[ { "id": 213614, "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": 210, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "183\n\nones, having sprung up through private enterprise. Others, like a large newly completed temple in Tampenis New Town, were a complete surprise.\n\nBack in the early sixties I came across a deity who intrigued me because he did not appear to be worshipped elsewhere, and had an unusual multi-coloured striped face. He was known as the Great Emperor of the Seven Stars [the Northern Dipper], Qixing Dadi.\n\nThe temple was a basha hut with an attap roof in a humble and impoverished village on the road across the north east of the island towards Changi. The villagers were unable to tell me anything about the deity apart from it being a powerful stellar god, feared and carefully propitiated. I returned to the village a number of times and always came away disappointed. Nothing seemed to be known about his background and legend. Then, in the early seventies I again tried to find the temple but this time neither the village nor the temple remained and no one seemed to know where the temple had gone to.\n\nIn 1993 I was once more fortunate to revisit the Republic for a short visit and driving my hire car from the airport lost my way in the welter of new roads and found myself in Tampenis New Town. There ahead of me in the midst of the blocks of flats was a new and comparatively large popular religion temple. I parked and entered wondering just what I might find and was amazed to see a row of some nine separate altars facing me, all with two or three images on them with a large Pestilence Wangye shrine in the centre. I began to make notes and sketch in the detail when, at the first altar at stage right, was my old friend, Qixing Dadi.\n\nIt transpired that each altar was occupied by deities from nine separate temples from the area around the New Town, all of which had been demolished over the years to make way for modern development. The ending, however, for me anyway, is sad. Having re-found the Great Emperor and sought out the temple staff, no one again was able to help with his legend. A visiting devotee offered to help and over the next few months wrote several times explaining the progress or lack of it ending with the report that the old man who might have known more had died a matter of months earlier.\n\nSo here we have a minor cult, almost certainly brought to Singapore\n\nPage 210\n\nPage 211", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214105, "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": 173, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "142\n\nFor the first stage, the Macau Administration selected a team led by a Hong Kong-based planning practice, P&T Group, who teamed with Siza Vieira and Fernando Tavora of Portugal, to design the reclamation of the Porto Exterior, the outer harbour. This team submitted plans in 1984 consisting of a rectilinear urban grid of 144 m by 72 m, which can be seen, in the southeast portion of Figure 6. The plan consists of large blocks, four wide to the west and two wide to the east, six blocks deep on the north-south axis. A central reserve parts the east and west sections and is continued on to the shore to provide a visual connection. A park lies to the east, disconnected and inaccessible from the rest of Macau except through the new development. All this is placed on a podium created by separating the reclamation from the existing edge with a canal for surface water drainage. Thus, the result is distinct and different urban fabric from which has preceded it.\n\nThe second stage was the reclamation of the outer harbour beside the Praia Grande. This was conceived initially as simply a reclamation of the bay resulting in a straightened waterfront and a semi-circular flat plate of land on which to develop. After a competition, the winning scheme (by Manuel Vicente) was revealed to propose not to reclaim straight across the bay but to create instead two large pools of water and an island. The area is defined by a causeway in an arc that inverts the broad Praia Grande of the past and a second causeway linking around the Barra at the southern tip. Twelve blocks are positioned on the north-east edge of the ponds to create a clear urban edge to the water. The Praia itself is to be widened by reclaiming some space along the water's edge, restoring the grandeur of the avenue that has been eroded by traffic, parking and development. In 1991, the \"Reorganisation of the Praia Grande\" was gazetted with the following aims (Prescott 1993):\n\nFigure 6: 1996\n\n1. to reinforce the diverse economic base of Macau\n\n2. to create an image of the city to attract investment and an environment attractive to scientific personnel, technicians and managers all of whom form an indispensable necessity for the coherent", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216481, "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-2003", "page_number": 240, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "190\n\nof his first command and the position of trust in which his employers had placed him. The Euphrates and Tigris Shipping Company had come into possession of the Shushan after it was no longer required for the Nile expedition and decided to use it to extend their operations into South West Iran up the Karun River beyond Ahwaz. They were already running a regular passenger and freight service up to Ahwaz but were unable to proceed further because of a series of rapids that had effectively closed the river to conventional steam traffic.\n\nPlant picked up his new command at Basra and was introduced to his engineer officer, a young Englishman called Stanley Webber with whom he would be sharing his Persian adventure. Together, they and a temporary crew from Basra, made their way down the Shatt al Arab to Mohammerah, a town at the mouth of the Karun River and from there, up river to Ahwaz. His next task was to take the Shushan up and over the rapids at Ahwaz, where the water rushed down a seemingly impenetrable rocky slope although, it was said, there were a few fast water channels through which the craft might proceed with safety provided it had sufficient paddle power. To be on the safe side he obtained some long safety lines and hired a crowd of pullers and heavers to man them should the craft not be able to manage the rapid under its own steam.\n\nRiver pilotage\n\nThus, all was made ready for the assault on the feared Ahwaz rapids. The great day came and so did the crowds to see the fun - but his hard work and planning paid off. With a full head of steam and Plant on the wheel the Shushan climbed the first rapid and then went full ahead upstream for the next gap between two great rocks where the river 'poured through like a sluice.' She just made it and then moved up to through the next rapid that was just a little easier and finally entered the calmer waters above the town. Here, the crew was discharged and sent back to their home port while Plant made preparations for taking the Shushan on its first trip to Shuster some 50 miles up river.\n\nFirst, he had to find and train a permanent crew, including someone with knowledge of the river and a Tindal (bo'sun) to take charge of the deck hands. He also needed an interpreter, through whom he could give instructions to the crew, most of whom spoke no English. He would\n\nPage 240\n\nPage 241", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]