[ { "id": 204256, "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": 24, "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\n21\n\nA most odd and interesting bird to be seen around Victoria from Garden Road to the University is the Rose-ringed Paroquet, presumably introduced but now firmly established as a resident. Sometimes parties of up to sixteen birds have been seen.\n\nA noisy but seldom seen family are the Cuckoos, who are well represented here, nearly all of them summer visitors. The Indian Cuckoo, or ‘One-more-bottle Bird', the Large Hawk-cuckoo or 'Brain-fever Bird', and the Plaintive Cuckoo or 'Rain-bird', are three summer visitors to certain favoured localities, mainly in the northern New Territories. The Koel is more common and widespread. All these four are parasites of smaller birds, too lazy to make a nest of their own. The Crow-Pheasant and Lesser Crow-Pheasant (which are neither crows nor pheasants!) are also quite common and widespread: both of them are to some extent hill birds, and the former likes more wooded country than the latter.\n\nTwo species of owl are resident in the Colony, the Barred Owlet, whose bubbling call is heard in the northern New Territories, and the Collared Scops Owl both there and on Hong Kong Island, especially on The Peak.\n\nThe Savannah Nightjar must breed in the Colony, for its whip-lash call is heard frequently over many open spaces in the New Territories during the spring and summer, but no nest has yet been found.\n\nHouse-swifts nest, several pairs at a time, under the verandahs of shops and houses in at least half-a-dozen towns. Many thousands of these and the Large White-rumped Swift pass through the Colony on migration.\n\nThe kingfishers are one of the sights of Hong Kong's bird-life. The Common Kingfisher, the one seen in Europe, is here all the year round and almost certainly nests. The White-breasted Kingfisher and Black-capped Kingfisher are both large, very gaily-coloured birds, although the first is much more common than the second. The Pied Kingfisher is confined to the Deep Bay area, where probably only one pair nests, although formerly this species used to be quite common also.\n\nThe Great Barbet, which as might be expected of a close relative of the woodpeckers is a lover of big trees, may be heard calling its monotonous 'coo-lee-you' from the Norfolk Island Pine in the Botanical Gardens and from several woods in the north-eastern New Territories where it breeds. A small relation, the Wryneck, may be seen in winter, quite frequently in scrubby foothill country.\n\nSwallows are a well-loved and common summer visitor to the Colony, and occasionally a few birds may be seen even on the coldest days of winter. Large numbers also come through on passage.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204309, "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": 77, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n73\n\ncalled \"Umbrella of Noumenon and Unity\" (hun-yüan san A) which is decorated with emeralds and precious pearls of divine power which are threaded together to form the words: \"to pack up the universe.\" When this umbrella is opened, heaven and earth, the sun and the moon, will be covered up by darkness, and when it is rolled the world will be shaken. Mo Li-hai carries a spear and on his back there is a four-stringed guitar (p'i-p'a) which will produce the same effect as the \"Blue Cloud Sword\" when played on and the four strings correspond to earth, water, fire and wind. Mo Li-shou carries two whips and a bag in which is concealed a peculiar creature resembling a rat, hua hu-tiao (the striped marten). When hurled into the air this creature will assume the shape of an elephant with wings from its ribs and will devour every one.\n\nThe combat between these four brothers and the heroes from the camp of King Wu can be found in Chs.39-41 of the novel. They are engaged in mortal combat with the Li brothers, Chin-cha, Mu-cha and No-cha in Ch.40. If the reader knows that Li Ching, the fabulous father of these three Li brothers is in fact derived from one of these four heavenly kings, Vaisravana, the ingenuity of the author of this novel can be appreciated, because before the publication of this novel, in many other works Vaisravana and the Chinese god Li Ching, based on the historical hero so named of the Tang dynasty, had long been amalgamated and formed a single name, P'i-sha-mên t'ien-wang Li Ching (Vaisravana or Li Ching, the Heavenly King of Vaisravana). The Chinese transliteration from the Sanskrit \"Vaisravana\" since the T'ang dynasty has been Pi-sha-mên (R), the last character of which, mên, though senseless in this connection, normally means \"gate\". Thus, in popular literature, the term P'i-sha-mên lost its original meaning and became the name of the P'i-sha Gate, and it was therefore natural enough to have a heavenly general, like Li Ching, to take charge of it, though in English this may appear peculiar.\n\n* In Yang Ching-hsien's (MRK) play T'ang San-tsang Hsi-t'ien Ch’ü-ching (EXRE), Scene 9, we read \"P'i-sha-mên hsia Li Tien-wang\" (TX) which means the Heavenly King Li under the P'i-sha Gate. In the prompt-book Ch'i-kuo Ch'un-ch'iu P'ing-hua ta (TH), chüan 3, we have \"P'i-sha-mên To-t'a Li T'ien-wang\" (*XE) or P'i-sha-mên, the Heavenly King Li who holds in his hand a pagoda. Sometimes the story-tellers thought since there was a P'i-sha mên (gate), it was wise to create a palace, called P'i-sha Kung (CE W D). In the Nan-yüeh-chi, Ch. 11, we have \"P'i-sha Kung Li Ching Tien-wang\" (K*XE). In a long eulogistic poem in Ch. 12 of the Feng-shen, there is a palace in heaven called K'un-sha Kung (R V E) which is obviously an erratum.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204328, "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": 96, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\n92\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nfather\" was only one of revelation of supernatural powers (神通), and it was because of the imagination and the literary gifts of the author of the Fêng-shên that the story became so impressive and full of emotional appeal. The author continues:\n\nThe Immortal T'ai-I asked No-cha to follow him to the peach-garden and taught him personally how to use his \"fiery-pointed spear\" (火尖槍) which the master now bestowed on him. After that, the Immortal gave him the wind-wheel and fire-wheel which he might tread on while chanting incantations and which served him as a magic vehicle; and also a bag made of panther skin in which were the magic bracelet, the red silk gauze and a brick of gold completed his new armour. No-cha prostrated himself before his master once more, and after thanking him, held the magic spear in hand, safely mounted his wind-and-fire wheels and darted straight to the Ch'ên-t’ang Pass and challenged Li Ching, his father. (Ch.14)\n\n**\n\n** In order to prove again how the author of the Fêng-shên Yen-i adapted and utilized confused and promiscuous materials from previous works, we may list some of the arms used by No-cha with their earlier appearances in other prompt-books or plays as follows:\n\n(a) Fiery-pointed spear. In Act 4 of the anonymous play of the Yüan dynasty, Han Kao-huang Cho-tsu Ch'i Ying-pu (漢高皇祖母齊英布), the spear used by Hsiang Yu (項羽) is a \"fiery-pointed spear\".\n\n(b) Wind-wheel. The wind-wheel is originally the wheel, or circle of wind below the circle of water and metal upon which, according to Buddhist teaching, the Earth rests. It appears in many sutras including the Surangama-sutra (楞嚴經), Ch. 4. In Nan-yu-chi (南遊記) (Ch. 2 and 11) and Pei-yu-chi (北遊記) (Ch. 15) it is one of the arms of the Flowery Light (Hua Kuang or Ling Yao 華光, or San-yen Ling Yao 三眼華光). Ling Yao with a deva-eye).\n\n(c) Fire-wheel. The alatacakra, a wheel of fire produced by rapidly whirling a fire-brand. In chuan 3 of his Lêng-yen Ching Shu-chih (楞嚴經疏治) (? “The Principles of the Surangama-sutra\", in the First Series, Second Collection of the Tripitaka in Chinese, 大藏經, 1912), Lu Hsi-hsing says \"as the whirling of a fire-brand, reality does not exist\". In Nan-yu-chi (Ch. 2 and Ch. 11) and Pei-yu-chi (Ch. 15), the fire-wheel is also a weapon of Flowery Light.\n\n(d) Gold brick, The gold brick is also one of the arms of Flowery Light in Nan-yu-chi (Ch, 2 and Ch. 11) and Pei-yu-chi (Ch. 15). But both the gold brick and the fire-wheel are attributed to Flowery Light also in Yang Ching-hsien's T'ang San-tsang Hsi-t'ien Ch'ü-ching, a play of the Yüan dynasty, Scene 8. In Hsü Fu-tso's (徐復祚) T'ou-so Chi (鬧府記), Scene 19, these two weapons belong to Nata of Eight Arms (八臂那吒).\n\n(e) Magic bracelet. In Ch. 11 of the Nan-yu-chi, one of the weapons of No-cha is a \"purple-gold bracelet with raised flowers\" (紅花紫金圈) and it is the origin of the magic bracelet (ch'ien-k'un ch'üan 乾坤圈 the Bracelet of Vitreous & Resinous Electricity) in the Fêng-shên Yen-i,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204723, "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": 26, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "JOURNAL OF OCCURRANCES AT CANTON\n\n17\n\nand Bengal, except the Turkey which belongs to Baring Brothers and Company, London.\n\nAt night the linguists took me on board their boat stationed in the creek opposite the Factories and gave me supper, after which I was returning home to turn in when two of Houqua's13 coolies on guard at the gate contrived to slip inside the gate a small bag containing two boiled capons, a boiled ham, three loaves of bread and some crackers tied up in leaves. I paid them half a dollar. The articles were brought by order of Houqua.\n\n29th\n\nTwo sheep, four pigs, sixteen hams, ten fowls, sixteen geese, and six bags of rice were brought today for distribution amongst the American residents. The linguists say they are from the Commissioner* and deputy Governor* and a mark of Imperial favor for having consented to deliver up the opium.\n\nOur situation is one of great mystery. Although the Chinese say that having promised to deliver up the opium we have risen in the Commissioner's esteem yet today no foreigner is allowed to pass up China Street which we were allowed to do till this morning, and a strong guard has been posted there of about fifty men with pikes, staves, shields and so on.\n\n30th 10 p.m.\n\nHouqua's head man came in just now in a great fright and told me that our cook and coolie, who have been in our Factory since last evening and who contrived to get in over the roof of the rear Factory, must immediately leave as the Commissioner had just issued another edict threatening with death any native who sold a particle of food to, or who served a foreigner in any way inside his Factory.\n\nI communicated this to the cook and coolie who consent to remain till morning.\n\n31 March, Sunday\n\nThis morning at 9 a linguist from Old Tom's establishment brought us a basket of bread and eggs.\n\nEvery night the force stationed to guard the Factories consists of about 500 men drafted from the different Hongs and armed principally with pikes or lances and long heavy staves.\n\nWord illegible.\n\nEach", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204964, "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-1965", "page_number": 72, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "65\n\nTHE SOUTHERN SUNG STONE-ENGRAVING\n\nAT NORTH FU-T’ANG\n\nJEN YU-WEN\n\nOn the southern tip of the small peninsula, North Fu-t'ang (Pak Fat-t'ang), on the eastern shore of Junk Bay, lies a stone-engraving dating from the Southern Sung Dynasty, one of the most famous historic relics in Hong Kong. The vernacular name for this place is Ta-miao (Tai-miu), or \"Big Temple,\" because a temple of T'ien-hou (T'in-hou), or \"Heavenly Queen,” is situated there. About half-way up the hill just behind this Temple, is located the large rock, five feet high, ten feet wide and five feet thick, hidden in the thick brush. On its flat surface facing the south, there are 108 Chinese characters engraved in nine vertical lines with twelve characters each. Each character is about four square inches in size. The entire surface covering the engraving is four feet two inches wide and three feet nine inches high. The engraving was done in the tenth year of the reign of Hsien-hsun (Ham Shun) of the Emperor Tu Chung of the Southern Sung Dynasty (A.D. 1274) — the date given at the end of the inscription. Just three years before this date, two of the Emperor's sons, who later successively succeeded him to the throne, were fleeing from the pursuit of the Mongols and had landed on the western shore of Kowloon Bay at the historic spot subsequently named Sung Wong Toi.\n\nThis stone-engraving is recorded in the Chia-ch'ing (Ka Hing) edition of the Gazetteer of Hsin-an (Sun-on) District, but details of the historic relic are not given in its description. The Genealogical Record of the Lin (Lum) clan of P'u-kang (P'u-kong) village in Kowloon, however, contains a narration concerning the place, the Temple and the stone-engraving which is very helpful for studying the history of this historic relic. Unfortunately, many of the characters on the stone as transcribed therein are not correct, leaving the readers still in the dark regarding the real meaning of the original text. As a matter of fact, a few engraved characters on the rock have been partially worn-out so badly that it renders some lines absolutely unintelligible.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205289, "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": 51, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "44\n\nL. G. Aijmer\n\nimplying the exchange of one picul of unmilled grain for one picul of the inferior quality. It has been estimated that by this procedure farmers can increase the quantity of their food supply by 25%. However, this process has been accompanied by a large-scale abandonment of arable land, and the total rice production has rather decreased in recent years. But before we turn to this phenomenon we shall have another look at the economic conditions prevailing at an earlier stage.\n\nIt is apparent that people in the valley have never been able to gain their livelihood by rice farming alone. From the very beginning of their settlement, they have almost certainly been looking for possibilities of complementary economic activities. There has always been some vegetable cultivation, but intended for local consumption only. Indeed, nowadays people have to buy most of their vegetable supply in the market towns. The plots are small and the technique of the villagers seems inadequate. In comparison with the thriving vegetable fields down in the plains the plots up here make a sad sight. It is agreed that difficult transportation has been the main obstacle for an expansion of gardening. To make a reasonable profit, marketing in the urban areas is necessary. Keen competition from the specialized plainsmen and their co-operatives gives villagers the feeling that rice cultivation gives the only crop that is worthwhile. The social value of rice growing surpasses the value accorded to gardening: the latter occupation is generally connected with the large numbers of recent immigrants from China. Bad means of transportation also limit the production itself. Vegetable growing requires intense fertilizing. The supply of manure is limited. To buy and transport additional fertilizers would heighten the production costs above profitability.\n\nSome fields of sweet potatoes and ground-nuts are also to be found. The yield is for local consumption only. On the hillsides above Big Stream Village traces of terraces can still be seen. I was informed that they were once used for the cultivation of both vegetables and ground-nuts. This might imply that more extensive gardening actually took place here at one time. What this meant as an extra source of income to the villagers is difficult to estimate.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205298, "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": 60, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "the market, permitted themselves to claim excessive privileges and to harass marketers from other lineages. Tang control of the market was repeatedly challenged by the Man people of another village, and on suffering a decisive setback in their campaign to force a relaxation, the latter organized a league of already existing intervillage units in order jointly to establish, in 1893, a new market in the close vicinity of the old.10\n\n53\n\nAlso, Tai Po was relatively distant, and by rowing-boat the trip there would take a couple of hours in good weather. The conditions prevailing at the Tai Po Old Market will have created economic difficulties that did not exist in the Sai Kung Market, and which placed the Big Stream people in a relatively bad situation.\n\nThe Plum Grove villagers used the market at Sai Kung, and often do so still but its possibly declining importance may have been less decisive in determining the extent of their work outside the old-style village economy. The land under cultivation around this settlement is regarded as the best land in the valley, though a large proportion of the fields here is owned by people from Grass Field Village, and also by people from Yellow Bamboo Mountain Village in another valley. In a small village the agricultural output might still have been sufficient enough to make emigration less attractive. The Plum Grove people also had some bad experience as some 10 men left the village for Southeast Asia around 1910 and were never heard of since.\n\nIII\n\nI wish now to turn aside to provide a background for migration in the context of the social structure of these villages.\n\nThe youngest children in Grass Field Village are of the 25th generation of a patrilineal kin group, all members of which share a common surname, Lau. The early ancestors lived in Mui Yuen (Mei Hsien, M), a Hakka district in the north-eastern corner of Kwangtung Province. A branch of the Mui Yuen people migrated down to what is now the New Territories, where they first settled in the Sai Kung area. A group soon branched off, and left the immediate coastal area, supposedly because of the constant threat\n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205309, "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": 71, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "64\n\nL. G. AIMER\n\nemigrants who had left the Colony. The masons in Grass Field Village, who had their village within a day's journey, naturally had a word in all village affairs; but the Big Stream men working in Vancouver or on Aruba in the West Indies had a very limited influence on decisions made in the home community.\n\nVI\n\nTraditional leadership in these Hakka villages was gerontocratic in nature. There were no formal isu (M) or fang (M) leaders. An informal council of old men met occasionally in the ancestral hall to discuss current problems. These persons' influence was directly correlated to the distribution of economic control within the community. As long as this differentiation was small, all elders would have had fairly equal status. Age differentiation within the group does not seem to have been of vital importance.\n\nThe process of emigration created new economic groups. In Big Stream Village, where emigration abroad early dominated the scene, the informal council of village elders is made up of four former overseas Chinese. Two of them have worked in the United States, one in Canada, and one on Aruba in the Netherlands West Indies. The last-mentioned man has quite a good house and has apparently had some resources, but he is in poor health, struck by rheumatism, a fact he ascribes to excessive use of alcohol in his younger days. His sight is bad and is hardly improved by the smashed pair of spectacles on his nose. This 76-year-old man said that he was 'willing to accept anything, whatever it is and whenever it comes.' He has no children. His influence on village affairs is apparently very limited. It seems as if he is taking part in the village council meetings merely to represent the first minor lineage, even if I was never able to confirm a strict rule that all fang (M) should be represented there.\n\nOf the other three leaders, two are men who have spent much time in New York in the United States, and one who has been working in Vancouver, Canada. One of the New York men is Village Representative and the official spokesman with the British administrative authorities. He is 73 years old and a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205328, "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": 90, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "THE CHINA COASTERS\n\n83\n\nessential; although there was a point beyond which these could be detrimental to the owner.\n\nThe rent which the compradore paid to the owners for the deck passenger space depended on the number of passengers usually carried in that particular trade. It was adjusted periodically according to fluctuations in trade and other factors, and was the subject of keen bargaining between owners and compradore — the latter naturally putting a much lower evaluation on the ship's passenger potentiality than the owners. At irregular intervals the owners sent someone to travel on the ship, and check the number of passengers and the amount of cargo carried. These men were known as 'pidgin snatchers' and were very unpopular with the floating staff. If the captain and compradore were good friends and either knew in advance of the 'pidgin snatcher's' movements, the other was warned, and co-operative counter measures instituted in good time.