[
    {
        "id": 205202,
        "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-1966",
        "page_number": 158,
        "title": "RAS-1966",
        "content_text": "152\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nThe only revision of these volumes since their publication in 1959 is the deletion of a postscript, which the author regards as premature at that time, on the communes.\n\nThe volume is attractively printed on good paper, with a sturdy binding. The paperback edition of these two works will be welcomed by the specialist who may have missed them in their first printing, and by the general reader who wishes a scholarly, jargon-free work on the impact on the family and village of the early years of Communist rule in China. Students will find here a model of sociological analysis, enhanced by the author's clarity of expression.\n\nUnited College\n\nThe Chinese University of Hong Kong.\n\nJAMES A. BEAUDRY\n\nA GUIDE TO THE ARCHIVES AND RECORDS OF PROTESTANT CHRISTIAN MISSIONS FROM THE BRITISH ISLES TO CHINA 1796 - 1914. Leslie R. Marchant. University of Western Australia Press, 1966. 134 pages. 35s.\n\nThis exceedingly handy and invaluable book has three main purposes. First, it provides a comprehensive guide to those Protestant missionary societies in the United Kingdom and Ireland which supported active mission work in China from 1796 until 1914. This in itself is a distinctive service, for these have never previously been listed together satisfactorily in a single publication.\n\nSecondly, the book gives a detailed list of the archives and records of the societies that have them. These collections are fully described in the entry of the particular societies having custody of them. In the case of transferred archives, the reader is referred from the donating or absorbed society to the appropriate present-time repository. This arrangement enables the researcher both to locate easily each society's records and to see the total list of holdings in each repository.\n\nThirdly, the book presents a “definitive list\" of the publications of each society. Again, this is a welcome service, for there has not previously been a complete index of missionary journals and periodicals published in the United Kingdom. This is useful for the researcher because certain gaps found in the archives can often be filled by these publications.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811",
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    {
        "id": 207923,
        "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": 311,
        "title": "RAS-1976",
        "content_text": "296 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\n(A✯✯) who founded the Ten Thousand Buddha Temple above Sha Tin in the New Territories, Hong Kong in 1951 (erroneously recorded as 1961). He was a widely known and admired monk who at the age of 24, according to the Temple broadsheet, had been named Buddha Simba in recognition of having perceived the cause of the Universe. He was born in Yunnan in 1878 into the Wu (A) family and was educated in Shanghai and Peking. In the latter place, the record states, he was a \"professor of philosophy\" at Yenching University at the early age of 19 in 1897 before he became a monk. He preached throughout his life and died in April 1965 at the age of 87 in his temple in Sha Tin.\n\nThe story of his interment, exhumation and preservation is described in the temple brochure. The body was placed in a seated position, cross-legged in a wooden box and buried on the hillside behind the temple. There it remained for eight months. Yueh Chi, during his latter days, had instructed that his body should be exhumed after such a period of time, and when uncovered it was found that very little decomposition had taken place. A mark on the lower side of the right ribs excited comment as it appeared to be an image of a tiger, and another on the breast that of a human head. The body was then gilded, dressed in a salmon pink robe and a five-leaf vairocana crown, and enthroned in May 1966 in front of the large image of Amida Buddha which towers some twenty-five feet above him (plate 28). Another image, carved ostensibly in his likeness, is enshrined in a glass case in the rear of a Buddhist nunnery on a spur some two miles from the Ten Thousand Buddha Temple. This carving, one suspects, is stylized. It is gilded, apart from a heavy beard and a head of hair painted shiny black. The image holds a fly whisk, and has a pair of slippers before his throne, but has no crown.\n\nOther forms of image based on human remains, usually of laymen rather than of monks, such as those seen in Singapore and Ipoh made of a mixture of concrete, sand and human ashes, have not been included in this article. Whereas most wealthy devotees achieve recognition by having their donation details carved on the monastery wall, a few, however, will their ashes to be mixed and made into an image in their likeness, warts and all, in addition to donating a final large sum to the establishment.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q",
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    {
        "id": 208353,
        "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": 77,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "QINGMING FESTIVAL IN CENTRAL CHINA\n\n61\n\nI have chosen to work on data from central China, southern Hubei and northern Hunan, the marshy and hilly areas around the Dongting Lake water system in the middle Yangzi valley. I have chosen so primarily because I have a personal academic interest in that region, and again because it seems to be a kind of heartland of 'rice China'. This study draws on data from local gazetteers, fang zhi, and from the compilations of fang zhi materials contained in the great 18th century ‘encyclopaedia’ Gujin tushu jicheng.\n\n2. Some Frameworks\n\nQingming is the name for one of the twenty-four periods of the Chinese solar calendar, each being fifteen days long. Approximately, it starts on the 5th of April and lasts until about the 20th of the same month. The name means 'Clear Brightness'; this term may correspond to prevalent climatic conditions for this time of the year in some parts of the vast country, but it does not translate well the meteorological facts of the season in the stretch of country surrounding the big Dongting Lake in the central Yangzi valley, which were more on the dull side. According to one chronicle, the period was noted for 'much strong wind and heavy showers'.\n\nThe agricultural activities in this rice producing part of China followed the landmarks set by the twenty-four solar period calendar. Thus the Qingming period marked the beginning of the sowing of rice, and it seems as if this was a widespread traditional pattern in the Dongting basin. Generally rice was sown toward the end of April in special small plots, in the literature often known as seed beds or 'nurseries'. Although this practice may have been normal, there was certainly a great deal of variation, even within this limited region of China. Some chroniclers give us dates in the second moon; She ri and Hua zhao are mentioned in places like Wuling, Gongan, and Chongyang, a period of the lunar calendar which corresponds roughly to March, as the time for the beginning of sowing. The Spring Equinox, or rather the solar period of Chunfen, is also mentioned in a record from Hanyang. It seems reasonable to say that, given a variation of a few weeks in accordance with local circumstances, rice was sown in late March and throughout April. As a period of ritual",
