[
    {
        "id": 207050,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1974",
        "page_number": 121,
        "title": "RAS-1974",
        "content_text": "THE HONG KONG REGION\n\n115\n\nVarious local accounts show that many craft came from northeast Kwangtung and elsewhere for the seasonal fishing. The presence of pirate fleets, sometimes in very large numbers, was also a feature of the local scene.\n\nThis activity, and the importance it gave to the local seaways is reflected by the Chinese records. The Kuang-tung K’ao-ku Chi-yao gives what at first appears as a disproportionately large amount of space to the subject of coastal defence.3 The provincial gazetteer devotes many pages to maps of the coast line and the off-shore islands, and it is significant that these are included in the coastal defence section and not in that dealing with administrative boundaries.4 Another long work, the Kuang-tung T'u-shuo, which deals with the administrative geography of the province, gives maps that show the outer islands in the districts on each side of the Pearl River delta. Some of these maps showing outlying areas are blank, for all but a corner of a page, but have still been included. It also lists the garrisons and naval forces responsible for the area.\n\nIn the Hong Kong region, Lantau and the islands are the subject of much of an article by Hsü Tei-shan on Hong Kong and its past, included in the compendium to the exhibition of Kwangtung Culture assembled at the University of Hong Kong in 1940.6 As is to be expected, the fall of the Sung takes up much of his attention,7 but he then considers Lantau itself. Hsü's discussion on one of its Chinese names, Tai Yue Shan, is relevant here because it\n\n1 Orme, para 53; CR 1947, p. 10.\n\n2 Lo-shu Fu, p. 597 has a long note on pirates in the Ladrones c. 1779-1810.\n\n3 KTKKTY 30/1-11. See also chuan 28 on military matters.\n\n4 KTTC, vol. 2, pp. 2394-2433, especially 2406-2410 for the islands between and outside Hong Kong and Macau, the Ladrones. Two chüan, 123-124, (pp. 2359-2442) deal with coastal defence. The district maps for the Delta are in chuan 83, Hsin-an at pp. 1454-5 and Hsiang-shan at 1464-5. The late Ming work Wu-pei Chih lists posts, garrison strengths and ships for the Central, East and West lu of Kwangtung; chüan 215/12-13, 15-16 and 17, 18 being of special relevance to Hsin-an and the adjoining area. The maps for the outlying parts of the Canton Delta are in chüan 210/9-10 and 215/6-7. For this work see Franke, p. 209. Ku Yen-wu's celebrated T'ien-hsia chün-kuo li-ping shu has eight chüan (97-104) on Kwangtung, much of which is devoted to military organisation and defence.\n\n5 See the general map at the beginning, 1-2, and detailed maps under reference chuan 11-12/7-9.\n\n6 KTWW, pp. 425-426,\n\n7 ibid. He gives a clear exposition of the various problems surrounding the identification of the various places at which the last struggles of the Sung occurred.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 207051,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1974",
        "page_number": 122,
        "title": "RAS-1974",
        "content_text": "116\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nindicates that the main users of the outer islands through the centuries were probably outsiders, and not Cantonese. Hsü points out that Fukien people use the character yue (shữ) to mean a small island, and use the characters chou and shan for larger ones: whereas the Kwangtung people rarely use yue for this purpose. He cites this, together with the use of the homophonous character for 'fish' in the name for Lantau given in the Ta Ch'ing I T'Ung Chih of 1738, to suggest that the persons who first gave the island this name were either fishermen or pirates from Fukien. There may be something in what Hsü says, because Giles', Eitel's and Wells Williams' dictionaries all support the Fukienese usage of 'Yue'.1 Hsü states that the 36 'Yue' round Tai Yue Shan, mentioned in the older Chinese local sources,2 are islands of this kind, and derive their name in this way. The use of these important local seaways by turbulent Fukienese seamen helps to explain official concern with security.\n\nI shall conclude this section on Hsin-an in Chinese historiography by doing what the Chinese histories do not do; considering the outer islands as settlements and, for the purposes of this article, showing their former connection with parts of present-day Hong Kong.\n\nMost of the Hsin-an and adjacent islands are shown on the 1:20,000 British maps of the Hong Kong area, published in 1948 but based on earlier mapping. They have not been included in the latest maps, now issued in full3 because since 1949 it has no longer been possible to land survey parties on or overfly adjacent Chinese territory, to the disadvantage of all geographers and historians.\n\nBy the late 19th century, it seems, their settled inhabitants were mostly Hakkas who had strong economic ties with Hong Kong island, Cheung Chau and Tai O on Lantau. Many women came on marriage to Hong Kong and the inner islands, especially to Lantau. Private property also linked the islands and the mainland, in that some of them belonged in whole or in part to the Wong clan of Nam Tau and Cheung Chau. These connections were\n\n1 Giles, p. 593; Eitel, p. 919; Wells Williams, p. 819. The last named states 'An islet which has level arable land at the foot of its hills; applied to many islands on the coast of Fukien'.\n\n2 e.g. TMITC chuan 79.\n\n3 Cooper, p. 137.\n\n4 See Hayes 1963: 90-92 for this major local lineage.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216202,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2002",
        "page_number": 501,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "435\n\nVISITING ST JOHN'S ISLAND\n\nPETER STUCKEY AND CHRIS BAILEY\n\nIntroduction\n\nSt John's Island is about 160 kms WSW of Hong Kong. It is about the size of Lantau Island and is the largest of the Chuan Shan Islands which form part of Tai Shan County. The adoption of the name St John's Island appears to be through anglicisation of the Chinese name for the island, variously spelt as \"Shang Chuan Island\" on current Chinese maps, or as \"Sancian\". \"Ilhas de San Joao\" or \"St Jean\" Island on older western maps. Our interest in visiting the island was aroused by the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society's visit to Goa in January 2001. There, in the Basilica of Bom Jesus, in Old Goa, we had seen the preserved remains of St Francis Xavier. His corpse is displayed in an elaborate glass-sided, silver ornamented casket that rests high up on a Florentine marble mausoleum. St Francis, we learnt, had died on St John's Island on the night of 2/3 December 1552, aged 46.\n\nIn view of the local interest two visits were made by members of the HK Branch, one travelling “independently\" and the other through an organised China Travel Services guided tour. Here follow their accounts of the visits.\n\nIndependent travel\n\nTwo Branch members, Rocky Dang and myself, Peter Stuckey, went to the Island on 20th and 21st October 2001. We took a Chu Kong Shipping (CKS) ferry from the China Hong Kong ferry terminal in Tsim Sha Tsui, to Xin Hui, leaving at 8:45 a.m. The ferry passes between Macau and Taipa and then follows up the river system past the Yamen Fort to Xin Hui for a fare of HKD 188. At Xin Hui we took a short taxi ride to visit the \"Bird's Paradise.\" Here egrets fly over a huge banyan tree. The tree is reputed to be 500 years old. It extends to cover over a hectare with many trunks formed from the aerial roots descending from the branches of the single organism. Similar trees exist in the Botanical Gardens in Calcutta and in Phimai in NE Thailand.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
    }
]