[ { "id": 204869, "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-1964", "page_number": 172, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n147\n\nBranch of the Royal Asiatic Society. The following additional notes, which are not meant to be comprehensive or definitive, are added for interest.\n\nAccording to YUEN Yuen's revised edition of the History of Kwangtung, the present structure dates from 1817 and has therefore been in existence for nearly 150 years. Its construction followed a period of recommendations, which probably accounts for the curious fact that it was built after the provincial government had finally managed to deal successfully with the large pirate fleets which had terrorized the Kwangtung coastal and riverine regions for the past twenty years. It seems certainly to have been a case of closing the stable door after the horse had bolted; though it may also have resulted from increasing concern with European activity in the delta. The official documents of the time would establish which it was.\n\nThe fort contains buildings within a large enclosure whose walls measure 225 feet long x 265 feet deep. The front ramparts, through which the entrance gateway passes, are between 15-20 feet thick. The layout at the time of the lease of the New Territories to Great Britain, in 1898, is clearly shown on the survey sheets for Tung Chung, which were prepared soon after the lease. If my memory serves me right, the walls are still in good condition. A village primary school has ample space inside the compound and some of the old buildings, which may have housed the garrison in 1898, are used as offices by the school and by the Tung Chung Rural Committee.\n\nThe walls have stone foundations to a height of perhaps 8-10 feet and a superstructure built of the common bluish-dark grey bricks of the region. Geologists would be able to say whether, as is likely, the stone and the granite slabs used in its construction were brought from the quarries on nearby Chik Lap Kok, the island which juts north from Tung Chung Bay. In this respect it is similar to the other remaining fort on Lantau. This is at Fan Lau at the south-west tip of the island and has been attributed, probably wrongly, to the Dutch. It is considerably older than the Tung Chung fort and the San On district history states that it was built in 1684. However, it has been long...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205785, "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-1969", "page_number": 91, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "KING MONGKUT AND THE KINGDOM OF SIAM\n\n85\n\nCrawfurd obtained neither better relations nor easier trading conditions. What is more he was received by King Rama II's officials in a most ungenerous manner. Dr. George Finlayson, the Scots medical officer and naturalist on board their ship the John Adam records this impression of the dwelling given to the mission by the Siamese: \"A habitation was provided for the British envoy, a miserable place, an out-house with four small, ill-ventilated rooms, approached through a trap-door from below...\" An official of low rank was sent to them. All he wanted was presents for the King. Finlayson goes on: \"In the urgency to obtain and the frequency of the demands of the Court for the gifts there was a degree of meanness and avidity at once disgusting and disgraceful\". The King seems to have been petty as well as rude. On one occasion the Foreign Minister called on Crawfurd to help retrieve two pairs of \"ordinary glass lamps\" on which the King had set his heart. The lamps had been promised, said the Foreign Minister, to His Majesty and sold by a member of the John Adam's crew to somebody else!\n\nFortunately the Crawfurd mission was not treated in such a mean manner throughout all its four months' stay at Bangkok. Dignity was restored by a Royal audience and there was much friendly talk. But he got no improvement in either trade or diplomacy. Crawfurd also tried to get the Siamese to accept a Consul and to obtain exemption for British merchants and crews from the harsh justice of Siam's law, but in these matters he had no success. He comments in his account of the Mission: \"If the subjects of a free and civilised Government resort to a barbarous and despotic country, there is no remedy but submission to its laws, however absurd or arbitrary\".\n\nFour years later, in 1826, the East India Company sent another mission to Bangkok. By this time the first campaign against the Burmese had been fought and won and there was a new king on the throne of Siam, Mongkut's half brother, Rama III. The mission was led by Captain Henry Burney, a nephew of Fanny Burney and military secretary to the Governor of Penang. He was much more successful than Crawfurd and came away with a treaty which somewhat improved matters. The Burney Treaty did not, however, go very far. It obtained a certain amount of goodwill regarding the frontier and the Malay States but Kedah was still accepted as Siam's vassal. Trade was to be free and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206632, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1972", "page_number": 180, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "174\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nA legend in another book, the Shen I Ching (*) says that Chin Ch'ong (†) the son of Pan Ku the Creator of the World, who lived in the mountains of Shantung province, was canonised T'ai Sui for his many good deeds and was made responsible to Heaven for supervising the activities of all spirits (shen‡) and demons (kuei§). Few present-day Chinese with whom I have spoken appear to know of this story.