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    {
        "id": 208354,
        "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": 78,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "62\n\nGÖRAN AIJMER\n\nactivities Qingming is well correlated in time with the important phase of sowing in the annual agricultural cycle.\n\nThe Dongting basin in Hubei and Hunan is regarded as a single crop area. Only one gazetteer mentions a different arrangement; this is the 1872 edition of Baling xian zhi which states:\n\nthe first crop of paddy is sown at the second halfmoon. In the third moon it is transplanted. In the sixth moon it is reaped. The late crop of paddy is sown in the middle of the third moon. In the fourth moon it is transplanted. In the seventh moon it is reaped.7\n\nIn this case the two crops were not successive ones. Apparently the same seedbeds were used. The two rounds of seedlings were transplanted to two different sets of fields, or otherwise the peasants must have practiced a scheme of intercropping. There is a possibility that either arrangement was a response to a situation characterized by a lack of labour at peak seasons; to spread the sowing in time would ease the 'bottlenecks' in rice production, the intensive work periods at transplantation and harvest. In this Baling case the late crop seems to correspond to the main rice production cycle of the Dongting area. To the extent that double cropping existed in the middle Yangzi basin, it was a late introduction, probably not earlier than the Sung dynasty.8\n\nBefore the sowing, the seedbeds are carefully cleaned and fertilized; water is conducted to flood the beds and the grain grows in mud. The earlier shoots are protected from low night temperatures by the cover of water. In sunny weather the beds are drained to allow the grain to root and grow faster. Qingming falls into this first phase of the rice cycle. On the basis of this circumstance we may take it as a part of our hypothesis that there is a positive semantic relationship between Qingming and sowing.\n\nThe essay elaborates further some very general propositions on the Chinese calendrical system I offered some years ago.9 I suggested that one dominant principle in the structure regulating the annual events embedded a notion of social exchange. Visits and return visits are important acts of social ceremonialism all over China. This is especially so during the lunar New Year. Again, the New Year rites told about the visit of the dead ancestors to their living progeny. The ancestors made a similar visit during the Duanwu festival in the fifth moon. Their appearance on this occasion",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208355,
        "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": 79,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "QINGMING FESTIVAL IN CENTRAL CHINA\n\n63\n\nwill have had close associations with rice production, the festival being focused on the theme of the transplantation of the young shoots. My suggestion was that the visit paid by the ancestors to the world of the living might be regarded as return visits in response to the visits paid to the dead by the living at the Qingming festival. Qingming is an occasion for visiting the tombs of the dead. Again, it may be hypothesized that the autumnal festival of Chongyang implies another visit to the ancestors. Qingming is correlated in the agricultural calendar with sowing, Chongyang with harvesting. In such calendrical events ritual concerns with ancestry become fused with practical interests in rice production. I suggested that we may look upon the calendrical system of at least Central China in terms of the following scheme:\n\n  \n    Qingming\n    Duanwu\n    Chongyang\n    New Year\n  \n  \n    Ancestors producing\n    Ancestors reproducing\n    Ancestors stop producing\n    Ancestors not producing\n  \n  \n    Sowing\n    Transplantation\n    Harvest\n    Festival\n  \n\nIn this essay, I will try to carry this argument one step further by way of a close examination of such data as we have on traditional life in the Dongting Lake area in Central China, which concern the spring celebration of the Qingming festival.\n\n3. The Grave Rituals\n\nThe main ritual focus of Qingming is the ancestral graves.10 In Wuling, people prepared wine and food which was brought to the graves. The latter were swept with bamboo branches. Bamboos were inserted in the graves, and on these branches were hung paper money. This practice was called biao fen 'top branch grave' or perhaps 'to mark the grave'. Another note tells us that the women of that town went out on strolls and ‘climbed the graveyards' 上塚.2 In Tauyuan 桃源, it was recorded that people made ji 祭 offerings on the graves before the Qingming day. They erected top branches, biao, presumably of bamboo, and hung paper on them.13\n\n12",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208358,
        "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": 82,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "66\n\nGÖRAN AIJMER\n\nearth.30 We are told that in Yingshan there were jiao offerings on the graves in the eighth moon. It is said explicitly by the chronicler to be similar to the practice of Qingming. This Yingshan custom began on the day of the new moon and continued for the next few days. It is said that one 'escorted the departing'.31 On the first day, and continuing through the first half of that moon, people of Tongshan burnt paper (money?) sheets on the burial grounds.32\n\nUnfortunately, we know very little about traditional funeral customs in the Dongting area and the surrounding region. The few notes I have found tell us that in Taoyuan, in the Yuan River valley, people practised an excess of slaughtering at mourning.33 In Baling, it was the custom to have music, food, and Buddhist monks to perform.34 From Zhongxiang, we read that at an instance of death, there was drumming and singing mixed with lamentations.35\n\nI will assume, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that double burial did not exist in this area of Hubei and Hunan. Further, I will assume that the graves were, in the general Chinese fashion, marked by small brick or chunam structures.36 A later traveller through Hunan reports that graves in the Xiang River valley were cone-shaped and whitewashed. There seems also to have been some concentration of graves into 'yards'.38 I will assume that the body of a dead person was placed in a wooden coffin and interred in a dugout grave, probably covered by a tumulus, on or at which, as mentioned, was erected some sort of structure to mark it. The grave was a permanent one, and it was only for very particular reasons of fengshui* geomancy39 the body might be exhumed. The graves were ritual foci for members of continuous social groups, membership in which was determined by agnatic ascent and descent. Sometimes such kinship groups seem to have formed lineages.\n\nIn our present attempt at understanding the essential features of the semantics of the grave, we are helped by some local terms, names of customs, and other phrases. We have already met the expressions 'to hang money on the mountain' and 'to suspend on the mountain'. From such instances, it seems permissible to say that they represent some conceptual link between graves and mountains. How is this? Graves look perhaps like small mountains or hills—but I think there is more to the grave-mountain association",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208361,