\n\nMost China coasters called at their home port of Hong Kong or Shanghai at least once a month, so that their officers were in much closer touch with life ashore than their contemporaries on overseas ships. During the inter-war period, normal tours of service on the coast were five years, in the course of which officers would serve in several of their company's ships. Many senior officers were married, and had wives and families in Hong Kong or Shanghai, or in a few cases Hankow. Long home leave was granted after a five years tour, but the attractions of life on the coast made many officers and their wives reluctant to go on leave. Captains and mates on ships where 'pidgin' were plentiful, were afraid they might be posted to less profitable ships on their return; while wives were loath to exchange their smoothly-run homes for the doubtful comforts of furnished rooms or boarding houses in Britain. European homes in Hong Kong, Shanghai, or the treaty ports, were sparsely staffed by African or Indian standards, but run much more efficiently. A cook and house boy, sometimes only a cook boy, sufficed for a small house or flat, supplemented by a baby amah or gardener if circumstance warranted this. A similar establishment in India would have been indifferently served by a staff twice as large. Although the taipans of the big foreign companies and senior customs commissioners lived in considerable style, life on the coast was in general much less ostentatious than in India, and much more pleasant.\n\nPage 90\n\nPage 91", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205539, "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": 81, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "76\n\nGORAN AIJMER\n\n4\n\nIf we return to the story about the two villages we find that it is concerned with two localized groups and their dependence on the natural surroundings. The mountain is a fishnet — a symbol in the set constituting the fêngshui language. The people were in a similar way classified as fishes, and a fishnet is obviously something to be avoided by fish. Now, the grammar of fêngshui is structured on the concepts of the two fundamental systems of wuxing and yinyang. Wuxing implies a correlation and classification into five categories of the features of the universe. Yinyang is a classification of the universe into binary oppositions. In the actual story we may, I think, substitute fish for water and yin — the female, passive and negative cosmic force. Fishnet may be substituted by mountain and yang — the male, active and positive force. In the locality under discussion yang influences dominated, and the people, by virtue of their shared surname affiliated with yin, had better escape a situation that was for them negative and out-of-balance.\n\nWu lineage bad luck\n\nmountain\n\nfish\n\nyin\n\ndestroying\n\nfishnet\n\ndominating ◄ yang\n\nIf we turn to the content of the story, it will be recalled that the essential thing expressed is that the two populations in the villages had exchanged their abodes at one time. Yet if we scrutinize what can be reconstructed of the history of the two settlements we will find no evidence whatsoever that such an exchange has ever taken place. From a historian's point of view the story is a poor document. But the sociologist may still have something to learn by comparing its content with other data of the past.\n\nA glance in the 1911 Census Report reveals that at that time the population of Big Stream Village amounted to 173 persons and that of Plum Grove Village to 59. Already in this period it is known from other sources that the former community had several overseas members while Plum Grove Village had few, if any.5 The population actually present in Big Stream Village in 1911 was 2.9 times as large as that of Plum Grove Village. If we then turn our attention to the District Demarcation Maps, drawn soon after the British take-over in 1899, we will find that the area of arable land available around Big Stream Village was nearly the same as that", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205542, "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": 84, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "ON FENGSHUI IN SOUTHEASTERN CHINA\n\n79\n\ntion was limited as the population pressure increased in the two other land-owning communities as well. Generally, new land was not available. As time passed people of Plum Grove Village reached the optimum point where they had to look for new alternatives to traditional local production. The men started to emigrate, mostly to Southeast Asia. But the prospects of these areas were very different from those in America. Around 1910 some ten men left for Nanyang. People have never heard from them since. It is supposed that they were killed by the effects of the damp climate. But the movement had to continue. Later emigrants set out for Singapore but they returned as poor as they went, and there was no accumulation of capital at all. Today it is very apparent that Plum Grove Village is a much poorer place than Big Stream Village.\n\nWhat has been exchanged between the two lineages Zhang and Wu is not their respective localization, but the image of their relative prosperity. What is communicated in the myth is that the economic situation of one settlement has improved while that of another has declined. The shift of the respective conditions is referred to as emanating from natural influences.\n\nFengshui is not just a way to communicate, but is a believed-in-order. In Big Stream Village one can still find traces of earlier attempts to minimize negative influences; large stones inscribed with the conventional trigram — yinyang patterns and series of characters have been erected outside some of the houses in order to avert negative forces in the natural surroundings. The four character series are completely meaningless to villagers, who nowadays know nothing about the stones, except that they realize that they have been erected there for fengshui purposes. It is apparent that special knowledge is required to make sense out of a combination of words meaning 'purple', 'minimal', 'first month', and 'illuminate'. These stones, however, are evidence that people in Big Stream Village were really concerned about their bad fengshui position at one time. But this aspect cannot be separated from the aspect of communication. The stones carried a message telling about misfortune. They made the poverty of the locality explicit and understood by others. Nothing comparable to these stones is to be found in Plum Grove Village. In the latter place they now explain their decline, in a less explicit way, by referring to the bad", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205543, "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": 85, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "80\n\nGORAN ALMER\n\nposition of their ancestral hall into which the dragon of the hill behind is 'crashing' all the time.\n\nBy way of summing up, we may say that social and economic differentiation is projected on the natural surroundings. The phenomena of nature in their symbolic aspect project back the image of differentiation in the form of rational models concepts of systems of natural influences affecting man and social life. These models can be manipulated by their constructors. They also carry messages that can be communicated between individuals and between groups.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 For a somewhat fuller description of the two villages, see Aijmer 1967. Big Stream Village (Dashuikeng) and Plum Grove Village (Meizilin) are in Hong Kong known under the Cantonese designations 'Tai Shui Hang' and 'Mui Tsz Lam'. Grass Field Village (Maoping) is 'Mau Ping'. They can be located with the help of Gazetteer 1960. Standard Chinese is given in pinyin form. Field work was financed by six Swedish funds; I gratefully acknowledge their support. Thanks are due to Mr. James Hayes, Hong Kong, and my wife for comments.\n\n2 Freedman 1966, 118f; 1967; Baker 1965.\n\n3 An alternative to, or perhaps rather a facet of, manipulating was fleeing. Examples of how people broke away from localities considered having bad fengshui have been given by Hayes (1963; 1967).\n\n4 It may be of interest to point out that nets are instrumental in exorcistic ceremonies, when malevolent spirits may be caught or scared away with fishnets. I have this from a Buddhist monk whom I interviewed in Macau in 1965.\n\n5 Census 1911, 103:27.\n\n6 The sources classify Plum Grove land as third class land whereas Big Stream land is rated as second class. In the former place farming is done on terraced fields only.\n\n7 In Plum Grove Village 35 houses were registered in 1906. If we compare this with the population figure of the Census of 1911, we will find that, if in use, each house unit was inhabited by 1.7 persons. This is an amazingly low figure, as we would have expected something around five or more as an average. Even if we allow for the ten men mentioned below, the figure would increase to just about two. The implication of these facts must be a reduction in population, perhaps by way of a lineage segment breaking away to settle elsewhere. In Big Stream Village 77 houses gave shelter to average families of 2.2 persons. Not even male absenteeism, discussed later, can explain this low figure to satisfaction.\n\n* Information obtained from the District Demarcation Maps and the 'New Territories Crown Leases of District No. 188' of 1906 and the 'New Territories Crown Leases of District No. 196' of the same year, to be seen at the Tai Po District Office, New Territories, Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206841, "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-1973", "page_number": 118, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "112\n\nSUNG HOK-P'ANG\n\nland, distributed in various parts of the mainland, and on the island, having fields in Kowloon, Ch'eung Sha Wan (*) Kw'an Taai Lo (###) (where the city of Victoria now stands) Causeway Bay, Pokfulum and Aberdeen. He immediately promised to give one thousand piculs. When Yau Tai K'in heard of it he thought there must be some mistake, but the officer said, “At first I also thought he made a mistake, so I asked him again, and he said quite plainly, one thousand piculs!” So Yau T'ai K'in was very pleased, and he at once went off to visit Tang Yuen Fan, who said, “My rice is quite ready in the granary.” The magistrate sent off word to the \"Yamen\" to have junks sent to collect the rice, and on the day it was collected the river was so covered with the junks that the water could not be seen, and all the people gathered to watch shouted for joy. Yau remained with Tang several days and spent much time walking about the country admiring the scenery. He was much impressed by the fine buildings, open fields and pleasant woods, and exclaimed, “Why should the village have such a name? Sham T'in, it should be called Kam T'in instead!” The villagers were delighted with the new name, and it has remained till the present day.\n\nThe name, however, now embraces quite a large collection of villages each with its own name, but most of the villagers still belong to the Tang family and the name of Ch'an has disappeared. There are a certain number of people with other surnames to be found among the Tangs, but they have come in from other places at different times and are not really native to the place in the same way as the Tangs are. A new village which goes by the name of San Ts'uen (††††) new village, has been built very recently for the Cheng (*) family who had to move from the Shing Moon (M¶) district when the reservoir was started.\n\nThe only trace of the old Ch'an T'in village that remains is the temple known as Hung Shing Kung (g) in Shui Pin Ts'uen (k). This temple which was built by the Tangs is known in the village as the Big Temple although small, because formerly it was merely a shrine and was enlarged to its present size at a later date. The exact date of the temple is not known. Some say it was built when the first Tang came to Kwai Kok Shaan; others, that it was built first as a small shrine in the time of Shing Fa (✯ft) A.D. 1465-1487 of Ming dynasty when the Tang family built the village", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206857, "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-1973", "page_number": 134, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "128 \n\nSUNG HOK-P’ANG \n\n1) as his son Hoh Wing (f) was a subordinate officer of this general. Hoh Wing was executed, and all his family punished. Hung Chi being considered a relation although it was only by marriage, was sentenced to banishment. His elder brother, who was the father of three sons, thinking him too young and ignorant and having no children to carry on his family, insisted on taking his place. So in the 26th year of Hung Mo (**) A.D. 1393 of Ming dynasty, Hung Yee went up North to Liao-tung (i★★). His banishment only lasted three years, but when he was free again to go where he liked Hung Yee appears to have been without means to get back to Kam T'in, because there is a story of his arriving in Nanking on foot, so poor that he was forced to beg in the streets and earn money by writing poems. One day a rich man named Ch'an (§) passed him in the street and noticing that his appearance and writing were those of an educated man, spoke to him and asked him his history. Touched by his story Ch'an befriended him, and made him the tutor of his children, but all the time Hung Yee longed for his own home and his own children. Eventually Ch'an suggested that if he provided him with a second wife he might be happier, so he arranged a marriage for him with his adopted daughter, Wong (*). Two years later a son was born called Kuen (§§), but after another year Hung Yee died. Then Ch'an provided the widow with money, and taking her little child, she set off to find her way to Kam T'in to bring Hung Yee's ashes back to the place of his ancestors. After many difficulties she arrived in Kam T'in only to find that Hung Yee's three sons Yam (†), Chan (14) and Yui (†) all grown up by now and not knowing anything of their father's history and second marriage, did not believe her story. Then Wong told them many old tales about Kam T'in that her husband had amused her with in the past in Nanking, and finally persuaded them to acknowledge her identity when she produced a fan with characters on it written in Hung Yee's own writing. So funeral preparations were at once made and customary rites performed in Hung Yee's honour, and Wong and her child were taken into the family. A year later the baby Kuen died and Wong was so upset that she threatened to take her life, and she was only prevented from doing so by Yam who promised to give her his son Naam K'ai () to be her grandson, that is, a son for her dead child. He also built her a house on Kwun Yum Shaan (4) where she could serve her husband's spirit tablet and study Bud-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207097, "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": 168, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "162 \n\nSUNG HOK-PANG \n\nbeam into a new dragon boat. When it was launched into the water, a strange thing happened. The boat flew up into the air, and immediately a great quantity of treasure, gold, silver and precious stones fell into the boat from the sky. When it was full the boat came down to the water, and the people were able to empty it. Then it flew into the air again, and came down again with fresh supplies of treasure. This happened many times until there were untold riches for the Tangs. A few years later, they chose another lucky day and erected a new beam and the hall was completed and given the name Loi Shing Tong1. It still exists in Shui T'au Village2, on the left-hand side of Hung Shing Kung (plate 20, figure I. H.K.N., VI, Nos. 3 and 4. “Hung Shing Kung,—the oldest temple in old Ch'an T'in.\") under the name of Ts'z T'ong Tsai (small ancestral hall).3 \n\nThen followed many years of prosperity for Kam T'in until times of trouble came to all the countryside and the family had to abandon the village temporarily on account of bandits. Before leaving Kam T'in, however, they buried there what remained of the treasure. This story was handed down from generation to generation more as legend than true fact. During the Ham Fung4 (咸豐) years, 1851-1861, of Ts'ing dynasty, a man called Tang Paak Luk (鄧伯祿) of Kam Hing Wai (錦慶圍) farmed the land where the treasure was supposed to be buried. One day he sent a labourer, Ch'an A Faat (陳亞發) to work in the particular field, and in the evening Ch'an returned to the farmer's house with a gold rope which he declared he had dug up. Everyone was very pleased at first, but gradually it appeared that bad luck had come with the rope. The farm beasts began to sicken, many died and then the farmer's family became ill. So the rope was re-buried without more ado, and prosperity was at once restored to Tang Paak Luk. \n\nAnother story is of a very poor farmer who at a different time rented the same ground. One day he dug up a brick that shone brightly in the sun. As he examined it, thinking it must be silver, he carelessly dropped it on his foot, and broke his big toe. Being too poor to pay for a doctor or even to buy curatives, the farmer gave the brick to his wife to break up, and they found that it was without doubt real silver. So the wife was able to buy medicine and consult a doctor with the aid of the brick, but it was not until all the brick \n\n1 Plate 31 at rear of this Volume.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207099, "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": 170, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "164 \n\nSUNG HOK-PANG \n\nOn picking up the coins it was found that one large one, bigger than the rest, had two characters on it (*) Shing Kwong. The villagers accounted for this by believing that the coins must have belonged to a man named Shing Kwong who in some time of trouble had buried them. After many years the spirit of the silver had caused it to fly away to be bestowed on some lucky man who deserved good fortune. Thus the money was collected together and handed over to the house. \n\nWhen the baby, who played such an important part in this story, was a month old, he received his first name which was Tang Naan. Later on, when he was old enough to go to school he was sent by his grandmother to a country school. It is a Chinese custom for a new pupil to ask his teacher to give him a new name \"shue meng” ✯ % (=a name for a pupil-book name) Tang Naam's teacher, who was not a Kam T'in man, and knew nothing about the story of \"Ngan t'au Laam” in Kam T’in, strangely enough gave him the name “Shing Kwong,” exactly the same as the two characters on the largest coin. When evening came and school lessons were finished, the boy went back to his house with his books and much surprised the village elders by showing them his new name written on all his books. \n\nAfter that they were quite convinced that the money was meant for him. When he grew up Tang became a merchant and because of his wealth he was able to subscribe liberally to public funds which resulted in his receiving the honour of being made Chau T'ung (#) assistant officer of Chau, which meant that he was higher than a district officer. His official name of Tang Sz Taan was recorded in the History of Sun On. He built himself a very big house called Naam Teng, the remains of which can still be seen on the south side of Kat Hing Wai. The round outside wall and the stone doorway with the three characters on it (1) Lin Hing Lei, \"Continuous Blessing Place\" are still there. \n\nTwo stories of this merchant have been handed down. One of his children married into a very prosperous family named To living at Ts'eng Chuen Wai, † near Castle Peak, and between Tang and the head of this family who was a farmer, owning several hundred acres, there existed a friendly rivalry. One day they were having a meal together in old Yuen Long market and both of them, heated with wine, contested that he was the richer. To declared", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207155, "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": 226, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "220 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\nlarge paper bag. This cost 10 cents and the number of dim sum was 18 pieces, usually sufficient for 8-9 persons. The article made picturesque comparisons between the sizes of different foods, then and now, with much larger pieces being supplied in the past. Prices too came in for odious comparison. \"The difference in price in the old days and now is too great: people have said that it may be compared to the difference between the legs of mosquitoes and cows”. \n\nTea house business begins at dawn. Those in Western open between 5-6 a.m, and close about 9 p.m. nowadays. According to the article, the tea houses of 50 and more years ago started business before dawn and closed at 10 a.m., and opened again between 11-12 to 3 without doing business at night time. The interior of tea houses was very colourful. The waiters used slang to report, usually in a loud voice, the consumption of patrons for making up their bills. The customers lolled about and took things at their ease, putting their legs on their own or another stool, often dressed only in a singlet and shorts in the summer months. This sort of thing can still be seen in one of the tea houses that we will visit (the Foo Lung Tea-house, 382-386, Queen's Road, Central) and at lunch time many of the patrons bring their singbirds in cages which they hang around the walls. 