\n\nT'ai sui was first worshipped during the Sung Dynasty in the eleventh century A.D. and was first offered official sacrifices during the Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty. Only after The Deification of the Gods popularised the idea was T'ai Sui identified with Yin Ch'iao.\n\nReason for the worship of Yin Ch'iao\n\nYin Ch'iao, or T'ai Sui as he will be referred to from now on, is a stellar deity who in many parts of China is believed to have flood, famine and all good and bad fortune under his jurisdiction. He is worshipped by the general populace to avert calamities, and has to be placated before any enterprise or journey is embarked upon. He was also worshipped by the imperial officials at the beginning of Spring. He is known to control the dates and times of births and deaths, and each one of his sixty images often displayed in rows in temples is dedicated to one specific year in the sixty year cycle of Chinese dating. Chinese place their offerings on the altar before the T'ai Sui bearing the cyclic year date of their birth. Father Doré in his Recherches sur les Superstitions en Chine calls him the \"Patron of the Harvests\".\n\nT'ai Sui is the great Father Time who, presiding over the year, is the arbiter of the destiny of all men. He is very much feared as he destroys those whom he dislikes and those who offend him. He is said to strike when least expected and can injure and destroy the highest and the lowest, at home or on the high roads, but is believed never to injure anyone in the vicinity of his, T'ai Sui's, own person. Therefore it is essential to know where he is at any given moment, and if he is nearby but not immediately present, he is at his most dangerous and precautions against his evil influence must be taken at once. This is done by hanging the appropriate talisman or stellar charm near the front door or facing the entrance. To find where T'ai sui will be during the forthcoming year he is believed to move annually—a device similar to a compass is used by a fêng shui\n\nPage 180\n\nPage 181", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206682, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1972", "page_number": 230, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "224\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nis made to view the movements which have often been politically militant, first against the background of Chinese society, imperial power and foreign penetration, then the Republican cause, and finally in what is perhaps the most original and interesting section of the book, the period 1919-1949: 'the Chinese Revolution'. There are no Chinese characters in the text but a short character index is appended after an equally short bibliography and a slightly longer list of references.\n\nThis book seems to be mainly oriented to the general reader who is unfamiliar with the subject, and in as far as this is so the author may be excused for his almost entire use of secondary materials; even the official documents are largely culled from other published sources. But since he also states that one of his major concerns is to ‘illuminate certain aspects of the life of Chinese secret societies and the part they played in China's political upheavals', it does call for more considered criticism.\n\nOne does not, of course, blame the author for not reaching definite conclusions. As he says, the 'sixty or so original documents' are certainly not enough to provide an answer to such questions as how one might define a Chinese secret society in modern times (or for that matter, I would say, traditional times). Historical research is only just beginning. But I would take issue with him on what I consider to be a fundamental weakness in his analysis: the mixing of structurally and functionally, as well as ideologically, different categories. Here, in fact, the Chinese use of terminology is itself often misleading, for the same term might be applied indiscriminately to different orders of groupings: all organizations which have in common secrecy, religion, and militant, anti-establishment aims. The groups themselves, moreover, sometimes use the terms hui ('society') and tao ('religion') or men ('door' or 'sect') interchangeably, and even more confusing, dissimilar types of groups appear to have sometimes combined in order to pursue some particular aim of the moment. But enough has been written in the last decade to show that two distinctly different kinds of groupings emerged in China, and certain major differences may sometimes be discerned in fact from the earlier literature.\n\nGroups such as, for example, the Pure Tea Sect (Ch'ing-ch'a-hui), the Way of Fundamental Unity (Yi-kuan-tao), the Eight Diagrams, the Observance Society, 'Vegetarians' (in fact a qualification for", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207512, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1975", "page_number": 280, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "272\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\neasy for a job or an individual to become intolerable. Most disputes were smoothed out by the patients in charge of wards, the chief wardmaster, or the executive sergeant-major. I used to make regular visits informally to wards after the evening check parade, and here I could chat to patients in charge and to other patients. I thus came to hear of many of the disputes I refer to above and much