documents in the Wason collection on China and the Chinese at Cornell University, No. 371 (part). I wish to acknowledge my thanks to the Director of Libraries at Cornell for permission to reproduce this document in full. In doing so I have modernized the spelling and the use of capital letters. I also wish to acknowledge permission received from the authorities of the British Museum to reproduce Parish's sketch map from the original preserved in the British Museum, Add. MS. 19822 (art. 13).\n\n6 The Portuguese name of an island close to Macao which also gave its name to the anchorage there.\n\n7 An officer of the Bombay Marine who had been sent to Macao in 1793 in command of the Endeavour brig, one of two surveying ships, which were earmarked for the use of the embassy. The Jackall had sailed from England in 1792 as tender to the Lion. Both the Endeavour and Jackall sailed from Chusan to Canton in October 1793, but I have not discovered why Proctor was transferred to the Jackall or why the original survey ship, the Endeavour, was not used for this purpose.\n\n8 A large island about twice the size of the island of Hong Kong. The east coast of Lantao, although it has at least one good bay- Silvermine Bay is not sufficiently protected from the wind and is too exposed to the sea to make a good harbour for ships. Lantao Peak rises to approximately three thousand feet and is a useful local landmark. The Chinese name for the island is Tai Yu Shan.\n\n+\n\n9 Chek Lap Kok *#, a long island just off Tung Chung bay, See map facing page 27. Like other ports of Lantao it appears to have been more prosperous in the past than at present. The 1911 census gave its population as 77, of whom 55 were men. They probably worked in its stone quarries.\n\nto This refers to the Tung Chung valley, which included a fort between the villages of Ha Ling Pei and Sheung Ling Pei. Tung Chung ranked as a cheng M. See Rev. Krone \"A Notice of the Sanon District\" in Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Part VI (Hong Kong 1859) p. 82.\n\n+\n\n11 This is correct, since presumably Parish was referring to the head land of San Tau #. From here the coast runs sharply SW to Tai O.\n\n12 Two islands known as the Brothers, consisting of the West and East Brothers.\n\n13 In the vicinity of Tsing Lung Tau\n\n\"Green dragon head\",\n\non the coast of the New Territories between Tsun Wan and Castle Peak.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214113, "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-1997", "page_number": 181, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "150\n\neve of the Mid-Autumn Festival. In recent years visits have also been paid to such destinations as Taiwan, Vietnam and various parts of China.\n\nBefore looking in greater detail at what the Hong Kong Branch (RASHKB) does, let us review briefly the history of the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS 1979).\n\nHistory\n\nThe Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland was founded in London in 1823, and it received its Charter of Incorporation as a Royal Society the following year. It is the oldest and most important learned society of its kind in Europe, and it is the doyen of societies promoting the study of Asia. Its membership has included generations of eminent scholars and explorers with a deep understanding of the East.\n\nA large part of the Society's work has, however, always been carried out through its branches and affiliated societies. Branches were formed in such places as Bombay and Madras about 1838, and in Ceylon in 1845. The Hong Kong Branch followed in 1847, the North China Branch at Shanghai in 1857, the Japanese in 1875, the Malayan in 1878 and the Korean in 1900 (RAS1979: 15). Such countries as Japan and Korea were never, of course, part of the British Empire, and, in any case, British territory today is reduced to a few small pink dots on the map; such as Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Gibraltar. Thus the RAS can now be thought of, very much, as an international organisation rather than as being purely British.\n\nAlthough the Hong Kong Branch was first established in 1847, it ran into difficulties and, consequently, ceased to exist after the end of 1859. It was, nevertheless, resuscitated a century later (Hayes 1997: 129).\n\nAchievements\n\nGoing back to the middle of the last century, although the Branch was comparatively short-lived, it was nonetheless productive. With its emphasis on practical projects one of the most conspicuous notches in its belt must have been the proposal that a piece of land be requested", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215736, "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-2002", "page_number": 35, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "around the world where full sets of our Journal are available to scholars.\n\nMembers will have seen, in the Newsletter, a growing amount of information about the activities of a number of these other Societies, information reaching us as a direct result of the improved communications we have been seeking. I am glad to say that we have been able to get into improved communication in particular with three of the Branch Societies in India, that is, those in Madras (the Madras Literary Society), Bombay (the Asiatic Society of Bombay), and Calcutta (the Asiatic Society of Bengal), and with those in Colombo (The Royal Asiatic Society, Ceylon Branch), Kuala Lumpur (the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society), and Seoul (the Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch). All these Societies have agreed to welcome our Members to any of the events they mount, and we in turn have been very happy to offer Members of these Societies temporarily visiting Hong Kong access to our activities on the same terms as our own Members. We have also improved our contacts with the Siam Society, in Bangkok, and, again, we are now offering their Members access to our events on the same terms as our own Members. We have also been in regular communication with the Parent Society in London. We have not been able to contact the Branch Society in Tokyo as yet, and any Member able to help us in this respect should contact me.\n\nAs part of our drive to improve relationships with these other Branch and Associated Societies we have agreed to donate sets of our Journal to the Madras, Bombay, and Bangkok Societies, in return for sets of their Journals, which will be placed in our Library. Exchange arrangements with the Parent Branch in London, and with the Korea, Calcutta, Malaysia, and Ceylon Branches are also in place. We have also recently agreed an exchange arrangement with the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities in Stockholm, Sweden.\n\nFollowing the agreement of Members at the Extraordinary General Meeting of the Society on 4 October 2002, that the Society should have a new category of Member, that is Honorary Institutional Member, we have agreed in the subsequent months to make the Shanghai Library; the Hong Kong Catholic Diocesan Archives; the Zhong-ying Street Historical Museum, Sha Tau Kok (Shenzhen); the National Library, Bhutan; the British Empire Museum, Bristol, England; and the Instituto Cultural of Macau Honorary Institutional Members of the Society. In\n\nxxvi", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216128, "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-2002", "page_number": 427, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "361\n\nTHE LIBRARY OF THE HONG KONG BRANCH OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY\n\nJ. L.Y. CHAN\n\nIn the early days of Empire, when western institutions permeated around the world as a result of colonisation in the nineteenth century, libraries were among the first community organisations established wherever foreign settlements developed. Some of the libraries began as informal shared collections of reading materials, but a few developed a specialty of publications providing sources of information about the host country and its culture. This paper traces the development of the Library of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, its progress and growth since inception, and addresses some of the concerns faced by the Library.\n\nThe Royal Asiatic Society\n\nThe establishment of the Asiatic Society dates back to 1784 when a group of interested traders, missionaries, diplomats and administrators founded the Asiatic Society of Bengal in Calcutta, the then capital of British India. This provided the impetus for the formation of the Royal Asiatic Society in London (now known as the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland) in March 1823 which again gave rise to the founding of other branches, in Bombay and Madras in 1838, in Ceylon in 1845, in Japan in 1875, in Malaya in 1878, and in Korea in 1900. In China, two branches were established, the Hong Kong Branch (formerly named the China Branch) started in 1847 followed by the North China Branch in Shanghai in 1857/58. The aim of the Royal Asiatic Society and its branches is \"... investigation of the subjects connected with and for the encouragement of science, literature and the arts, in relation to Asia.\" As such, they serve as fora for discussion and greater understanding of Asian culture.\n\nThe Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society had actually grown out of a Medico-Chirurgical Society which was founded in 1845, initially constituted as the China Branch in January 1847 with the effort of Sir John F. Davis, the then Governor, himself a founder member of the Royal Asiatic Society in London. Due to dissent and feuds within the trading community in Hong Kong, the China Branch collapsed in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]