[
    {
        "id": 213660,
        "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": 13,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "Numbers are in fact creeping up, albeit slowly. Today, about 19 per cent of our membership, judging by names, are ethnic Chinese. With cross-cultural marriages however, this percentage is probably not entirely accurate.\n\nYour Council also feels a continuing effort should be made to recruit more student members, especially promising young scholars.\n\nPublications\n\nProgress has been made with the publishing of journals. Volumes 31 and 32 came off the presses in 1996, volume 33 was published in early 1997 and volume 34 should be out in two or three weeks' time. Our journals have long been held in high regard both by teaching and research institutions around the world and also by a more discerning reading public. We are now trying to improve our marketing techniques so we can sell more copies.\n\nAfter the successful publication of Beyond the Metropolis: Villages in Hong Kong, in early 1996 we have started to press ahead with a companion volume about Yau Ma Tei called, In the Heart of the Metropolis. This is being prepared by our Branch together with the Cathay Camera Club, a number of whose members are also Royal Asiatic Society members. It is important that a society like ours engages in scholarly projects and we are extremely grateful to Dr Patrick Hase who readily accepted the job of editor and chief project organiser. In the latter capacity he has been ably assisted by Brian Pearce, and now that Brian has left Hong Kong, by Charles Slater.\n\nMany members read our Newsletter avidly and naturally with advancing information technology it is nicely produced. A considerable amount of planning and effort go into each issue and it always manages to meet the deadline. For this significant achievement we have to thank Claire Hockaday and Geoffrey Roper.\n\nActivities\n\nIt has been said 'Good lecturers are a gift from heaven' and certainly\n\nxii",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213945,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1997",
        "page_number": 15,
        "title": "RAS-1997",
        "content_text": "Publications\n\nOver the year Peter Halliday, our Honorary Editor, has continued to make progress. During 1997-8, volumes 34 (1994) and 35 (1995) of our Journals have been published. It means if two more Journals can be published over the coming year we have caught up with what was a sizeable backlog. In addition, after special software was prepared by staff at the City Hall Library, Dr Lauren Pfister and his assistants, at the Baptist University, have started work preparing a comprehensive index for all our journals. We are grateful to all of them.\n\nMeanwhile, Dr Patrick Hase has put in considerable time and effort editing chapters submitted by a small number of RAS members complemented by photographs taken by members of the Cathay Camera Club. After Brian Pierce left Hong Kong the leadership of the photographic team for our project was taken over by Charles Slater. The role has now been filled by Ian Masterton. Again we thank everyone for all they have done. Our new book, about Yau Ma Tei which should come out in mid 1998 will form a companion volume to Beyond the Metropolis: Villages in Hong Kong which we published in late 1995.\n\nOur Branch has a large collection of photographs and we are grateful to Tim Ko for working his way through these with the possibility of publishing a selection of them at some stage in the future.\n\nEfforts were made during the year to increase sales of our publications. We have already started targeting academic institutions in North America and community and school libraries in Hong Kong.\n\nOur Newsletter continues to be an important link between the Council and Branch members. We have to thank Claire Hockaday, Sarah Parnell and Geoffrey Roper for preparing this Newsletter, over the past year, which is gradually increasing in size. Our Branch has a number of members among its ranks who are authors and this year, again, some of them have published. Details of these publications have appeared in our Newsletter. We are now prepared to accept advertisements in our Newsletter from outsiders and a schedule of charges has been drawn up.\n\nxiv\n\nPage 15\n\nPage 16",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579",
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    },
    {
        "id": 214133,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1997",
        "page_number": 201,
        "title": "RAS-1997",