50 years ago and more no women were present in the tea houses because at that time it was not the practice for them to appear in public places; and no doubt this added to the informality noted above. \n\nTea houses were also the scene of musical entertainment of a special Cantonese type known generally by the name of nam yam (✯✯) or \"Southern tunes\". Like Cantonese opera, the themes were often concerned with historical stories, handed down from one generation of entertainers to another. Blind musicians and singers often performed these roles. Until this year, this type of entertainment was given in the Tim Nam Tea House in Wing Lok Street, now under demolition. According to the former manager, the majority of the audience were boat people from the cargo boats plying in the harbour. In recent years this traditional type of entertainment has declined in popularity and both singers and audience were confined to a small group of devotees.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207769, "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-1976", "page_number": 157, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "142\n\nW. A. REYNOLDS\n\nand canvas tops added in Rangoon. Other similar trucks were obtained during the fall of Burma, but in the event a total of 12 trucks were left behind there. As has been mentioned earlier, the Unit took over the existing IRC fleet which was a very mixed bag. It also purchased eight Dodge 3 tonners in Chungking from Liddell and Co., a merchant house. Another addition was five 1938 Ford chassis into which replacement Hercules 4 cylinder diesel engines were fitted.\n\nBy May 1942, the Unit had a fleet of 30 trucks, and those held in Feb. 1943 are listed in Table VI. Some of these were obtained by an ingenious arrangement. Some mission organizations had purchased trucks, brought them to Rangoon and taken them up the Burma Road loaded with supplies and people. It was, however, uneconomic and difficult for the organization to run the trucks once their destination had been reached. The Unit, therefore, offered to take them over in return for 16,000 km. tons of haulage of their organizations' goods.4\n\nWith the fall of Burma, importation of fuel oil, lubricating oil, and petrol became impossible except by air. Low octane petrol and diesel fuel were available at the Yumen oilfield in Kansu, some 3,000 km. from the centre of operations. The alternative fuels were rape-seed or other vegetable oils for the diesel engines, alcohol produced from sugar cane, and 'petrol' distilled from tung (#) oil for the petrol engines. All these fuels suffer from serious shortcomings. The rape-seed oil had a high acid content which gave rapid wear on the fuel pumps, injectors, and cylinders of the diesel engines, and these were worn out after two years of hard service. The alcohol was not only expensive, it was also rationed and gave a fuel consumption double that of petrol with the engines and carburettors available. The water content of the alcohol also caused rusting in the fuel tanks. The tung oil petrol was better but cost (in October 1942) NC$130 a gallon when the exchange rate was NC$80 to 1 pound sterling.\n\nThe alternative was to convert trucks to run on gas produced from charcoal. The technical description of the system used is given later. Conversion sets were first purchased and later manufactured by the Kweiyang and Kutsing depots. Considerable skill and experience were required to operate the systems successfully, and the maximum power obtainable was perhaps 70% of that on petrol. The apparatus took up room and increased the tare of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207921, "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-1976", "page_number": 309, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "294\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nof the Cotton Bag Monk, Pu Tai (), an incarnation of Mi Lo Fu. Pu Tai was said to have died at that temple at the beginning of the tenth century.\n\nAnother preserved body was that of a Shantung peach seller who dropped dead at the altar and was embalmed in mud and became a deity, Wu Yu Hsien (†), around whom a local cult sprang up and flourished during the fourteenth century. Yet another was the skeleton of an old and holy abbot overlaid with gold foil on Chiu Hua Shan at the Pai Sui Kung“.\n\nA preserved body in the Nan Hua Shan Monastery in northern Kwangtung was that of the Sixth Patriarch of Chinese Buddhism (A.D.). It appears to be the earliest recorded \"fleshy body\". The Sixth and last of the Chinese Patriarchs, Hui Neng (#), died in A.D. 712. His corpse is said to have remained incorrupt and even to exhale a sweet fragrance. His chest maintained its natural position and the skin appeared glossy and flexible. In A.D. 1236 when the Mongol troops pursued the last emperor of the Southern Sung and defeated him in Kwangtung, it is said that Mongol soldiers violated the tomb of the Patriarch and even went so far as to rip open the abdomen with a sword thrust. On seeing that the heart and liver were still in a perfect state of preservation, they were filled with fear and went no further in their sacrilege. Several replicas are to be seen in Hong Kong; a good example is on the altar of Huang Ta Hsien (黄大仙) in the San Yuan Temple (三元宫) in T'ai P'ing Shan Street, Hong Kong. (See plate 27). Incidentally, smaller images of Hui Neng, often seen in curio shops, are easily recognisable by the small dragon in his begging bowl. He is considered to be the founder of the Vegetarian Sects of Buddhism, Ch’ih Su Chiao ( vegetarian ).\n\nAnother mummy, black faced, covered in lacquer and gilded, sat in a lotus position in a place of honour in the T'ien T'ai Temple south-west of Peking, wearing Buddhist robes but of Imperial yellow. He wore a vairocana five-leaf crown on his head, his face was smooth and full fleshed and his skin black with age. Many thought that he was a wooden image and legend, since disproved, claimed him to be Fu Lin, the first Manchu Emperor of China (1638-1661) better known as Shun Chih who died at the age of 30. The story probably grew from the known fact that he wished to become a monk. The mummy was refurbished annually at a minor ceremony and was a great attraction for pilgrims.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208194, "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-1977", "page_number": 233, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n217 \n\nis formed on top. Then pick out the thin layer with a bamboo stick, upon which it is allowed to dry. The end-product will be the delicious and nourishing bean skim. Being performed entirely by hand in the past, the whole process was not so simple as this brief description suggests.\n\nOver eighty years ago, my great-grandfather with his two sons and their wives fled from famine-stricken Chi Kam hsien in Wai Chau prefecture, Kwangtung, and reached Pun Shan Village, Chai Wan Kok, Tsuen Wan where they started their occupation of bean skim making. At that time, there was no highway linking Tsuen Wan with Kowloon. In order to sell the bean skim and buy more yellow beans, my ancestors had to climb over rugged hills every day.\n\nIn those days, the yellow beans were first exposed under hot sun (or heated in a pot in case of dull weather). The impurities such as sand and stalks were carefully picked out from the beans, then the beans were crushed by manual labour until the husks were separated from the beans. Beans and husks were then poured into a bamboo container which was tossed up and down with both hands so as to cast out the husks. The pure beans were then put into a tank and soaked in water for four hours (six hours in winter). Then the beans were ground into a paste by pushing hard at the stone-grinder. The amount of beans could not be in excess of forty catties if the whole process was to be finished within one day, and one had to rise about 2 a.m. to start grinding. This paste was then wrapped inside a cloth bag and the fluid squeezed out. The refuse was then filtered off, while the pasty fluid was poured into twelve flat-bottomed metal pans and boiled, using grass as fuel. (The smoke as emitted from the fluid and the burning grass is not unlike tear gas, giving one a suffocating feeling.) The surface foam was removed, and the fluid kept at a temperature that kept it near boiling. A thin layer of membrane formed on the surface, which was taken off with a bamboo stick and allowed to dry. This process of heating, layer-forming and taking off was repeated again and again, until the paste in all the twelve pans became membrane i.e. bean skim. This process must have required the longest working-hours of the world, for one had to work at it twenty-one hours on end every day, from 2 a.m. to 11 p.m.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208599, "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": 56, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46\n\n29\n\ndescended and the patrol boat lost them. The Bishop will have to take the same route and the same risks on his forthcoming visitations. While here, he performed the ordinations at the Dominican Rosary Hill chapel, in the absence of Bishop Valtorta.\n\nDr. and Mrs. Bagalawis also slipped into Hong Kong. The Doctor told of the hundreds of patients he has been treating in a refugee hospital organized by Fathers Joe Sweeney and Joe Farnen: some of his patients are victims of gunfire by Japanese patrols making incursions into the villages outside their front lines.\n\nMARCH\n\nMarch proved to be a quiet month. Outstanding visitors were Dr. S. K. Yee, Counsellor to the Chinese National War Council and Mrs. (Dr.) Yee. Dr. Yee's hobby is calligraphy and he promised to give us a talk on this interesting facet of Chinese culture. Mrs. Yee took her medical training in Cleveland and San Francisco.\n\nAPRIL\n\nIn early April, Father Bernie Welsh departed with 250 cases of supplies and arrived at Swabue just two days before the city was taken over by the Japanese army: Father Sandy Cairns sent word that he had arrived safely at Sancian Island after a two-day sail from Cheung Chau. However, his baggage and his bag were still at a half-way stop, Kwong Hoi, where the Japanese took the place on their way to the large city of Toi Shan. No doubt Father John Joyce at Sancian had been looking forward eagerly for the goodies in Father Sandy's boxes.\n\nThree Passionists, Fathers Cunningham, Caulfield and Richardson, arranged a special deal with the China National Air Company to ship their mission supplies from Hong Kong to Nam Yeung, across the Japanese lines, for U.S. $200 per ton. Our Father John Elwood accompanied them on the flight with 21 cases of Red Cross medicine for our Kweilin Mission, and 7 cases for Wuchow. Father Elwood managed the trans-shipping from Nam Yeung to Kweilin through unoccupied territory.\n\nDr. S. K. Yee gave us the promised lecture, and graded the efforts of those present with Father Trube carrying off the honors with the best characters, displaying the most \"inner strength\".", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208615, "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": 72, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46\n\n45\n\nthe road, and had showered down this debris. We halted not, but sped on, and finally turned into the lower road at Repulse Bay. Here Mr. Brown had some business to transact with his Chinese foreman and workmen who were engaged in demolishing the bathing beach matsheds, lest they be an obstruction to defending troops, or a hiding place for invading forces. Another dash up the hills and around curves brought us breathless but happy to Stanley, and Father Downs was indeed glad to get back among his confreres.\n\nArrived at Stanley Father Downs found the situation rather tense, though not quite so \"hot\" as at Hong Kong. During his absence he was told that Stanley was fairly quiet, except for occasional planes passing overhead, when they dropped a few bombs on and near the Prison, one also hitting Dr. Hackett's, the Prison Doctor's house, demolishing one wing of it. Of course, \"Big Bertha\"—a 9.2 inch gun at the fort on the promontory to the south of us—kept up an intermittent booming day and night, shelling enemy positions on the mainland. When \"Big Bertha\" spoke, she shook our building and made our windows rattle twice, but we did not mind that.\n\nLong before the outbreak of hostilities British Government and Army officials had visited Maryknoll at Stanley with a view to taking it over in whole or in part if any emergency arose. At one time it was intended to be a hospital, but the Army seemed to have prior rights and they decided to take over a part of our building. Accordingly when Japanese planes began flying overhead and Japanese troops began attacking His Majesty's Crown Colony of Hong Kong, His Majesty's Royal Engineers came out to Stanley and occupied the western end of our building: that is, the servants' quarters downstairs, with the classroom and room adjoining, the recreation room upstairs together with two small private rooms close by. Our Ford V-8 was immobilized, our garage taken over by a number of coolies, and the Engineers prepared for eventualities. They brought out with them quite a supply of food, in the way of huge sacks of rice, soya beans and large tins of army biscuits or hard-tack. The five or six Engineers and Mr. Brown ate at our table with us, and we shared their food, so that we were quite a family.\n\nAs in Hong Kong the delivery to Stanley of daily food, such as meats, vegetables, bread and so forth by the Dairy Farm and Lane", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208635, "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": 92, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46\n\n65\n\nup-country missioners had their personal trunks and camphor boxes, there was also confusion. Trunks and boxes had been broken open and those of their contents which had not been carried away were strewn all over the attic floor, in some places two feet deep. As for cleaning up, we really did not know where to begin, and after working all day, we had apparently made little progress. Fortunately, the city water was turned on again, for we needed plenty of that in places, as the floors in spots were covered with filth. Someone remarked that pigs would have been cleaner.\n\nPersonally, my chief concern was for my language notes, the work of over a year, and of which I had only one copy. However, upon returning to my room, there, in the midst of scattered effects, were the notes on my desk just where I had left them! I breathed a fervent prayer of thanksgiving. Only recently I had had my eyes re-examined and had gotten a new pair of glasses. These were missing, but I still had my old ones. And each one had his own particular tale of woe.\n\nThe thirty-first found us continuing our work of cleaning up. The outside of the house was just as much of a mess as the inside, the front and rear lawns being strewn with empty tins and bottles. Our Ford V-8 still stood on the front lawn and the Japanese had evidently tried to start it, but someone had previously subtracted an essential mechanism from the motor and their efforts were baffled. Around the house, too, were many reminders of the battle—soldiers' overcoats, steel helmets (in fact, in addition to the many strewn around on the ground there was a whole big unopened case of these near our garage); hand grenades, parts of machine gun outfits and debris of every description, much of which had been thrown out of our windows. On our south lawn there was also a number of shallow pits and some mounds. Whether the latter are graves or not we do not yet know, but we filled up the pits with debris and levelled off the mounds. Near our garage, too, was an immense pile of miscellaneous boards and strips of wood, these evidently having been brought from the wreckage of the Repulse Bay matsheds to Stanley for firewood, and as our kitchen range was out of the question, we having neither electricity nor fuel oil, this wood came in very handy.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208641, "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": 98, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46\n\n71\n\nOn the eighteenth, two Japanese officers called and we entertained them with tea. They were pleasant enough, but had little to say. Soldiers and officers have come almost every day, either for a courtesy call or out of mere curiosity. One officer especially has been very friendly with Father Toomey, and has brought him cigarettes and milk. Others seem rather arrogant and haughty. Of course, we in turn are mild and meek for we don't like bayonets. Today, finally, our Ford V-8 was towed away down the hill.\n\nShortly after our return from the garage, we witnessed a rather sorrowful scene and one which will long remain in our memories. It was when, a few days after the signing of the armistice, the British and Indian soldiers marched out of the fort on the hill and took the winding road down through Stanley and to Hong Kong and to internment in Kowloon. There must have been at least a thousand, if not more men, disarmed and dejected, and passing just below our hill we watched them as they went by under the victorious Japanese flag hung across the road. As we stood on our hilltop and saw that mournful column passing along silently, we thought of the glories and peace of Hong Kong which had been and now everywhere is desolation and despair. The victors are despoiling the city; they have ruthlessly dethroned the foreigner and humiliated him in the eyes of the Chinese; they have destroyed overnight, as it were, the work of decades; they have completely disrupted the organization of a huge modern city, and starvation faces the populace. The Japanese have learned their lessons well from the West, and the West is now reaping the harvest of what it has sown. Poor Hong Kong! which had to be one of the first victims.\n\nAfter tiffin on the 20th, we received final word to leave Maryknoll House, now His Imperial Majesty's property, for our new home in the Prison Warders' Apartments attached to the Prison at Stanley. We are to be interned, not as the Italian Fathers were, in the Prison itself, but in modern apartments, these having been built only a few years ago. We hastily summoned our coolies, and the vanguard soon got under way. We walked in advance, each with a suitcase or bag in each hand and a bundle of bedding on his back, the coolies bringing up the rear with the heavier and more awkward bundles. Twenty-four priests and Brothers, and as many more coolies made quite a cavalcade, and looking back, it seems that we have been able to move all that Father Troesch and Father Meyer", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208649, "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": 106, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46\n\n79\n\n8-Sunday Masses, as usual, with Fathers Keelan, Bauer and Charles Murphy officiating. It rained in the afternoon, but a fair crowd attended Rosary, Litany and private Benediction at St. Stephen's Great Hall; Bishop O'Gara spoke. Seventy Communions in the morning at Masses. An attempt is to be made to start some sort of school tomorrow for the children, but with the lack of desks, chairs and books, not much can be done. The Sisters also plan a catechism class. So far, we have five Maryknoll Sisters in Camp, as also nine Canadian Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, but at five this afternoon during a drizzle, some 18 more Maryknoll Sisters, with Sister Paul at their head, arrived by truck, with bag and baggage as only Sisters know how to travel. As the American Blocks were pretty well filled up, temporary quarters were found for them in one of the British blocks. They find two or three rooms at their disposal, and the 18 promptly unroll their blankets and stretch out on the floor, for the night. The Portuguese and Chinese Sisters remain in Kowloon, but not in their own convent, which has long since been taken over by the Japanese military as a hospital. The Blessed Sacrament is reserved temporarily in the Maryknoll Sisters' apartment in the American block. Maryknoll again wins a softball match.\n\n9-Mr. Gullinan, former Hong Kong Police sergeant and a good friend of ours, goes to Tweed Bay Hospital for treatment. He had been in the Queen Mary Hospital for some months previous to the war. The American Community meets at 2.00 p.m. in the Club House Rooms and hear various reports read. The question of bank accounts in the Hong Kong banks came up and it seems the Japanese authorities have offered each one with a bank account the sum of $50.00 for his food. This offer was refused by the Americans. Our newly-built kitchen finally opened.\n\n10-The blackout is over and we again have electric lights in the evening. Today also there is a change in our meal hours. The first repast is 9.30, with a cup of soup at 12.30 and the second meal at 5.00 p.m. It has turned cold and rainy and our meager rations of rice and fixings leave us hungry. A robbery is reported in the Dutch quarters.