        "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": 85,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "QINGMING FESTIVAL IN CENTRAL CHINA\n\n69\n\nIn an earlier work I have pointed to the similarity between these small boats and the spring practices on the graves; I suggested there that the small boats which carried wine and food were a kind of sacrificial altars intended for the benefit of the dead ancestors.\n\nThe insights we can get from such comparisons do not provide us with any real clues to the sign constellation of paper money suspended in branches. There are, however, some other notes of interest in this connection. If we turn to paper money49 there were two other main calendar events which called for their use. One was the lunar New Year when, according to records from many places,50 paper money was suspended above doors and burnt. This seems to have been part of the New Year offerings to the ancestors. The other event when paper money was used and burnt was on the Zhongyuan, or the 14th and 15th days of the seventh moon. This is mainly a Buddhist ceremonial occasion, in the literature often referred to as the 'Feast of the Hungry Ghosts' or 'All Souls Day', when offerings are made to the tortured souls in Hell, who escape their sufferings on one or a few nights to visit the earthly regions. An important feature of this ritual to be observed here is that the offerings of paper money are, on this occasion, directed in a general way to roaming souls, and not to particular graves. Practices concerned with Zhongyuan are on record from several places in the Dongting region.\n\nWhat ancestors are of concern in the spring grave worship? Says Maurice Freedman:\n\nThe ancestors as they are represented in their bones are not the ancestors worshipped in their tablets. Each dead forebear appears in two separate guises. Bones and tablets form opposite and complementary parts of the cult of the ancestors. The ancestors as bones are yin: they are of the Earth, passive and retiring. The ancestors in their tablets are yang: they have affinities with Heaven and are active and outgoing,52\n\nThe cult of the ancestors in their bone guise is focussed on the graves both with regard to calendar events and to geomantic considerations. Paper money was offered to the yin ancestors as well as to the yang ancestors. Furthermore 'mock money' was of important use on the Buddhist festival of Zhongyuan which, as we have just seen, was concerned with the spirits in the Buddhist",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208365,
        "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": 89,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "QINGMING FESTIVAL IN CENTRAL CHINA \n\n73 \n\non one hand, have had connotations of slaughtering, and on the other, associations with 'breaking of clay or earth', as is done in ploughing. This is, of course, but a vague hunch; if, for the sake of our present argument, we accept this interpretation, we could transpose this hunch to the universe of Qingming and say that what is given to the ancestors as edible meat and drinkable wine is earth and rice. \n\n8. Order in Worship \n\nThe note from Yuanjiang, quoted above (p. ), tells us that grave worship started before Earth God Day which falls around the vernal equinox in the second moon. The ceremonies directed to the new graves took place before that particular date. Then there seems to have been an intermission of thirty days before the ritual was continued, and then it was focussed on the old graves. There is no explanation given in the chronicle for the different categories of 'new' and 'old' graves, so we will assume that new graves were those of the recently deceased. If we accept this we must look for possibilities to account for this difference between the two categories as it is represented in time, and why in that mode of representation the point of reference is She ri, Earth God Day. \n\nThis particular day was devoted to offerings to She ji, the Earth God.75 Meat and wine were used in this ritual. From Jiangling we learn that the meat for the She offerings was a mixture of pork and mutton which was placed inside a pumpkin.76 In Wuling the term sheng describes the meat. The day was generally for divining about the coming crops, and qi gu 'prayer for grain'. In Zhongxiang, according to the chronicler, there were shamanistic performances accompanying the offerings.78 \n\nThere are at least some superficial similarities between the Qingming practices and the offerings on She ri. In this context one main question concerns the sort of relations conceived of in this area of China as linking the grave ancestors and the She. I have found no substantial information from the Dongting area to provide us with any further clues. But it appears as if it was necessary to do the grave rituals for the recent dead before one could go ahead with the worship of the Earth God. And perhaps the She offerings were a necessary precondition for a successful grave worship at the older graves. At any rate, the note from Yuanjiang stresses the",
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    {
        "id": 208366,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1978",
        "page_number": 90,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "74\n\nGÖRAN AIJMER\n\nconnection between the rice growth cycle, the agricultural activities and the grave ancestors, a connection suggested already by the information from Wuchang and Chongyang, quoted above, that grave worship was conducted on She ri.\n\n9. Willow Twigs.\n\nIn Wuling people inserted willow twigs over their doors and also carried willow twigs in their hair. There was a term for this custom: neng pixie 'ability to punish evil'. The same convention was observed in other places in the Dongting area, like Taoyuan,80 Hanzhou,81 Jingshan,82 Chongyang, where it was called 'nun lo'83 'tender willow', and Yingshan.84 It seems as if the twigs were protective and their function was to guard the house, or doorways, and the individuals living behind them. It is hard to say against what willow provided protection. It is interesting, though, to note that willow twigs were used in Jiangling on the full moon day of the first moon when, again, they were inserted above the doors.85\n\n10. Strolling in the Wilderness and Treading on the Green.\n\nSeveral chroniclers report that Qingming was an occasion for strolls and wanderings away from built-up areas. These excursions may well be seen in connection with the visits to the graves, the latter being situated outside the villages. Such ramblings in the countryside are recorded from the prefecture Changde (around Wuling),86 Hanzhou,87 Chongyang,88 and Wuchang.89 From the latter two places it is also reported that men and women 'tread on the green', ta qing, in connection with their strolls in the 'wilderness'. The latter term seems to be a name for strolling and eating al fresco. Earlier I have interpreted this practice as a feature which stresses periphery as contrasted with centre, the latter being emphasized, for instance, at Duanwu. It is interesting to note that the chronicler of Changde says that there were no such customs in that area as ta qing or qui qian 'swinging'. Swinging is reported as part of the Lantern Festival in Zhongxiang,91 Swings are referred to in a Liang dynasty calendar, Jingchu suishi ji,92 in connection with the Cold Food festival. Ta qing was part of the Flower Dawn celebrations in Zhongxiang,93 in this area generally observed on the second full moon of the lunar year. It is probable that a number of notions were expressed in such\n\n90\n\nPage 90\n\nPage 91",