gossip reached me from these and other sources though nothing in any way approaching an information service ever operated within the hospital to relay news to me. Some disputes reached me officially and on many nights I lay awake for a while pondering over problems which were really insoluble. I developed the ability to comfort myself with the thought that I could do no more and I went to sleep. It was remarkable how many unpleasant situations involving our relations with Japanese and relations within the hospital did in fact solve themselves, possibly not on the next day but within a few days. Solutions came about usually by a change of attitude on the part of someone who had previously seemed immovable. I was extremely fortunate in having a small converted lavatory in which I had my bed and so could occasionally shut my door though I remained available to anybody at any time. In Kowloon again I slept in my own office and so in both places I cannot be too grateful for this boon.\n\nI rested in the afternoon only on some Sundays. All the other days I occupied myself gardening, cutting grass in the grounds, chopping wood or in some way in which I was involved physically. Over months I analysed the war casualties in a great deal of detail and so was able at the end to produce for the editors of the Official History a report which was valuable to them. Otherwise I played a bit of bridge.\n\nSEX\n\nNo account of any human activities is complete nowadays without some reference to sex. In the present case I do not need to give much space to this subject. Earlier I referred to the fact that some soldiers before hostilities broke out, were so alarmed by the near certainty of venereal infection if they consorted casually with the local women that they turned to their own sex in the hope of avoiding this disease. The hope was a vain one and many contracted venereal infections from homosexual relationships.\n\nIn the seven months during which 50 women were living in the hospital in captivity with us, almost every nook and cranny was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208439, "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": 163, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "VILLAGE GOVERNMENT IN CHINA, 1933\n\n147\n\nare to collect taxes and reasonably to preserve peace and prevent crimes. These two considerations control the entire policy of the government with regard to the villages: so long as the two requirements are met the government is satisfied to allow the villages to manage themselves. For their part the villages remain almost oblivious to the central government, happy, indeed to know nothing of it, since relations between the two are seldom if ever in favor of the people.\n\nA survey of the government offices of the Ti-pao gives a good insight to the relations between the government and the village, and it is here that it is possible to find most exact information. One of the first duties of the Ti-pao is to keep the census record. In former times this record had a significance in determining the corvée, but at present the record seems to be mostly for police and census purposes, and to aid the Ti-pao in his official duty of knowing everything about everyone. At the door of each dwelling there ought to be posted a tablet or men-p’ai (門牌) on which are inscribed the names of all the individuals who live under the common roof. Details to be noted are as follows: The name and surname of the Chia-chang, his profession and age; the names and ages of his wife, his sons and his daughters; the names, surnames, ages and first homes of his servants or people in his employ; the total number of people who live with him. The Ti-pao, himself a member of the village, is supposed to check and correct his report from his own knowledge. When the verification has taken place the men-p'ai are transcribed onto a public register, Hu Chi (戶籍).\n\nThe system of corvée which depends upon this register of families is under the direction of the Ti-pao. Every individual over the age of sixteen is supposed to be liable for a certain amount of personal service to the state, and in olden times this seems to have been a burden. Carts, animals and porters were supposed to be put at the service of officials travelling through the district. To some extent these levies are still made, according to Jamieson, but the principal calls in modern times are for work in case of emergency as in the\n\n1 Bazin; \"Recherches sur les Institutions Administrative et Municipales de la Chine\", II, p. 249 f.\n\n2 Ibid., p. 252. On the matter of census see also Boulais, Guy; Manuel du Code Chinois, p. 160-166.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208870, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1980", "page_number": 32, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "4\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\nTemples and monasteries, despite their outward appearance are not always simple, self-contained religious units. Quite frequently they contain a number of major and minor deities, each with its special shrine or altar, hall or building.10 The original major deity may, for one of several reasons, be relegated to a secondary position and a new primary deity installed on the main altar. After some years and changes in abbots or temple keepers, the identity of certain deities, including surprisingly, major gods and goddesses, have been forgotten and, so as not to lose face, their identities are guessed at by temple staff, often wildly inaccurately.