[ { "id": 212013, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 428, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "403\n\nis starkly countered by David Arkush's study of Hebei village opera in the twenties. Concluding his perceptive study of the underside of China's recent history, Arkush observes that, at least in rural northern China, 'the moral categories and values of the ruling elites did not totally dominate the thinking of the subordinate classes', (p. 105). The illustrations presented to support this claim reveal not only a rupture in thought but also in language. How true was this of the pre-Republican period? Do these folk themes reflect a popular contrapuntal, an unprinted Zhuangziese, which actually questioned the values and concepts inherent in Confucian discourse?\n\nThe ‘optimistic this-worldliness' Metzger discovers as a continuous element of Chinese scholars' historiography and cultural analysis tends to bypass Wyatt's identification of metaphysical themes which, though 'premodern', are still approached without intellectual incredulity by some of these same scholars. Metzger recognizes this fact, but believes that an issue more important than general philosophical discussions of human nature is the actual production of ‘self-propelled adults' in Chinese society, (p. 284). These morally autonomous leaders are in fact the reason why China could maintain its cultural continuity as well as uphold a normative vision of culture for her future generations. Whether in premodern China or in Mao's Republic, this salient feature of the morally autonomous individual can be observed. Metzger draws this to a point by announcing that modern China has 'fully merged with liberalism and humanism', (p. 288).\n\nThis evaluation is explicitly denied by Leo Ou-Fan Lee, who carefully distinguishes between the adoption of 'historical modernism' by Chinese intellectuals in the twentieth century (i.e. progressive history) and their general irresponsiveness to Western 'esthetic modernism', (pp. 109 ff). Examples of the latter are few and far between, as Jeffrey Kinkey's study of a young writer in the eighties affirms. Metzger was more reserved in his judgement earlier in his essay, admitting that China, following Alistair McIntyre's criteria for modernity, had only committed herself to socialism and not to existentialism or some form of ethical scepticism, (pp. 269, 279). Metzger's promotion of an ‘anti-teleological' historical methodology as the proper tool for more critical studies of China by Chinese intellectuals flies in the face of Lee's awareness of the salient historically progressive element in China's modern consciousness. The suggestion may well be beneficial, but it sets up a tension between Chinese and non-Chinese forms of modernity. It seems a poignant truth that", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212106, "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": 48, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "G. Knapp, The Chinese House: Craft Symbol, and the Folk Tradition (Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1990). Knapp does not cover the paintings and stucco work that were a marked feature of the Kwangtung architectural style. For examples of this fine traditional decorative work, see Rural Architecture in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, Government Information Services Department, 1979).\n\nIn the Hakka villages of the Tsuen Wan district, this \"animal\" was always a unicorn. In Cantonese villages the lion was usual. However, their purpose and motivation was clearly the same. Informants said there were differences in the dance performances of lions and unicorns; unicorns \"crept, bobbed and weaved\", whereas lions would \"stand up and prance\". The musical accompaniment, drums and gongs, was the same, and previously firecrackers had been an indispensable part of any performance by lions or unicorns.\n\nHugh Baker mentions that the Liaos of Sheung Shui were known throughout the New Territories for their unicorn dance team. See the interesting information given in his Sheung Shui, A Chinese Lineage Village (London, Frank Cass & Co., Ltd., 1968), p. 193.\n\nSee my \"Notes on Temples and Shrines on Hong Kong Island\" in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 27 (1987), p. 287.\n\nMonlin Chiang, Tides from the West (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1947), p. 9. John Francis Davis, The Chinese, A General Description of the Empire of China and its Inhabitants (London, Charles Knight, 1836) Vol. 2, pp. 29-30.\n\nFrom the memorial tablet to Mr. Chan Wing-on, Chairman of the Tsuen Wan Rural Committee and Chairman of the 18th Term, New Territories Heung Yee Kuk 1950-52, at the Wing On Pavilion, Fu Yung Shan, Tsuen Wan. Mr. Chan died on 15 October 1956; see Annual Departmental Reports, District Commissioner, New Territories, (1953-54 para. 56, and 1956-57 para. 119).\n\nFrom a “Short History of Yeung Uk Village\" (in Chinese), published at the time of the village resiting in 1965 and written by Yeung's eldest grandson, Mr Yeung Cho-ling. According to the commemorative tablet, the grave was repaired on a lucky day in the middle month of the autumn season in the 10th year of Kuang Hsu, that is in September-October 1884.\n\n1736; but in fact the ping-san year is the 1st year of Ch'ien Lung's long reign. There was probably another, less altruistic factor at work here too: since it was believed that the graves of good people have a beneficial effect on the fortunes of their family for generations to come. It is implicit in this case that the good influences of the grave were not yet spent.\n\nFor a more recent example from Tsing Yi Island, see my Rural Communities, op. cit., p. 143.\n\nContents more than values, I suggest? Wolfram Eberhard, Cantonese Ballads (Munich State Library Collection) (Taipei, The Orient Cultural Service, 1972), p.2.\n\nR. David Arkush, \"Orthodoxy and heterodoxy in Twentieth-Century Chinese Peasant Proverbs\" at pp. 310-335 of Kwang-Ching Liu (ed.) Orthodoxy in Late Imperial China (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1990).\n\nHelen Kwok and Mini Chan, Fossils From a Rural Past, A Study of Extant Cantonese Children's Songs (Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press, 1990), pp. 17, 29.\n\nLucien Bianco, Origins of the Chinese Revolution, 1915-1949, (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1971), successively pp.126, 94-95.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 } ]