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    {
        "id": 208369,
        "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",
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        "page_number": 93,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "QINGMING FESTIVAL IN CENTRAL CHINA\n\n77\n\nOur findings lend support to my earlier suggestions as to the nature of the Qingming festival and its place in the annual calendar. What is new is a vague hunch that the yin and yang aspects of the ancestors, manifest in graves and tablets, are less clearcut categories than we have hitherto assumed. I even suggested as a guideline for future research that the bones needed the animation of the ancestral force associated with the tablets to be productive.\n\nWhat remains puzzling is the distribution of ritual events in time. It is as if there was a 'vocabulary' of complex signs which conveyed some sort of basic messages; but there is no clear fixed order between the ceremonies. In our survey of the Dongting area we have found that, for instance, grave worship was part of the New Year celebrations, Earth God Day, Qingming, and occurred further in the sixth, eighth, and tenth lunar months. In the Chinese 'standard' calendar as we know it from late imperial times, Qingming is the grave day—although, in some parts of the country, Chongyang forms a counterpart. Unless we satisfy ourselves with a reference to the ever-present diversity of local custom, we should attempt at explaining the distribution of ritual events within the annual cycle.\n\nThe oldest record of customs from the Dongting area I know of is the Jingchu shuishi ji, compiled in the Liang dynasty of the early 6th century. It is a calendar which describes the annual festivals and in which is added a philosophical commentary to explain the popular customs in terms of celestial phenomena, and so on. This work gives us a picture of the ritual year which may serve as a baseline for an understanding of historical processes affecting the system. It is possible, of course, that there was just as much variation in the Liang dynasty; still, the source may be useful in forming a hypothesis about the calendar system.\n\nIf we look at spring in the seasonal records of Jingchu, we may say that this season is ritually introduced on the Spring Equinox when sowing was started. On that day people did not burn grass. The avoidance of fire marks that the day was under special yin influences. On the Earth God Day there were offerings of meat and wine. People moved out to huts among the trees'. Meat was offered also to the shen spirits of the deceased. Then comes Cold Food when it was forbidden to make fires for three days — again a marker of a yin dominated period. The source mentions ritual cock fighting and swinging.",
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    {
        "id": 208373,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1978",
        "page_number": 97,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "QINGMING FESTIVAL IN CENTRAL CHINA\n\n81\n\n39 See Maurice Freedman: Geomancy. Proceedings of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland for 1968. London\n\n1.15.\n\n40 Aijmer, A Structural Approach...p. 95,\n\n41 GJTSJC VI:1223 *** 126.\n\n42 Maurice Freedman, Chinese Lineage and Society: Fukien and Kwangtung. London School of Economics Monographs on Social Anthropology No. 33. London: Athlone Press, 1966.\n\n1* For instance, Lewis Hodous provides an account in his Folkways in China, London: Arthur Probstain, 1929, p. 92. Hodous draws mainly on his long Fujian experience.\n\n44 Aijmer, A Structural Approach\n\np.96.\n\n45 Aijmer, The Dragon Boat Festival, p. 77f.\n\n46 GJTSJC VI:1193, &$ 26.\n\n47 GJTSJC II:51, 6a. A Similar arrangement occurred in Youxian, GJTSJC II:51, 19b.\n\n48 Aijmer, The Dragon Boat Festival, pp. 78f.\n\n49 There were probably several kinds of paper money in use. The yellow kind referred to above was in all likelihood the 'gold variety. As our sources do not carry information in detail on this subject we must leave such further implications aside.\n\n50 I have notes from Gongan (GJTSJC VI:1193, * 36), Hanzhou (VI:1130, 風俗长 Ib), Zhongxiang (VI:1142: #6# 1b, 2b), Jingshan (VI:1142, & 3a) Chongyang (VI:1120 † 4a, 5a), and Tongshan (VI:1120, Afb† 6a).\n\n51 I have found notes from Baling (GJTSJC VI: 1223, K## 2b, ennt juan 11:6a), Wuchang (GJTSJC VI:1120, ✩ 26), Chongyang (VI:1120, £#* 46), Tongshan (VI:1120, ### 6b) and Yingshan (VI:1166, BB‡ 4b).\n\n52 Freedman, Chinese Lineage and Society. pp. 140f.\n\n53 Other names for this festival used in the region are Yulan dahui, 王蘭大會 Yulan penhui 盂蘭盆會,and Duwang dahui 度亡大會\n\nAll are Buddhist terms.\n\n54 I have, at present, no information from the Dongting area on the handling of paper money at funerals, for instance.\n\n55 GJTSJC VI:1223, # 2b.\n\n56 GJTSJC VI:1193, £&$ 26.\n\n57 GJTSJC VI:1142, R&* 3a.\n\n58 GJTSJC VI:1193, # 2a.\n\n59 GJTSJC VI:1259, 6 2a.\n\n60 GJTSJC VI:1130, &‡ 2a.\n\n61 GJTSJC VI:1120, K✩‡ 4b.\n\n62 GJTSJC VI:1166, ### 46.\n\n63 GJTSJC VI:1142, ‡ 4a.\n\n64 GJTSJC VI:1142, &* 2ab.\n\n65 mm, juan 2:96.\n\n66 GJTSJC VI:1193, R 2a.\n\n67 GJTSJC VI:1259, ✩ lb; 1142, * 2a.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 208374,
        "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": 98,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "82\n\n68 GJTSJC II:51, 19b.\n\nGÖRAN AUMER\n\n69 GJTSJC VI:1259, RG 2a.\n\n70 GJTSJC VI:1193, 風俗考 26; 1130, 風俗考 2a; 1142, 風俗考 38; 1120, 風俗考 5a; 1166, 風俗考 5a.\n\n71 GJTSJC VI: 1259, + 2ab. For two interesting discussions on foodstuffs as part of offering rituals, and in terms of cooked and raw food, see Emily M. Ahern, The Cult of the Dead in a Chinese Village. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1973, pp. 167-170, and Arthur P. Wolf: Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors, pp. 131-182 in Arthur P. Wolf (ed.), Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society, Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press, 1974.\n\n72 Chroniclers report this custom from Hanzhou (GJTSJC VI:1130, 1b), Jingshan (VI:1142, 3a), Zhongxiang (VI:1142, 6b), Chongyang (VI:1120, 4a), and Yingshan (VI:1166, 3b, 4a).\n\n73 GJTSJC VI:1120, 4a.\n\n74 A local tradition from Daye (GJTSJC VI: ... 17a) tells of a persecuted jiao dragon that turned itself into an ox island in a river; this was henceforth called Bull Island. A similar transmutation is mentioned in a legend referring to the Yuan River; see E. T. C. Werner, A Dictionary of Chinese Mythology, Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh Ltd. 1932, p. 116f.\n\n75 In Tongshan, there was an idea of a pair of Earth Gods, She Gong and She Mu. I have no other evidence for ideas of a female counterpart in the Dongting area; GJTSJC VI:1120, 6b.\n\n76 GJTSJC VI:1193, 2a. This may be compared to the use of a mixture of rice and red beans, sometimes contained in a pot, on other ritual occasions; see Aijmer, The Dragon Boat Festival, p. 76.\n\n77 GJTSJC VI:1259, 1b.\n\n78 GJTSJC VI:1142, 2a.\n\n79 GJTSJC VI:1259, 1b.\n\n80 #Ma juan 3: 8a. 風俗考\n\n81 GJTSJC VI:1120, 4b.\n\n82 GJTSJC VI:1142, 4b.\n\n83 GJTSJC VI:1120, 3a.\n\n## 4b.\n\n84 GJTSJC VI:1166, 4b. 風俗考\n\n85 GJTSJC VI:1193, 2a. 荆楚歲時記 Seasons in Jing and Chu. Auth. Tsung Lin\n\n86, juan 13:4a.\n\n87 GJTSJC VI:1130, 1b. 風俗考\n\n88 GJTSJC VI:1120, 4b.\n\n89 GJTSJC VI:1120, 2b.\n\n90 Aijmer, A Structural Approach... p. 95.\n\n91 GJTSJC VI:1142, 1b, 2b.\n\n92 荊楚歲時記 7b. 風俗考 16, 2b. M16\n\n93 GJTSJC VI:1142, 2a.\n\n94 loc. cit.\n\n95 GJTSJC VI:1166, 5b. Records of the ... Ed: MELAR‡ n.d.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 210186,
