[ { "id": 205325, "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-1967", "page_number": 87, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "80\n\nTHE CHINA COASTERS\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\nJames Matheson sent his San Sebastian from Canton to ports in Fukien Province in 1820, to open up new markets for opium, and this is generally considered the pioneer voyage in the China coast trade. Although Matheson was Danish Consul at Canton at this time, and the San Sebastian sailed under Spanish colours, it is correct to describe this voyage as a British venture. The men who sailed the opium clippers, therefore, were the first 'China coasters', and since that time 'China coasters' have considered themselves a breed apart, distinct from the rest of the British Merchant Navy. The tradition of more liberal manning, of better pay, food, and conditions in general, pioneered by the opium clippers has continued to the present day.\n\nMany of the customs and practices of the lordly East Indiamen and of the Indian 'country ships' were inherited by the humbler 'China coasters'. The East Indiaman's captain could, and was expected to, make a fortune from carrying passengers and private cargo, in addition to the company's, and in self defence the latter stipulated a definite scale of perquisites for each member of the crew, from captain down to bosun and carpenter. Generous as this was, it was invariably exceeded. There was a much greater variety of 'pidgin' (=business) on the China coast, although it did not comprise such a high proportion of the China coaster's total earnings. As on the East India Company's ships, dabbling in certain types of 'pidgin' was considered legitimate and carried no moral stigma.\n\nThe most common and profitable pidgin came from deck passengers. It was on the emigrant runs to the Straits and Bangkok that this type of 'pidgin' was most prolific. I was introduced to this on my first ship on the coast, the Antung. The Antung was\n\nThe author served as an Engineer Officer with the China Navigation Company from 1928 until 1938, and was on the Yangtse in 1930 in the Shengking and again in 1934 in the Wuhu. He was captured by pirates in the Newchang river in Manchuria in 1933 and held prisoner for five and a half months. Two of his articles have been published previously in the Journal. \"European Navigation on the Yangtse\" in Vol. 3, 1963, and \"Piracy on the China Coast\" in Vol. 5, 1965.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206460, "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-1972", "page_number": 8, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "the help they have rendered to the Society in its learned and cultural activities:\n\n20th January\n\n15th February\n\n15th March\n\n27th April\n\n19th May\n\n18th October\n\n17th November\n\n15th December\n\nProfessor L. Carrington Goodrich\n\n\"The Ming Biographical Project\"\n\nMr. James Hayes\n\nAn informal talk on the scope and activities of the 28th International Congress of Orientalists held in Canberra in January 1971 (illustrated with slides).\n\nThe Rev. Carl T. Smith\n\n\"The Emergence of a Chinese Elite in Hong Kong”.\n\nDr. Hui-Ching Lu\n\n\"T'ai Chi Chuang: Its Principles and Practice\", (illustrated by a 15 minute film show).\n\nProfessor Woodbridge Bingham\n\n\"The People of T'ang China as we know them today\".\n\nDr. F. I. Tseung\n\n\"Chinese Medicine and its contribution to Modern Medical Science\".\n\nMr. M. J. Smithies\n\n\"Village Mons of Bangkok Province\" or \"The Survival of Good and Bad Ghosts Beyond the Traffic Jams\", (illustrated with slides).\n\nMr. P. H. Collin\n\n\"A British Officer in China, 1857-58\", (illustrated with slides).\n\nCouncil: During the period under review your Council met nine times and, naturally, much of the business dealt with was of a routine nature. There were however in addition a few important matters of general interest which called for the consideration and action of your executive body and these are now mentioned separately here.\n\nHon. Secretary. On the departure of Mr. J. L. H. Webster from the Colony (as foreshadowed in my last Report), Miss E. M. Bellord, also a member of the staff of the local British", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207037, "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-1974", "page_number": 108, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "102\n\nMICHAEL SMITHIES\n\nFrench, advancing up the Mekong from Saigon, over-anticipating its value as a trade route to China and claiming suzerainty over Annamese vassals, slowly filled.