[ { "id": 204273, "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": 41, "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\n37\n\nand well versed in history and literature. So Hsieh made her his private secretary. At that time, the military governors were practically independent war-lords paying only nominal homage to the crown. A rival governor, T'ien Ch'eng-ssu, was increasing his armed forces and planning to annex Lu-chou. Seeing that Hsüeh was worried about this, Hung Hsien offered to go to the rival governor's city one night to investigate. Brushing aside Hsüeh's misgivings, she pushed her hair back to form a bun, put on a short embroidered jacket and black silk shoes, carried a dagger, and wrote a magic spell on her forehead. In a moment she was gone. Hsüeh waited for her alone, and after a dozen cups of wine, it was already daybreak. Suddenly he heard something falling lightly like a leaf on the ground outside. It was Hung Hsien coming back. She had travelled several hundred miles and gone to the rival governor's headquarters, and, without disturbing the armed guards or waking up the governor, had taken from his bed-side a gold case containing his horoscope. Next morning, Hsieh sent the gold case back to his rival, with a letter saying, “Last night a visitor came and brought this from your bed-side. I dare not keep it and am returning it herewith.\" On receiving this, the rival governor, T'ien, was petrified. He sent Hsüeh rich gifts and a humble letter of apology, saying that he had no aggressive intentions and that he was going to cut down his forces. All was peace and quiet. Two months later, Hung Hsien asked permission to leave. Hsüeh was naturally reluctant to let her go, whereupon she said, \"In my previous incarnation I was a man and a physician, who, by mistake, caused the death of a pregnant woman conceiving twins. As a punishment, I was re-born as a girl and became a serving maid. Now that I have repaid your kindness, I must go.\" Hsieh realized it was no use trying to keep her, so he held a great farewell banquet in her honour. After a tearful goodbye, she disappeared and was never seen again.11\n\nThe above story is written in elegant classical prose. At the same time, chivalric tales also existed in the popular colloquial literature of T'ang times. Among the manuscripts discovered at Tun-huang at the end of the last century are many tales known as pien-wen (#), which may be translated as \"popularized texts\".15 These are for the most part Buddhist legends re-told in a semi-colloquial style, often in a mixture of prose and verse. However, some of them are not of a religious character. Among these is\n\n14 T'ai-p'ing kuang-chi ***, chüan 195. For a full translation of the story, see E. D. Edwards, Chinese prose literature of the T'ang period, vol. II (London, 1938), pp. 123-7.\n\n15 For further information, see Arthur Waley, Ballads and stories from Tun-huang (London, 1960).\n\n1", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204321, "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": 89, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Vol. 1 (1961).\n\nJournal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n85\n\nNo-cha then partially pulled off the celestial robe of the dragon-king and revealed the scales under his left ribs. He tore off some forty or fifty of the dragon-scales and the dragon-king was wounded and suffered a violent pain. He begged his assailant to spare his life. No-cha said, “If you want me to spare your life you must give up your law-suit against me before the Jade Emperor, and follow me back to Ch'ên-t'ang Pass.\" The dragon-king could not free himself and yielded to No-cha. Transforming himself into the shape of a small black snake, he hid in No-cha's sleeve and they descended from heaven. (Ch.13)\n\nSome references can be cited here for comparison and we can see how clever the author was in composing his ingenious and complicated plot which surpasses all the materials he made use of.\n\nIn the prompt-book Ch'in Ping Liu-kuo P'ing-hua (\"The Annexation of the Six States by the Emperor of Ch’in”), chüan 2, there is a sentence, \"to fasten the cuirass he should use the sinews of the old dragon.\" In the Ta-T’ang San-tsang Ch’ü-ching Shih-hua (\"Tripitaka's Search for Buddhist Sutras\"), chuan 2, (7), the Monkey-monk (Hou Hsing-chê) pulled out the sinews from a dragon with nine heads for a belt to hold the cuirass.\n\nAccording to the Min Shu (M), there was a Taoist priest named Yu Chên-chai (2) living in the epoch of Hung Wu, who was called upon by an old woman:\n\nShe was a female-dragon... and was to be struck to death by lightning on account of her failure in regulating the rains. She begged him to save her life. Yü said, “Can you transform yourself to a small shape so that I may hide you in my alms-bowl?\" The dragon followed his advice and transformed herself into a snake wriggling into the bowl.\n\nThe story of No-cha goes on as follows:\n\nOne day as the weather was excessively hot, he felt restless and annoyed, and ascended the tower over the city-gate. On the weapon-stands he found a wonderful bow called ch'ien-k'un kung (the cosmic bow) and three arrows called chên-t'ien chien (heaven-shaking arrows) which he appreciated very much, and did not know that they were left by the Yellow Emperor and since then no one had been strong enough to use them. He was so glad of this discovery and he seized the bow and shot an arrow toward the south-west. With a startling sound the sky was covered with red mist and auspicious clouds floated around. (Ch.13)\n\nIn chuan 13, in the chapter of the \"Competition in Martial Exercises for the Hand of Yasodhara\" of Abhiniskramana-sutra (DATE · #), we have the following paragraph:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204443, "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-1962", "page_number": 75, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "64\n\nHEROLD J. WIENS\n\nso strict is caste rule, that marriage within the clan or outside of the noble caste is absolutely forbidden and may be punished by death or banishment.\n\nCommoners are of several varieties. Bondsmen are born in serfdom and have to give service to their nobles all of their lives. Although they are not slaves, failure to fulfil feudal obligations make them liable to enslavement. Since they are not Black-bone Yi, the commoners are permitted to marry outsiders, even though the commoners regard themselves as Yi people. Their original Yi blood, therefore, has been very much thinned through inter-mixture with enslaved Han and with other non-Han peoples. A bondsman may become rich and substitute the labour of others for his obligations to the noble lord, but he may not refuse to bear arms when called to do so by his lord. If a bondsman dies without a son, all of his property goes to his master.\n\nAside from this system of bondsmen and noble lord, there existed concurrently a system of slavery among the Yi. These were in two categories: (1) the so-called \"separate-slaves\" lived an uncertain state of matrimony as matched by their owners, but resided in their own households working some land provided by the noble. A small part of their time is allowed for the cultivation of their own plots after they have cultivated the plots of their owners. (2) The children of these \"separate-slaves\" become household slaves, entering the master's house at the age of five or six when they can perform simple tasks. House-slaves are divided up among the owner's own sons and daughters of the same generation when these marry. The male and female slaves are paired off as \"separate-slaves\" by their new masters, and the cycle begins again.\n\n14\n\n**\n\nIt appears that what are separate-slaves may themselves acquire slaves when they manage to accumulate enough wealth. It would seem, thus, that slaves must possess some rights allowed them by their masters. Even the slaves of slaves may possess slaves. Moreover, although having the bonds of slavery, some slaves may become richer than many bondsmen or even than some nobles. The forcible abolition of the system where the Communists had gained control was not without problems. Slaves regarded the cadres as new masters who were supposed to feed them and give them their orders; otherwise they did nothing. Many slaves also regarded freedom as the right to be idle, which\n\nPage 75\n\nPage 76", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204613, "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-1963", "page_number": 94, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "BRITISH LEGATION AT PEKING\n\n81\n\nthe death of Sir Robert Hart during the siege, and on July 21st it carried a long letter from the President of Queen's College, Belfast, which served as a somewhat premature obituary notice for Hart, who, in fact, lived until 1911.**\n\nThe relieving troops finally entered the British Legation on August 14th, when a Company of mounted Sikhs rode in at about 3 p.m. accompanying General Gaselee and his staff. So ended the siege which had lasted from June 20th until August 14th, a total of 55 days. Fortunately no overwhelming damage had been done to the British Legation, though many of the roofs were badly smashed about and bullets and shells had gone through most of the buildings. One last ironic touch; immediately after the raising of the siege the commissariat functioned so inefficiently that the besieged had to forage for themselves and for some days got less to eat than during the fighting. Meanwhile those who had 'enjoyed' the hospitality of the British Legation during the siege departed and the work of clearing up and repairing the damage began.\n\nThe actual damage suffered by the British Legation buildings was slight in comparison with the damage done to the other foreign Legations. The outer walls were badly damaged and had to be rebuilt, but one small section on the north-east corner facing the Imperial Canal was sufficiently unharmed to be left intact, and on its surface someone painted in black nine-inch letters the words \"LEST WE FORGET”. Most of the buildings in the compound were soon repaired and the Legation again looked substantially the same as before the siege. However, as part of the settlement after the Boxer troubles and the siege of the Legation Quarter Britain acquired considerable ground on the northern and western sides of the old Legation. This consisted of land formerly occupied by the Mongol market, by the Imperial Carriage Park and by the Hanlin Academy, which was burnt out during the fighting. This newly acquired land was later used for\n\n28 Born in 1835 Hart came out to China in the Consular Service in 1854 and spent his first three months as an interpreter at Hong Kong. After various consular appointments he was permitted by the British Government to resign from the consular service in 1859 and to join the newly formed Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs service as Deputy-Commissioner of Customs at Canton. In 1863, at the age of twenty-eight, he was appointed Inspector-General of the Maritime Customs, a post which he held until his resignation in 1908.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206642, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1972", "page_number": 190, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "184\n\nd.\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nAn image in the form of Yin Ch'iao; with six arms, a blue face covered in spots like warts; two fangs, two banners, a bell, two swords and one arrow.\n\nPossible Misidentifications\n\nThe images of Yin Ch'iao/T'ai Sui can be confused with several deities who have similar characteristics. These are:\n\na. One version of the Fukienese god of actors, Tien T’o Yuan Shuai (*), is a standing general with a sword in his right hand and a hand bell in his left. He has or should have, however, a pink face, and his usual identifying characteristic, a crab painted over his mouth or his forehead.\n\nb. In a Singapore Foochow clan temple of the Hsu (✯) family there is a seated general in armour, with a blue face and fangs, called Liu Chin Sheng Ho (Hr). He holds an axe in each hand and is prayed to for the good health of the clan and for the rapid recovery of the sick.\n\nc. Pu Tu Kung (#2) who releases souls from the Under-world during the seventh lunar month, is often shown as blue-faced and with two fang-like teeth showing. Normally, however, he does not carry anything in his two hands.\n\nd. One of the two attendants of Fa Chu Kung (✯È2) is a general with a sword raised in his left hand and a handbell held in his right. He wears a tiger's head hat and is called Hu Ye (A). He has a pink face and a black beard.\n\nAn image of the Golden Youth (✯✯), one of the assistants to Kuan Yin, could be mistaken under certain conditions with the manifestations of T'ai Sui as a seated youth with the scroll. The Golden Youth has a similar seated pose, the same style head and hair but normally holds a fly whisk in the right hand. If this is lost the image looks at first glance like a T'ai Sui without a scroll.