\n\nThere are several groups or complexes of folk religion temples in the two territories and to identify the number of individual temples on one particular site apart that is from where it is possible from reading the titles over the entrances-it is necessary to count the number of Earth Gods and Door Guardians in their niches inside the temple on the inside walls, usually opposite each other, facing across the various entrances. A single or pair of these deities is usually found in each individual temple within a complex of temples irrespective of how many entrances there are. The Wen Wu temple (or Man Mo in Cantonese) in Hollywood Road, Hong Kong is an example, with two temples side by side seeming to be one having only one courtyard. The Wen Wu itself, a large traditional temple, is to the east with its Door Official and Earth God sitting side by side in one shrine. In the smaller \"Temple of the Buddha of Light\" on the west, there is only a single image, a lone deity called the \"Door Official Earth God\", a title which amalgamates the titles of the two usual deities.\n\nUrban and rural11 folk religion temples differ in that the former tend to be more sophisticated, always have a keeper and several other staff, cater for worship by individuals at any hour (between 8am and 6pm) and have a wealth of images. Rural temples, in the main also boast keepers, but these are usually absent as they are \"pensioners\",12 very elderly people who spend much of their time asleep, calling on friends or shopping. Devotees visiting a rural temple normally find no one to assist them, and presumably, as this is an accepted facet of rural life, nobody seems to mind. The urban temple keeper on the other hand has to earn his living or recoup his investment of an annual tender, and so he ensures that a member of the staff is permanently in the temple during opening hours to assist in devotions, offer for sale incense, oil, charms and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210003, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 262, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "240\n\ntrading contacts with Tai Wai. At the same time the temple is currently used by the villagers of Tai Wai for purely village rituals such as the hanging of the lanterns for new-born sons, and the only communal worship is conducted by the village elders, and not by the elders of the Heung.\n\nIt was probably this conflict between the communal and the purely village interest in Hau Wong and his temple which led to the decision to build an entirely new, and much larger temple, just outside the village. Such a site would certainly make it easier for non-villagers to worship, and that this was aimed at is shown by the specific mention of Lek Yuen (1), the old name for Sha Tin District, in the doorjamb inscriptions. At the same time all the donors named in the door inscriptions were Tai Wai villagers, the most prominent, Wong Yin-Tsun (2), being a villager who had succeeded in securing an official post in Shantung province.\n\nThe villagers believe that this new temple was only built a few decades before the Block Crown Lease - probably, therefore, the date 1888 on the door is the original foundation date. The foundation was not successful: most villagers wanted the god back in the old temple inside the village, and difficulties which arose were blamed on damage to the Fung Shui of the village as set out by Lai Po-i. After about 30 years, the temple was closed and the god taken back to his old home opposite the village gate: since then his temple, in the village, has been considered basically for Tai Wai villagers only.\n\nNOTE\n\n1 Chinese Monasteries, temples, shrines and altars in Hong Kong and Macau, Keith G. Stevens, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Vol. 20, 1980, pp. 1–33.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210443, "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-1985", "page_number": 50, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "31\n\ndeep indentations. There are [more than 230] islands.\n\nOne of them, placed almost in the centre of the Port Shelter area on the eastern side of the Colony and separated by a strait less than fifty yards wide from its neighbour, is Kau Sai island. The sheltered area lying between the two islands westward of the narrows (Kau Sai Strait) is Kau Sai Bay, referred to by the locally based fishermen always as “our own bay” (boon waan). Stretching north along the western shore immediately proximate to Kau Sai Strait is the village of Kau Sai. In 1950 it comprised 17 houses, all but two occupied by 50-plus speakers of the Hakka language, and was regarded as a home anchorage by the almost 500 Cantonese speaking inhabitants of some 61 boats. The two non-Hakka households contained 6 ex-Boat People.\n\nThe largest, most elaborate and best kept building was a temple dedicated to Hung Shing Kung, a deified official of the T'ang dynasty who holds a watching brief over the fortunes of all manners of men, particularly those who have to do with boats and the sea. An unroofed patio on the left side of the main hall of the temple was used as a schoolroom, weather permitting. Unswept and dirty it contained about ten clumsily botched-up desks and a few equally ramshackle chairs. The rest of the temple building was fairly regularly swept and dusted by one of the shore dwelling ex-fishermen, an elderly fellow, no longer capable of work at sea, who had been given the post of caretaker a few years before. The temple had a concrete floor, a gilded inscription over the entrance, and contained a number of images and the usual ritual appointments. Its granite block walls were surmounted by an upward curving roof of blue-green porcelain tiles.