\n\nThe explorer Mouhot was at Luang Prabang in 1861 and Doudart de Lagrée and Francis Garnier shortly thereafter. The Kha rebellion of 1885 gave the French an excuse for intervention and stopping further extension of Siamese power in Laos; in 1886 a provisional Franco-Siamese convention was signed giving the French the right to establish a vice-consulate at Luang Prabang. The first mission by Pavie to Luang Prabang took place early in 1887, but French expansionism was effectively held in check for three years by the devastation caused by Deo Van Tri and the Black Flags (the Ho 'pirates' operating from Yunnan and Tonkin). Incidents increased between Siam and France and culminated with the French naval demonstration at Bangkok in 1893; the Siamese gave way and ceded the left bank of the Mekong to France. The Franco-Siamese treaty of 1907 gave the right-bank province of Sayaboury and those right bank parts of Champassak to France, but recognised Siamese authority over the rest of the right bank. The present frontiers of Laos were effectively decided by the French, from whom the Lao gained independence in 1949 under King Sisavong Vong. Prince Boun Oum of Champassak having in a secret protocol of 1946 renounced his right to the kingdom. More recent events have been well chronicled and the agreement of the three major political princes of left, right and centre in 1974 to form a joint government offers hope that the troubled post-war history of Laos might enter a more peaceful phase.\n\nThe buildings in Vientiane then are either restorations or totally modern and, as always in mainland southeast Asia, the monuments of note are almost exclusively religious. The most attractive shrine is the That Luang slightly outside the city. This solid tapering square tower was built in the 16th century by King Settathirat and is said to contain Buddhist relics. It was badly destroyed by the Red Flags in 1873 and its reconstruction was completed in 1929. It is an impressive pile set in a large open square fringed with trees. A vast fair takes place here every November and assumes a national importance.\n\nVat Pra Keo was also built originally by King Settathirat to house the Emerald Buddha on its arrival from Chiengmai; the statue", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208771, "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-1979", "page_number": 228, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n201 \n\nIt would seem incongruous that Na T'o, a Muslim who would abhor idolatry, should be venerated by the Chinese and it would be interesting to know what the Malays themselves would think of such a practice; that is of course, assuming that they even know of his existence. The Chinese, however, see no incongruity in having a Muslim on their altar, and in some areas, particularly around Kluang, he is especially treated with the respect and constraints due to another religion. As a Muslim, he is never disturbed on a Friday and never offered pork. \n\nThe only other case so far noted of a Muslim appearing on a Chinese altar was heard from a Chinese from Sian who recalled a deity in North China, the Wei Wei Ts'ai Shen (✯✯1⁄2§i†), said to be the Mohammedan god of wealth, depicted dressed in a Tibetan high-crowned cap. Wei Wei, he thought, was probably derived from the Arabic, and, it was claimed that Muslim Chinese offered beef at his altar. Wei Wei however, is possibly a local variant of Hui Hui, the usual Chinese term for \"Moslem”. \n\nThe second cult is that of Miss Lin (✯✯✯) whose image is to be seen on Chinese temple altars only in Southern Thailand. Her legend explains all. Left alone by the death of her parents in her home village near Ch'aochou in Eastern Kwangtung province of South China, she followed her only living relative, her brother, down to a village near Songkla in the far south of Thailand where he worked in the fields. When she arrived she found to her disgust that her brother was just about to marry a Muslim girl and be converted to Islam. She attempted without avail to persuade him not to do either. A Chinese god carver in Bangkok added, with disgust, he even gave up eating pork! \n\nThe sister knew she could not live with her brother and his wife and in a desperate moment threw herself into the river Patani and drowned herself. The brother, despite being filled with remorse, to demonstrate that he, as a convert, was more devout than born believer, went ahead with his plan to build a mosque and even went as far as to bury his sister beside the site chosen for it. As the last brick was laid lightning struck and destroyed the mosque without harming the sister's grave. However, the brother refused to believe that it was divine retribution for his denial of his parent's gods. Twice more he built, and twice more lightning struck. Only then did he accept the message and renounce Islam. Realizing that his", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208772, "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-1979", "page_number": 229, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "202\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nsister, now a spirit, had proffered good advice, he built a folk religion shrine in her honour. Her cult thrived, so much so that her image is revered by Ch'aochou emigrants in most areas of South Thailand and, so the story goes, also in Singapore and in Nakorn Sri Thammarat.