        "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-1984",
        "page_number": 157,
        "title": "RAS-1984",
        "content_text": "136\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\np. 78. There was a custom-made school building on the edge of Wong Nei Chung village which is shown on maps from Collinson's survey onwards.\n\n13 By \"town\", Collinson means village.\n\n14 The Last Year in China by a Field Officer actually employed in that Country (London, Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 2nd edition 1843) p. 75.\n\n15 Cited from the Canton Press for January 1842 by G.R. Sayer op. cit., p. 121. For information on present day So Kon Po, see the Notes by Revd Carl T. Smith and myself in JHKBRAS, Vol. 23 (1983) p. 7-77.\n\n16 Wright and Allom, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 17 and again at p. 33, \"Bamboo Aqueduct at Hong Kong\".\n\nFor a fuller account see J.W. Hayes The Hong Kong Region 1850-1911, Land and Leadership in Town and Countryside. (Hamden, Conn., Anchor Books, 1977) pp. 25-32.\n\nE A copy of this letter from Mr. Chow Yat-kwong, JP, dated 30 March 1967, is now in the Public Records Office, Hong Kong,\n\n19 This statement can be found in the manuscript volume Summary Report of the Squatters Commission 1891-1906 in the Public Records Office, Hong Kong, under the date of hearing 6 July 1893. By \"100 years\" is meant \"from before anyone now alive can remember,\" as normally in local village usage.\n\n20\n\n21 Ibid, hearing of 26 January 1891 of claims at Wong Nei Chung.\n\nReport of the Hong Kong Mission, Vol. 23, June 1843, November 6, p. 157, in American Baptist Board of Foreign Missions Archives, Valley Forge, Pa., by courtesy of Revd Carl T. Smith.\n\n22 American Baptist Mission Archives, folder of Revd I.J. Roberts, No. 1 — China, also by courtesy of Revd Smith.\n\n23 Captain A.A.T. Cunynghame, quoted in Sayer, op. cit., p. 104.\n\n24 Stanley and Aberdeen in 1841 would seem to have been very similar in size and composition to the New Territories Market Towns in 1898 and earlier. Thus, Sai Kung had 50 shops and 150 houses in 1898 with a population of 512 (cf. C. Fred Blake Ethnic Groups and Social Change in a Chinese Market Town. (Hawaii, 1981 p. 27-28), Tai Po New Market had 38 shops within eight years of its foundation (J.W. Hayes The Hong Kong Region, op. cit. p. 36 and n. 78), and Yuen Long Old Market had about 160 buildings of which at least 100 were shops (see unpublished Report 24 (Yuen Long Kau Hui) produced by Antiquities and Monuments Section, Hong Kong Government). 100 shops specifically noted as being from the Yuen Long Old Market donated to the restoration of the Tai Wong Temple there in 1837. At the Yuen Long Old Market many of the families working in the Market lived in the adjacent villages of Nam Pin Wai and Sai Pin Wai. As well as the 100 shops donating in 1837, 7 residents in the Market, 52 in Nam Pin Wai, and 22 in Sai Pin Wai donated, suggesting a total community of about 200 families, about half of which had shops. Tai O must have had more than 100 shops: 119 shops donated to the restoration of the Tin Hau temple there in 1838, 98 to the restoration of the Hung Shing temple there in 1841, and between 105 and 126 to the restoration of the Man Mo temple there in 1852 (in each case counting \"workshops\" and \"ferries\" as shops).\n\n科大衛,陳總集,吳倫電位,合術 香港碑靠藥衚\n\nMOMSKOM * (D. Faure, B. Luk, A. Ng The Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong) (Hong Kong Urban Council 1986), pp. 86-90, 90-93, 95-97, 103-107,",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 212572,
        "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": 126,
        "title": "RAS-1991",
        "content_text": "106\n\nunique practices as do, for instance, the Hakka, Chiu Chau and the boat people. Northern Chinese have no 'second burial' after exhumation as do southerners. Indeed funeral conventions sometimes vary slightly from village to village. Some believe that a menstruating woman must not touch a corpse as she is ‘unclean”. Men, as a sign of respect, may comb their dead wife's hair.\n\nIn Hong Kong there has been considerable merging of customs by different regional Chinese groups, but the focus is still, especially for Cantonese, on veneration of ancestors. This has been construed as meaning, if the living pay sufficient respect to the dead they will, in return, exert benevolence over the lives and prosperity of present and future family members. Ancestor worship is practised in several countries especially where communities are composed of kin groups believed to be descended from common ancestors, like the Five Great Clans of the New Territories. Christian churches have difficulty accepting the word 'worship' and prefer the term 'ancestor reverence.' Filial piety has been described as the most powerful force in China for the past 3,000 years. Probably nowhere are family records as meticulously kept as in China.\n\nReturning to the case study, while the deceased was alive, a western-trained Chinese physician suggested that she undergo an operation. She refused. Going 'intact' into the next world is still considered important by many. Thus Chinese medicine, with little emphasis on surgery, is not infrequently preferred to western medicine. This follows the Confucian dictum: 'One should not inflict harm on one's body, not even hair and skin because they were inherited from one's parents' (ADZ 膚,受之父母,不敢毀傷).\n\nThe human body is a sacred treasure which must not be marred by surgical incision.\" Eunuchs in Imperial China kept their castrated private parts in jars to be buried with them on their death. Not until 22 November, 1913, did an official edict in China grant permission for autopsies. The great shame with beheading was to have a dismembered body.\n\nIn Hong Kong, up to the 1950s and even later, if a patient had an operation and then died, some families would request that any removed organs be buried with the 'heavenly body'.\" Today, patients expect to be told whether something was removed during an operation. Donating of organs, such as kidneys for transplants or removing a beating heart,",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 213129,
        "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": 197,
        "title": "RAS-1993",