\n\n11-Another attempt to open a canteen in the American Club, and each person is limited to the purchase of one article. As there wasn't very much, the supply was soon sold out. One could buy", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208663, "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": 120, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46 \n\n93 \n\narticles is opened. The display was most interesting, and American skill and ingenuity were much in evidence. Articles included various forms of clothing, shoes, slippers, clogs, chairs, stools, baby cribs, thermos bottles, a fireless cooker, clothes pins, knitting needles, scales, a vise, etc., etc. A small wood turning lathe was also shown, and hats woven of grass. The repatriates' departure has been postponed until the end of the month. \n\n11—It is reported that the recent escapees have been captured, they not having succeeded in getting out of the Colony. A large scale having been found somewhere, the Americans weigh in, with Dr. Hackett and the Maryknoll Sisters, nurses, Sisters Camillus and Dominic, assisting, the latter, by the way, having long since returned to Camp from the Civil Hospital. The following statistics will give a graphic idea of our present status: Father Toomey lost 18 lbs; Troesch, 28; Meyer, 38; Downs, 13; Keelan,?; Bauer, 50; Allie, 18; Reardon, 27; Callan, 11; O'Connor, 16; Hessler, 0; Walter, 12; Knotek, 12; Quinn, 23; Walsh, 22; Madison 36; Moore, 9; Tackney, 23; Norris, 15; Brother Anthony, 50; Brother Cornelius, 6; Father O'Connell, 0; Siebert, ?; Gaiero, 19; McKeirnan, 14; Brother William, 23. A Mr. Hill, in the Camp, lost 65 lbs. \n\n12—Masses now at 8:30 and 9:30 a.m. Today, Confirmation at the Mass, when Bishop O'Gara confirmed four children and two adults. Today, the Britishers follow suit and are weighed in. Perhaps this presages better food. Report has it that two Britishers were caught stealing sweet potatoes in Stanley village, which is out of bounds. When warned that they were in danger of being shot, they said they were so hungry that they took the chance. Then they were assured of better rations, so says the rumor. Let's hope it is more than a rumor. Speaking of rumors, they still flood the Camp, and they range from the abdication of Mussolini, to the landing of the Allies in Europe, and to the proximity of the Chinese troops ready to retake Hong Kong. According to the Japanese paper, the American Navy has been sunk several times, and they are going to crush the United States. \n\n13—Bungalow No. 7 vacated by its British occupants to give way to the segregated American repatriates, who move in after the British got out, only to find that the British had pretty well despoiled the whole building, thinking that the Japanese were moving in. It is also reported today that the American Consular officials' bag—\n\nPage 120\n\nPage 121", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208701, "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": 158, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46\n\n131\n\nvestments, books, including some of Father Meyer's dictionaries and Father O'Melia's language books, a typewriter or two, an adding machine, and various odds and ends. The officer in charge was quite pleasant and when he was in the building, gave us permission to go to the attic and rummage through the mess on the floor. In the attic, everything which had been stored in the missioners' trunks and boxes, such as clothing, books and other personal articles, was all strewn about on the floor, and the place looked a sight. In the attic, we also came across the large crucifix and two wooden statues from our main chapel and these we were also allowed to take away to the Carmelite Chapel. The Japanese seemed to have a superstitious dread of such things. Once on the bus going to Stanley, we noticed a Chinese girl who evidently worked for the Japanese stationed in our house, carrying a small hand-bag. Looking carefully at it, we noticed it was made out of a silk vestment, for we could see the embroidered border and the monogram IHS.\n\nDecember came again and found us still waiting and hoping for some word about Kwangchauwan, but the Foreign Office was silent. Early in the month there was some talk about further repatriation, and we wrote to Mr. Oda again stating that if we could not go to Kwangchauwan we would like to make application for repatriation.\n\nNOVEMBER\n\nOn the first of the month the Japanese government issued orders that all shortwave radio sets must be turned in to be sealed, after which they would be returned to their owners. At that time there was no radio at Bethany, but we listened to a neighboring one, the owner of which kindly opened his door wide and turned up the radio strong. After the first we still heard the radio news but from other sources.\n\nOn the 23rd, His Excellency, Bishop Valtorta, went to see Mr. Oda at the Foreign Office on a matter of his own. A few weeks previous, one of his Chinese priests, Father Wong, in charge of the mission at Sai Kung, disappeared, and it was feared that he had been killed. Later, Father Terruzzi, the Bishop's Chancellor and right-hand man, went to Sai Kung to look over the ground and he was never seen again. Conflicting reports seeped in concerning his fate, and it seems that in some way or other he was killed and his body thrown into the sea. Of course it is not known by whom, but", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209512, "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-1982", "page_number": 169, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "147\n\na (a)\n\naay\n\nBy\n\n(aai) aaw (au) (ai) aw (au)\n\naam\n\nam\n\n(aam) aeng (ang) \n\naap (aap) ack\n\nang (ang) ap (ap)\n\nak (ak)\n\ne (e)\n\neng\n\n(eng)\n\nek\n\n(ek)\n\n¡ (e)\n\niw (iu)\n\nimm (im)\n\ning\n\n(ing)\n\nip\n\n(ip)\n\nik\n\n(ik)\n\na (oh) oy\n\n(oi)\n\nong\n\nok\n\nu (oo) uy\n\nung\n\n(ung)\n\nuk\n\n(uk)\n\nö (oeng)\n\nű (ue)\n\nöng\n\n(eung)\n\nök\n\n(euk)\n\nung\n\nük\n\nIn the above chart, KHW finals -uy, -aeng/k, -ong/k and -üng/k have no SC homophones.\n\nKHW -uy resembles SC -ooi, but has a short vowel instead of the long /oo/ of SC. The vowel in KHW -aeng/k is similar to the vowel in (Received Pronunciation) English man. The transcriptions -aeng/k, rather than -aang/k were chosen to illustrate this point. The vowel in KHW -ong/k is noticeably more fronted than that of SC -ong/k, with the result that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between KHW -ong/k and -ông/k. Finally, KHW -üng/k are finals similar to SC -uen/t but have a short, instead of a long, vowel and a velar, instead of a dental, final consonant. Examples of these finals are:\n\n'fear' 'big'\n\n'satiated'\n\n/-a/\n\n伯 p'al\n\n/-aay/\n\n* taay4\n\n/-aaw/\n\nI paaw3\n\n/-aam/\n\nsaam1\n\n'three'\n\n/-aeng/\n\n生 saeng1\n\n'raw'\n\n/-aap/\n\n# tyaap4\n\n'diverse'\n\n/-aek/\n\n辣 laek4\n\n'pepper-hot'\n\n/-ay/\n\n米 may1\n\n'rice'\n\n/-aw/\n\n好 haw3\n\n'good'\n\n/-am/\n\n心 sam1\n\n'heart'\n\n/-ang/\n\n新 sang1\n\n'new'\n\n/-ap/\n\n入 yap4\n\n'enter'\n\n/-ak/\n\n☐ yak4\n\n'day'\n\n/-e/\n\n蛇 se2\n\n/-eng/\n\n病 peng4\n\n'snake'\n\n'sick'\n\n/-ek/\n\n吃 hek3\n\n'eat'", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209765, "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-1983", "page_number": 24, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "language. The third reason for the house was that a place was needed for the priests living up country in China to take their summer vacation.\n\nNow to the 'when' of the house. Early in the thirties, our founder Bishop James A. Walsh was here, and he wanted to build a house for the just mentioned reasons. He contacted a Chinese real estate man, Mr. Lee Ue Ch'eung. Incidentally he was the brother of that famous shoe maker Mr. Lee Ue Kei who was known locally as Leaky Lee the shoemaker. Well, Mr. Lee told our founder to meet him at the Hong Kong side of the Star ferry one morning, and they then drove out in his horse and buggy through Aberdeen to Repulse Bay. From there they followed the old military track that swung around the mountain and dropped down into Stanley. As Mr. Lee and our founder came around the mountain, Mr. Lee pointed out this hillock and said that was the place he thought might be suitable for the center. Our founder took one look, and said 'I'll take it. It's exactly what I want'. At that time there was nothing in Stanley except the Fortress, the Prison, St. Stephen's College and of course the small fishing village.\n\nConstruction started in 1933, and was finished in 1935. When planning was going on, the depression reached its height and the building was reduced in size two times. There was a big discussion about whether to put in expensive hard wood or cheap soft wood. The hard wood boys won out, and the white ants have ever since been breaking off their teeth on this wood. Had the soft wood been put in, it would have had to be changed practically every year. The house was built before air conditioning, and so is very cool in summer, and very cold in winter.\n\nThe house is built like a big \"U\". In this wing, the ground floor is now used for conferences, and the chapel is upstairs. In the opposite wing, the ground floor has staff quarters and maintenance shops. The upstairs has our parlor, television room, and a small library. On the ground floor of the South wing are the offices, the dining rooms, and the kitchen. The next two floors contain bedrooms.\n\nAt that time, there were these wide open spaces in Stanley and quite a bit of wild life. There were barking deer and monkeys.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209861, "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-1983", "page_number": 120, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "98\n\ncave with a low pass behind it across to the other side of the island.\n\nFurther west, Tai Ho (\"Big Ditch\") and some other villages lie in a small plain with a bad harbour.\n\nNear the middle of the north coast is Tung Chung (\"East Creek\") which was once the most important place in Lantau; it has the biggest plains, the most villages, and the best harbour for small boats in the island. The harbour is, however, too shallow for anything bigger than a launch, and is silting up with hill wash and river muds from the Delta.\n\nTung Chung was the administrative centre of the island, and a station of the Taipang coast defence force was built here. This was the only Chinese yamen in the islands, and a library building still exists, showing the place was once, and perhaps still is, a scholastic centre. It was fortified, and the headquarters of a squadron of war junks: the guns of some of its batteries were dug out of the sand by my predecessor in office and mounted on the yamen wall on cement carriages.\n\nThese guns may be connected with a naval action in 1857. H.M.S. Auckland, with the steam tender Eaglet, saw five mandarin junks in the harbour as they sailed north from Tai O to Namtau. They returned and attacked them. The captain of the Auckland goes on:\n\nOwing to the shallowness of the water I had to anchor in three fathoms, the ship grounding as the tide fell, otherwise we should not have been within range.\n\nThe Eaglet, on taking up a position near the junks received the fire of five batteries in addition to that of the junks, and soon expended her ammunition, having received three or four shots in her hull, Mr. Ellis (her commander) coming for ammunition, I sent the Auckland's boats to tow the Eaglet, to destroy the junks, the Auckland attacking the batteries and junks with shell and round shot at the same time.\n\nA smart fire was kept up on both sides for a short time; the boats of both vessels then charged and fired the junks;\n\nPage 120\n\nPage 121", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209863, "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-1983", "page_number": 122, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "100\n\nFurther to the west is Shalowan (\"Sand Snail Bay\") a big village with a fine beach and a fine wood behind it for “fungshui”. The villagers defend their beach against sand diggers with firearms; it guards their paddy fields behind. There is a settlement of early man on the headland near the village; old fields just behind the site are, apparently, for dry crops.\n\nIn a suitable light ancient log slides can be seen, running straight down the steepest hills, on this stretch of coast.\n\nBetween Shalowan and Tai O the only place of note is Sham Wat (\"Deep Dene\"), a narrow valley with two or three tiny hamlets.\n\nJust to the east of Tai O is Po Chu Tam (“Precious Pearl Pool\"). The name may either preserve the memory of a pearl fishery or enshrine a local legend: pearl oysters were once to be found in Hainan only 200 miles away. Po Chu Tam is the back door to Tai O, from it a navigable creek runs down to Tai O town. Po Chu Tam has a big temple with a shed for dragon boats; the head and tail are kept in the temple. On a low headland nearby is a ruined Chinese fort: its work is now done by an Indian guard, put there after a piracy in 1926. Another protection is an old wall with a gate, which stands across the path from Po Chu Tam just outside Tai O. Any active man could out-flank it by going up the hill.\n\nTai O (\"Big Haven\") is the biggest town in Lantau, with over 2,000 people. It was recently building an electric light and power station, run on oil. The town straggles along the shores of its creek, and has a small agricultural plain behind it. About 3 miles up into the hills is a big Buddhist temple, with a number of \"fasting halls\"; these have lately built a bridge and widened the path going up hill. Tai O salt is made in big salt pans, but is of poor quality, and only fit for salting fish. The creek cuts off the hills on which the Police Station stands from the town: it is crossed by a sampan ferry which is leased by auctions held by the elders of the place. In the wider part of the creek is a substantial settlement of boatpeople. They live in huts built on piles driven into the creek bed. These piles are often of stone, but often also of wood or bamboo. The huts are lashed to the piles with wire.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209865, "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-1983", "page_number": 124, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "102\n\nThe first valley is that of Shek Pik (\"Rock Wall\"). This lies right under the steep south-west face of Lantau Peak. The main village stands at some distance from a creek with a big sandbar which makes a good harbour for small boats. To the east is a little hamlet, Tung Wan (\"East Bay\"), where a sandbar has silted across the mouth of a stream, making a marsh. A bay a little west of the creek faces the surf, and so has no landing and is in consequence deserted except for cultivation and pasture1a.\n\nShui Hau and Tong Fuk (\"Creek Mouth\" and \"Banked Happiness\"), which form the second group of villages, have poor landing-places. They lie at one end of the long stretch of beach which extends to Pui O (“Cup Haven\")14 which is the name of the third group of villages.\n\nThe chief features of Pui O are its fine woods with their ancient trees: the very long sand-spit enclosing a lagoon where boats can lie: and the double storm beach, the second one to the rear being the older. There is an old brick or pottery kiln built on this beach. Passes go from Pui O to Mui Wo and Shap Long.\n\nBeyond Pui O to the southeast is a rugged granite peninsula; it only has one village of importance, Tai Long (\"Great Waves\"). This village has one very fine sand beach with another to the west, which, because it is much more exposed, has no village15. To the east of Tai Long are the wells from where the Cheung Chau waterboats get their water.\n\nOn the north coast of this granite peninsula are bays and hamlets where sand junks used to dig sand. At its innermost point is Shap Long (\"Ten Ridges\", but this translation is particularly doubtful), a plain with a sandbank in front; the sea is so shallow sand junks cannot approach. A few years ago an epidemic of smallpox made the villagers think something was wrong with their abode, so they left the houses all standing and moved into huts further down the valley, on its northern side.\n\nThe next point of interest on the Lantau coast is the Silver Mine Bay, a beautiful valley with a big sand beach in front, and with four villages, Mui Wo (\"Plum Nook\"), Tai Tei Tong (\"Big Land Pond\"), Luk Tei Tong (\"Deer Land Pond\"), and Pak Ngan", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209870, "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-1983", "page_number": 129, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "107\n\nfamous for the 8½ tons of Persian opium found there about 1921, guarded by an armed sampan and hidden in a cave. Kau Yi Chau (“Armchair Island\") is larger and higher. The sea all round is polluted with Hong Kong refuse tipped from sanitary barges.\n\nFurther on to the east is Lamma: also rendered \"Nam A” (\"Southern Forked Island”). This is an island of remarkable shape. Its best harbour is in the north-west, Yung Shu Wan (\"Banyan Tree Bay\"): all the others have defects: Luk Chau Wan (\"Deer Island Bay\"), Sokkwu Wan (\"Dragnet Bay\") or Picnic Bay, and Tung O (“East Haven”) are all too exposed in winter, Tai Wan (\"Big Bay\") and the other landing places on the west coast are surf-beaten in summer, and Tung O is more liberally supplied with reefs than any other bay in the islands except Ma Wan. Sham Wan (\"Deep Bay\"), a beautiful, deep, drowned valley, gets the swell nearly all the year round; besides, there is hardly any cultivated land by it. Hence Yung Shu Wan, with well-watered plains, villages, and low hills behind it, is the island's only commercial harbour: it has a sampan ferry to Aberdeen, the island's real commercial centre.\n\nLamma specialises in orchards, chiefly of papaya; water buffaloes, tigers and other evil beasts are unknown there, and the island seems prosperous, though animal diseases and shortage of water often cause losses. An interesting point is that some of the land here was used as endowments for what we would call \"fellowships\" for scholars in Namtau under the old order of things.\n\nSince 1932 Lamma has attained much fame as the leading site of the prehistoric culture of the South China coast, as the result of my finding large quantities of ancient pottery in good condition, and the later researches of Father Finn, who published his results in detail in the \"Hong Kong Naturalist\".25 The earliest glazed pottery in China comes from here. Another site nearby has rougher, more primitive objects than the bronzes and ornaments of Tai Wan; and a hill near Yung Shu Wan forms a third site closely related to the other two. At least four other sites have been found on the island, besides stone axes on the hills. The modern population probably does not exceed 1,000,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209871, "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-1983", "page_number": 130, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "108\n\nand more than half of them still live within two miles of these ancient sites, which speak of hundreds of years of settlement and progress, before the Han emperors conquered the coast with a fleet and army.\n\nLeaving aside the islands close to Hong Kong, which have little of interest, we next pass the Potoi group off Cape d'Aguilar (named after a Major-General who commanded the troops in Hong Kong in its early years). All are of granitic rocks seamed with dykes of dark green stone which decay more rapidly than the granite and so often form valleys, caves and hollows. All but Potoi itself are barren and deserted, except for the light on Waglan (Wang Lan \"Barrier Fence\"). About nine years ago, the Chinese second officer of a ship distinguished himself by steering straight on to the island, where the ship not unnaturally stopped. There was no discoverable reason for this exploit; it was not bad weather, though dark it was about 2 a.m. and the light showed clearly. A similar but more excusable disaster occurred in 1916 on the east end of the Lema's eight miles to the south on Tam Kon Shan (“Carrying Pole Mountain\"), when the Chiyo Maru, which was a big trans-Pacific liner, ran aground. I believe few or no lives were lost.\n\nnets.\n\nPotoi has a small but good harbour, very popular with boat people, and with a handsome temple. There are a few shops, and its economic centre is Stanley. The beach is used for drying. Once in 1930 an ingenious fellow tried to monopolize the beach by applying for a matshed site right in the middle of it. I saw the place, saw through his game, and turned him down. Up in the hills are three tiny hamlets, living on the scanty crops their fields produce, and probably selling to the boat people as well; their names mean \"Long Stone Ridge\", \"Cow Lake\", and \"Mountain Hut\" 27.\n\nTo the north, at the entrance to Junk Bay, known in Chinese as \"General's Haven\" (Tseung Kwan O), is an island called Fat or Fu Tau Chau (“Buddha's or Tiger's Head Island\"). It was the site of one of the \"Blockade of Hong Kong\" customs stations; the station is in ruins, although the island has a few inhabitants.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209872, "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-1983", "page_number": 131, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "109\n\nNam Tong Island (“Southern Hall Island\"). This island is large and mountainous. Military defence work is currently going on there. It was formerly cultivated, but in 1929 the cultivated area was abandoned. There is an Aga light on the southern point. The channel to the north of this island is \"Buddha's Head Pass\". The harbour within this channel is well sheltered: there is a big temple on the mainland to the north of the channel. The chief place of interest on this island is the old fort near the north point, with a south wall thickened, apparently for mounting cannon. This fort is probably Chinese, perhaps built by pirates.\n\nHere we leave the islands of the South District, and enter the North District as we pass into Port Shelter. The interest of this place lies in its extraordinary geography and geology, and its wonderful beauty. The surf which beats on the high pillared cliffs of High Island, Bluff Island, and Basalt Island dies away as your launch passes into the long calm channels, and under the hills of the mainland there is perfect shelter, though I do not think the anchorages are good. Grassy hills come down to the waters' edge, and near Saikung the sea is studded with diminutive islets.