\n\nThe Indian Buddhist deity of death, Mara, could understandably be mistaken for T'ai Sui, Mara (A) in his Chinese form normally has a greenish hue, has a frightful face with two tusk-like teeth, holds a bell in his right hand, but has bare feet, is bare to the waist and wears a fur skirt. He is usually accompanied by two demon attendants, one black and one white, who are the Yamen runners, the Wu Ch'ang Kuei (❀❀Ą), who collect the souls of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206875, "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": 152, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "146\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nIt is not surprising therefore to encounter an image of Hai Jui on an altar. One such image is in the nunnery on the Pasir Panjang coast road in Singapore in which most of the nuns are of Ch'aochow origin. He is prayed to for strength of purpose and for his ability to obtain support from the Spirit World without demanding a fee or putting the devotee under an obligation.\n\nIn the nunnery, which incidentally contains a mixture of Buddhist and T'aoist folk religion images, is a seated, whey-faced image of Hai Jui, holding a sceptre in his right hand. He is wearing Mandarin robes, a scholar's hat and has a long black beard. He has two anonymous assistants, one on either side of him. The one standing on his left is carrying his official seal wrapped in a red cloth, whilst the one on his right bears his sheathed sword (photograph at Plate XI). The nuns referred to the image as the Duke Hai Jui (##2). He was known to be a good spirit (††).\n\nColonel Burkhardt in his Chinese Creeds and Customs recounts how, during the Ming Dynasty, the Eastern Dragon King who in cooperation with the Northern Dragon King controlled rainfall, was dismissed for dereliction of duty. The Jade Emperor (1) the Supreme Being both of the Spirit and the Human World, appointed Hai Jui in his stead.\n\nSo here we have the story of the incorruptible minister, in a garbled version as known to the Ch'aochow nuns in Singapore; the image in their nunnery, and the modern drama which triggered off the greatest upset in China since the communists came to power; all linked by the shade of Hai Jui who without a doubt made an indelible impression upon, amongst others, the Ch'aochow peoples of eastern Kwangtung Province over the four centuries since his death.\n\nAshford, Kent, 1973.\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\n* V. R. Burkhardt, Chinese Creeds and Customs, published by South China Morning Post Hong Kong, Volume 2 (1955) page 161.\n\nANOTHER VOLONTIERI MAP?\n\nThe following Note with Map are taken from the publication Les Missions Catholiques No. 239 of 20th May 1875, and were brought to my attention by Mr. H. A. Rydings.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207301, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1975", "page_number": 69, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "THE GREAT PLAGUE OF HONG KONG\n\nE. G. PRYOR*\n\nIntroduction\n\nThroughout its relatively short history as a British colony, Hong Kong has had to withstand many crises of a diverse nature. Typhoons, droughts, floods, economic recessions, war, influxes of refugees and riots have, at one time or another, created emergency situations for both the administration and the people of Hong Kong. However, one crisis now long forgotten, but for the records kept in dusty annals in the Colonial Secretariat library, is the outbreak of bubonic plague which first appeared in the Tai Ping Shan district in the early months of 1894.\n\nBubonic plague swept through Europe during the sixth, fourteenth and seventeenth centuries and was responsible for the deaths of many millions of people. For good reason the disease caused conditions of near panic and hysteria for once contracted the outcome in the great majority of cases was a relatively quick but agonising death. A graphic description of the symptoms of bubonic plague is given by Wilm in his Report of Plague in Hong Kong compiled in 1896. Wilm observed that:\n\n\"At the outset of the disease the tongue usually became swollen, bright red at the tip and edges and was covered with a greyish white fur. Usually, on the second or third day of the disease, the fur became brownish or black, and dried in a crust. The tongue becomes cracked and fissured so that it soon resembles that seen in typhus or in enteric fever about a third week of the disease. The lips soon became dry and often fissured, the mucous membrane of the mouth and the pharynx was usually bright red. The appetite disappeared. There was frequently uncontrollable vomiting and great thirst, with a lower part of the abdomen. The vomit was sometimes watery, sometimes bilious, sometimes like coffee grounds. Diarrhoea was frequent at the outset and again in the later stages of the disease Blood,\n\n+\n\n* Dr. Pryor is currently Assistant Director, Redevelopment & Planning, Housing Department, Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207304, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1975", "page_number": 72, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "64 \n\nE. G. PRYOR \n\nThe Chinese community in Hong Kong became panic-stricken and there was a mass exodus of workers back to China. In the China Sugar Factory, for example, some 300 workers downed tools and walked their way back to Swatow about 180 miles away. The economic life of the colony suffered considerably as a consequence. So much so that Sir William Robinson recorded that \"without exaggeration, I may assert that, so far as trade and commerce are concerned the plague has assumed the importance of an unexampled calamity.\"* \n\nConditions in the hospitals became exceedingly crowded. The Kennedy Town Glass Works Hospital was intended to accommodate 100 patients but at one point contained 200 afflicted persons. Admissions to hospital at the peak of the outbreak averaged 80 a day whilst dead bodies piled up in the streets at the rate of over 100 a day. A new pig depot had to be hastily converted into a hospital to take 140 patients and the running of all hospitals was assumed by European doctors as it was soon found that Chinese traditional medicine was of no avail. \n\nDuring the frantic efforts to rid the colony of the plague about 7000 persons were dispossessed of their homes, 350 houses were condemned and sealed off and several boatloads of patients were sent to Canton. \n\nWith the advent of cooler weather the plague abated and there was hope that the visitation of 1894 would not be repeated. Indeed, there was no outbreak in the following year but in 1896 the oriental version of the black death stalked the streets of Hong Kong and carried off 1078 unfortunates, the majority being Chinese in the congested district of Tai Ping Shan. The plague thence became an almost annual occurrence usually making its appearance in February or March reaching a peak by July and then virtually disappearing during the autumn and winter. Over the period 1894-1901 some 8600 persons succumbed to the disease and this represented a mortality rate of about 95 per cent. \n\nRelentless efforts were made to root out the assumed cause of the problem which was generally thought to be insanitary living conditions. Regulations were passed requiring notification to the nearest police station of any cases of plague and in default of this obligation there was a penalty of $25, which at that time was a \n\n* Ibid, p. 5.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207922, "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": 310, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n295\n\nThere was a 'fleshy body' in Anking in Central China. It had been placed in a large earthenware k'ang filled with willow charcoal and left for three to four years. The corpse was then gilded and set up beside an image of the Buddha, Sakyamuni7.\n\nThe shrivelled and varnished body of a Taoist priest named Sun (), who died in 1703 aged 94, was enshrined in a glass case in the Grotto of the Immortals in the east side of the lower Court of the Temple of either the Jade Emperor or, as stories vary, of the Three Sovereigns on T'ai Shan in Shantung. He had lived in the temple nearby for some sixty years under the religious title of Chen Ch'ing and was known as \"the Immortal\". Apparently he felt divinely inspired, and slowly starved himself to death; he became just skin and bone sitting cross-legged. He had requested his fellow priests not to inter him but instead to leave him in a vacant room. This they did, and he remained withered but not decayed as a relic for future generations of believers. One could see, apparently, only the bare bones of his arms and legs. His face had been replaced by a mask in his likeness and all that remained on his hands was skin and nails.\n\nIt was not only monks who had their bodies preserved. In 1878 Reverend MacKay, a missionary in Taiwan, wrote of a Chinese girl who died of consumption not far from Tamshui, North of Taipei. Someone in the neighbourhood more gifted than the rest announced that a goddess was present, and her wasted body immediately became famous. She was given the title of the Virgin Goddess, (Sien Lu Niu in Fukienese) and a small temple was erected and dedicated to her. Her body was immersed in salt and water for some time, and then placed in a sitting position in an armchair with a red cloth around her shoulders and a wedding cap on her head. Seen through the glass of the case in which she was placed she looked to MacKay, with her black face and teeth exposed, very much like an Egyptian mummy. Before many weeks had passed, hundreds of sedan chairs were to be seen bringing worshippers, especially women, to her shrine, and rich men sent presents to adorn the temple. Another preserved body of a female was exhibited in a temple near Fenchow in Szechuan. She was a Buddhist devotee who died there in a sitting position: being Tibetan she was particularly worshipped by the local aborigines?.\n\nThe most recent example of a 'fleshy body' has been the mummification of the corpse of the Buddhist monk, Yueh Chi Fa Shih", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208065, "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": 104, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "88 \n\nK. G. STEVENS \n\nof a better place. In most temples he stands slightly off to one side from the middle of the Under Altar behind the incense pot. The same God Carver explained that the other, similar image in the Under Altar, is the Black and White Demon (). He too is standing, dressed in sackcloth and has his tongue protruding. He has a black face, the same four characters down the front of his dunce's cap. He too, holds the wand with its tattered decoration which he uses to lead souls safely into the Afterworld and before the Judges of Purgatory. He is sometimes known as \"The one who leads the souls\" (). The usual image, the Local Wealth God who is occasionally known as the Filial son (#7) according to the Macanese carver, is taller, stands in sackcloth, but with a white face and wearing a dunce's cap without characters.\n\nThis statement by a man who is at the heart of image making and whose other statements have been well borne out by temple keepers in both Hong Kong and Macau, has thrown a cat amongst the pigeons, as a careful examination of Under Altars reveals that very few images have black faces or characterless caps. All, with and without characters and with black or white faces, are referred to without exception by the individual temple keepers as the Local Wealth God. They added, however, that they may also be called by the less polite and now old-fashioned title of Wu Ch'ang Kuei, the \"Unpredictable Demon\" (), a term Burkhardt1 consistently used for the demonic policeman who arrests souls.\n\nThe same God Carver also explained that the Wu Ch'ang Kuei quite frequently has red tears running down his face because, apparently, as a youth he so got on his Mother's nerves that she cried herself to death. Covered by remorse and crying until he drew blood, he set himself the task of guiding first her soul, and then souls of others, safely into the through the Underworld.\n\nThe primary function of the Local Wealth God, according to the majority of temple keepers concerned, is to provide unexpected money (always in small quantities), and particularly for luck in gambling, especially horse racing. He is prayed to by gamblers who are going through a lengthy and damaging run of bad luck. In addition to this well-known ability to provide small quantities of unexpected money, a few temple keepers understand that, dressed in hemp, he has the power to drive away sickness demons and, if \n\n(1) V. R. Burkhardt: Chinese Creeds and Customs: Vols. 1-3. 1952-5 Hong Kong (SCMP).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208339, "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-1978", "page_number": 63, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "ALTER IMAGES FROM HUNAN AND KIANGSI \n\n47 \n\nidentified as those of the long-face northern Chinese, with narrow almost closed eyes, a furrowed brow and a black pointed beard resting on his upper chest. \n\nThe rest of the images, all with empty back cavities, consisted of one man similar to the first above, six women seated, dressed in robes, with their right hand carefully holding the edge of their robes and their left hand concealed, similar to the second of the six images described above, and one other Kuan Yin with an empty cavity in her back.