        "content_text": "172\n\nin the Colony), it could also be seen at Sha Tau Kok and at San Hui in Castle Peak Bay.7\n\nIn certain places along the route on our way to Huizhou, where there was apparently good fung shui, there were concentrations of graves and funerary urns, the latter, in Chinese, known as 'golden pagodas'. These contain human bones, placed in anatomical order, in the shape of a foetus, ready to 'return to the womb' for rebirth at reincarnation. Often, as one sometimes sees in Hong Kong's New Territories, small clusters of these urns were placed in tiny shelters. In some places however, along the road to Huizhou, these small structures were painted in garish colours.\n\nOften one would pass in China brick and tile kilns very similar to those simple kilns which one could find in the Castle Peak district of Hong Kong in the 1950s. A few years later these small firms were put out of business by less expensive clay, building-products which were imported into Hong Kong from Guangdong.\n\nThe author contrasts this visit to Huizhou, in beautiful short-sleeve-shirt weather, with a visit led by RAS Member Phillip Bruce, also undertaken in November, about a decade earlier. The previous visit took place on one of the coldest November days on record with temperatures down to freezing. The author wore a deerstalker hat with ear-flaps to protect him from the biting wind! At the time, limited development had taken place in Huizhou. It is surprising how things have changed.\n\nAcknowledgements\n\nThe RASHKB is grateful to Geoffrey Roper and his Activities Committee members, and especially to Dr Joseph Ting and Peter Rull, for organising this visit. The author is also grateful to RAS Member Charles Slater for the three photographs which illustrate this article.\n\nNOTES\n\nPeter Rull and Joseph Ting, Outline Programme for RAS Huizhou Visit 15 and 16 November 1997, handout\n\nGeoffrey Roper, An Introduction to the Tan Gong (Tam Kung) Temple below the Julung",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 214601,
        "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": 16,
        "title": "RAS-1999",
        "content_text": "members of the Cathay Camera Club. A special vote of thanks must go to Iain Masterton and Charles Slater, who as both RAS and Cathay members also served, during different periods, as photographic co-ordinator. This book has made a contribution to local literature and will be read and referred to for many years to come. It is available in all good bookstores.\n\nFaced with the task of making sure a large membership keeps in touch, our lively Newsletter comes hot off the press every two months. Although a few of us feed in information its preparation is done almost entirely by our energetic Assistant Secretary, Sarah Parnell.\n\nWe also congratulate our many members who have published books, papers or articles during the past year on their own account. A special mention, however, must be made of Dr Patrick Hase's splendid paper entitled, 'The Royal Asiatic Society (Hong Kong Branch) and its Journal'. This article came out in The Journal of Resources for Hong Kong Studies which was produced by the University of Hong Kong Libraries, volume no.9.\n\nActivities\n\nIt has not infrequently been said that the backbone of our Branch is the activities we provide and many join because, during a brief stay in Hong Kong, they wish to learn something about local history, customs and culture. It has jokingly been said, however, that you cannot do this, and learn to speak the language, on a diet of western food. The answer to this must be that, during the course of the year, members do have the opportunity to share a few meals together.\n\nDuring the past year 12 lectures, eight Hong Kong visits and two excursions to the China Mainland were conducted. This is an impressive number. A wide range of topics was covered as can be seen from Appendices A and B of this report. A large number of speakers are named on these lists and I take this opportunity to thank them all, together with the leaders and organisers of tours and anyone else who assisted us with our activities in any way. We are pleased that many of you have been able to accept our invitations and have joined us for dinner this evening.\n\nXV",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x",
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    },
    {
        "id": 214918,
        "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": 14,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "Charles and Diana Slater are active members of HKBRAS.\n\nKeith Stevens, B.A., served with the British Army and the Foreign & Commonwealth Office before his retirement in 1991. He is an authority on Chinese temples and deities, and Chinese history generally, and has written prolifically on these subjects (keith.stevens@chgods.freeserve.co.uk).\n\nDan Waters, M.Phil., Ph.D., is a retired Assistant Director of Education of the Hong Kong Government. He is a long-time council member of HKBRAS and has been President since 1997. He has written prolifically on the history and culture of the HKSAR (benefit@netvigator.com).\n\nJennifer Welch, M.A., now lives with her husband in East Yorkshire having spent a number of years in Hong Kong, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Nigeria and Australia. Her interests are varied and include French culture and language, China and the Chinese, porcelain and history.\n\nxiii",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215176,