\n\nThe soil of these islands appears extremely barren, as the population of the islands is very small. Fishing seems the chief occupation. Settlements are few. Yim Tin is named after some abandoned salt fields a little to the south of the (Roman Catholic) mission church: Kau Sai (\"West of the Channel\") explains itself. There is also a group of settlements in the southern part of High Island. These have the remarkable names of \"North Fork\", \"Tribute Rice Junks Bay\", and \"White Insect Wax\",32 This group and Yim Tin are the only places in these islands where cultivation is of any extent. \"North Fork\" is a most remarkable place. Someone has lavished money on it, the houses and the ancestral temple are well built, a high platform held up by a big masonry retaining wall stands in front of them, and a small stream by the village is crossed by a fine three-span bridge all of stone: it is the sort of stream for which the rest of the Territory think six stepping stones are ample. I have no idea how these names originated, except that the bay may have been an anchorage for junks carrying the tribute rice north from Canton to Peking.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209874, "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-1983", "page_number": 133, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "In fact it has almost as many people as Lamma, nine times its size and close to Hong Kong. Its average elevation is about 100 feet, and there are three villages.\n\nMany other islands lie outside the British boundary. Of them I can say practically nothing, as I have never visited them, and there are no large-scale maps of them. They remain a rich field for enquiry and research in every direction.\n\nIn conclusion, I can only hope I have not bored you unduly; if I have, I can only say that having known and visited the islands for twenty years, I find them more interesting every year, and if I have interested some of you, I shall feel this afternoon has not been spent in vain.\n\n9th August 1937\n\nI\n\nNOTES\n\nSee J. Dyer-Ball's Things Chinese or Notes Connected with China fifth edition, revised by E.T.C. Werner (1925), re-issued by OUP, Hong Kong, 1983, pp. 297-8.\n\n* Yuen Chau Tsai, (\"Little Round Island\"), where the residence of the District Officer was is now the home of the Secretary for District Administration. The adjacent anchorage was reclaimed a few years ago.\n\n* Naikwuchau is now called Hei Ling Chau (\"Happy Island\"). This followed its early postwar lease to the Leprosy Mission (Hong Kong Auxiliary) which resulted in the change of name, intended to reflect the \"healing\" nature of the work and the improvement in the patients' lives.\n\n* Now the Rural Committee Offices.\n\n* Tai Ho at present uses for its name characters meaning \"Big Oyster\".\n\n* The yamen is usually now called the Tung Chung Fort, or Tung Chung Walled City.\n\n* At Tei Tong Tsai (\"Little Pits\").\n\n* Ngong Ping (“High Plain\").\n\n* Dedicated to Yeung Hau Wong.\n\n* Tsin Yue Wan at present uses for its name characters meaning \"Fried Fish Bay\".\n\n* Now usually called Fan Lau (\"Divided Streams”).\n\n* This fort is known as Kai Yik Kok Fort (“Chicken's Wing Point\"). On it, please see A.M. da Silva Fan Lau and its Fort, an Historical Perspective, in Vol. 8 (1968) of this Journal pages 82-95.\n\n* Tai Long Wan (\"Big Wave Bay\").", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210575, "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-1985", "page_number": 182, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "163\n\nEdith and her fellow missionaries did not seem to have any higher opinion of the Chinese adults around them — excepting, of course, the Christians, who were another category altogether. Edith had found the Chinese in general noisy, quarrelsome and untrustworthy. In describing three nests of crows living in the trees above her house the first summer she was at Taiho, Edith wrote Louese:\n\nThree families (of crows) were raised over my head this summer, and there was no quiet to be enjoyed for Chinese crows are very loquacious and without number,... They are really Chinese crows for they quarrel a great deal and like to live huddled together.42\n\nThe crows raided the chicken coop and stole eggs, another characteristic Edith attributed to the Chinese. When Mr. Malcolm found a bag that was being used to hold several bats, which the Chinese women were preserving to make Chinese medicine, he immediately jumped to the conclusion that someone was taking advantage of the confusion of moving at the mission to “hide a piece of soap\" with the intention of stealing it. On another occasion, Edith told Louese that despite the fact that she was busy and sick herself, she had to help tend the Ferguson children whose mother was ill, because \"there is no one else to do it and a native cannot be trusted.”\n\nStill, in general, Edith found her work enjoyable if the monotony could be relieved once in a while. Earlier, when Edith was complaining about the bats living in her house, she was actually enjoying the episode. Apparently Mr. Malcolm had not handled the parcel with the bats well. He merely made astonished noises. Edith, with her Quaker training, was made of sterner stuff. She took the parcel back into her house, liberating the content in the process. Despite her chagrin, she recounted the story with relish. Then, in the summer of 1905, the missionaries at Taiho had a visitor with an unusual piece of equipment in his luggage. Edith told Louese:\n\nThe monotony of Taiho has been varied too by a visitor, a young man came and took some pictures for us, will send", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211398, "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-1988", "page_number": 114, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "90\n\nKwangtung province formerly, I found the people could earn their living. Latterly since the people have been moved inside the boundary, they have gradually died off. Out of every ten of them about eight or nine have been killed by the removal. The best thing that can be done at present, as we cannot allow them to return to their homes, is to allow the boundary limit to be made larger so that the farmers may find a place to farm and the fishermen room for fishing.\" Nothing came of the position, but the Viceroy's interest in their plight was remembered by the people and they were grateful to him.\n\nIn the 5th year of Hong Hei there was a bad drought in Kwangtung and the Emperor gave order that the rice kept in the Government granaries should be given to the people. It was during that year the San On district was abolished, all government appointments there were cancelled, and what was originally San On was added to Tung Kwun (東莞).\n\nDuring this time the Governor Wong Loi Yam (黃律琰) wrote a report to the throne suggesting that six principal causes of growing discontent should be removed. At first no notice was taken of this effort but in the 6th year of Hong Hei, when things were getting worse, the Emperor allowed Governor Wong's suggestions to be carved on stone tablets, and each city gate had one of the tablets displayed there. Beyond that, the Emperor did nothing, but the fact that someone was interesting himself on their behalf helped to soothe the increasing resentment of the people. The Governor Wong was a very good man and he made great improvements in a lot of government affairs. It is said that he dressed as a common man during his leisure and spent much time talking to the simple farming people. In this way he learnt much about his subordinates, which were good and which were bad, and he really benefited his people. But he was unable to get on with the ministers in Peking and in the following year he was dismissed by the Emperor and ordered to return to Peking. When Wong received the message of his dismissal he wrote his valedictory address and in it he mentioned five important steps which should be taken to ease the burden on his people. Two of these were that the numbers of troops should be reduced in Kwangtung, and the boundary be removed, the people being allowed to return to their homes. He then started off for Peking, but a Lei P’aai (里排) (chief of the village elders) named Poon Shai Ts'eung (潘世璋) heard about this, and went to beg the Emperor to allow Wong to retain his post. Wong died, whether...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211408, "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-1988", "page_number": 124, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "100\n\nUnfortunately Ngit Chiu, who went to Honolulu and worked as a carpenter, became addicted to opium. A burial permit dated 15 November 1924 states clearly that he had died of an overdose. Whenever he visited us, and that was not often, he would borrow from Father, who would give him only a few dollars since he disapproved of Ngit Chiu's drug habit. In 1919 when I visited his foster mother in the village, she inquired about him because she had not heard from him for many years, but I was forewarned not to tell her about his circumstances.\n\nJok King, the fifth son, also died in his 20s and left a daughter, Iu Dai, but no male issue. Likewise, Jok Sau ‘gave' another of his sons, Dai Geng, to this brother. Dai Geng did not live long and left a widow with several sons in Canton where he had been working in a bank. Jok King's widow and daughter remained in the village. They were both quite agitated the day Aunt Auyoung and I visited them, as they related how someone had tried to get into their home by ladder via a rear window. Aunt Auyoung did not seem to feel the incident really happened, tried to be very reassuring and told them no one would dare to harm them because First Uncle would not allow it. Iu Dai is said to be the first and only old maid in our village. Because her mother was so selective of a husband for her, when she reached 18, she was considered too old to be sought after. Even though she was a victim of an old culture, the village youths would tease her about it. During World War II when no one could send support to her, I heard that she had to go out to beg for food.\n\nAfter Great Grandfather's death, his business continued under Jok Jun, after whose death Grandfather took over. The business failed under his management, reportedly due to a bad loan to Grandmother's family for the operation of an oyster farm. This is the reason given why no photographs of grandmothers in our family were preserved – certainly misplaced hostility. Grandfather therefore decided to emigrate to Hawaii to seek a livelihood and hopefully to be able to return the depositors their money. According to Second Uncle's wife, when she was left in the village, she often had to hide from the creditors. Many years later, First Uncle paid these debts on a percentage basis.\n\nMy grandmother, surnamed Au, was born on 23 January 1846. She was a native of Joo Poo Tau Village, and was related to...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211441, "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-1988", "page_number": 157, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "133\n\nthe truck, Uncle hired drivers to take the produce to Honolulu. I had many rides on the truck to pick up bananas which Okinawa immigrants grew on what used to be pineapple fields. Uncle prospered and was dubbed *Mayor of Kaneohe*. When it was time for him to retire from farming, he bought a piece of Cobb-Adam's land on Kamehameha Highway, one lot removed from Lilipuna Road. Uncle was extended credit from C. K. Ai, who was a friend of my parents, so that he could buy lumber from City Mill Company to build a simple but spacious home and a large garage for his trucking business.\n\nWhen Uncle was struggling to make ends meet, Father would try to help with small loans. During the First World War, when the price of guano was rising fast, Father bought a ton of the fertilizer and stored it under our School Street home. Uncle would pay the current price for each bag he took, and when the ton was used up, the profit was divided between Father and Uncle. Because the price of animal feed was also rising, Mother would wake Ruth, Helen and me at early dawn, competing with a neighbour, to gather algaroba beans from a back lot for Uncle at one dollar a bag.\n\nThere was little social life in those days. Uncle was a member of a fraternal society in Heeia, namely, the Bow Yee Tong, established in 1903. Mother told me that this was a Triad society, where members were initiated and sworn in as 'blood brothers' by secret rituals, so secret that they were not revealed even to their wives. In later years, after the death of Aunt, Uncle became a devout Buddhist and frequently visited a temple in Honolulu.\n\nUncle registered seven of his ten children with the Board of Health on 15 October 1918. At that time, he gave his name as Cheung Yau and Aunt's as Wong Fung, and his age at 38 and hers 33. Their children are:\n\nAnnie Ah Hoon (21 Apr 1902-1936) married Henry Auyoung\n\nMary Ah Moy Hiki (9 Oct 1904-) married Joseph Liu\n\nHelen Ah Sam (11 Dec 1906-) married Robert Zane\n\nAlice Ah Lin (15 Dec 1909-) married Frank Carpino (died 1982) 1927\n\nReuben Ah Kau (17 Jun 1911-) married Eunice Ching\n\nAaron Ah Mung (13 Oct 1913-8 Oct 1985)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211453, "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-1988", "page_number": 169, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "145\n\nwere married on 16 March 1903, in appropriate Chinese fashion and in a Christian ceremony. This was followed by an elegant dinner given by Grandfather for relatives, friends, and Father's colleagues and superiors at the bank. There were many compliments on the beauty of the bride and the exceptional choice of dishes.\n\nMy sister Ruth McLan was born on 4 April 1904. I, Violet MeBigT, was born on 20 January 1906; MeYukE on 21 September 1907; and Dora MeSunX4 on 7 October 1917. Because Me means 'beautiful' and because we were born in the United States, called the 'Beautiful Country' by the Chinese, Grandfather chose that character as a part of our names.\n\nAfter MeYuk was sent to First Uncle in her infancy, and when Helen was still very young, I was babied longer than customary, often on Father's lap. One night, shortly after we moved to Broad Road, he beckoned me to sit on his lap. For some unexplained reason, I demurred shyly, whereupon my mother supported me by saying, 'You are a big girl now'. For a while I shared a bed with Father, while Mother slept with Helen, the baby. During that time two incidents made a deep impression on me. The first was the cracking sound of frightened chickens emanating from under our house, where they roosted, that roused us one night. I was very much afraid and Father felt it was the better part of valour not to go out to investigate. Loose chicken feathers we saw the next morning told us that someone must have tried successfully to steal our chickens. An even more frightening experience which left me trembling in bed late one night was hearing a woman next door whimpering each time her husband beat her. I swear I could hear the swish of the rattan. Not one adult in that extended household interceded. We concluded that the man, a gambler, must have vented his anger on his wife when he lost money that night.\n\nFather showed more affection for his children than most Chinese men did in those days. He enjoyed teaching Ruth because she learned easily and did so well in school; he enjoyed Helen because she was a very sweet child and a cute performer; he enjoyed Dora because she was the baby. He liked me because I provided personal service, such as massaging his face, brushing and combing his hair, trimming his toe and finger nails. He would take us walking with the youngest child in his arms and the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211456, "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-1988", "page_number": 172, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "148\n\nhave been had he been alive when Ruth graduated from McKinley High School first in her class, with honours and a gold medal, or when she received a degree in medicine.\n\nAlthough our dresses were home-made, our shoes and hats were from fancy shops on Fort Street, then the main shopping centre of Honolulu. Whenever Father took us out, he would tell us to 'dress up like a duchess'. Sometimes he would take us to a cinema, or to a stage show, or to a musical at the Y.M.C.A. A visit to the Bishop Museum was always followed by a pause at the site of the mental hospital then located on School Street, where we would peep through the knot holes of the fence to observe the bizarre behaviour of the inmates. When Queen Liliuokalani died and her body was on view in Kawaiahao Church, he took Ruth, Helen and me to this sad and historical event. I remember him carrying me out onto our porch in Iwilei to point out a comet with a wide spray of bright light. I believe it was Halley's Comet. These may not be unusual experiences for children of today, but in the early 1900s, they were not common for Chinese children.\n\nFather's interests extended beyond our home. There were always illiterate women friends asking him to write letters. He did volunteer work at the Berentania Street Mission under the direction of Mrs. Elijah J. Mackenzie, a missionary who spoke fluent Chinese. There he taught English to young men newly arrived from China, gathered with them in worship, and interpreted for the Sunday and evening services when a sermon was given in English. When the Rev. Schenck came to Hawaii to administer the missions for the Hawaiian Board, he dispensed with Father's help so abruptly that it hurt Father deeply. Father had other community interests. He was one of the early members of the Chinese Y.M.C.A. which was located behind the Fort Street Chinese Church. Among its members were En Sue Kong, Luke Chan, Yim Quan and Tom Joon Yai. Father also served as English secretary for the See Dai Doo Society for many years, until his death. He would often drop by Wing On Tai for a chat or to do business; he would visit with friends from his village or nearby areas at the Pui Gun Horse Stable, located off Pauahi Street near River Street. There he enjoyed their fellowship and the news from 'home'. He would always buy a bag of roasted peanuts from a well-known shop on Pauahi Street to enjoy on his way home.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211525, "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-1988", "page_number": 242, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "218\n\nTai Sheung Lo Kwan, the notes add, is none other than Taoist Patriarch Lao Tzu.\n\nTHE HONGKONG MILLING COMPANY'S FAILURE*\n\nE. W. WRIGHT\n\nThe suicide of A. H. Rennie, manager of the Hongkong Milling Co., and the subsequent closing down of the big milling plant which Mr. Rennie founded, is still causing much discussion in Pacific coast milling circles. Late particulars of the tragedy and the causes which led up to it, seem to indicate quite clearly that the death of Rennie and the failure of the institution which he established have combined to postpone indefinitely the attempt to build up the milling business in China on anything more than a very moderate scale.\n\nWhether or not it is possible to manufacture flour at a profit at Hongkong, is still a matter of doubt with some Pacific coast millers. They do not regard the failure of Rennie as proof conclusive that the business cannot be conducted with a profit, for Rennie, while a remarkably good flour salesman, knew nothing about the details of manufacturing flour. His failure, however, has made Pacific coast millers sceptical about the future success of milling in China in competition with the product that is shipped across the Pacific.\n\nThe rise and fall of the milling project at Hongkong is so much a part of the remarkable career of Mr. Rennie, who promoted it, that its history can best be told by relating his.\n\nA. H. Rennie was a native of Canada, where he was born in 1857. He became the confidential adviser and secretary of Hon. John Norquay,\n\n* This very interesting account is reprinted from the Northwestern Miller of 24 June, 1908, published at Minneapolis. Rennie left his name in Rennie's Mill, Junk Bay, near Kowloon. The editor is grateful to Mr. W. J. Howard, a long-time member of the Society, for contributing this item to the Journal.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211701, "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-1989", "page_number": 116, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "91\n\nnumber of books was quite inadequate and the Japanese, with their usual suspicion of the written or printed word, would not allow any more to be brought in. Sea bathing is now (i.e. since the middle of July) permitted at one beach.\n\nChildren: Schools - a senior and a junior school were established by the Hongkong University authorities and some attempt made to arrange organised recreation for the children; but, there were hardly any toys, games or children's books in the camp, and the children were usually ragging about and getting into mischief. A little ping-pong and badminton apparatus, half a dozen old tennis rackets and a few dozen old balls would have been a boon to children and grown-ups alike, but there was no way of getting them.