\" \n\nOne slip only of the seven suggests that the Yin family placed an image on a family altar of a standardised, impersonal image of a female named Jen (perhaps the deceased wife of Mr. Yin). Perhaps it was the practice to place such standardised images of deceased relatives on family altars in Hunan? Cantonese god carvers in Kowloon were all quite positive that such a custom is not observed in Hong Kong, nor in their memory was it performed in Kwang-tung province. Several said that they understood that the Fukienese, and in particular the people from around Amoy, customarily placed stylised ancestral figures of old men and women on personal altars but never on temple altars. They also said that there is the well-known custom of the Boat People of South China, of placing standardised images of all deceased members of the family on the family altar irrespective of the age at death. (See my article on \"Soul images and Gods of the Boat People\" in Arts of Asia, volume 7, Number 6, Nov/Dec 1977). \n\nRegrettably, Hunan was ill-served by foreign travellers and writers, particularly about its temples and gods, and so no collateral information would seem to be available. A photograph taken in the sixties in the entrance hall to Mao's birthplace near Chang-sha in Hunan province, shows the family altar, with Chao Kung-ming the wealth God and Kuan Yin both easily identifiable, the remainder being indistinguishable. None, however, look like the images described above. \n\nAn example of the Fukienese custom is the lady, Madam Hsieh (###), from a family household shrine in Singapore. The image, carved in 1931, some six inches high (see Plate 10) is again a standard, impersonal likeness of an elderly dowager. She is recognisable as an ancestral image by the white duck(?) under each of her bound feet. Otherwise, she is dressed in elaborate robes,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208489, "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-1978", "page_number": 213, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n197 \n\nleg down and right leg bent, and with round protruding eyes fixed on the horizon. \n\nNews of his sainthood quickly spread throughout Chuan Zhou, as did the word that he now had great spiritual powers. A small temple was built for him and his fame slowly spread far and wide. He helped and advised people, in their dreams, and his popularity was such that the title of King was awarded him. He did not always answer people's prayers himself as he had a small staff of spirits as assistants. One day a very elderly couple were promised a child by a spirit assistant in his absence. When Guo returned and heard of the rash promise he realized there was only one way to fulfil it and had himself reincarnated as their child. His temple fell into disuse, and for 21 years it lay empty. A fortune teller told the old couple that their only child would pass the Imperial examinations with very high marks. Whilst a student, “Guo” (though not now of the Guo family) cured the Emperor's mother who was very ill and for this he was given the title of Guang Ze Zun Wang.* He was warned, however, never to touch anything black as this would result in his death. The award of a 1st Class Civil Examination result required him to attend the Imperial Palace at the Capital in scholar's clothes, and as he had been created a magistrate his uniform was black! He donned it, returned to Nan An in triumph but because he had touched black, dropped dead on his return. \n\nA beggar asked \"Guo's” mother for money. When she replied that she had none and was in mourning for her recently dead son, the beggar said that he had just seen “Guo” riding a white horse, and moreover \"Guo\" had promised him a stated amount of money which he had told the beggar was under his pillow. When \"Guo's” mother looked there was the exact money! \"Guo's\" mother then knew he had not died but had returned to his temple. She followed, instituted prayers and incense burning before the deity who now bore the title of Guang Ze given to him by the Emperor. \n\nA Taoist priest's daughter fell in love with the image of Guang Ze in the temple and said she wanted to marry him. The image heard her and from then on, each day whilst the daughter was washing the family's clothes in the stream, she saw a jade bangle lying on red linen in a bowl floating near her. On her mother's \n\n*This literally means the Saintly King of the Wide Marsh.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208490, "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-1978", "page_number": 214, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "198\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nadvice she picked it up, and it immediately jumped onto her wrist and stuck fast. This was the sign that she was to marry Guang Ze and the next and every night Guang Ze visited her and talked to her all through the night. Her mother became angry and forbade her to see him and the Taoist priest refused to allow his daughter to be married to Guo. He even planned to marry her quickly to someone else but as the sedan chair passed Guo's temple, Guo took her from the sedan and replaced her with a rock without the chair bearers seeing. The furious father suspected Guo, went to the temple and found his daughter, but as a statue beside Guo's.\n\nAnother version was that as her daughter had become obviously pregnant the mother asked her daughter to cut a piece of the robe off her nightly visitor. This the daughter did and it only took the mother a few days to discover the pieces were from the robe of the image of Guang Ze in a nearby temple. The father, a powerful Taoist magician, realizing his power was far less than Guo's and that he was dying, as a last wish asked for four pieces of burning charcoal to be put one at each corner of his coffin when it was placed in the temple after his death. However, reading the father's mind, Guo transformed himself into an old lady and persuaded the temple keeper's wife to remove the burning charcoals. She was almost too late, managing to remove only three pieces. The last one caused the corner of the temple to catch fire, whereupon one wall fell in. But for Guo's warning all four walls would have fallen and Guo's image would have been destroyed.\n\nTHE IMMORTAL FAN (樊仙)\n\n(Cantonese: Fan Sin)\n\nA unique folk religion cult is centred around the village of Wun Yiu,* a mile or so above Taipo, in the New Territories of Hong Kong, where his gilded image is to be seen alone on a temple altar. There he is depicted as a seated Mandarin with a black beard and white eyebrows and, according to the temple keeper, without any special recognition characteristics. FAN has not been seen in any other temple within the two territories of Hong Kong & Macau.\n\n* See A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories (Hong Kong, Government Printer n.d. but 1960) p. 176 under Sheung and Ha Wun Yiu. Plates 23(a) and 23(b) illustrate this Note.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208667, "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": 124, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "The Maryknoll Mission, Hong Kong 1941-46\n\n97\n\nOld road boundary stones are being made into headstones, and as for coffins, we have only one and that is used for every funeral, the body being sewn up in a burlap sack and buried thus after the mourners leave. Rumors of more extensive repatriation persist, and according to the Bamboo Wireless now, we are going back to the States by June first. However, according to the super pessimists in Camp, of which there is no dearth, there is to be no repatriation at all; it is only a hoax. Incidentally, also we have in our ranks, some very able statesmen and generals who, if the devil were given his due, could settle all the world's problems. Father Bauer improved under his new treatment and diet. Evidently Dr. Kirk has found the root of the trouble.\n\nEXTRA: Our flour ration has been stepped up to 8 ounces per person per day, and today, we get one bun and a piece of bread for tiffin. Our garden and other tools have been returned but they must be kept locked up at night in the community storeroom lest we dig our way to safety.\n\n23—Funeral Mass at 8:30 for Mr. Simmons. Burial service at 6 p.m. in the cemetery, conducted by the Rev. Mr. Martin, former Head Master of St. Stephen's College. This was occasioned by the finding of some human bones around St. Stephen's which may be those of soldiers, British or Canadian, who fell during the fighting at Stanley. Included among the names of those on the small box containing the bones were those of Dr. Black, Capt. Whitney and the three English nurses (one a Catholic lady) who were killed in St. Stephen's College Hospital on Christmas Day.\n\nIn the early days of the Camp, a number of unburied bodies of soldiers were found at various spots, and when possible, buried by the internees, and as we take our evening stroll, we often pass and repass these graves of unknown soldiers. A few, however, have been marked and a small wooden cross erected, and in some instances, friends of the dead soldier have fixed up the grave quite attractively with stones. In the cemetery, too, a few very industrious and charitable men are working, making paths and in many ways trying to beautify the grounds with the limited material at hand.\n\n24----His Excellency, Bishop O'Gara, preached a eulogy this morning at a Requiem Mass, said by Father Hessler, for those whose remains were buried last evening. Another death among the British, of cancer. Quite a good-sized piece of bread today.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208955, "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-1980", "page_number": 117, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "FUNG SHUI: ILLUSTRATED BY KAT HING WAI, N.T.\n\n85\n\nThe basic premise of geomancy is the location of ch'i, the cosmic breath, of the site in question. This ch'i is dispersed by wind and carried by watercourse; too much of each or both will drive the site's good influences away, and too little movement will cause stagnation of the influences. An ideal site should be south-facing and constitute the following topographical features: The hills should have the formation of an armchair; those in the rear should fence off evil spirits brought in by the cold bitter northerly wind, those on the left and right should flank it like embracing arms, and the front should be opened or unobstructed such that view, airiness, and sunlight can be brought in by the yang spirit. These features are represented by the four numinous animals: the azure dragon on the left, the white tiger on the right, the red bird in the front, and the black tortoise in the back. Thus, the point where the two forces meet, and in a proportion of three to two of the azure dragon and the white tiger in elevation, is the perfect location for burial and building. As to water, a site with confluence of streams brings good influences; conversely, branching does the opposite. \"Sharp bends are bad since they make straight arrow-like lines, meander being the natural path of good influence...\" However, favourable and auspicious sites are not always readily available, and less desirable ones are remediable by means of tree planting, or building a fung-shui pagoda at proper places, or removing contours and watercourses according to geomantic principles. As fung-shui can bring good influences to people if dwellings are properly placed, so can it cause ill fate if they are placed otherwise. According to a geomantic professor I interviewed in Hong Kong, inauspicious fung-shui can induce illness or even death in the family if, for example, windows or doors or kitchen stoves are mislocated. The same fatality may occur if a beam of a house is erected directly over one's head in a sleeping area. Or a house is in a baleful location if it is situated at the crossroad of a Y-junction. My investigations concur with the Yang Dwelling Classics, which says in the opening paragraph: “All dwellings should not be at the mouth of a thoroughfare, or in a monastery (Buddhist temple grounds), nor come near to a shrine, nor be where plants and trees do not grow (to screen and protect), nor in an old battleground ... nor at the gate or opening of a large wall, nor opposite a prison gate.\"12 In Maurice Freedman's research\n\nyang", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209955, "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": 214, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "192\n\nN° of Column\n\n27.\n\n+\n\n+\n\n+\n\nOmens\n\nbelow the black, offer it along with wine and dried\n\nmeat (?) and it will be auspicious.\n\nIf sounds are heard on a chen day it bodes ill; parents will die. Offer a peach tree branch 6 inches 8 mu long. Write.\n\n+\n\nNOTES\n\n1 Cheng Te-K'un, Archaeology in China, Heffer, Cambridge, vol. II (1960) p. 90. For the ning ceremony see the same volume p. 55. For further dismembering ceremonies see note 11.\n\n2\n\n* In Song times canine teeth, bile and penises were thought to possess medicinal properties. See D. Bodde Festivals in Classical China, Princeton University Press (1975) p. 321,\n\n\"For an entertaining if not always accurate account of the discovery of the Dunhuang manuscripts, see Peter Hopkirk Foreign Devils on the Silk Road, John Murray, London (1980). The manuscripts discovered by Aurel Stein are in the British Library, those discovered by Paul Pelliot in the Bibliothèque Nationale. Manuscript numbers preceded by \"P\", refer to manuscripts in the Pelliot collection.\n\n+\n\nDuring the Song, the same offence carried the death penalty. Two cases of scholars found guilty of possessing astronomical works are on record; the life of the first man was spared because the book in his possession was incomplete but the second man was executed. See Li Tao * Xu zizhi tongjian chang bian * j.123, pp.1a, b and\n\n續資治通鑑長編 j.14, p.10b.