        "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": 272,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "234\n\nPHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE TRIP BY DIANA AND CHARLES SLATER\n\nEmperor Dan Waters and Empress Pru Mitchell at dinner at imperial dinner, Morin Hotel, Hue",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215496,
        "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": 273,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "222\n\nAPPENDIX - THE LAST-NIGHT PARTY IN PARO\n\nProgramme:\n\n1. Introduction and limericks - Robert Nield\n\n2. Extract from 'HMS Pinafore' - Jenny Wu and Rupert McCowan\n\n3. Some Welsh songs - Ian and Jean Wilson\n\n4. Amazing conjuring tricks - Charles Slater\n\n5. Extract from 'The Yeomen of the Guard' - Jenny Wu and Robert Nield\n\n6. Some songs from Old Jamaica - Ian Wilson\n\n7. 'McPherson's Lament' - Chris Coghlan\n\n8. 'The Wild Rover' - Ian Edwards\n\n9. Another extract from 'HMS Pinafore' - Jenny Wu and Rupert McCowan\n\n10. 'Albert and the Lion' - Robert Nield\n\n11. Some North Country culture - Marlene Courbert\n\n12. The Police Song - Russell Harding",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215554,
        "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": 331,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "281\n\nHONG KONG'S LIGHTHOUSES\n\nAND\n\nTHE MEN WHO MANNED THEM\n\nLOUIS HA and DAN WATERS\n\n[Complementary HKBRAS lectures were delivered by Fr. Louis Ha (Part One) and Dr. Dan Waters (Part Two) on 3rd May 2002. The following day, courtesy the Director, Government Marine Department, 93 HKBRAS members and guests visited Waglan Lighthouse. The above two lectures were based on the following text. All photographs accompanying these complementary papers were taken on the visit by long-time RAS member Charles Slater.]\n\nPART ONE\n\nLighthouses on the coast, \"sentinels of the sea\", are without doubt romantic and interesting to the ordinary person. Their loneliness and isolation, the mental picture of waves dashing vainly at their feet while the light shines overhead, far and wide over darkness and angry waters, the drama of shipwreck and rescue, and of successful passage through storm and stress, combine to give them a special appeal to the hearts and minds of all men.'\n\nThis is one of the beautiful descriptions of lighthouses written by the Deputy Commissioner of Customs of China, T. Roger Banister, in 1932.1\n\nPractical aids\n\nIn reality, lighthouses exist for much more practical purposes; as aids to navigation in avoiding shipwrecks or grounding of ships. Traditional navigation aids include Light Vessels, Light Buoys, Beacons and Fog Signals such as bells, gongs, reed horns and explosives. These aids have been developed out of necessity over the ages.\n\nPharos\n\nOne of the oldest lighthouses was the Pharos at Alexandria, in",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215580,
        "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": 357,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "307\n\nand Monuments Office and the Government Marine Department and to everyone mentioned in the text. Without their help this paper would not have been written. Special thanks are also due to Yip Kin-sang Superintendent of Aids to Navigation of the Marine Department. Thanks are also due to many other helpful people including Master Mariners Roger Parry and Alan Lack, Dr James Hayes, Simon Lord, Paul Brown, Phillip Bruce, Louis Thomas and S J Chan. This paper would not be complete without photographs and those published here are indeed rather special. For these, a very sincere thank you to Charles Slater.\n\nNOTES\n\nPart One\n\n1. T. Roger Banister (1932). The Coastwise Lights of China, Shanghai: Inspectorate General of Customs, Statistical Department.\n\n2. Lee Krystek - http://unmuseum.mus.pa.us/pharos.htm\n\n3. Trinity House - http://www.trinityhouse.co.uk/\n\n4. A day in history - http://www.sis.gov.eg/calendar/html/cl171196.htm\n\n5. It was named after James Horsburgh (1762-1836), an eminent hydrographer for the East India Company, author of the book Sailing Directions, which became the most widely used nautical directory of Eastern waters during the first half of the 19th century. He was also a Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The lighthouse has a cone-shape tower painted with black and white horizontal bands. http://www.lighthouseclothing.com/database/searchdatabase.cfm.\n\n6. It was rebuilt in 1875 in the form of a white conical cast-iron tower with black trim. The 30-foot high tower with lantern constructed of oyster shells had a light visible for 20.5 nautical miles.\n\n7. T.R. Banister concedes that the claim is good only in its literal sense. '...if we except such primitive lights as the old open beacon at north-east promontory, or the ancient native light on Fisher Island in the Pescadores. The Tungsha Lightship, in the Yangtze Estuary, was established in 1855, and the Taitan Light was apparently first shown by the Chinese priests in 1863. But neither of these were exactly light [houses].'",
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