        "content_text": "179\n\nIt seems that the shops were not very long-lived; most must have existed only for the period of the founder's life. Where shops were succeeded to by a son on his father's death, it seems to have been common for the shop name to be changed. The coming of the new frontier seems to have led to a particularly thorough shake-out of shops. Of the 42 shops mentioned in the 1894 Shan Tsui tablet, only eight appear among the 19 mentioned on the 1906 Bride's Pool tablet, and only seven among the 39 on the 1920 tablet, including five of the eight which are mentioned on the 1906 tablet. Furthermore, the elders do not remember any shops with names corresponding to the majority of the donating shops in 1894 (only about 13 of the 42 shops donating in 1894 were remembered - about 31% - and two or three of these are doubtful): clearly many of these premises had gone out of business before the 1920s. At the same time, 10 of the 19 shops on the 1906 Bride's Pool tablet also appear on the 1920 Cheung Sha Kwu Tze tablet. Five of the 1906 donors appear on neither the 1894 tablet nor the 1920 tablet. This all suggests that more than half of the shops changed name between 1894 and 1906, but less than half between 1906 and 1920. It would seem that, on average, perhaps a quarter or a third of the shops changed names each decade.\n\nAll the elders contacted were land-people, and they knew little of the economic and social lifestyles of the boat-people. It seems that, while to the foreign visitor of 1925 mentioned above Sha Tau Kok was \"a fishing town\", Sha Tau Kok, while it had the essential structure of a wholesale fish market and a boatyard, was less dominated by the need to service the fishing fleet than towns such as Sai Kung, to say nothing of places like Cheung Chau or Tai O. The Sha Tau Kok area fishermen fished mostly within Mirs Bay - they did not, it would appear, normally join the fleets of better-located ports in exploiting the deep sea Wong Fa fisheries. Sha Tau Kok was a fishing port, but it was more of a land market than a sea market.\n\nAll the markets in the area required hawkers and coolies as well as shops, and Sha Tau Kok was no exception - indeed, given the importance of its carrying trade with Sham Chun, Sha Tau Kok may well have been more dependent on coolies than elsewhere. The hawkers were of two types: those who traded as a part-time occupation, and those who made their living by it. The villagers of the surrounding villages regularly supplemented their income by casual hawking in the town. Each village seems to have specialised in what it sold. Women from the villages near",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 213667,
        "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": 20,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "While on the subject of acknowledgements mention should also be made here that in January 1997 your Council presented a letter of appreciation and a signed copy of Beyond the Metropolis to Best Year Enterprise Ltd, a real estate company, for donating funds to assist in the restoration of Poon Uk. Their efforts to help restore an outstanding example of Hakka architecture, in Yuen Long, is a significant gesture and sets an example to other organisations which we hope they will follow.\n\nConclusions\n\nTo some degree changes in Hong Kong during the year of transition and beyond will affect our Society, which, in effect, is a United Kingdom organisation with a branch in Hong Kong. In January and February 1997 your Council discussed, yet again, the question of whether we should drop the prefix 'Royal'. A small survey was conducted. The conclusion was that a limited number of members were in favour of a change and that, at least for the immediate future, the 'Royal' should be retained.\n\nWith a relatively large institution it is not possible, naturally, to satisfy everyone all the time. Our Society has been criticised for not being sufficiently academic, for not being sufficiently selective in membership, and for having too few young members. Jean Sibelius (1865-1957), the Finnish composer, said: \n\nPay no attention to what the critics say; no statue was ever put up to a critic. We do, however, listen to what our members say, and while we agree there is a need for us to organise some academic-style seminars, there is also a need for lectures with a more general approach. In the main, we feel we have got the mix about right and that our Society plays a useful role in its existing form.\n\nTo counterbalance the above criticism, may I add that during the past year we were delighted to receive (among others) the following bouquets from two members who have left Hong Kong. Rosemary Lee, comparing us with other organisations, wrote:\n\nxix",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 213769,
        "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": 121,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "92\n\nFor instance, in Sha Tin, both Punti and Hakka indigenous villagers believe that their numbers are, and have always been, about half-and-half, whereas in fact there were, in 1911, 28.4% Punti males to 66.2% Hakka males (the remaining 5.4% were predominantly \"not stated\").\n\n* Census Report, 1911, Tables XIX, XIXa\n\n97 Basel Mission Archive, Doct. A 1-2, No 14 A1-28, No 47. Des Evangelische Heidenbote, Feb 1906, p 9.\n\nSee Der Evangelische Heidenbote, Sep 1861, for a discussion of the indentured coolie trade from this general area.\n\n\"D. Faure, A. Ng, B. Luk, eds, Xianggang Beiming Huipian. Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong, Urban Council, Hong Kong, 1986. Vol 1, pp 262-280.\n\nThe tablet records the donations towards the rebuilding of the main Tsuen Wan Temple.\n\nThe tablet divides donors into two categories: 500 donors resident in the Tsuen Wan District, and some 636 resident abroad. While a few of those donating from overseas were not Tsuen Wan people (a few Sha Tin villagers can be identified), the great majority clearly are. There can be no doubt that Tsuen Wan, as the other New Territories mountainous areas, had a high percentage of its young adult males overseas in 1900. The overseas donors came from California, Australia, Hawaii, Siam, Singapore, Hong Kong, and elsewhere. Faure et al., The Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong, op cit. Vol 1, pp 319-329.\n\n10 Census Report, 1971, Table I.\n\n102 Basel Mission Archive, Doct A1-2, No 44 printed in translation in P.H. Hase, \"Sha Tau Kok in 153\", in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol 30, 1990, p 281-297.\n\n* J.L. Watson, “Self-Defence Corps, Violence, and the Bachelor Sub-Culture in South China: Two Case Studies”, in Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Sinology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, 1989, pp 209-22. There is no evidence for female infanticide in the New Territories or the broader region.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 213948,
        "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": 18,
        "title": "RAS-1997",
        "content_text": "to his daughter, Mrs R. Woodcock, for donating these to our Society.\n\nOur Branch is always looking for donations and if anybody wishes to find a good home for some interesting and valuable items or artifacts we should be grateful if you would consider donating them to the RASHKB.\n\nThe Public Records Office\n\nAlthough the RASHKB is apolitical and has no wish to be seen as a pressure group, it does make its views known when it has a case. You may remember that our Branch objected when the Hong Kong Government decided to move the Public Records Office from Central District into an industrial building in Tuen Mun. Besides writing letters and taking other action two Branch deputations appeared before the Legislative Council Panel on Information Policy in 1993. The outcome of our efforts was that a new, purpose-built Public Records Office was opened in Kwun Tong, in June 1997, shortly before the Handover. Our Branch played a major role in this achievement.\n\nThe Council\n\nSeveral of the 14 posts which comprise our Council require a special expertise. These include the Treasurer, the Librarian and our Editors. But, in addition to these 14 posts, other persons are co-opted on to the Council. They include the Reverend Carl Smith, our Honorary Vice President, and our Assistant Secretary, Mrs Sarah Parnell. Each Council Member is expected to pull at his or her respective oar and to row in unison. It is a working council.\n\nIn addition to the two co-opted persons named above, namely Carl Smith and Sarah Parnell, as well as the President, the following have sat on the Council during the past year: Doctors Elizabeth Sinn, Michael Lau, Patrick Hase, Joseph Ting, Peter Barker, Choi Chi-cheung and Anthony Siu, together with Robert Nield, Geoffrey Roper, Peter Halliday, Valery Garrett, Julia Chan, and Peter Rull. Also, although Anita Wilson stepped down from the Council at the last AGM, she was co-opted back on until she left the Territory last July. All those\n\nxvii",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215227,