\n\n* P. 3608, chapters 9 to 14. This manuscript contains characters introduced in 689 which, while remaining in official use only until the end of Empress Wu's reign, continued to be used elsewhere until well into the 9th century. See D. Twitchett Printing and Publishing in Medieval China, Frederic C.Beil, New York 1983, p. 88 note 2.\n\nThe most inauspicious themes associated with dogs are: the mating of dogs with pigs, thought by Jing Fang to indicate moral laxity in the nation's women (quoted by the Shou Shenji (juan 6) from the Yichuan); dogs growing horns, the birth of deformed dogs and dogs which suddenly begin to speak or sing. In this connection a tale from the lost part of the Shuyi ji by Ren Fang # preserved in the Gu Xiaoshuo Gouchen tells of a dog which suddenly began to sing and wittily announced the demise of two brothers. Although the animal was beheaded and its head buried by the side of a road the evil inherent in this supernatural phenomenon could not be averted and the brothers did indeed die. See Wei Jin Nanbei Chao Zhiguai Xiao Shuo Yanjiu 魏晉南北朝志怪小說研究 by Wang Guoliang, Wenshi Xue Shubanshi, Taipei (no date), p. 148.\n\n* E.A. Schafer \"The Auspices of Tang\" in The Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 83, No. 2, p. 210.\n\n* E.S. Schafer, op.cit, p. 202 “Our knowledge of popular omens lore is limited to a few random notes made by inquisitive scholars\".", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211069, "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-1987", "page_number": 130, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "105\n\nALPHABETICAL LIST OF PERSONS BURIED IN THE PROTESTANT CEMETERY, MAKATI, RIZAL\n\nTO BE TRANSFERRED TO MANILA MEMORIAL PARK\n\n \n Date of death\n Name\n Date of death\n Name\n \n \n 12.6.1944\n AARON, Margaret Tyre\n \n ADAMS, Henry\n \n \n Not known\n AEROBE (baby)\n 26.4.1886\n AHR-LEGER, Suzanne\n \n \n 5.10.1919\n AITKEN, Charles H W\n 2.3.1921\n AITKEN, Mary Louise\n \n \n 29.10.1952\n ALFON, Jose\n 21.4.1919\n ALKAN, Camille\n \n \n 3.10.1915\n ALLEN, George\n 15.4.1906\n ALLINSON, James\n \n \n 20.5.1918\n AMER, Basserody\n 14.11.1904\n AMOLOCHITIS, John\n \n \n 30.6.1962\n ANDERSON, James\n 20.11.1936\n ANDERSON, William\n \n \n 6.4.1908\n Roberts\n \n ANDREWS, James\n \n \n 27.1.1894\n ANDREWS, Richard\n 31.8.1900\n Montgomerie Henry\n \n \n \n ARMSTRONG, George\n 12.11.1920\n ATKINSON, Dorothy\n \n \n 20.6.1925\n AULE, John\n 30.9.1889\n AYLETT, William\n \n \n 20.8.1880\n BAALK, Emil Ch. M\n 13.8.1878\n BACKHOUSE, C\n \n \n 18.3.1903\n BAEL, Joe\n 25.9.1919\n BAENZIGER, Gustav Adolph\n \n \n 27.10.1899\n BALLEY, George\n 3.9.1909\n BARKAS, Gabriel\n \n \n 25.4.1938\n BARNES (still-born)\n 25.1.1923\n BARNETT, Edward\n \n \n 8.5.1936\n BARR, Robert\n 24.1.1926\n BARRIOS, Raphael Plaza\n \n \n 28.4.1960\n BATCHELLOR, John\n 8.1920\n BAUEN, G William\n \n \n Not known\n BENZIE, John M\n 12.5.1925\n BERGACKER, Johanna Maria\n \n \n 3.10.1963\n BERNARD, Son of M L\n 8.7.1881\n BERNSTEIN, Simon\n \n \n 13.3.1900\n BETZ, Max\n 11.9.1882\n BIERMANN, Fritz\n \n \n 12.1903\n BINDER, Heinrich\n 22.8.1892\n BIRD, Isaac J\n \n BLACK, John Gordon\n \n \n 22.2.1870\n BLANCO, Emilio Palomov\n 6.8.1964\n BOIE, Reinhold\n \n \n 14.9.1896\n BLAIR, William A\n \n BLOCH, Leon\n \n \n Not known\n BOLLWILL, DE\n 6.7.1887\n BOLTON, Edwin\n \n \n 10.12.1920\n BONIFACE, Mark Graham\n 15.1.1945\n BOUNTIFF, Eliza\n \n \n 13.11.1918\n BOWER, I H\n 19.3.1899\n BRAMHALL, J C\n \n \n 7.5.1868\n BRAMMER, Agnes\n 26.8.1902\n BARMMER, Heinrich\n \n \n 2.9.1898\n BRAMMER, Otto Franz Ernst Rudolf Hugo\n 15.9.1893\n BRAMMER, Pauline\n \n \n 8.10.1901\n BRAMMER, Richard\n 20.11.1900\n BRAMWELL, Geoffrey\n \n \n 17.1.1915\n BRAUN, Max Francis\n 12.4.1909\n BREMER, Adelisa\n \n \n 25.1.1962\n BREMER, Ann Marie\n 25.9.1961\n BREMER, Dennis\n \n \n 30.11.1941\n BRENNER, Issac\n 2.9.1915\n BRETTHAUER, G Luísa Gonzales de\n \n \n 6.1903\n BRIGENDIRE, Maria\n 10.1.1945\n BROUGH, Robert\n \n \n \n BRIDGE, Harry\n 27.12.1922\n BROOK, John Evans\n \n \n 24.2.1902\n BROWN, Bright\n 18.6.1921\n \n 16.12.1913", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211313, "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": 29, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "If the pirate's ultimate growth was not a result of external patronage or protection, might it have been owing to some internal element such as religion, ideology, or leadership that served in a special way to unify and integrate their force? For the time being I will dismiss religion and ideology as relevant factors with the promise to return to them in the conclusion and argue instead that indeed it was to the extraordinary leadership that emerged from within their ranks that the pirates owed not only their survival during the crisis of 1802, but also their subsequent success.\n\nThe one individual, more than any other, upon whose shoulders such accolades must fall, was Cheng I, a pirate whose pedigree can be traced to the sixteenth century. From the imbroglio that emerged after the death of the Tayson, Cheng I was responsible for transforming a motley crew of quarrelsome refugees interested primarily in internecine warfare and mutual slaughter into a well-ordered confederation divided into the Six Fleets of the Red, Black, White, Yellow, Blue and Green Flags.\n\nTo bring order to the confederation, each vessel was to be registered with one fleet whose banner it would subsequently fly. Because the stability of the confederation would be threatened by individual junks switching affiliation or by fleet leaders encouraging them to do so, anyone caught tampering with the identification process was subject to punishment. Provisions prohibiting pirates from fighting one another for prizes already taken or from undertaking unauthorized activities on their own sought to prevent internal conflict. Clear regulations also defined the procedure for sharing prizes while a kind of implicit territorial division characterised the cruising grounds of the various fleets.\n\nDespite his many accomplishments, however, Cheng I's days as a pirate were short-lived, but when he died unexpectedly in 1807, his tradition of exemplary leadership was continued by his wife Cheng I Sao, who assumed his position as leader of the confederation. Just as Cheng I had been the confederation's unifier, so did Cheng I Sao become its consolidator. Realizing that an association of several thousand individuals could not live from the chance capture of a few vessels at sea, she took measures to regularize its finances through the selling of protection to seafarers, no matter who they were employed by, along the entire coast. Such was the authority of this \"dragon lady\" of the South China Sea that when she spoke the men rushed to obey. Under", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211433, "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": 149, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "125\n\nOne of Grandfather's ancestors was a petty official, a position which afforded him an opportunity to grant favours and to receive gifts of appreciation in return. The gifts included an eye agate, a cockroach of black jade, and a woman of white jade which were handed down as heirlooms in the family. Uncle Jong Tin Yau was given the cockroach, but it could not be located after his death. Uncle Jong Tin Suk inherited the eye agate. Mother was given the piece of white jade—a carved reclining female figure with bound feet, undraped except for an apron. Her head rests on a block pillow and in her hands is a palm fan. Mother was the 5th or 6th generation to own it.\n\nWhile working in Sam Heong, a suburb of Shekki, Grandfather met and married Grandmother, who was surnamed Chang. Little is known of her background, although she did confide in Mother that she had been married previously. I do not know whether she was widowed or she had merely deserted her first husband. In any event, it was reported that she had had children. Re-marriage for women was not acceptable, especially in cases where the men had been bachelors. This might have been the source of conflict between Grandmother and Grandfather's family.\n\nA son, Tin Yau Kišlí, was born to them on 17 August 1878. According to Mother, he was nine years older than she. When he was seven, Grandmother brought him to join Grandfather in Hawaii. She had to pawn her jewellery to pay for the passage. When they arrived in Honolulu on the 15th day of the 8th month, the day of the Moon Festival, she learned that Grandfather had already left for China. Having fulfilled his contract, he was now ready to repair his ancestral home and to bring his wife and child back to Honolulu. Because it took sailboats several months to cross the Pacific in those days, communication between him and Grandmother had been inadequate. As a result, Grandmother had to live in the home of a friend, Lau Tim, to await Grandfather's return.\n\nUpon arrival at Shekki, Grandfather was greeted with tales of Grandmother's infidelity. More likely than not the source of this gossip had been Seventh Aunt. It took Grandfather some time to get over his anger, but eventually he returned to Honolulu, and two more children were born to my grandparents. My mother, Jong Hung, was born on 23 April 1887, in a small community known as Jow Tim Yard HJ,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212376, "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": 318, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "can be used as gloves in winter. The Chinese also carry their books in these sleeves, and that is the reason why, in Chinese, they say \"we have a book in our sleeve\" where we would say we have a book in our pocket”. \n\n+ C \n\nThere is very little difference between the clothes of the ladies and those of the men. As to footwear, the same differences are seen as noted above. The trousers are the same for both sexes. The skirt of the women's upper garment is longer than the jacket of the men, and reaches the knees. The hair decoration is decent. The rich black hair is turned into a knot and pinned down with two pins, of which one is put in lengthwise and the other crosswise. In winter they wear a head-covering consisting of a blue ribbon that is tied above the forehead so that the parting of the hair is free. The Chinese know nothing of hoods. \n\nThis may be the place to say something about the bad customs of the men and the women, the shaving of the men's heads, and the systematic crippling of the ladies' feet. Regarding the shaving of the men's heads, it is against nature to rob a man of his hair, and, therefore, rob him of his manly looks. The shaving of the heads was introduced in the year 1627 under penalty of death by the Manchus, and has now become some kind of vanity. This fashion keeps a numerous group of professionals — I mean the barbers — busy. When a Chinese barber goes with all his gear to do his business, he carries on a bamboo pole over his shoulders two small cabinets, one hanging in front, and the other behind. In one of these chests he has his tools, and in the other is an earthen bowl put over coals to keep the water in it hot. \n\nTo be continued as God wills. \n\n114\n\n295\n\nThere is a further, but slighter, description of Sha Tau Kok in the annual report sent back by the Basel missionary Theodore Hamberg in 1848, the year in which the mission to Sha Tau Kok was established. A translation of the relevant parts of the summary of this report, as printed in the Annual Report of the Basel Mission for 1849 is given below.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212418, "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": 360, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "337\n\nas regards your request to send someone to remain at the capital. while it is not in harmony with the regulations of the Celestial Empire we also feel very much that it is of no advantage to your country\" (pp. 122-123).\n\nThis disdain for trade has now been replaced by eagerness to earn foreign exchange. Recently, we saw China go to great lengths in its attempt to retain most-favoured-nation trading status with the United States. In the weeks before Washington was to decide whether to renew China's trading privileges, Beijing went so far as to lift martial law in Tibet and to release hundreds of political prisoners.\n\nSpence has an eye for the telling detail, the little twists of fate that propel history forward. Thus he says that when two Soviet nuclear experts were withdrawn from China during the Sino-Soviet dispute, they tore to shreds all the documents they could not take with them. But the Chinese painstakingly reconstructed the shredded documents and found in them crucial information on atomic implosion\" (p. 589).\n\nThis is by no means a book that can be read in one sitting. Some of Spence's earlier books were page-turners. \"The Death of Woman Wang\" was as gripping as any thriller: \"Emperor of China: Self-Portrait of K'ang-hsi\" was poignant and stirred one's deepest emotions.\n\nBut \"The Search for Modern China\" is the most ambitious work by the author thus far.\n\nIt is encyclopedic in scope. It is crammed with facts, dates and names. Its 876 pages include 49 well-placed maps and 49 well-chosen tables, as well as dozens of illustrations in colour and black and white. Its contents are to be sipped and savoured, not swallowed in big gulps.