\n\nThe Bangkok god carver claims that Miss Lin is the only Chinese deity with a special urn donated by the King of Thailand who is well known for his tolerance towards and encouragement for other religions. He is said to have bowed in her honour before her image which consists of a simple, seated country girl with bare feet and large hands, dressed in working clothes Plate 3. Her festival is celebrated in her temples each year on her birthday, the 15th of the first lunar month.\n\nHong Kong.\n\nMarch, 1980.\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nTHE TEMPLE OF THE SUPREME RULER,\n\nNEAR SUNG WONG TOI, KOWLOON*\n\nIn the thirteenth century A.D. the Southern Sung Emperor Tuen Chung was attacked by the Mongol Conquerors of the North. Driven from his provisional capital at Hang Chow, the Emperor retreated southwards through Fukien and on to Kwangtung province, stopping temporarily at more than 30 places on his way. Besides the well known Palace at Ngai Mun in the San Wui district of Kwangtung, that at Sau Shan by the Pearly River has been fully described in the Imperial Records which were published in the Yuen Dynasty. Such buildings provide evidence of the efforts of the Sung Emperor and his ministers to make that stand against their enemies which has long been cherished in the people's minds.\n\nIn the spring of 1277 during the second year of his reign, the Emperor left Kam Tsz Mun of Wai Chau district in Kwangtung and reached Mui Wai. In the fourth moon he arrived at Kwun Fu Cheung, a district which included present day Kowloon, the New\n\n*This heading and the following text are taken from a memorial tablet erected in the Urban Council's Rest Garden at Lomond Road, Kowloon, site of this former old temple. A Chinese tablet is also provided.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213618, "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-1995", "page_number": 214, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "187\n\nTWO GROUPS OF CHINESE DEITIES RARELY SEEN ON CHINESE ALTARS\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nImages of Chinese deities on altars either stand alone, with their aides and assistants where applicable, or in groups of two, three, five, eight, ten, eighteen as dictated by their legend or custom. There are many such groups, most of which are to be seen on a number of temples. However, two groups, though quite frequently referred to in scripture and legend have only been noted once. The first, the Six Patriarchs of Buddhism, stand on three altars, side by side, in a secondary hall of a popular religion temple run by Ch'aochou devotees in Chonburi, a city just south of Bangkok. The second, the Taoist Seven True Ones (of the Northern School), the disciples, enlightened ones, of Wang Chung-yang can be seen in a separate side hall dedicated to them of a temple at the base of Hua Shan in Shensi province.\n\nThe Patriarchs of Buddhism, Tsu\n\nThere are two separate groups of Buddhist patriarchs, those of the West, that is, with Indian and Hindu origins, and those of the East, that is, Chinese. Indian patriarchs of Western Buddhism totalled twenty-eight, a few of whom were still revered in mainland Chinese temples during the earlier part of this century.\n\nThe Chinese patriarchs of Eastern Buddhism, a total of six, the Tung-tsu Liu(1), belong to a relatively late stage in the development of Buddhism in China of which one, the last and Sixth, Liu Tsu, is still regarded as a major deity in his own right by the Cantonese. However, images of Liu Tsu, together with the other five Patriarchs are to be seen in Chonburi, in a large combined Buddhist-Taoist temple.\n\nThe first patriarch of Chinese Buddhism is Bodhidharma who was also the 28th and last Patriarch of Indian Buddhism. He left India when already an old man and in about AD 520 after travelling for about three years he reached Canton bringing with him the sacred alms bowl of the Indian Patriarchate. He died some ten years later and, according to different schools of thought, is buried either near Loyang or near...