\n\nSome of the houses were built or partly built of granite blocks, too, but more were constructed of once-whitewashed mud or mud-bricks. Their floors were all of beaten earth. Near each Hakka house stood a pig-sty, often tumbledown and usually doubling as a latrine for humans. There were two shops. The larger was owned and run by an ex-fisherman, with the help of his wife and daughter; the smaller one, next door, was in the hands of the younger brother of the Hakka village \"headman\".", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210943, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1987", "page_number": 5, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n275 \n\nthe heung in question is to take charge of the matter on its own, and it is not the concern of the other heung [in the alliance]. \n\n10. In the event that there is a genuinely unlawful descendant [tsz-ai] among the various surnames, and his own lineage () brings charges against him, and if the shan-sz of other heung are notified, they must also put their names to these charges and may not refuse to do so. [The term tsz-tai implies that the culprit must be male and within the lines of descent of the lineage.] \n\n約 \n\n11. If a robber is caught within the alliance [yeuk shuk] and charged, the alliance will contribute 4 silver dollars towards expenses. [The term yeuk shuk, literally \"what belongs to the alliance\", may include a much wider territory than what is normally thought of as the confines of the individual member villages. The member villages were major land-owners in the New Territories, whose holdings stretched from Sai Kung to Kowloon, and the possibility must not be ruled out that the Old Alliance was designed to have jurisdiction over a much larger area than Sheung Shui and its immediate vicinity.] \n\n12. On the occasion of the annual sacrifice, within the first ten days of the Fourth Month, the chief manager of affairs for the year is to set a title from the Four Books and another for a five character poem, and post them outside the door of the Po Tak Temple, so that during the celebration villagers may submit to the manager their compositions. The manager will forward these compositions to teachers at the provincial capital [i.e. Canton] to be adjudicated. The best ten compositions will be awarded some small gifts in order to encourage literary achievement. \n\n13. On the occasion of a military or literary official functionary [man-mo yau-p'oon] passing by the Governor's Temple and paying his respect to Governor-General Chau and Governor Wong, a roast pig is to be prepared, he is to be awarded altogether 6 silver dollars, and his men and horses are to receive 2 silver dollars. For the feast on that day, two tables are to be set. Every share [in the yeuk] is to despatch to the feast at the Governor's Temple one or two shan-sz from the village. It will be understood that the four shares together will", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211388, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1988", "page_number": 104, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "80\n\nto him roughly, Pooi To took the fish, and held it up admiringly. Then he tossed it back into the sea, and the fish swam away. Pooi To went on to another fisherman, who had a net. He again begged to be given a fish, but he was told go away. So Pooi To picked up two small stones and threw them into the net, and instantly two buffaloes appeared in the net, fighting with each other. Soon the net was torn to pieces, and the buffaloes slipped out of the net and disappeared, and when the astonished fisherman turned round to Pooi To, he had disappeared too.\n\nAfter this Pooi To went to the capital city, and stayed in the house of a rich man named Ch'an (陳), a native of Naam Chau (南州). Later 南州 stories reached Ch'an that there was another Pooi To in the city. Ch'an and his four sons could not believe it, but as the people who had told them persisted, Ch'an resolved to find out for himself. Leaving Pooi To in the house, he went with his sons into the town, and found, to his surprise, another monk exactly like Pooi To sitting there. Then Ch'an prepared a box of honey-ginger, which he gave to the new Pooi To, together with a knife to cut the ginger and a handkerchief dipped in fragrant water. The monk put the box on his lap, and started to eat the ginger, but however much he ate, the same amount remained in the box. So Ch'an decided that this man must indeed be Pooi To, and telling his two younger sons to remain with him, he went home again with the others. When they opened the door of their house they found Pooi To sitting there and on his lap was a box of honey ginger, a knife and a handkerchief dipped in fragrant water. He held out the knife to Ch'an saying, “This is not sharp enough to cut the ginger. Sharpen it,” While Ch'an was doing this, the two younger sons returned home, and reported that they had followed the monk in the city to the monastery of Ling Tsau (靈藏). Then Pooi To asked to be given two pieces of yellow paper, and he wrote some characters on the back of each. No one could understand the characters or even knew what language they were, and when Ch'an asked him what he was writing Pooi To gave no reply. He folded the papers together, and shortly afterwards disappeared.