\n\nGeneral: Various 'shortages' have been mentioned in previous paragraphs, but in point of fact there was a deficiency of nearly everything - beds and bedding, clothing, shoes, toilet materials, brooms and other cleaning materials, plates, cups, dishes, cooking pots, knives, forks and spoons, glass for repairing war-broken windows, tools of all kinds, etc. etc. An \"International Welfare Committee\" formed in Hongkong by sympathisers under the auspices of Dr. Selwyn-Clarke (of whom I shall speak again) was doing a good deal to meet the most urgent needs and sent in cotton dress lengths, sandshoes, handkerchiefs, Chinese toilet paper, tin mugs, washing soap and numerous other articles; but the needs were far in excess of the resources of the Committee. The shortage was particularly serious in regard to clothing and foot-wear. Many people reached the camp with only what they stood up in, few were able to bring much. Clothes and shoes wear out. I remember seeing two ladies wearing shorts made of Australian flour bags and one girl in a frock made from the ticking of a mattress. Many people were going barefooted, others were wearing sandals made from gunny bags or home-made wooden pattens. The footwear situation was about July slightly—but only slightly relieved by the receipt from the Welfare Committee of some shoe leather, with which amateur cobblers did their best to effect repair.\n\nLetters: One of the worst features of the camp was the lack of communication with the outside world. We were allowed (in 6 months) to send one short telegram and two short letters, but the messages which I sent (to Mr. Le Rougetel) were never delivered. A few people got letters from Shanghai but this was exceptional. Internees were not allowed to write even to friends in Hongkong except (and even this was a very", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211983, "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-1989", "page_number": 398, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "373\n\nMany Dangs attributed the deceased worshipped in their Altar for Heroes (Ying-Hung Chi) and those buried in the big grave known as yi-chung to the battle with the British in 1898. We found that the number of \"heroes\" for whom paper clothing were ordered for the jiu of 1955 is only 2 more than the 1895 figure, i.e. only two can be attributed to the 1898 incident.\n\nSee also Law and Lau (1985) about this dispute.\n\n19\n\nAccording to this informant the Dangs married villagers of Lam Tsuen, Tai Hang, Sheung Shui and places like Sha Tau across the border. Other Tangs who discussed the point included Tuen Mun and Gak Tin, a place of the Wong surname, also known as Fuk Tin, across the border.\n\n20 Another stone inscription dated 1786 recorded a similar case. Although it has been cited by many scholars as another rent dispute case that involved the Dangs of Kam Tin as the landlords, I cannot find any of Dangs whose names appear in the inscription in other documents.\n\n21\n\nIn Kam Tin Historical Documents, vol. 2.\n\n11 The original expression is that the villagers were the diding of the Dangs. Diding refers to tax on land and persons.\n\n73 See also Kamm (1977:213-214) on other similar disputes.\n\n24 See Cheng (n.d.).\n\n25\n\nBesides the formal names that appear in local documents and present-day road signs and maps, many of these villages had other names that were used in everyday conversation.\n\n10\n\nFormal names\n\nKam Hing Wai\n\nKat Hing Wai\n\nPak Wai\n\nTai Hong Wai\n\nWing Lung Wai\n\nAccording to the jiu festival record of the year.\n\n\"Nickname\"\n\nGaak Seui Yun\n\nFui Sa Wai\n\nLaan Bak Wai\n\nTaan Wai\n\nSa Laan Mei\n\n27 Tanaka (1985:935-7), quoting A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories, Hong Kong, pp. 172-173.\n\nThe original expression was \"Tai Hong Wai and Tsuen\" and probably included only the part of Tai Hong Tsuen whose residents were considered Tai Hong Wai people.\n\n20\n\nKam Tin Historical Documents vol. 2.\n\n30 See the account dated 1966 in the Si Kim Tong genealogy.\n\n31 According to a descendant of Fau-Ng. The genealogical relationships among the ancestors he gave may be wrong.\n\n32 Ying Lung Wai is part of Shap Pat Heung, the group of villages which was involved in several disputes with the Kam Tin Tangs. It seems that the Ying Lung Wai Dangs join the Kam Tin Dangs only in the jiu festival and the worship at the Mau Ging Tong ancestral hall. I have not heard anything about its position in the disputes between Kam Tin and Shap Pat Heung.\n\n33 Sung (1974:168) says Tai Hong Tsuen. This is my interpretation.\n\n34 Ditto.\n\n35 Siu-Geui, with his father and others, made a new stone inscription for the grave of the wong-gu in 1483. Kei-Fong's will is dated 1562. (See the genealogy in Kam Tin Historical Documents vol. 1 for both.) Kai-Wa was born in 1494 (See inside text of his spirit tablet,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212233, "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-1990", "page_number": 175, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "152\n\nnot do for a house to be very isolated, or it would be continually attacked by robbers. The Roman Catholic Cathedral is a fine building, and also the Governor's house. Just behind the College are some fine buildings.\n\nAnd now, after a glance at the island, I will go on to describe the inhabitants. Of course they are mostly Chinese; next come English, Parsees, Portuguese, Americans, Germans, French, and Arabs. Spaniards might also be mentioned. The Chinese are the working part of the population. Generally they are industrious and active. The lower classes however are dirty and degraded. The middle class are generally well informed and intellectual. Some hold very important situations. One striking feature in Chinese character is their don't care sort of feeling. If they can get out of doing anything they will, unless they see a chance of being well paid for it. Anything they do not want to understand, they pretend great ignorance of. In fact unless money is in the way, one would take them for a race of idiots. Never can you tell if they are pleased or angry. They are the most cold-hearted race that can be imagined. The men agree well together; never do I hear any quarrelling among them. They do not take wine or beer, and a drunken Chinese is as uncommon a thing here as a really honest one. One needs be very sharp to deal with them.\n\nI went to buy some earthenware, and it was as much as I could do to keep the fellows civil. A crowd always collects in a shop when they see an Englishman. I should have lost my watch, purse and umbrella twenty times over if I had not kept my eyes open. As pickpockets they beat London all to nothing. I had to keep my eye on the whole lot of them. They will even cut off the tail of one's coat and quietly walk off with it; and a few coat tails makes them a suit of clothes.\" One has to be all bluster, and to keep a walking stick or umbrella continually in motion, to keep pace with them. I being a stranger, perhaps they wanted to try my patience over what I was buying. It seems a favour for them to let you buy of them. In fact they never speak of the English but as fan-kwai, i.e. foreign devils. They are very hypocritical. There is no knowing their thoughts or intentions. In fact a Chinaman in Hongkong is quite a riddle.\n\nThey generally dress in white. All wear a sort of coat, and very full knee breeches and gaiters. Their shoes always look very neat, although the soles are above an inch thick. They are slippers in appearance rather than shoes. They never wear a hat except when they wish to keep off the sun, when they use one as big as an umbrella. A Chinaman ordinarily dressed, with his long pig-tail hanging down behind, does not look so bad after one is used to it. Some of the wealthy ones stalk about in the evening with all the dignity imaginable.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212316, "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-1990", "page_number": 258, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "235\n\ncompleted in 1908 on a site of 53 acres. These were more impressive and more modern than the Kowloon Whampoa Docks, with larger machine shops and greater electric power. But public opinion still supported the Whampoa Docks and many people considered the new establishment to be a direct and unwarranted attack on one of Hong Kong's most esteemed institutions. Like Kowloon Docks, Taikoo Dockyard also had a built-in clientele, including Butterfield and Swire's China Navigation Company, Blue Funnel line, and other shipping connected with these two lines.\n\nQuarters and other facilities were provided for staff at Quarry Bay, and the aim was to make them into a 'big friendly family'. The 88-year-old F.K. (Uncle Pat) Pattinson recalled (in 1989):\n\n\"We were a separate 'colony' within the community. We worked, lived and breathed ships and shipping.\"\n\nThe author visited Taikoo Dockyard and had continuous contacts with its staff in the 1960s and early 1970s and endorses Pattinson's remarks.\n\nLong before the days of cross-harbour tunnels, the hammerhead crane, erected in 1937 in the docks at Hung Hom, provided a landmark as one traversed the harbour by ferry. Even though, in the early 1990s, Hong Kong has the largest container port and is one of the busiest ports in the world, and dockyards are still situated in the Territory (but moved to another site), the harbour looks empty to some old residents without that crane.\n\n—\n\nKowloon Docks at Hung Hom have been developed into vast housing estates. Today, Hong Kong United Dockyards (HUD) operate on the west side of Tsing Yi Island, and this was after the merger of Hutchison International and the old Hong Kong and Whampoa Docks. This was the combining of two of the largest commercial enterprises in the East. The Hutchison group of companies is now known as Hutchison Whampoa Limited. A decision was taken to build no more ships. Ferries and other vessels for Hong Kong's needs are now constructed elsewhere. HUD concentrates on conversions and repairs. The last vessel built was a tug, appropriately listed No.1066 on the Company building register. It is hoped a smaller, scaled-down dockyard will be viable.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212617, "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-1991", "page_number": 171, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "151\n\nalong the dismantled track ran no trains, under whose wheels we could get our dummy mines, as we had been able to do in Burma where the alarm created by their noisy, if harmless, explosions had often confused the Indian engine drivers.\n\nThe magistrate was helpful: he devoted two days to tramping round with us from village to village, until we could decide where accommodation for the school might be most suitable; and he promised to build a short length of road to connect the village finally selected with the motor road so that our lorries could drive right up to the door. The village was some miles outside a small country town; I shall call it Chin Ya, the Golden Duck.*\n\nNew Year's Eve fell while I was making these investigations. The local general, with that consideration which is the charming mark of Chinese breeding, fearing I should be lonely, invited me to dinner. Since arrival in the 3rd War Zone I had asked to be kept informed of any parties of foreigners escaping from Shanghai, but no news of any escapes had come through. It was accordingly with the greater pleasure, as we were sitting down to dinner, that I was surprised by the entry of a tall bearded figure, wearing a long Chinese gown, and heard myself addressed in English. He was the first foreigner to escape from Shanghai, an American, Mr. Hawkins, the manager of one of the branches of the big American bank which had offices in China.\n\nHe told us his story while we ate our dinner. Having only just returned from leave in the States, he was staying at an hotel, which happened to be near the Bund. Early on the morning of December 7th he was wakened by the sound of gunfire. He went out to investigate and found that Japanese destroyers were sinking H.M.S. Peterel in the Whangpoo River just off the Bund. He realised that war must have broken out and dashed round to his bank to 'phone his manager. He then returned to his hotel, packed a small bag, got into his car, and drove out to the stables in the western suburb, where a friend kept two ponies which he had permission to ride. He saddled the ponies, and riding the one while leading the other, passed through the gate at which a Japanese sentry stood guard where the road crossed the barbed wire barrier surrounding Shanghai. The barrier had originally been put up by the foreign troops holding the\n\n* It is in the Tianmushan mountains, near the border of Chekiang and Anhwei, near the country town Anchi", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212916, "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-1992", "page_number": 225, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "210\n\nthe day we would be off to the beach annex of the Chefoo Club where there were rowing boats and canoes. From nine in the morning till lunch time and all afternoon a crowd of us were in and out of the water, rowing out to the raft which was a converted junk with diving boards. I got so brown that summer that the mark of the swimming trunks was still visible at Christmas time!\n\nHolidays at Home\n\nA great part of school life was the holidays at home. Home at this time was in Tung Shan Terrace off Stubbs Road, when my father was building the Chinese Methodist Church in Wanchai—the triangular red brick building at the junction of Hennessy Road and Johnston Road.* This was home not in a flat but a three-story house, with a garden overlooking Happy Valley. At the back we had access to Bowen Road which was a safe place to play as there were no motor vehicles. Those holidays I remember chiefly for rambles up to Sir Cecil's Ride and a major hike over to Tytam from Wong Nei Chong Gap. And we went to a school pantomime at the Central British School (now King George V School) where the bad guy called himself “ZBW my middle name is trouble you\" ZBW being the embryo Radio Television Hong Kong. We had our first family car here, an Austin Seven with a folding roof and went for picnics to the beaches at Repulse Bay and Big Wave Bay, and at Stanley where a new prison was being built. Although it was winter in Hong Kong the climate was comfortable for us from the north and we had no hesitation in swimming.\n\n—\n\nOur journeys home in the winter holidays were considerable undertakings. Of course there was no air travel nor was rail travel possible. Instead we went by sea on the B. & S. ships of the China Navigation Line. These were coasters of about 7,000 tons which made their way up and down the China coast carrying cargoes of all sorts, a small number of passengers in cabins and a much larger number of deck passengers. Sometimes we were able to get a ship that went all the way from Chefoo to Hong Kong but often we had to get off in Shanghai and wait in the China Inland Mission hostel for a suitable connection. Some luckless schoolmaster had to accompany some twenty or so children more as far as Shanghai on these journeys. They were carefree days and I have wondered how we all survived. We would sit up on the taffrail undeterred by the possibility of toppling over into the sea. I remember getting into frightful trouble from practising throwing a penknife into the cabin bulkhead. In the ports we watched\n\n*Since demolished [Editor]\n\n—\n\nPage 225\n\nPage 226", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213254, "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-1994", "page_number": 76, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "55\n\nThere were two attempts to escape from the Hung Hom Bay Camp. The first try was made by five prisoners. They were assigned to build a platform for concerts. The platform was near the barbed wire fence. It provided a shelter for them to tunnel to freedom and a storage place for the earth removed during their digging. Under cover of darkness, five crept through the tunnel; however, the last of the group was spotted by a sentry, who shouted the usual \"Halt or I shoot\". The escapee kept on going, and the sentry shot. The bullet hit the bag the prisoner was carrying, containing some of his gear, so he escaped injury, but he was overtaken and captured. Shortly after, another of the escaped internees was found in the hills of the New Territories. Several days later, the remaining three were rounded up near Sai Kung.\n\nSome time after this incident, another man arranged to accompany two other prisoners on a visit to a dentist in the Hong Kong Hotel. The dentist was only expecting two patients. He took these two into his surgery; one was to serve as an interpreter for the other. The third man, who had somehow arranged to come along, was left in the waiting room with a guard. He informed the guard he must go to the toilet. The guard accompanied him there; however, he did not go into the toilet as he wished to keep his eye on both the door of the dentist and the door of the toilet to ensure that none of his three prisoners escaped. The man in the toilet was able to escape through a window, but he was caught the same night and returned to the camp.\n\nThe patriotism aroused by war stirred up in a British colony much doubt, distrust of old friends, ill will, and harsh words. The clubs passed resolutions excluding enemy aliens; the ties of former friendship were severely strained and, in many cases, broken. Many in the Colony who frequently passed the former premises of the Deutsche Asiatische Bank on Queens Road, not far from the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank, were irritated by the continuing presence of the Prussian double-eagled ensign, an architectural feature of the building. Many indignant letters appeared in the correspondence column of the newspapers before the emblem was finally removed.\n\nSince my delivery of the talk upon which this paper is based, Anne Selby has published a well-researched article in the South China Morning Post on 25 June, 1988, entitled \"When Germans were unwelcome in HK\". She used many of the same sources as I have used in the Public Records Office. I would refer interested readers to her article for information I have not included in my account.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213265, "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-1994", "page_number": 87, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "67\n\nStandard Chartered Bank's big brother, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (surrounded by the Bank of China, Standard Chartered Bank, the Legislative Council building, and others, which act as 'dragon and tiger' guards), also went to considerable lengths to build 'fung shui considerations' into its award-winning headquarters. It was completed in 1985. Sir Norman Foster, the English architect, brought in fung shui masters at various stages throughout the Bank's design and construction. Although it was described as the 'most innovative bank building in the world', symbolising flexibility with no expense spared, nevertheless 'The Bank' (as it is sometimes known locally) went to great pains to lift its two bronze lions into position simultaneously (Lions Return Home, 1985:19). Work commenced on a propitious day, starting at 5.00 am (Guarding the Bank.., 1985:10) (Chung, 1985:10). Senior British Bank officials attended. On the advice of the fung shui practitioner, the two lions, Stitt and Stephen (named after two past Bank managers), act as guardians. They ward off evil. They are often patted by Chinese to bring them good luck, although the two lions do not directly face each other. Their exact positions are important. Heavy objects such as stones or statues (like two-ton, bronze lions symbolising energy) have the power to stabilise a situation. In everyday life, heavy ornaments and the like can affect the ability of a person to hold down a job or to hang on to a wife.\n\nIn addition to placing two lions in position in front of a bank, turning the first sod, foundation stone laying and topping out ceremonies, and house-warming parties are all important in Western society (Groves, 1991:passim). Also, a Christian priest consecrates a new church. In Chinese culture too, although human sacrifices have long disappeared, special building ceremonies are still sometimes conducted, for example, when starting work on the foundations, erecting the main door, or hoisting the ridgepole of a village house. With the last example, items are hung from the ridge. These include 'lucky' objects, such as a small bag of rice (no-one must ever go hungry). All such ceremonies must be carried out on auspicious days.\n\nOne would imagine the Hong Kong Bank is too concerned with profit and loss accounts to bother about what some describe as superstitions. Yet care was taken, when planning the front entrance on Des Voeux Road, that it is lower than the exit on Queen's Road. This is similar to a humble Chinese college in that the front door should be bigger and lower than the...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213286, "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-1994", "page_number": 108, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "88\n\nIt is not unlike the West where it is not uncommon practice to construct beams with a slight camber and columns with an entasis. This overcomes the illusion of sagging or concavity respectively.\n\nIncidentally, the length of a briefcase manufactured in many Chinese communities is, very approximately, 43 centimetres (around 17 inches). This, it has been suggested (Walters, 1988: 83), is designed to conform to the auspicious 'fung shui foot'. The actual size of a briefcase could, of course, be coincidence. Or perhaps it depends on the size of files and sheets of paper which the bag has to hold? But whatever the reason for the dimension, a liberal helping of luck is always welcomed by businessmen of whatever nationality.