\n\nSpence the master historian is on less sure ground when dealing with more recent events. Thus, he has Chiang Ching-kuo becoming president of Taiwan in 1975, three years too early. He also displays a less sure grasp of his facts regarding the Sino-British agreement on Hong Kong.\n\nBut these petty details are almost not worth mentioning when one\n\nPage 360\n\nPage 361", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212571, "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": 125, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "105\n\nThe eldest sister said to the youngest. We must be good to each other, we may not be sisters in our next lives.\n\nClose relatives, especially females, are expected to display grief. The three daughters and two granddaughters wept in unison, for about five minutes, interrupted by cries of love and affection for the dead mother.\n\nWhen the author lived in Hoi Ping Road in the 1950s a Chinese woman in a nearby flat, on her husband's death, engaged in continual spells of pitiful crying, interrupted by high-pitched, stereotype wailing, over several days. Public demonstrations of anguish, partly as 'notifications of death', are common for widows, especially for the less well-to-do. Men also can be lauded for overt displays of grief. This serves as an incentive for the deceased's spirit to exercise benevolence on descendants. However, it is important not to cry on coffins as the character for 'tears' puns with 'tiresome'.\n\nMute dejection does not usually satisfy. After the funeral of Sir Edward Youde (Governor of Hong Kong at the time) in 1986, a group of well-educated Chinese expressed surprise and tacit 'disapproval' that no outward expressions of grief were displayed by relatives.\n\nCultures obviously vary. As a child in England in the 1920s, the author recalls his mother sewing a diamond-shaped piece of black cloth to the upper-arm of his father's jacket when an uncle passed away. In Hong Kong, until the 1950s and 1960s, it was common for women to wear white, blue, or green wool rosettes in their hair to signify a death. The colour depended on the relationship of the person to the deceased and the rosette had to be pinned on at the correct hour. If it fell off in the street, the wearer was not supposed to pick it up. Children are sometimes scolded for putting white objects in their hair while playing.\n\nCustoms have changed rapidly in Hong Kong following World War II. They have also changed rapidly in China since 1949. Today, in large cities in China, people no longer employ traditional Chinese funerary rites, although they are still followed in rural areas. In the New Territories of Hong Kong, traditional Chinese funerals still take place, while urban Hong Kong, with its congestion and rapidly improving living conditions, has evolved its own style of funeral. Although all Chinese funerals follow the same basic format and are the same for emperors as for commoners, Cantonese have a number of...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212576, "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": 130, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "110\n\nbuildings, traffic congestion and increased costs, erecting stagings became impracticable.\n\nWith the advent of death the 'blue lantern' used to be hung outside the house. This corresponded to the matt black 'mourning boards' that were fixed outside a home in Britain. The latter went out of fashion in the early part of this century.\n\nThe three important events in a Chinese life are birth, marriage and burial. If a person is not 'buried well' he may suffer in the next world. A great deal of money can be expended on a funeral and giving a parent a good 'send off' epitomises filial piety. Relatives are unlikely to haggle over cost. Although the undertaking profession has few bad debts, and is said to enjoy a profit margin of from 30 to 45 per cent, it is not seen as a salubrious occupation: 'Such men are bad luck and their touch is very filthy.' Misfortunes of the deceased can be transmitted to the toucher. In slang, a corpse is known as 'salt fish' (MA).\n\nThe Day Before the Funeral\n\nIn sub-tropical Hong Kong there used to be a 48-hour limit for storing corpses. With refrigeration and 70 to 80 per cent of bodies being embalmed, which includes injections, this is no longer so. A cadaver can be kept for two months. The ceremony in this study took place seven days after death and close relatives arrived at the 'Hong Kong Hotel' (slang for funeral parlour where a funeral is known as the 'complete menu') the day before, at three o'clock.\n\nA multi-storey funeral home contains many halls to cater to both Christian and (like this one) non-Christian funerals. Two large 'blue lanterns' hung outside the hall. These are in fact white, with the family name in large, purple (at a Roman Court this was the royal or imperial colour) characters and the deceased's age in smaller red characters. On that day and the day of the funeral close relatives were 'not allowed to kill'; namely to eat meat, fish or eggs. Also, sexual intercourse should not take place during the mourning period.\n\nIn addition to the deceased's 16 by 20 inch photograph, incense was burning on the altar. Western candles (candles are normally burnt in pairs) symbolised Christianity and Chinese candles Buddhism, another example of hedging. Also on the altar were tasty snacks that the dead person", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212581, "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": 135, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "115\n\nmanifestion of poverty to symbolise the family has sold everything to pay for an elaborate funeral. Two hanging bands of the attire are left of different lengths to imply the mourner is distraught and does not know how to tie it properly. Women do not make-up.\n\nFor Chinese Christian funerals family mourners wear black gowns, but it is not a 'good' colour as it absorbs bad luck. When Chinese wear a black necktie they often remove it as soon as they can after the service.\n\nThe dead person in this study, who for major events such as birthdays used the Chinese calendar, knew she was born in the year of the ram but she was never sure in which year of the western calendar she was born. Because she used Chinese reckoning she was one year 'older' than if she had used the Gregorian calendar. In addition, on death, three years are usually added, 'one each for heaven, earth and mankind (天 · 人 · 地). A little subterfuge regarding age seems justified. It increases importance at one's destiny. Emphasis is placed on prolongation of age and symbols of longevity are many. They include the peach, crane and tortoise. The God of Longevity is sometimes depicted riding a deer. Because in this study the deceased was around 70 it was described as a 'happy funeral' (喜事).\n\nBy midnight all had left the funeral parlour except the three daughters, two granddaughters and two amahs (maids) who kept vigil, taking naps on the floor or on chairs. In the past gongs were banged throughout the night to keep away evil spirits. Noise restrictions today prohibit this. Although all-night vigils are not common in England now, they are still practised in eastern European countries and among those, for example, of Lithuanian descent in Scotland. Wakes are also held in Ireland, often accompanied by card playing, drinking and jollifications in an adjoining room.\n\nFuneral Day\n\nThe same as the previous day visitors paid respects, some early, shortly afterwards leaving for work. Later, the hall filled for the service. Day and time were important, as with other events concerning mourning. The Chinese Imperial Calendar and Almanac (usually known as Tung Sing(通勝) meaning 'know everything book') was consulted. Some editions of this sell a million copies a year. Dating back before 2205 BC, it is said to be the oldest, continuous publication in the world.\n\nPage 135\n\nPage 136", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212588, "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": 142, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "122\n\nwas held by the eldest daughter. The spirit had to pay spirit money and cross the 'demon gate barrier'. Six weeks after death the 'gold and silver bridges' spanning rapids and whirlpools, with enormous snakes in the water, had to be crossed. The deceased was placed on a pair of scales. The good person is 'as light as air': the sinner 'weighs the balance down'. While all this was staged the son-in-law held a lantern and a granddaughter fingered her Buddhist prayer beads. All the time mantras were chanted, cymbals clashed and a flute was played. There was a paper bath house: the dead woman's spirit entered: the second daughter went through the motions of bathing her. This whole charade lasted about 20 minutes.\n\nAt seven o'clock everyone went up to the roof to burn the addressed, paper trunks, containing paper money, in a steel incinerator. 'Good' and 'silver bars' were also sent to long dead relatives. In addition effigies, made of coloured paper and cardboard stretched on bamboo or rattan frames, of a maid, a driver, a car (with lucky registration number 888), a house and furniture, and little black mourning strips which had been pinned on jackets, were burned. The names and messages of all donors were also burned so the dead person would know who had sent her presents. A Japanese business associate of the eldest daughter donated $1,000 'condolence money' (##) to purchase offerings. In 1988 an ordinary paper car was $350-1500, a Rolls Royce $2,000 and gold and silver bridges $500 each. A television set cost $100. It takes about two days to make a paper car. The middle-aged and elderly craftsmen who made them had served apprenticeships.\n\nA young Chinese friend of the deceased had sent her a doll from Canada two years earlier. She had become very fond of this. It was therefore burned and ‘dispatched' to her. But the donor telephoned from Canada to say the deceased had asked her in a dream, days after the doll had actually been burned, for it to be 'sent'. Everyone wondered what had gone wrong with communications.\n\nThis custom of burning offerings stems from earlier times when live slaves (later terra cotta warriors replaced them), sets of household utensils and elaborate paraphernalia were buried in tombs to ‘serve' the dead.\n\nIn this study, at the end of this fifth tsat, all immediate family members kowtowed three times and received lucky packages. The picture of the deceased's mother, who had died earlier in Canton, was also placed in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212592, "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": 146, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "126\n\nThere are different versions.\" Leung suggests that the sharing of pork between ancestors and descendants renews the symbolic union in two worlds. The living know that to receive blessings they must continue to worship. Some do not share ritual pork with outsiders thus redefining membership of clan or family.\n\nIn this study, even after mourning ended there were visits. These could be to the temple where the ashes are kept, at Ching Ming ('Chinese Easter'), the day for grave cleaning in the spring; or at Chung Yeung, the ninth day of the ninth moon (in Hong Kong, until 1967, when graves were visited firecrackers were let off to frighten away malevolent spirits). Visits were also made by the family to the soul tablet at the Buddhist Hall in Kowloon, or to the shrine at the second daughter's home. Visits took place on her sz kei (FEE), the anniversary of her death, and her shaang kei (EE), the anniversary of her birthday. On one visit to the second daughter's home she recited a Buddhist prayer 80 times over water which was later drunk by all present.\n\nThe eldest daughter was still unsettled, unable to sleep at nights and not feeling secure when watching television alone. Apprehensive about accidents, she instructed the maid to wash the car with water over which she had said a Buddhist prayer.\n\nThe deceased herself used occasionally to attend seances of foo kei (AL) seeking guidance at a small Buddhist Association hall in Western District. In this Chinese version of 'planchette' a spirit medium receives messages from the dead. These are written with a pointed willow stick in a bed of sand or sawdust.\" Foo kei is also practised at the temple where the ashes of the deceased lie. However, relatives have not so far tried to contact the dead woman using divinatory means.\n\nDreams\n\nDreams played an important part in this study. The third daughter had given her mother a jacket and, after she died, the daughter retrieved it. The following night a friend dreamed the deceased complained of feeling cold. The jacket was promptly returned and hung in mother's wardrobe.\n\nAn associate dreamed the face of the deceased was black, covered with soot and her right arm was red like raw meat. It was concluded the dead person's spirit tablet in the temple was too close to the furnace", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213069, "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-1993", "page_number": 137, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "118\n\nin Anhsi where he and his supporters fought on as a resistance movement against the occupying Mongol forces. His followers and later, devotees, supported the forces which eventually overthrew the Mongols and drove them out of China, bringing the Ming to power. Ch'ing-shui is now being remembered and, so it is said by some, having been deified by a Ming emperor, was a loyal anti-foreign hero.