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215114, "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-2000", "page_number": 210, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "167\n\nhis patriotic rage caused him to grind his teeth so that after his death it was found that all but three or four had been worn down to the very gums.\n\nXu was a civil mandarin, the prefect of Suiyang, a native of Yanguang in Gansu province, who was posthumously awarded the title Weixian Wang by the emperor. His festival is celebrated on his birthday, the 29th of the first, or the 2nd of the sixth lunar months. In Mucha near Taipei an image of Xu's consort stands on a rear altar in his temple.\n\nAlthough their images are to be seen in most of their temples together, both on the same altar, in a few places they are also to be seen individually as the lone main deity on an altar. Further complications include both deities noted individually on altars in temples where the temple keepers deny that their particular individual deity is in any way connected with the other deity who is not present.\n\nWhen they are together as joint main deities their images are very similar and cannot easily be identified apart. They are usually portrayed as customary military figures, dressed in armour, sitting on thrones and holding unsheathed swords but without any unique identifying characteristics. In many temples they have a pair of military and civil aides flanking their altars and, in one instance, in Tainan, Zhang has an 'army' represented by six miniature images of military and civil aides on the altar table before his main altar.\n\nAmong the many legends told about these two deities one related in a Chaozhou temple in Bangkok related how the cult came from \"the north” and arrived in Chaoyang, a small city on the coast of Guangdong just south of Swatow [Shantou]. Zhong Ying, a Song dynasty soldier [ca. AD 1200], whilst escorting taxes gathered in Chaozhou to the capital was resting overnight in a temple somewhere in central China when he heard voices of Xu and Zhang, the two deities on the main altar, instructing him to carry their images on his return to Chaozhou to spread their cult into southern China, which he duly did.\n\nAccording to the Chaoyang county annals a force of foreigners [red-haired bandits] attacked Swatow [Shantou] in 1854. They were repulsed by the Chinese defenders when the latter were aided by giant apparitions of Zhang and Xu who, amidst a host of horsemen, came to\n\nPage 210\n\nPage 211", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215328, "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-2001", "page_number": 105, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "53\n\nby the Hainanese and especially those from the Hainanese county of Wanning where he is primarily prayed to by the sick. He is claimed to be extremely efficacious and able to cure or heal any sickness or injury. He usually sends his Black or White Horse Generals to help devotees and only leaves the Heavens himself for very important cases. His image has only been seen in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Borneo, Bangkok and Phnom Penh where his festival is generally celebrated on the 15th of the fifth lunar month. However, he must never be prayed to for prosperity.\n\nTwo entirely different legends describe the origins of this deity, one more popular in Singapore and southern Malaysia, and the other in Thailand and Cambodia. In neither is the Marquis identified by name and he therefore remains unidentified.\n\nHe is also referred to as:\n\nthe Lord of the Seas, Wenzhou Haizhu Houwang\n\nTongzhu Houwang The Marquis Lord of the Aboriginal People\n\nShanqin Houwang The Imperial Marquis of the Mountains\n\nThe first legend claims that a petty king in China was waved by an individual who, in the city of Wenzhou on the coast of Zhejiang province, north of and nearly opposite the island of Taiwan, was awarded the title of Marquis. This happened a long, long time ago. The ruler of Hainan, as a separate state, so the legend continued, had an image of the Marquis brought to the island of Hainan and placed in a specially built temple where he has been worshipped ever since.\n\nThe second story relates that the Marquis was, variously, a Ming governor of Hainan island or a minister of an ancient dynasty against whom, through jealousy, evil ministers plotted. They killed him and threw his body into the sea where it turned into a log and floated away. A fisherman found it, realised that it had spiritual properties and so carved it into a statue which he revered and quickly became wealthy,\n\nPage 105\n\nPage 106", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]