\n\nReturning to the case study: the front view looking out from a building is important for enhancing wealth. If one gazes north out of the window of the master bedroom, one can view the harbour which forms the dragon's lair with all its benevolent power. Beyond are the Kowloon Foothills (including Lion Rock and Beacon Hill), Tai Mo Shan, Ma On Shan, and the Pat Shin Range. Well out of sight is the Kun Lun Shan mountain range of South China. The Hong Kong harbour can be compared to the much smaller fung shui ming tong (ponds) that one sees in front of Chinese villages.\n\nThe water in the front balances the fung shui that flows down the hill at the rear. Of course, it also serves a practical purpose. Not only does the village pond contain fish, but also the water is used for washing, irrigation, and, in emergency, for fire fighting. As previously mentioned, water, in Cantonese, symbolises money. It is good fung shui to have water in front of a building or a grave. But looking across at the ocean, you need to be able to see an island or a strip of land. If there is no 'destination', there is no 'purpose'. A sailor needs to know where he is heading. He must not be 'rudderless'. Looking out to sea or gazing at a water feature, however, gives not only Chinese, but also Westerners, a relaxed feeling.\n\nCertainly, the ambience of a home or office means something to everyone, Westerner or Chinese. And, sometimes, on entering a building, a Westerner's subconscious senses may lead him or her to exclaim, 'I like this place: I can relax here!' It is, however, not always easy to provide an explanation why one's sixth sense indicates a feeling of peace or, contrarily,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213320, "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-1994", "page_number": 142, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "123\n\nCasualties suffered by the Chinese were estimated at some twelve to fifteen hundred, with a powder factory and several arsenals destroyed.\n\nThe incident which has left its mark in regimental histories is now known as the Battle of the Joss-house. A small detachment of the Royal Irish were held up by some three hundred Manchu Tatars who, having seen their retreat cut off by the Naval Brigade, had taken cover in a small Buddhist temple, the Temple of Reverence for Heaven, between two hills, one of which was Kuan Yin Shan, with a single entrance guarded by an internal 'spun wall'. The stubborn valour of the Tatar soldiers cost the Royal Irish dear. After an initial sortie, their detachment commander, Lieutenant A. Murray, drew off his men to wait for reinforcements. The next assault by a small number of men from both the Royal Irish and the 49th (Hertfordshires) had already been repelled with at least one killed and several wounded. A company of the Royal Irish, commanded by Captain Edwards, was intercepted in its advance and, accompanied by Colonel Tomlinson, who had heard what was passing, proceeded to the valley and joined the small body blockading the joss house. While the platoon of the Royal Irish waited for the rest of the battalion to come up, Lieutenant Murray was approached by the Hertfordshire's battalion commander who, having been warned that the temple was strongly manned, was understood to have made \"an injudicious and undeserved remark\" which was overheard by Colonel Tomlinson. They were now a force considered strong enough by Tomlinson to carry the building at the point of the bayonet, and Tomlinson's reaction to what he must have taken as a slur on Irish courage, his regiment or himself, was immediately to call for the men of the Royal Irish and the Hertfordshires to follow him and storm the temple. He rushed in at the temple door where he was shot dead with two bullets through the neck and all who had accompanied him were either killed or wounded. After Tomlinson had fallen, it became almost impossible to prevent the Royal Irish from rushing madly at the temple, for the men burned to avenge their Colonel, whom they described as \"the best officer who ever said 'Come-on' to a grenadier company\". In more formal language, General Gough recorded the same opinion, saying in his despatch that Tomlinson fell \"in full career of renown, honoured by the troops, and lamented by all\". The defenders, who were determined to fight to the bitter end, held out against assaults by the Royal Irish and part of the Naval Brigade, until Sappers under a Captain Pears finally used a 50-pound bag of powder to bring down the thick walls, after a party of Gunners commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Knowles who had brought...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213549, "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": 145, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "114\n\nof it are hard to come by One of the best-known sources in English, whose descriptions I shall speak of later, is Charles G. Leland. In his book, \"Pidgin-English Sing-song\" published in 1876, Leland polishes off his introduction to the language with the words:\n\n\"There are, in all, not more than thirty altogether foreign or strange words in ordinary use, and a number of these are familiar to all persons of the least general information. What remains can present no difficulty to anyone who can understand negro minstrelsy or baby talk\"\n\nTo the modern person who has not lived in the Pacific Islands or Papua New Guinea, Pidgin English brings to mind partly apochryphal stories of Duke-of-Edinburgh worship and terms like \"mixmaster-bilong-Jesus\" (a helicopter) and \"big-man-box-you-bash-him-teeth-he-cry\" (a grand piano).\n\nWe have set the background to the article. Before we go further, let's just remind ourselves what China Coast Pidgin English spoken in the later part of the last century really did sound like. Listen carefully for the baby talk.\n\n\"O-lo dim Hongkong sai hab dou-mat-ji man tok-gi Ying-li-sı a-la sim mai. Je-sı naau no hap gat; a-la daat man go dai. Je-si naau mai ding-ki you no gen hi-ya wan pr-si Chee-na man tok-gi long daat o-lo dim man sim, fa-san.\n\n++\n\nHistorical background\n\nMacau was occupied by the Portuguese in 1557. They had previously been trading with south China for many years from a place called, in Portuguese, Lampacau\n\nDr Graciete Batalha, who has carried out extensive research on the Portuguese dialect of Macao (Glossario do Dialecto Macaense, Instituto Cultural de Macau. 1988 from original articles published from 1971-1977), has formed the opinion that during this early period of the development of the Macau \"patoa”, the formative influence was not so much the way that Chinese people learned to speak Portuguese, but the manner in which the Macau Portuguese formed the habit of speaking to the Chinese in the Portuguese language.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213803, "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-1996", "page_number": 155, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "126\n\n47\n\nform of incense ashes rather than tablets suggests that the ancestor halls did not use tablets to represent ancestors individually. It is also found in the Yingsheng (\"Reception of the Holy\") dedicated to the main honoured gods during the Jiao festivals, and the Yingshen Guiwei (\"Escorting gods to their places\") during the Hongchao festival of Fanling, both conducted by Cantonese Daoist priests in the New Territories. An elder of Kam Tin compared the Yingsheng ritual with the ancestral hall ritual found in the Qingle ancestral hall of Kam Tin, to which I shall refer below. I am not sure if a cloth “bridge” is used in this ancestral hall ceremony.\n\nOp cit pp 142-144. In a recent visit to Cheng Tau, a woman in her 60s referred to the ancestral hall as a-gong ha (\"the Place of Ancestors\"), which seems to have been the more usual expression for ancestral halls among the Hakka. Compare the expression with Bak-gong ha ('the Place of the Bak-gong earth god'). It is interesting that the title of this category of earth god, whose territory is more limited than the dawang, shares the expression for \"elder brother of grandfather\".\n\nibid p. 224 » 10\n\n174\n\nibid p 160\n\nDiscussion of this aspect of ancestral worship is summarized in C Fred Blake, Ethnic Groups and Social Change in a Chinese Market Town, The University Press of Hawaii, 1981, pp 92-93, 115 n 1, 116 n 2. A possible example is the case of Wo Hang, N. T. where an ancestral hall of the second fang houses the spirit tablets of the first and second generation. See Allen John Lueck, Lun Chun, Land is to live: A study of the concept of isu in a Hakka Chinese village, New Territories, Hong Kong, unpublished PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago, 1985, p 273.\n\nCompare H G H Nelson, \"Ancestor Worship and Burial Practices\", in Arthur P. Wolf ed., Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society, Stanford University Press, 1974, pp. 263-267, on the shen-ting which fulfilled the functions of domestic altars for the households in each area” in a Cantonese village in the New Territories. He observes that the shenting \"occupy a place half way between [tang ancestral halls] and domestic altars”.\n\nVol under Donga jie (\"Winter festival\")\n\nTON Op cit. pp 147-148\n\nOp cit. p 12\n\nOp cit. p 176\n\n100\n\nIt is interesting to note the distribution and context of Mountain Songs. It is interesting to note that Mountain Songs were sung only by the male villagers (in some festivals with women hired from other villages) in the Cantonese villages whose dialect is known to others as daaih ga wo (\"big family language\"), and which correspond to the area of the five big clans. In some of the other Cantonese villages, e.g. in Shatin and Saikung, Mountain Songs were sung by the women on the eve before a wedding at the bride's home. Mountain Songs, and related pre-marital courtship, was more popular among some female Cantonese villagers in the Kowloon area who cut grasses for sale as fuel. The livelihood of these women, like that of the Hakka immigrants, depended more on the city. I know much less", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213812, "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-1996", "page_number": 164, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "136\n\nWe coasted along, and could only move by using the sweeps behind, and the six oars in front. Capt Drummond and I took each an oar, and had a long pull. Just before we entered \"Deep water Bay\" we found the tide had turned and the current was dead against us. So we came to anchor, and the other accompanying ships did the same, all near each other, for fear of pirates. When the anchor is cast the boy who attends to the Religious ceremonies, ascends the poop with a roll of paper which he lights and waves to and fro and then throws overboard. Then the gongs began to ring at a fine rate, to frighten away the evil spirits, and at last the shouts of the men gradually died away in the stillness of the night; and only an occasional shout was heard from the distant shore from the huts of the fishermen, who were boiling their nets in very large coppers.\n\nWe had previously taken tea, and Mr Lechler had addressed the passengers in the hold: and then, it being late we prepared to turn in for the night. We had our evening devotion, and as we knelt on the deck in the moonlight, and listened to the voice of prayer, breaking the stillness of the waters, in the sight and hearing of the heathen around us, I felt a sensation which words cannot describe. Then as we rose and sang \"From all that dwell below the skies,\" there was something so soothing, so comforting in the music, that as the last notes died away in the distance, and all was calm and still, I felt transfixed to the spot. \"Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast,\" and never did I feel its power more than on this occasion.\n\nMessrs Irwin and Drummond slept on the deck, while I tried to sleep down below in the small box, with Lechler. But sleep I could not. A tooth began to ache, and gradually increased to such an extent that at 1 o'clock I got up, and went round to the man on the watch and all the Chinamen I could find, to beg a morsel of tobacco to put into it. At last one fellow gave me a piece, which though it did not prevent the pain, yet gave me so much relief that I got nearly an hour's sleep. At 3 o'clock the tide turned and we again got under weigh, after which there was no more sleep for me. The night before, I was up till after two o'clock writing for the Bishop: so that I was quite worn out.\n\nThe wind was against us, what little there was, and so we had to scull and row all the way. At daylight we were entering the river, and after a good wash, and breakfast, we were ready for action. The men", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214204, "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-1998", "page_number": 62, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "25\n\nstrange,\" said the customer who was left standing at the bar.\n\n\"Yes,\" said the publican. \"Wonder what's happened? Previously, he only drank lemonade!””\n\nWhen the author has told this joke Westerners generally think it funny partly because it is so ridiculous, but also because it is just about impossible. But most Chinese, unless very westernised, have been unable to appreciate it. To Westerners, it tends to be not just 'funny ha ha' but also 'funny peculiar.'\n\nChinese tend not to be able to visualise easily the bar scene. Indeed if one uses the word 'pub' and 'publican' many Hong Kong Chinese might not be too clear what you mean. They are not common Hong Kong words. Harking back to what was written at the start of this paper, Bloom (Wu, undated; 3) contended that language inevitably affects the thinking processes of people. Another comment made by a professor of comparative Chinese/English linguistics at Taiwan National University was: 'You know, English has a whole complex of ways of talking, and hence thinking, on an abstract, theoretical level, which Chinese doesn't have (Bloom, 1981; 35). We speak and think more directly.' Similar comments have also been not infrequently heard by others who appear qualified to judge. If thinking is indeed affected in this way then speech must also affect senses of humour.\n\nLifestyle is important and many Chinese jokes are centred around the circular, Chinese banquet table. That is part of their everyday life and they can easily picture the situation. There a man turns his glass upside down and rubs his finger around the bottom. When asked why he was doing that he replied, it was to make the glass shorter. 'But why make it smaller?' he was questioned.\n\n\"They give us so little to drink here,' came the answer, 'there is no need to have such a big glass!'\n\nSome argue that Chinese do not generally see the funny side of the joke about walking up the pub wall because Asians tend to see things in complex, contextual, all-embracing ways (Waters, 1991; 35). With Chinese landscape painting more attention is paid to the overall", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214257, "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-1998", "page_number": 115, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "78\n\nthe Twenty-four Heavenly Lords. The Four, said to be brothers, are believed to have been born during the 11th century BC and are now protectors of Mi-lo Fo. The 16th century novel, Feng-shen Yen-i, describes the popular myths surrounding the defeat of the four Mo-li brothers during the legendary wars of the 12th century BC who fought with their magical weapons but whose main weapon was the white rat which devoured all enemies. However, Yang Chien, the nephew of the Jade Emperor and son of Li Ching [the General with the Pagoda] was swallowed by the white rat but once inside it he ate the rat's heart and at the same time transformed himself into the white rat which was unsuspectingly put back into its bag by one of the Mo-li brothers. Yang Chien stole out whilst the Four brothers were in a drunken sleep and stole the magic umbrella, whilst Na-cha who had fought and defeated them broke their magic jade ring. The Four lost heart, were defeated and slain. The war was followed by their canonisation by Chiang Tzu-ya who appointed them to the posts of the Heavenly Kings, controllers of the elements, from whom people sought protection from calamities.\n\nThere are standard images of all four of the Great Celestial Kings in both the Ta Pei Ssu and the Pi-yun Ssu.\n\nThere has been a certain amount of confusion over the colours, names, and titles of these guardians; even their characteristics and attributes vary from monastery to monastery. Confusion has arisen over the centuries due to non-Buddhist and even pre-Buddhist factors, with every combination to be seen, such as the General of the North with the Umbrella, the General of the West with the Rat or Mongoose, and so on. The most frequently noted observations are as follows:\n\n \n Taoist Titles\n Symbol\n Characteristics\n Buddhist title\n Sanskrit title\n \n \n Mo-li Ch'ing\n Magic weapons or Sword/lance or Jade Ring or Parasol\n black face or black beard\n Ch'ih-kuo T'ien-wang\n Dhrtarastra 持國天王 or 東方大王\n \n \n \n [colours: blue/green] or Lyre/lute", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214367, "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-1998", "page_number": 225, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "191\n\nindustry. It was common, so it claimed, for construction teams to hold Taoist rituals, including the sacrifice of oxen before work began.*\n\nOn the other side of the coin, according to the Bureau of Religious Affairs, about 200 Taoist temples have been re-opened to the public in China since the 1980s and seven Taoist provincial associations have been established. One of these temples is the former Taoist Cheng-i sect centre, the Heavenly Master Sect temple [T'ien-shih Miao] on Dragon and Tiger Mountain, Lung-hu Shan, in Kiangsi province. It was burned down in 1945 and work on rebuilding it did not begin until 1983. This consisted of the renovation of the main hall and the re-sculpturing of the images of the San Ch'ing, the Three Pure Ones, and fourteen other clay statues. Other sites nearby have also been renovated, including the Shang Ch'ing Palace, where the Immortals lived, and the Lien-tan Ch'ih, the Furnace [where pills of immortality were made]. It is interesting to read that both local and central authorities donated more than half a million yuan towards the project.\n\nAbout the same time as the iconoclastic campaign began, a ban was also imposed in Tsingtao, the port in southern Shantung, on the manufacture, sale and burning of funeral objects in a bid to curb a resurgence in superstition.\n\n...\n\nDespite all of these reports of the destruction of illegal temples and the crackdown on superstition, my daughter and I during the years 1995-1997 have visited a number of temples both urban and rural in remote areas of China as well as in cities and towns which, without doubt, fall under the category of superstitious religious establishments. We have not only been guided to several such temples by policemen but also in one instance we found the local party cadre actually lived with his mother inside a small popular religion temple. The only instance where a member of a temple staff had reason to explain that an activity was banned because it was superstition happened in the suburbs of Shanghai. When we asked why there were no oracular blocks on the altar with which to obtain the deity's answers to questions posed by devotees, we were told by the temple guardian that this particular practice was superstition and not permitted, whereas other routine rituals seen in temples in Hong Kong and Taiwan were. A Chinese scholar recently explained that in his view illegal temples are the structures built without permission because local State authorities have not had the quid pro quo erection of a village school, crèche or health centre paid for by the villagers with the same sum funded for the project as\n\nPage 225\n\nPage 226", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214419, "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-1998", "page_number": 277, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "243\n\none so pretty!\" said my friend. \"That's dear,\" I remarked. \"Two shillings,\" she repeated flatly. \"You can't be from here, because you're too white. Where are you from? What's your name?\" probed P., trying to move nearer to her. \"I'm from Macau; my name is Etola,\" she answered in English, slurring over a few syllables as is the Chinese habit. \"Two shillings,\" she added later, after a pause. \"How pretty you are!\" continued my companion. \"Show me your hand, tell me how old you are. Who do you like better: us, the English or the Chinese?\" \"Two shillings,\" She replied. We drew up to the frigate; my companion took her hand, while I was already on the ship's ladder. \"Talk to me, Etola,\" he said to her, holding her hand. She remained silent. \"Tell me what you...\" \"Two shillings,\" she repeated. I with a laugh, and he with a sigh, paid the money and went to our separate cabins.