\n\nAmong the several radically differing stories of Ch'ing-shui Tsu-shih's origins, one maintains that he, Ch'en Chao-ying, was born as late as AD 1084 in Honan province, distinguishing himself in battle in the imperial army of the Southern Sung during an expedition into south China. He settled in the area of Ch'ing-shui in Fukien province and, as a determined opponent of the Mongol invaders who had usurped the throne having conquered China, he travelled around Fukien and Chekiang disguised as a Buddhist monk, plotting against the occupying forces. Although he had little success himself, he finally settled in Anhsi where he exhorted the local Chinese to resist Mongol rule and restore a Chinese emperor. After his death he was deified and revered as a patriot, with the first emperor of the Ming bestowing a posthumous title on him, as the Lord Protector of the Country (Hu-kuo Kung). In Taiwan tales are told about his loyalist Chinese activities against the invading Manchus in the mid-17th century, a confusion by those who had heard of his exploits against the invading Mongols, and confused it with the invading Manchus some five hundred or more years later.\n\nThe second major story describes him as a very ugly Tang dynasty monk named Ch'en Ying, or Ch'en P'u-tsu, born in Anhsi in Chuanchou prefecture where he entered a monastery as a child and spent his life travelling about helping the sick and the poor as well as doing valuable social work such as constructing bridges and repairing roads. He died at an early age, underfed and cold. His body did not decay, it simply turned black and a cult grew around his preserved body [there is no evidence that such a preserved body ever existed though the practice of preserving the bodies of certain dead monks, called Fleshy Bodies was not uncommon]. Variations of this story assert that he entered the Ta-yun Monastery to become a monk before moving to the Kao Tai Mountain where he built a hut and spent his time meditating. He later studied for three years with a hermit on Ta Chin Mountain and learnt from him a new meaning of Buddhism. He returned to his home area to care for the sick and needy and once when there was a dreadful drought\n\n6", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213070, "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-1993", "page_number": 138, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "119\n\nhe was asked to come down from his cave to pray for rain. As he arrived the clouds opened and sufficient rain fell ending the lengthy drought. The grateful populace insisted that he should stay with them and many wanted to build him a house. However, he returned to his cave which he named Clearwater Cliff [Ch'ing-shui Yen] from the brook that flowed from a rock just outside his cave. Henceforth he was known as the Patriarch of Clearwater He died at the age of 65\n\nA third story, common to a number of deities, tells of Ch'en killing with his bare hands a large man-eating snake which lived in a cave on Ch'ing-shui cliff. He himself died in the struggle and turned black In another version he is said to have a black face following an incident in which a demon unsuccessfully tried to smoke Ch'ing-shui out of his cave, or in another variation the demons tried to cook him alive in his cave. He stepped out alive, arrested the demons and imprisoned them for ever in his cave He was later deified by the Jade Emperor Ch'ing-shui is also said to have been hermit in a cave called Ch'ing-shui in a cliff on the P'eng-lai mountain near Anhsi where, on his death, devotees built a shrine dedicated to him on the ridge above the cave.\n\nThe story told about his unusual nose has one or two variations but in general it relates how a robber cut off the nose from his main image in a fit of anger. It was picked up by one of the devotees who tried to reattach it but without warning, the nose disappeared After a short search someone noticed that it was now reattached. It is now said that whenever the deity is angered the nose disappears until his anger dissipates During the Franco-Chinese War [1884/1885] following the defeat of the French at Keelung in northern Taiwan, part of the invading force retreated to the old centre at Tamsui. The French troops were again repulsed by the Chinese under Sun Kai-hua who was assisted by local Chinese from the Manka district [now down-town Taipei] who brought along an image of their patron deity, Ch'ing-shui Tsu-shih. This led to a fifty year struggle in the law courts between the Chinese of Tamsui and those in the Manka as the Tamsui people had held on to the image refusing to return it. The Manka Chinese won in the end. The image is also known as the Drop-nose saint [Lo-pi Tsu-shih] after the nose on the image in the temple fell off every time something bad was said in his presence\n\nHe is famous for his extraordinary powers and is said to have been able to have conjured up rain during his lifetime whenever there was a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213285, "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": 107, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "87\n\nGreen, or greenish-blue (linked to wood), stands for growth, youthfulness, freshness, posterity and tranquility. It is the colour of harmony. It is the colour of the dragon. Blue is an ambiguous colour. It can mean death. White (the glint of metal) is the colour of autumn and purity. It can also stand for mourning. Black (signifying water), the colour of winter and the north, is seen by some Chinese as lucky. But it is also the colour of bruising and therefore, frequently, not popular. It can be seen as the colour of calamity, guilt and evil.\n\nOften a fung shui consultant will select colours, when decorating a flat, not only bearing in mind the Five Elements, but also depending on its orientation (east, south, west, north and centre in the Chinese order). Colour can affect mood and disposition. In this respect, there is some similarity with the West where emphasis on colour, light and sound are important. As one Chinese friend told the author, who had engaged a fung shui expert to advise him about the colours for his new flat, \"The trouble is that a colour which is \"right\" for me, depending on my time and year of birth, I may not be happy living with.\"\n\nDecor should, however, be in harmony with the natural elements. Colours should be selected with equilibrium and striking a balance in mind. Yang colours are warm, solid, bright and masculine. Yin colours are feminine, cool and liquid. There is again similarity between East and West in that, while China links colours to the Five Elements, some western artists see people, depending on their characters, as colours. For example, a phlegmatic man can be viewed as 'grey'.\n\nMoving on from the Five Elements, structural proportions are obviously important, too, in both western and Chinese architecture. But the Chinese believe some dimensions actually encourage good fortune while other measurements are to be avoided. Nevertheless, the use of special formulae, and the ancient Lu Pan (the patron saint of builders) check (ruler), used in ancient times by carpenters and other craftsmen to encourage auspiciousness, has become almost a lost art. With this 'door ruler', as it is sometimes called, all main measurements of a structure should correlate with propitious numbers (Lung, 1991: 26). It is something like a module system in the West.\n\nThe Chinese believe also that a square is not a 'perfect square' and an 'idealised' or 'symbolised' square is 'more perfect'. In some ways, again,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213322, "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": 144, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "125\n\ncalling the Chinese \"disloyalists\", the Fukien braves sided with the enemy and set fire to the town. The foreigners then got over the wall and burnt the Manchu quarter, the Assistant Tatar-General and the acting Sub-Prefect losing their lives, and the taotai escaping to Kashing. The Magistrate Wei Feng-chia led a body of militia to oppose the British advance on the town and was killed, and whilst Heng Hsing, the Chinese Force commander at Hangchou was cashiered, the Chinese commander at Chapu, Chang Hsi, escaped death and capture but was later, posthumously, accused of having run away. The official toll of Chinese casualties including civilian casualties was said to exceed 1300. This figure includes more than 400 officers and men from the Green Standard force and 280 Manchu Bannermen.\n\nWhen I-li-pu \"arrived at Chapu, the English demands, so the Chinese version continues, were so extravagant that nothing definite could be arrived at; and, when the Governor requested the Emperor's sanction to the restoration of the score or two of white and black barbarian prisoners, the foreign ships had left Chapu. The prisoners were then sent to Chen-hai, and it was suggested that bygones should be bygones; but the English would not listen any more.\n\nThe idea of an attack on Hangchou itself by the British forces was now abandoned and attention was directed to the important trade centre of Shanghai. The British, having destroyed the Chinese arsenal, guns and all Chinese government stores in Chapu, released all their prisoners of war cash with a small present, and then on the 28th May embarked for the Yangtze and Woosung, the town at the mouth of the river leading to Shanghai. The transports took fifteen days to cover the hundred miles to Woosung which was bombarded and captured by naval forces. The war ended two months later before the walls of Nanking,\n\nThe 18th Royal Irish was disbanded in 1922 and amongst its many battle honours was 'China 1840-42'. The men of the regiment who took part in the campaign were eligible for the medal awarded for the 'China War' though, regrettably, there was no bar for Chapu.\n\nIn March 1994 my daughter and I tried to find the site of the joss house. Enquiries in the town of Chapu itself were received with polite replies that no such place existed and that there were no temples now near Chapu, this despite the fact that standing less than thirty yards from the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213909, "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": 261, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "236\n\nThe rituals performed by both the 'red hat' and the 'black hat' professional religious specialists, often connected in one way or another with mortuary rites, continue as before. The difference being that before redecoration the ritual performances in the half light, by 'red hats' in particular, accompanied by the boom of their ox horns blown at intervals during the rituals, provided an even more exotic and eerie scene.\n\nThe former layout of the temple consisted, as you entered the temple from the street, of the main hall dedicated to the Lord of T'ai Shan. This led through to the rear hall dedicated to the Saviour of the Underworld, the Buddhist deity, Ti-tsang Wang, with a long and comparatively narrow annexe running down the sides of the whole length of the two halls. On the other side of the halls were large rooms dedicated to the ritual services.\n\nThe usual images one would expect in the halls of both the Lord of T'ai Shan and Ti-tsang Wang stand either before or beside the altars, and lining the walls. Many are tamed demons such as Horse Face and Buffalo Head, and the Short Black and Tall White Demons who seize the souls of humans on their due date of death, dragging them before the City God for their primary interrogation. Others include the City God himself and the Goddess of Maternity, Chu-sheng Niang-niang, both of whom occupied their own secondary altars flanking that of Ti-tsang Wang; the Judges of the Ten Courts of the Underworld; and the Civil and Military Secretaries to the Lord of T'ai Shan.\n\nand they have been\n\nHowever, since the refurbishment of the temple, which took some two and a half years, the images down the side annexe which used to stand each in its own shrine have been relocated. The comparatively large image of the local tutelary deity, the Earth God, now has a shrine of his own in the Ti-tsang hall and the other two major images, of the Lord Protector of the Realm, Hu-kuo Tsun-wang Immortal Celestial Physician, Tien-i Chen-jen moved to the Ti-tsang Wang hall where they now sit on the main altar but in front, one on either side of the altar, both newly repainted. These two deities have borne these titles for at least thirty years and during that time the temple staff who appeared to be quite knowledgeable explained that the images down the side wall of the annexe had been brought in from other temples when the latter had been demolished for one reason or another, and their identities had been lost over the years.