        "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": 4,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "Errata\n\nDue to a printing error, only half, in each case, of the photos on pages 227 to 238 has been reproduced. The full photographs will be included in Volume 42.\n\nThe caption accompanying the photo on page 239 should read: 'Dr Brian Shaw donating a set of HKBRAS journals to Mr Mynak R. Tulku, Director of the National Library of Bhutan, February 2002'.\n\nThe Hon. Editor deeply apologises to Robert Nield and members for these errors.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215247,
        "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": 24,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "Hong Kong and its region. Most of the expansion of the Library over the last decade has come about through donations of suitable books to the Library by members, although some books have also been purchased by the Society. Some donations, such as the marvellous donation of a large number of books from the estate of the late Arnold Graham, have been particularly noteworthy. I would like to appeal to members to consider donating books to the Library where they have volumes which would seem suitable.\n\nThe Library is designed as a collection of books which would otherwise not be available for public consultation in Hong Kong, or which are otherwise not easily available for consultation. Such books might be rare books, or else specialist books, or perhaps collections of material relating to a particular firm, community, or interest group, in whatever language. Books written or edited by members are particularly welcome. The list of Additions to the Library attached to the Hon. Librarian's Report shows the sort of volumes the Library would welcome.\n\nAny donations of volumes would be most gratefully received. Books donated would be given the most scrupulous and loving of care by the staff of the LCSD, and can be assumed to be well looked-after and available to the public on a permanent basis. Film, tape, CD material, photographs (which, following a recent agreement with the Hong Kong Museum of History will be put on permanent loan to the Museum) would also be welcome.\n\nA Catalogue of the Library has been prepared by the LCSD Library Staff. Council is in discussion with LCSD to see if it is possible for copies to be made available to members at a suitable fee, possibly in a slightly revised format. Members will be informed in due course of any successful outcome to these discussions.\n\nLectures and Visits\n\nFor many members, it is the lectures and visits put on by the Society which are the main reason for their continuing membership. Appended to this Report are lists of the lectures and visits mounted by the Society during 2001-2002. The Society takes a four week break during the middle of the year. Members will note that the 16 lectures given by the Society (including the two given on Saturday December 8th to\n\nxxi",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215301,
        "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": 78,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "26\n\nits relationship to the relatively stable solar year, which could deviate from the true astronomical cycle only by three days. This discrepancy between the two cycles brought the advantage that what people carried out practically, in accordance with the reckoning of the sun's passage through a zodiac, could be celebrated after the practical event, and then the moon calendar offered the opportunity. Feasting did not interfere with work. But this was not always so. Some important festivals were tied to the position of the sun. The existence of two calendars also offered the possibility of double celebrations - each feast emphasizing one of two different aspects of some phenomenon. By such a separation in time, equal weight and dignity could be given to notions that did not easily tally inside one singular ritual frame.\n\nIn solar terms, the period of 'Establishment of Spring' set in on (approximately) the fifth of February. There was a great festival at that time, which was really part of the long New Year duration, but also connoted with expectations for the coming agricultural year.2 The spring season in central China lasted through the periods of 'Rain Water,' 'Arousal from Hibernation,' 'Vernal Equinox,' 'Clear and Bright,' 'Grain Rains' and up to ‘Establishment of Summer' on the fifth of May. In terms of the varying lunar calendar, spring would correspond roughly with the period from the middle of the first moon up to the beginning of the fourth lunary.\n\nWhat were the festive concerns of people in the Lake Dongting area in the early part of the long Chinese spring? One prominent feature was a continuing divination about coming crops and the weather upon which these were dependent. Already New Year was a great period for forecasting and these predictions were continued in the course of the spring. We can find some glimpses of such activities in our sources. But there were also some more prominent days which saw a lot of ritual activities.\n\nOne day in early spring was of special importance. According to the official almanac it fell on the fifth wu day that followed Li Chun.  is the fifth of a set of twelve 'Earthly Branches' that in combination with twelve 'Celestial Stems' formed a system for calculating time and days. Li Chun is the mentioned solar period\n\n2\n\nAijmer 2002: Ch. XV.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215302,