\n\nHere, as in England and in the Cape, we were granted free entry into the club. The club is a type of superlative palace: its founders have spared no expense, to impart to the club the same opulence that is customary in London clubs. A number of big halls with windows facing the bay, a verandah, fireplaces, windows set in marble; bronze and crystal everywhere; excellent mirrors, elegant furniture - everything brought from England. But - alas! The halls remain empty; you'll have trouble attracting the attention of a sleepy Chinese man-servant, and then you'll order dinner and pay three times what it costs right nearby, in the tavern. The club is close to bankruptcy. The Europeans sit in their own corners for the greater part of the day, and in the evening prefer to gather in family circles - and so the club fails. But what a delight it is to relax on that verandah in the early evening, when the cool night air takes the place of the intense heat.\n\nAt six o'clock in the evening the whole population pours out of doors, along the seashore, along the avenue. Officers on foot and on horseback, business men, ladies make their appearance. On a meadow, near the Governor's house, music is playing. Not far from there, on a hill, in a stone house, lives the General commanding the local detachment, and right nearby a building, something like a monastery, houses an Italian bishop with a few monks.\n\nOur people left for Canton, at which time I was lying in a fever and half sleeping heard the launch being lowered. I was awakened by a crash of thunder; a storm had erupted just at the moment of their leaving.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214422, "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-1998", "page_number": 280, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "246\n\npalace in the hope that a hospitable host would emerge and offer us sanctuary in the marble halls and refreshment with a glass of lemonade. But the doors were locked, no one appeared. Our doctor tirelessly pursued insects, especially big black velvety butterflies. Returning to the wharf, we saw in the crowd of Chinese, a woman, who holding a naked baby in her arms, was moistening her fingers in her mouth and then mercilessly pinching him on the back along the spine. The child struggled and screamed desperately. Was this punishment or medical treatment?\n\nHowever it is impossible to write: the tossing is terrible; the order is to 'reef the fourth.' There hasn't been a storm like this since the Cape of Good Hope. I'll go and have a look at what's happening...\n\nI.A.Goncharov,\n\nChina Sea.\n\n8th June 1853.\n\n*arshin - a measure of length of about 28 inches\n\n**Fadeev - a sailor assigned as Goncharov's orderly", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214572, "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-1998", "page_number": 430, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "399\n\nAN UNUSUAL AND EXTRAORDINARY ANCESTRAL IMAGE\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nI wrote about Hunanese wooden ancestral images in the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Volume 18, 1978, when I explained that there were a number of such images on sale in curio shops in Hong Kong's Hollywood Road. Each represented an ancestor and usually took the form of an elderly or middle-aged man or woman often identified by a slip of red paper concealed in an opening in the back, sealed with a tight-fitting bung. Nearly all were impersonal figures, though several were well-carved portrait images. Since 1978, many more have appeared on the market, and even more have been seen in places as far afield as Yangshuo in Kuangsi province and Chengtu in Szechuan province, the majority still being identified by the red slip as having originated in Hunan province.\n\nRecently I acquired a most unusual image, portraying a hunter. His red slip gave little detail, merely listing his relatives who had ordered the image to be carved. It is presumably Hunanese, probably an ancestral image which can be dated very roughly by the iconographic detail and the copper coins concealed with the red slip within the cavity in the back. It stands some 11 inches high and has lost all of its original paint apart from minute lumps of non-chemical paint in crevices within the deep carving.\n\nHe is portrayed standing, facing half right, holding a muzzle-loading flint lock to his shoulder in both hands, and aiming it at an unknown prey. He is accompanied by a small dog which is also pointing at the same prey. The hunter is dressed in a jacket buttoned down the front with some five loop and cloth 'buttons', with a pouch at the waist at the front, a powder horn at the waist on his left side, and a further bag again at the waist at the back. He is wearing open-toed sandals and a standard peasant cloth cap.\n\nThe base of the image is decorated on three of the four faces with pictures of the hunt, animals such as the small deer brought down, a running rodent-like creature, and a rabbit. The fourth side of the base,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214760, "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-1999", "page_number": 175, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "139\n\nappear heading our way. There's no time to do anything except to man our defence posts. The bombers pass overhead but the fighters swoop down on us and pour a concentrated fire into our planes. We give them all we've got which is precious little. Some Indian troops get panicky and rush into a shelter, in their excitement they fire their Lewis gun. There is a mad rush for safety and by a miracle no one is hit. After twenty minutes of concentrated attack by the fighters the Beeste with bombs goes up in smoke and the two Walrus are left blazing and sink. Finally they make off, not unscarred we hope, and we inspect the damage. Both Walrus are gone, one Beeste is ablaze, another badly damaged, leaving one plane intact. We attempt to put out the fire praying that the bombs won't explode. The blaze is too fierce and she is completely burned with two red hot heavy bombs amongst the ruins. One aircraft left but no casualties to personnel. Eight civil machines are burnt out including the American clipper. In the afternoon, bombers come over again bombing the docks and Kowloon, one stick dropping on the aerodrome. Heavy fighting reported on the frontier, the Japs said to be using one division with another in reserve.\n\nTuesday 9th. After a quiet but sleepless night comes a hectic morn with rumour and counter rumour. Heavy bombing of docks and shipping and a big blaze is started in Kowloon. The Japs make a breakthrough on the Castle Peak Road. Chang Kai Shek's army reported to be coming up behind the Japs and we realize it is our only chance of holding the mainland with two brigades against two divisions. Oil dump at Lai Chi Kok set ablaze by bombs.\n\nWednesday tenth. News of fighting on mainland bad and we are ordered by the GOC, Major General Maltby, to evacuate to the island. We smash up all valuable equipment and burn all secret papers. All arms and ammunition to be carried with us, parties taken off by lighters proceed to Aberdeen and thence to the AIS. I left late in the afternoon on the last lighter with twenty men and all the arms and ammunition. Aerodrome strewn with all kinds of obstacles to prevent use by the enemy. Chinese loot our mess as the lighter leaves. When just off the waterfront bombers appear and our skipper takes fright, have to use force before he will proceed. Heavy shelling and bombing of Stonecutters which is bombarding the Japs advancing down Castle Peak Road. We are fired on by our coast defences after rounding Davis but we run up a Union Jack and all is well. Arrive Aberdeen and get", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214763, "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-1999", "page_number": 178, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "142\n\nthe weather. Spend half the night pouring rum into semiconscious men who are dead tired after sleepless nights with very little food. We have no reserves and everyone has had a gruelling time. A Canadian sergeant from Campbell's party returns to our pillbox at midnight in a state of mental and physical collapse and reports that all his party have been killed. A few hours later another Canadian arrives in a similar condition and with the same story. Worst night I can ever remember and never was the dawn more welcome.\n\nSunday twenty first. Naval personnel recalled by the Commodore for defence of the dockyard, leaving us seventy Canadians. We all carry a good supply of grenades as the Japs are very skilled at getting to close quarters without being spotted. The Jap soldiers wear rubber shoes and are as stealthy as cats. They carry a bag of grenades, automatic weapons and a light rifle of quarter inch calibre. They always attack at night and from all directions. Their snipers seem to be everywhere. Japs now using their mortars and artillery much more, being firmly entrenched on Shu Shun Hill. Our artillery do some excellent shooting at Shu Shun and Japs run in all directions. No one seems to know where the Japs are or how many there are. The High Command, whose daily communiques reveal nothing, seem to know less than anyone else. Chang Kai Shek's army reported attacking Japs in the rear and we are told to hang on as they will be with us in a few days.\n\nMonday, Japs break through Middle Gap and are now very close to us. Scots take a heavy toll and retake some positions but Japs always come back in strength. There is no doubt now that the Japs have a very large force on the island, well equipped and experts in this guerilla warfare. Spend the night on continuous watch. The men very jumpy as every sound has to be investigated. If only one could see them instead of this hide and seek. In several cases the Japs have crept up to pillboxes and dropped grenades down the airshaft, killing everyone inside.\n\nTuesday twenty third. Several Canadians who had been given up as lost return with amazing stories. Many wounded Indians come through our lines kitless but not broken. Heavy shelling of Bennetts. Just before dark enemy start terrific bombardment of our positions. Hundreds of shells whistle just over our heads. Major Baillee rings up constantly and seems very jumpy about our positions. At two am he", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214880, "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-1999", "page_number": 295, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "265\n\nwas known to all concerned. As I have said above, it might well have been a dollar or two, but no more than that small sum.\n\nMy main reason for favouring the money loan option is the composition of the list. The Shek Pik papers show that the members of the money loan associations listed there were a very mixed bag, and this was even more likely to be the case in town. This variety we have here, as demonstrated above. And whereas membership of a small money loan association was more than likely to include strangers, I doubt whether a moneylender would be willing to loan money to persons who might not be known to him and might well have no guarantors. Thus, I still hold to the view that these persons were linked, and through having come together for a common purpose.\n\nConclusion\n\nI think the issue remains open.\n\nIf the men shown on the list were indeed members of a money-loan association, the trifling amounts are as important as the fact of its existence. For the social and economic historian, the very modest nature of this particular operation is the more intriguing - not to say exciting - since it serves to underline the fact that, large or small, the money-loan association was an important player in the economic life of ordinary folk in pre-modern times, in town and country alike. Its existence is a testimony to both need and enterprise, to the creation and circulation of money for the realization of modest aims. It was also the training ground for the entrepreneurial skills of its organizers, some of whom, in time, might move on to more significant business ventures.\n\nIf, on the other hand, the scrap of paper is only a list of defaulters on the full or remaining part of small loans, it still indicates the circulation of money by an enterprising person who was prepared to take risks against the payment of interest. It also shows how some financial needs at the bottom end of society could be met on a petty scale.\n\nFinally, whilst those on the list appear from their names to be men, were the organizers of the money loan associations always males? The Shek Pik papers show that literacy was not always a requirement", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215498, "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": 275, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "224\n\nIs that they're not the sort\n\nTo ever be thought of as frantic.\n\n13 Diana and Charles\n\nThis group of ours includes all manner\n\nOf people. There's one who's a spanner.\n\nThere's no end of ditches\n\nHe's spanned with his bridges.\n\nHis wife's quite nice too - that's Diana.\n\n15 Giovanna\n\nC'è anche una bella signora\n\nDa Padova in Italia, allora.\n\nShe 'as a bag-a, più grande.\n\nShe say: 'Is a-very ‘andy,\n\nWhenever I go on a tour-a.'\n\n17 Jenny\n\nShopping, and more shopping yet.\n\nShe'll be at it tomorrow, I'll bet.\n\nWith her hats and her scarves\n\nShe don't do things by halves.\n\nBut remember, it's a very small jet.\n\n19 Christopher\n\nA classical scholar, a star,\n\nHe's been high and low, near and far.\n\nHe's come quite a journey, This pukka attorney.\n\nHe'd go anywhere if called to the bar.\n\n21 Brian\n\nOn account of her glasses,\n\nBut what does she say? 'No thank 'ee.'\n\n14 Alan\n\nThere is one other engineer,\n\nFrom whom every day you will hear:\n\n'It's better by far\n\nWith the KCR.'\n\nBut not in Bhutan, I fear.\n\n16 Helen and Ian\n\nAustralia has regulations.\n\nIt's one of those fussier nations.\n\nBut he wants to take back\n\nThe tail end of a yak.\n\nSays she: \"This will strain our relations.\"\n\n18 Rupert\n\nThere is one geographical gent\n\nWho has quite a musical bent.\n\nHe gets his horn off the shelf\n\nAnd plays with himself.\n\nNO - BY himself, that's what I meant.\n\n20 Felicity\n\nThe style of this lady is simplicity.\n\nSo calm, yet so much tenacity.\n\nShe has to be so.\n\nIt's her husband, y'know You all know her name - it's Felicity!\n\n22 Robert\n\nI've been up\n\nI didn't have time to do me.\n\nhalf the night, y'see.\n\nThere is one chap who's made our lives hell,\n\nFor he's constantly ringing his bell.\n\nBut his job's been quite tough\n\nWith a group that's so rough.\n\nNapoleon - we all think you're swell!\n\nBut I suppose if I must\n\nI could... maybe... just.\n\nLeave it with me a while and we'll see.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215575, "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": 352, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "302\n\nDepartment opined - sincerely - to the author that lighthouse keepership had become a kind of Eurasian tradition. They had developed the expertise and took pride in this. One can see, looking in Government staff lists, that lighthouse keepers in the 1950s and '60s usually had English names. But they were generally Eurasians.\n\nThey are still talked about by those who remember them. In fact the eccentricities (if they may be called that) of some of the old timers are recalled with affection (Rull; 1999). When on shore leave the Brown Brothers (Henry and Richard) would go fishing. Marine Department staff used to laugh and say it was because they found, after working in an isolated lighthouse for so long, that the \"hubbub\" at home was just too much to bear.\n\nTheir grandfather was a Danish mariner named Bruhn, although the family was of German stock with the spelling Braune (commonly spelt Braun). It is not known when the family changed its name to the English Brown. Grandfather travelled in and around China and lived for a time at the old treaty port of Amoy (now called Xiamen). It was a large family, generally tall, and several of the children were educated at Diocesan Boys or Diocesan Girls schools in Hong Kong. Most family members have now emigrated to Britain, Canada or Australia.\n\nHenry (born in 1898) was a big man in more ways than one. He liked double-breasted suits and bow ties. He enjoyed parties, telling jokes and drinking with friends - although not to excess. He made up for his time at Waglan when on shore leave. Both brothers liked fishing and shooting. Richard (born in 1896), who had lost fingers in an accident, was the quiet one. Both used to talk to family members about Waglan and of having to be hauled up in a basket in bad weather. One of the Brown brothers acted for a time, in the mid-1950s, managing the Lighthouse Section until the post of Superintendent of Lights was filled in March 1957 by Terrence Coughtney who was posted from Sarawak (Lack; 1999). Because the Brown family was of Danish nationality, and Denmark was not technically at war with Japan, the Brown brothers were not interned during the Japanese occupation.\n\nAnother colourful character, who served as a lighthouse keeper starting in 1937, was Charles Beatty Allenby Haig Thirlwell. With three of his four given names taken from surnames of two famous British", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216093, "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": 392, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "326\n\nso \"starchy\" and where you did not have to dress for dinner. French ships called at Saigon and Jibuti and the voyage ended at Marseilles. Italian ships berthed at Genoa. Other passengers preferred freighters. These were more relaxed still and life was not so \"organised.” Not more than 12 passengers were allowed or there had to be a doctor on board. Whereas most airports look similar, with a freighter you called at interesting, out-of-the-way little ports, each with its own special smell. By freighter, the journey from Britain to Hong Kong could take up seven or eight weeks. Halcyon days indeed!\n\nHong Kong\n\nto\n\nWhen I arrived in Hong Kong World War Two had ended less than a decade before. Yet some Britons living here still believed there were two kinds of expatriates. There were those who had been “in the bag\" (prison camp) (where, in Stanley for example, some of my younger friends were born) and, secondly, those of us who came to Hong Kong after the War. The fact that some of us in the second group had seen more action than many of those who had been interned did not really count as far as old Hong Hands were concerned.\n\nThe camaraderie which develops when people face danger or privation together came to the fore when I received a ticket for parking in King's Road. When I later told my old boss he said, 'Pity: the case has gone too far now. If you'd told me earlier I could have got it quashed.\" My boss had a friend, a senior police officer, who had been in prison camp with him.\n\nIn 1954, Hong Kong's population was something like two-and-a-half million, compared with 600,000 at the end of the War. Immigrants were coming here from China in frantic attempts to evade communism. Accommodation was terribly overcrowded with people in some cases sleeping, on a shift basis, three to a bunk. With China all but cut off from the rest of the world we had lost our entrepôt trade and,\n\nwith backs to the wall, it was a case of export or starve. There was considerable unemployment.\n\nReligion was burgeoning although many were said to be 'rice Christians.' Namely, joining for the handouts. People knew life in Hong Kong was not perfect. But it was a jolly sight better than living", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216104, "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": 403, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "337\n\nMeters, flyovers and service charges\n\nIt was not until 1962 that Hong Kong had its first parking meters and at about the same time service charges were first levied in restaurants. Also at this time, in spite of high immigration figures, unemployment consistently stood at well below two per cent. Inflation was negligible. The Territory saw its first flyover, outside Saint Teresa's Church on Prince Edward Road in Kowloon, in 1963.\n\n‘One damn thing after another'\n\nIn the early 1960s, we are referring to a time when something like 30 million inhabitants died of starvation on the Chinese Mainland. This was as a result of the failure of the 'Great Leap Forward.' There were long queues in Hong Kong post offices sending food parcels to relatives in China. All in all, the 1960s was a challenging decade and, as one government servant phrased it, 'It was one damn thing after another.' But the Territory was a great survivor and frequently managed to come back stronger than ever.\n\nTyphoons\n\nWhen I first arrived in Hong Kong my boss told me there is a bad typhoon every seven years. In fact, there is no set pattern if you check as I have. An estimated 11,000 people died in the 1937 typhoon, more than the 8,750 total Allied forces, Japanese and Chinese estimated to have been killed when the Japanese attacked Hong Kong in December 1941. There was an inadequate typhoon warning system in those days. Up until the 1930s a gun was fired from Blackhead Point, in Kowloon, either when a typhoon was approaching or when the mail ship arrived. Not infrequently, the two events were confused.\n\nTyphoon Wanda, in 1962, is sometimes remembered as the last typhoon from which bitter lessons were learned on how to batten down. It coincided with a high tide, with an 11-foot rise in water level and a storm surge that caused bad flooding. This happened right up to Tsang Tai Uk (the big house of the Tsang family), the fine, Hakka walled village at the end of Sha Tin Hoi (Sea). This Hoi has long since been reclaimed. With Wanda, something like 2,000 ships and small craft were sunk or damaged. There were 130 deaths. With gusts of 164 mph", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]