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214188, "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": 46, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "characteristic of the British poking fun at themselves. The tie's background colour is black, like the outlook during the Hong Kong 1967 riots. The dull, thin diagonal red lines represent the communist propaganda which was blared out from loudspeakers situated in the old Bank of China building in Central District. The three figures on the tie depict the inhabitants in Hong Kong in those troubled days: the 'white-skinned pigs' (the expatriates, largely British); the 'yellow running dogs' (the local Chinese working for, or co-operating with, the British); and the 'big, red, fat cats' (the Mainland Chinese who were posted from Red China to do business in Hong Kong, driving about in limousines, living it up). But, if you turn the necktie inside out it has a silver lining (even if every silver lining has a cloud)! \n\nBeing able to laugh at British or American jokes does not come automatically with being able to speak English. A Hong Kong Chinese told the author that he was making a farewell speech, on being posted away from Beijing, and he told the tale (in Putonghua, translating the sense, not word for word) about a pilot, the American President, a priest and a hippie in an aeroplane. The pilot turned to the three passengers and told them the plane was going to crash and that they had only three parachutes. 'I have my life ahead of me. I'm taking one,' said the pilot, and he jumped. The American President said, 'I'm the most important person in the world. I cannot be spared,' and he too jumped. Then the priest turned to the hippie and murmured, 'Look here, son, I am an old man, you have your life in front of you, take the one remaining parachute.' But the hippie replied, 'Don't worry Father, there are still two parachutes left. The President of the United States jumped by mistake with my rucksack!' Unexpectedly, the Hong Kong Chinese who told the joke said that the Beijingers laughed, much to his surprise, when he told the joke. But he thinks it may have been because the President of the United States had made such a fool of himself. \n\nSome people certainly pick up a language, an accent or a sense of humour quickly. Appreciating another form of humour is like learning to appreciate another form of beauty or art. It is an 'education process'. One does not change one's sense of humour but one develops an 'extension' making one a more interesting person. Certainly, however, speaking English is not the same as being English, with all the nuances of the language, and subjects like Princess Diana are still touchy long after her death. How can you expect the Chinese, who", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214293, "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": 151, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "114\n\nMarines and it was not until an action at Amoy on 26th August 1841 that the British Army (Her Majesty's 55th Regiment of Foot) used them in anger.\n\nApart from the musket itself, the soldier was also equipped with a bayonet which extended the musket into a thrusting weapon equivalent to a short pike. It had an overall length of about six feet, and time and again proved itself to be a formidable weapon. This was used both defensively, as in a formed square fending off cavalry, and offensively as in the charge. Its offensive use was considered by some commanders to be more effective than firing the muskets, and it was common to describe the number of troops by the number of bayonets.29 Officers would carry a sword and perhaps one or two single shot pistols. Swords (cutlasses) and pistols were also the weapons of marines when boarding opposing ships, and some may have been carried by those operating on land; however, they were more likely to have been equipped with muskets.\n\nOn the Chinese side, there were a wider variety of arms. Lord Jocelyn describes a display put on by the Manchu Tartars, who were the elite of the troops in China, where the: \"Tartars were dressed in white cotton garb and black cap, and their weapons were swords and matchlocks, or bow and arrows.\"30 Ouchterlony31 illustrates a Chinese swordsman brandishing a sword, but also holding in his left hand a matchlock and with a powder horn slung from his waist. Hence, it can be seen that the projectile arms were matchlocks and bow and arrows. The matchlock musket uses a form of ignition even earlier than a flintlock. It derives its name from the match, which is a hemp cord impregnated with saltpetre and spirits of wine such that it burns steadily without going out. The mechanism is simple in that the match is held in an arm which, on pressing the trigger, descends onto the priming charge and, hence, ignites the main charge. At this time, it was archaic, and it was also a danger to its user, as the burning match could set fire to clothes or, more seriously, to the powder pouch which the user carried round his waist. Also, when wounded, the danger was compounded, and there are reports of troops being burned to death after falling with otherwise non-lethal wounds.32 Perhaps this had helped to preserve the use of the bow, although it continued in use well beyond the adoption of more modern firearms. Photographs33 of the Taku forts taken after their fall in 1860 show crossbows34 amongst the debris. Also Arch-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214316, "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": 174, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "138 \n\nLegends surrounding the birth, life and death of Xu Sun are numerous, complicated and tangled stories. Just before his birth his mother is said to have dreamed that a golden phoenix dropped a pearl from its beak into her hand. A popular story claims that he was born either in Henan province or at Nanchang in Jiangxi, ca AD 240 where he lived out his life as a saintly doctor. Xu Sun passed the imperial examinations, became a prefect of a district and distinguished himself by his benevolence. According to some versions, his popularity was due to his power and ability to heal diseases using secret preparations. Others claim that he was an official who, having served in Sichuan province, died in about AD 293 or AD 374 when still only in his fifties. In another version, a typical mythological finale to a virtuous and extraordinary life, he died at the great age of 134 and was borne off to Heaven 'together with his wives, children, dogs, chickens and beasts'. \n\nMembers of the Daoist Jingming sect claim that he was the founder of the cult with its centre at the temple dedicated to him in Nanchang city. This no longer exists; however, a temple dedicated to him in the small town of Xi Shan [Western Hill] some twenty miles south-west of Nanchang, is the present cult centre. A large notice before his altar in the temple informs devotees that he lived during the Eastern Jin [317-420 AD] and during a twenty year struggle managed to solve the problem of annual flooding in the province and that he should be revered mainly for his success in water conservancy in northern Jiangxi, particularly around the Boyang Lake. The notice also claims that he lived for 136 years. \n\nHis cult centre in Xi Shan is now a bustling temple complex with two main halls and some four lesser halls set in large grounds. The two large main halls, side by side, are dedicated one to Xu and the other to the Jade Emperor. The inside walls of the hall dedicated to Xu are lined with some twenty or so anonymous minor perfected lords whilst the Jade Emperor's hall is lined by sixteen guardian generals, again unnamed. The Jade Emperor is flanked by four major Daoist deities, the philosopher Lao Zi; the founder of the Heavenly Master sect Zhang Daoling; the doctor of the Eight Immortals Lü Dongbin and the Northern Emperor, Zhen Wu. The main altar in Xu's hall bears two images of Xu, one tall gilded statue of Xu standing, and a smaller, portable image of him sitting swathed in red robes. Neither has any unique characteristic and he is depicted with a black beard, pink face and holding a tablet in both hands before his chest. He is attended by two youthful attendants.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214454, "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": 312, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "279\n\n1970\n\n1971\n\n1973\n\n1974\n\n1977\n\n1978\n\n1986\n\n1989\n\n1994\n\n1995\n\n1997\n\n1st Bttn. The Royal Welch Fusiliers at Gun Club.\n\nDeath of \"Billy\" Regimental Goat on 8 June. Buried behind Church. (The \"gravestone\" was salvaged, prior to excavation work for the new PLA Hospital, & removed to ASD Property Services Branch Antiquities Store at APB Centre in Cheung Sha Wan. No remains of \"Billy\" were found.)\n\n1st Bttn. The Black Watch at Gun Club.\n\n1st Bttn. The Royal Hampshire Regt. at Gun Club,\n\nAlanbrooke Block (British MQs) & Infants' School (Block 27) demolished. New Gurkha MQs, Temple, Clinic & School build started. 10 Int & Sec Coy moved into Colony Club (Block 36) from Argyle Street Camp.\n\nGurkha Transport Regt. & Gurkha Signals moved into Gun Club from Shamshuipo Camp. Victoria Junior School moved over from Victoria Barracks.\n\nNew Classroom built at Gun Club Primary School. Skeleton said to date from Japanese occupation unearthed during excavations.\n\nSevere flooding on May 2 to MT compound causing considerable damage to vehicles, buildings and equipment. Compound again flooded on May 20 during Typhoon Brenda.\n\nColony Club (Block 36), St. Eligius' Church, and the old gun shed (Block 29) demolished to make way for the new military hospital. Banyan trees transplanted to elsewhere in the barracks also to the new Kowloon Walled City Park.\n\nBarracks vacated by the British Army and handed over to Hong Kong Government.\n\nBarracks occupied by People's Liberation Army following handover of Hong Kong to China.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214462, "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": 320, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "287\n\nWard was buried on his old drill-field near the Temple of Confucius just within the walls of the city of Sungkiang [Songjiang: pinyin], the prefectural capital of the area now dominated by Shanghai, and the city around which much of his military service with the Ever Victorious Army took place. Harry Franck2 visited the site in 1923 and wrote that “the Chinese built a temple of remembrance over his grave, similar to those built by Chinese for their famous men over the centuries, though unlike the majority with their gleaming yellow roof tiles his was a pathetic little gray-walled enclosure, covered with ordinary tiles, in an open space inside the West Gate, littered here and there with graves and unburied coffins. It was not imposing yet it was several times more so than the tomb the adventurer would probably have had in Massachusetts. Though the temple was but a single-room building, it had an altar with the spirit tablet of Ward, and all the other features of a Chinese temple, and now and again Chinese still come to burn incense and bow down before their hero of Taiping days. A conspicuous tablet in red and black tells those who know their Chinese that:\n\nAn illustrious man from beyond the seas, he came 6000 li to accomplish great deeds and acquire immortal fame by shedding his noble blood. Because of him Sungkiang will be a happy land for a thousand autumns”.\n\nFranck tells us that the temple was not badly kept, as things went in China. There were some trees and flowers in season, inside the compound, and the whole place has been recently repaired and repainted. Rice-straw and cabbages were drying on everything but the altar itself, and the woman caretaker had gone to market to \"buy things\" leaving her small son locked inside. The only foreign hint about the place was an unfinished stone recently set up by the \"Frederick Ward Post of the American Legion\" of Shanghai. He added that the most touching feature of the whole memorial was the mound of earth, like a common Chinese grave, behind the temple, but within the enclosure, under which Ward's big mastiff was buried. After his master's death, the story goes, the dog refused to take food and went wandering about looking for him until it died of starvation.\n\nSo, having seen an early photograph of the official temple,3 altar and tablet dedicated to Ward in Sungkiang some dozen or so years previously, I was determined to see for myself whether it still existed", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214599, "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": 14, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "himself a Hongkonger at heart and one of us. He helps the Branch in many ways albeit at a distance.\n\nWe are sorry to have to report the death of Sir Robert Black, at the age of 93. Sir Robert was Governor of Hong Kong from 1958 to 1964. While serving in the Colony he was Patron of the RASHKB and, on one occasion, he even chaired a Branch meeting. This was the first time a governor had chaired such a meeting since the days of Sir John Bowring in the middle of the 19th century. Sir Robert was also our first Honorary Member, a position he held until his death.\n\nWe also regret having to record the passing of member Jeanne Bromfield, in May 1999 in England. She, together with husband Tony and family, lived and worked in Hong Kong, as a teacher, from the 1950s until relatively recently. She attended RAS functions regularly.\n\nWe are also sorry to have to record the passing of RAS member Dr Alan Birch who taught at the University of Hong Kong for many years. He made a major contribution to local history and many students passed through his hands. His monuments are around for all to see.