        "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": 79,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "27\n\n'Establishment of Spring' starting on the fifth of February, Gregorian reckoning. A wu day would have been a day which showed a stem-branch combination that contained the character wu. The day of interest here would occur some forty to fifty days after the first day of the Li Chun. So this day would have fallen sometime by mid-March, generally in the second moon, but at varying dates there. This day was called She Ri 'She Day'. It seems likely that it was celebrated according\n\nto the date provided by the official calendar-chronicles from Yingshan Magistracy (in De'an Prefecture), Suiyang Magistracy 陽縣 (in Wuchang Prefecture 武昌府) and Wuchang Magistracy 武昌 (also in Wuchang Prefecture) place the festival in the second moon.3\n\nIt is not so easy to say what the She was in late imperial times in this lake land in Central China. In terms of State rituals there was still an imperial sacrifice in the spring on an altar southwest of the palace in the capital, devoted to She Ji *. Sometimes this two-character name is understood as referring to one deity, sometimes as to a combination of two-She being the god ruling the land and Ji the divine controller of grain crops. There was a hierarchy of provincial, prefectural and magistratial She Ji, who were all part of the imperial official state cult. The imperial offering was the exclusive privilege of the Emperor. Before his sacrifice the altar was covered with earth of five colours - a colorific togetherness which expressed the total universe, and thereby the generative and destructive power of the five activities, wu xing 4. A special stone tablet was erected in the middle. After the ceremony this was taken down and buried in the ground until the next occasion for worship.4\n\nIn some areas in the south, present-day villagers tend to see the She as a chthonic registrar of deaths and births, an earth god who is thus associated with both death and human fecundity. More generally it appears as if the She in many areas of China signified a notion of locality. Both the Imperial cult and the present day Cantonese example may serve us as pointers, but what the demotic ideas about the She, and the She Day, actually were in the area surrounding Lake Dongting a few hundred years ago, is something we must try to glean from the\n\n3 古今圖書集成.1888. VI,1166: 風俗考毯4a; 1120:風俗考2b4b.\n\n4 Bredon & Mitrophanow 1972: 63-64.\n\n5 Aijmer & Ho 2000: 37-41 and Yang 1961: 98-99.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215313,
        "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": 90,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "38\n\nthe divinity of these chthonic domains. That underworld was also the universe of the dead in their graves. In a sense the altar, or shrine, of the She (She Ji) may have been intuited as a symbolic epitome of the collective of graves, but this would then have been a synthesis of death and the dead with a difference. In grave worship it was explicitly dead individuals who were addressed, and possibly also a multitude of such individuals, all of whom were discursively brought together by a grammar of agnatic kinship. It may be significant that, as in Yuanjiang, the recently dead should be worshipped at their graves before the She Day—when they were still 'uncollectivized' individuals. Perhaps they were incorporated into the She and the common ground of the vicinage on this very day. In a social landscape filled with localized lineage communities, it may be that the dead of an area or a neighbourhood were always former members of a particular localized lineage. But that may not always have been true.\n\nWe might hypothesize that the She was a manifestation of the collectivity of the dead in an area, an aggregation of 'death force' without discrimination in terms of agnatic kinship. The She brought his worshippers the blessings of the vegetative power of the underground and its inhabitants for the coming crops, for the production of rice and the reproduction of society. This train of thought would also account for the political component, the She being the centripetal energy in a demarcated space—in contrast to ancestors and their cults which were articulated in idioms of time, to enhance various particularized claims of specific kinship communities. The She was, like the Imperial administration, for everyone and, in the final analysis, the Emperor was the mediator of the blessings of the underground for his Imperial realm.\n\nAbout the same time, and in the same annual phase of spring and vernal tasks in the agricultural cycle, people in the Dongting area also celebrated the Flower Dawn. This was a festival of certain female presuppositions, being connected with the full moon. People observed the awakening Nature, the re-emergence of butterflies and other insects and the sprouting vegetation. They sought out areas outside of towns and villages for outings with picnics and games. On occasion, this seasonal striving upwards from the ground in the direction of Heaven, was made symbolically explicit by the flying of paper kites. The day was one on which initiatives were taken to betroth young women and,\n\nPage 90\n\nPage 91",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
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        "id": 215513,
        "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": 290,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "239\n\nDr Brian Shan donating a set of RASHKB journals to Mr. Mynak R. Tulku, Director of the National library of Bhutan, February 2002.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215739,
        "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": 38,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "can be accessed more easily by the public. The work of putting all this material onto CD and entered into the library is likely to take some time, but I hope that most of the work will be complete by this time next year. Keep your eyes on the Newsletter for information on these developments as they are achieved!\n\nThe Society has been successful over the last year in attracting donations to the library of a significant number of important books on Hong Kong and the Far East, I would like to recommend this to you. Should any of you have books no longer of interest, please consider donating them to us. The executors of several recently deceased Members have chosen to donate some of their holdings of books on Hong Kong: this is also a practice which I would like to recommend to you all! Members should bear in mind that the library would be particularly interested in donations of books which may be seen as \"out-of-date\" but which would nevertheless have a historical interest - commercial reports, Government papers and so forth would certainly be of interest to us!\n\nFriends of the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong, in the United Kingdom\n\nMembers are, I am sure, well aware of the existence of the Friends in the United Kingdom. This body allows Members moving from Hong Kong to the United Kingdom to continue their interests in the culture and history of the Hong Kong area, as well as providing a social venue where they can continue to meet up with old friends who, like them, have moved from Hong Kong to the United Kingdom. I and my predecessors have, in the last several Annual General Meetings, urged all Members leaving Hong Kong for the United Kingdom to join the Friends, and I do so again now. As to what the Friends do, I will shortly read an Annual Report on their activities sent to us by the Chairman of the Friends, Mr David Gilkes.\n\nConclusion\n\nI would like to conclude this Report by thanking all Members of the Society in general, and all Members of Council in particular, for their support of the Society during this past year, and for their friendliness and helpfulness to me personally at all times. I would also\n\nxxix",
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        "id": 216196,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-2002",
        "page_number": 495,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "12 02 02\n\n429\n\nDr Brian Shaw donating a set of HKBRAS journals to Mr Mynak R. Tulku, Director of the National Library of Bhutan, February 2002\n\nPage 495\n\nPage 496",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
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