\n\nMembership drive and public relations\n\nRealising that if our Society wishes to attract new members it is not desirable to hide our light under a bushel, some emphasis has been placed on public relations. This has included appearances by members on television and radio, on both English and Chinese programmes, and reports in the press. A number of our members have also been engaged by other societies to lecture to their memberships. In such cases they usually take the opportunity to mention the RAS. We must also thank RAS Member Sydney Cowell who sent out details of the RAS to a number of his colleagues and friends. As a result, new RAS members were recruited.\n\nWe are grateful to Council member Julia Chan who arranged for a RASHKB exhibition to be held in the foyer of the Main Library of Hong Kong University. This attracted considerable attention among staff, students and visitors. Plans are being laid for similar exhibitions to be held at other venues in the Territory.\n\nxiii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214671, "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": 86, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "50\n\nbetter wooded - seven hundred years of cutting fuel by Nga Tsin Wai villagers on Lion Rock had left that mountain rather bare of wood). Their mountain could not supply all the fuel the village needed, given its bareness, and the villagers had to buy fuel in Kowloon Market from the hillside villages in Sha Tin which brought it there for sale. When the British closed the hills to wood and grass-cutting after the Lease, in order to undertake a major programme of re-afforestation (several hundreds of thousands of new trees were planted in the Kowloon Hills), this caused major problems to the villagers, since they now had to buy all their fuel (each village was given a fuel reserve to cut fuel from, but these had to be left until the trees there had grown). Illegal fuel gathering was endemic, and led to brawls between villagers and Forest Warders. One villager, at Ngau Chi Wan, according to the Ngau Chi Wan elders, shot and killed a Forest Warder who interrupted him while he was illegally cutting wood - the village, with considerable trepidation, decided to fee an expensive European barrister, who, to the village's vast delight managed to get him off (the village is still speaking of this 80 years later).\n\nVillagers often went down sick (the average age of death in the New Territories in 1911 was about 20 years of age, and those who survived to 16 could expect to die by about 45-50). There were several dozen doctors in Kowloon City, but they were very expensive, and the villagers rarely used them. The Lok Sin Tong would give free medicine as a charitable act in certain circumstances, and the villagers would sometimes go there, but usually the villagers used their own village remedies, using herbs from the hills, which were boiled up to make medicinal teas or used to make medicinal washes or baths. Not all the village families knew which herbs to pick - village families with this knowledge kept it secret as it represented good income. Some village remedies were fearsome - a tea made from boiling up bat-dung scraped from the floor of the Ancestral Hall was used to cure certain childhood fevers, for instance, and a split pod of wild black pepper was bound round the wrist of children seriously ill with malaria, and left there until it had eaten its way deeply into the flesh. Witchcraft, involving secret prayers and incantations, and strange ritual acts, was often used as well - there were several village women who knew how to \"call the spirits\" in this way.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215068, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 164, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "121\n\nHong Kong having agreed that each of the sixty is a stellar deity in his own right with a title, formerly a human deified after his or her death; one temple keeper then gave as an example the Taisui of 1980 [EM KM] being Luo Dashou a legendary individual who at the age of eleven had obtained his degree and then lived for more than one hundred years. Others must have been similarly identified with legendary and mythical individuals, not only in Hong Kong but throughout China. The question remains, do they vary from place to place? or are they universal throughout China?\n\nAn image of Yin Jiao and known only as that and not as Taisui, is prayed to individually in a small private temple in Taipei, where he is portrayed as the fierce six-armed general, sitting, with a black beard, a third eye and ear-pressing tufts. Lone images of a fierce Taisui portrayed with six arms have been seen in a few temples apart from the one in Taipei including one in Penang. More commonly seen are lone images with the usual pair of arms, depicting him holding a bell in his left hand and a spear or long-handled sword in his right. One such image, in Tungkang in southern Taiwan, is identical with a gilded image on a rural temple altar in northern Malaysia. The hand-bell is claimed by god carvers to be an important attribute indicating as it does the passage of time.\n\nA further image, known only as Marshal Yin, stands at ground level in a rural temple at Mong Tsung Wai on the coast of the New Territories of Hong Kong at Deep Bay. He is portrayed as a martial figure holding a magic sword which at first glance looks like a truncheon, but without any unique characteristics. The temple keeper had no idea who he might be but as he is collocated with Hua Guang, Kang Wang and Zhao Yuanshuai, all characters from the Fengshen Yanyi, it is almost certain that he is Yin Jiao.\n\nImages of what in Cantonese and Fukienese community temples is often regarded as the typical Taisui of the group of sixty, but standing alone on altars nearly always portray him as a seated clean-shaven youth holding a bell12 or a scroll in his right hand. He is usually dressed in a green or gilt apron covering his chest and just below his waist only being secured by a cord around the back of his neck, and with a girdle around his waist. Those with scrolls are regarded as holding an administrative appointment and those with bells, silken shoes, fans,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215108, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 204, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "161\n\nand the Fulu particular of two opera companies, the Xipi Pai and Erhuang Pai [or Fi Pai], the latter, the northern school, being especially dedicated to woodwinds3. In legend he is said to have had an emotional reunion with the soul of his dead concubine, Yang Guifei, in the palace of Guanghan on the Moon.\n\n4\n\nA tablet on a minor altar at the rear of a secondary hall in the temple of the City God in Hsinchu in northern Taiwan refers to him as Tang Xuan Zong, whilst his usual title in Taiwanese temples of the Lord of the Western Qin, Xi Qin WangyeE is not usually understood beyond Taiwan. There is no image, whereas in the Ma Tsu temple in Taipei a side altar is dedicated to him and his image, portraying him as a standard scholar-official with a black beard, is flanked by two very elderly male aides.\n\nIn South-east Asia images of the emperor have been seen in temples in Seremban and Ipoh in Malaysia, and in Singapore, in some of which he is simply referred to as Zunzhu Mingwang, the Lord Prince Ming, 尊主明王,\n\nAn image seen on the only altar in a side hall of the temple on Miaofeng Shan in Beijing's Western Hills and identified as Tang Ming Huang, is better known in the temple as the God of Happiness, Xi Shen [Photograph 2]. He is referred to as Liyuan Shen, and is portrayed as a smiling figure with beard and moustache, standing with his hands in a theatrical pose. His modern image is dressed in imperial yellow robes decorated with a large dragon and the whole body of the image is swathed in a red robe placed there by devotees.\n\nDisappointingly, there appears to be no image of the Concubine Yang on any altars. However, a modern [1996] tableau in an old temple, now converted into a theme-park, depicts in a series of life-size plaster images scenes ranging from the Tang Ming Huang's first sight of the Concubine Yang bathing, progressing through stages of his infatuation though ending before her death and his overthrow. This can be seen on a low hill overlooking the bend in the Yellow River at the south-western tip of Shanxi province, at a place known as Yang Guifei's pool. The main altar has the Tang Ming Huang and the Concubine sitting with her pouring wine for him. Before the altar stand three incense pots, a container holding fortune spills and plastic fruit as an offering and before", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215344, "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": 121, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "69\n\nexamination candidates, he also became an entrepreneur in and around the port of Xiamen [Amoy] at a time when taking part in foreign trade was illegal. He owned a fleet of cargo junks known as 'ferryboats' in order to circumvent the law. His supercargoes contracted business for him, in particular in South-east Asia, and he became sufficiently wealthy to ignore the law forbidding trade with foreigners and contacts with local coastal pirates.\n\nd] The Saintly Lord of the Dragon's Tail, Longwei Shenggong\n\nhas only been seen on the altar in two temples both Hainanese and both in Singapore where he is said to be prayed to for protection and general benefits. However, several devotees claimed that a medium had discovered that Longwei Shenggong should be specifically approached by those whose parents are thought to be suffering in Hell as the deity had proved to have contacts and had even succeeded in being their saviour.\n\nHe appears to have no personal and unique legend. His image portrays him as a standard seated mandarin with a wispy black beard but no unique characteristics, and is either the main deity on a secondary altar or a minor deity on the secondary altar, co-located with Shuiwei Shengmu in one temple, and in another he was accompanied by his consort, Longwei Furen AA.\n\ne] An image of Hai Rui, another minister banished to Hainan, has only once been noted on a temple altar, a side altar in a small coastal temple in Singapore dedicated to the Nine Emperors, and run by and for Chaozhou Chinese. His image, which depicts him as a standard seated mandarin without any unique characteristics, is attended by aides. Hai Rui, also known in temples as Hai Rui Gong was a Ming official whose reputation as a just and impartial magistrate was based on his belief that laws should be enforced at all levels irrespective of rank or blood, and his criticisms of extortion and abuse of public revenue made his name a slogan for immeasurable honesty for later generations. He is the hero of a lengthy novel 'The Story of the Scarlet Robe' in twenty volumes. Hai Rui was born in Qiongzhou [Kiungchou] in Hainan and died a natural death at the capital, Nanjing in 1587. His tomb is in the western suburb of the northern port of Haikou, at Pintian on his native Hainan where he is still revered and offered supplicatory prayers by devotees.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216506, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2003", "page_number": 265, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "217\n\nopportunity to turn knowledge into action? (pp. 138, 131) Will China reaffirm her feeling of acceptance by offering her some new task? Whatever the case, readers of this book, impressed by Ruth Hayhoe's sincerity and passion, will all, surely, wish the writer of this revealing autobiography all things good.\n\nGILLIAN BICKLEY\n\nJonathan Tucker, The Silk Road, Art and History, 2003. Philip Wilson Publishers, 7 Deane House, 27 Greenwood Place, London NW5 1LB. ISBN 0 85667 546 6. 391pp, index, bibliography, maps, 437 plates.\n\nWhy is the term 'the Silk Road' so evocative? Is it because it can be seen as a metaphor for the passage of human history in all its magnificence, cruelty and sheer grit? The patterns of trade that flourished for about fifteen hundred years along the eight thousand kilometre network of routes known today as the Silk Road can be dated back to the time of the Han Emperor Wudi (reigned 141-87 BCE). For strategic reasons, Wudi wanted to set up an alliance against the nomadic Xiongnu tribes with the Yuezhi, who had settled in the area centred on the Hindu Kush. After more than ten years, Zhang Qian, his first emissary to the Yuezhi, brought back news of lands to the far west, but it was hearing of the magnificent 'blood sweating horses' of Ferghana that made Wudi determined to establish links with Central Asia. In 101 BCE a Chinese army reached Ferghana, seized many horses and established suzerainty - much contested, however, for the next few centuries - over territory as far west as the Pamirs. The routes that opened up between China and the West became known as the Silk Road, and they were to become the main land artery along which travelled not only traded goods but also the ideas and technology of east and west.\n\nThose who used the Silk Road were driven by the search for profit, enlightenment, conquest, refuge, by missionary zeal, or by curiosity about exotic lands. Their quests faced the contingencies of physical calamities, for the regions they traversed were, and remain, prone to floods, droughts, storms, extremes of heat and cold, and earthquakes. It is likely that along it, too, from the east, came the Black Death, which brought calamity to medieval Europe.\n\nWhere travellers paused to rest arose tiny places such as forts and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]