\n\nAbout that time a certain official or minister named Chue Ling K'ei (朱陵祺) was on his way down from Korea to China in a small vessel. He met a typhoon and the boat was tossed about the sea for nine days and then driven on to the shore of an island. The island consisted of a steep mountain, and here Chue and his companions wandered about", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212193, "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": 135, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "112 \n\nto walk along the paths which follow the mountain slope, when it began to rain heavily. Spying close-by a house, with an attractive green-tiled roof, we approached proposing to ask permission to 'phone for a taxi. \n\nI rang the bell and put my request to the Chinese boy who opened the door. He showed me in, leaving the door ajar, so that my wife, who remained outside, should not feel shut out; and led me to the 'phone in the hall. He was about to dial for me, when a voice in the distance asked, curtly as I thought, who I wanted. We were by then pretty well soaked and I suppose we did look rather like tramps. It was the lady of the mansion. I explained our predicament. She motioned to the instrument, then moved to the far end of the room, without inviting in my wife, whom she saw waiting outside. The boy got busy on the 'phone and eventually connected me, when the voice was heard instructing him to \"close that door\". He was most embarrassed and apologetically shut it on my wife. The taxi firm having promised to send for us, I rejoined her outside in the rain, where we remained for ten minutes until the car arrived. \n\nI would not have the reader think that such behaviour was typical of British manners in Hongkong. It was not, but it was characteristic of a small clique, which is found in most British colonies, courting a reflected lustre on the fringe of the official hierarchy. \n\nI think possibly its geography explains to some extent the notorious snobbery of Hongkong. Living, say, in Victoria, an invitation to dinner on the Peak was of doubtful attraction. It meant starting off in a taxi to the higher level, where there would only too probably be a heavy mist, and perhaps rain as well. You would have to leave your taxi to walk up several hundred steps to the house, built on the steep hillside, arriving with wet feet and, if wearing a raincoat, probably also drenched in sweat. \n\nOn another occasion the invitation might be to dine in Kowloon. That would involve going down to the jetty, crossing the harbour in the ferry, picking up a taxi on the other side, and so reaching your host's house without too much difficulty; but, unless you left in time to catch the last return ferry at midnight dinner in the Far East \n\n― \n\nyou would have to \n\nseldom starts before nine, or half past nine search for a walla-walla boat, a small type of taxi motor-launch; there \n\n! \n\n! \n\nPage 135\n\nPage 136", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212540, "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": 94, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "74\n\nWhile the artistic level of the performances was important, balance between countries and art forms were secondary considerations. There was no \"quota\" of any kind.10\n\nActive, too, in hosting American performing artists in this period was the Central Philharmonic Society of China (CPSC). From 1979 to 1981, the CPSC invited 22 American musicians to China on 11 occasions, and co-performed with them.11 Like the CPAA, CPSC's invitations were merely based on the merit of the musicians who were willing to come. The policies of the CPAA and the CPSC demonstrated China's urgent need for quality cultural performances which could help China raise her artistic level, either for prestige or for fulfilling the demand of the society for a better cultural life, at very marginal expense. Equally important, these programmes of exchanges provide an illustration of the position of international arts exchanges under the open-door policy.\n\nThis cultural opening-up was also stimulated by the establishment of closer ties with other countries to improve general relations and win better international economic co-operation. This dynamic came from the Chinese leadership, within which it was widely accepted that economic co-operation from Western countries for China's modernization programme could not be gained without solid Chinese commitments in the international community. Cultural exchanges can be taken as expressions of such commitments.\n\nChina's international cultural exchanges were conducted on the basis of bilateral ties rather than as a function of a general policy in favour of a large-scale influx of foreign culture. Throughout the years between 1972 and 1986, there was no major speech, public announcement or publicized decision in favor of any foreign cultural presence in China comparable with those regarding foreign economic relations. On the other hand, China signed 63 cultural agreements with foreign governments between 1978 and 1986. It also renegotiated more than a dozen cultural agreements in this same period, making those old agreements compatible with China's new objectives in the new era.12 More significantly, bilateral cultural exchanges were reinforced through frequent signings of implementing accords under the agreements to consolidate cultural relations.\n\nTo foster official relations through arts exchanges, two state agencies, the CPAA and the China Exhibition Agency (CEA), were established", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212659, "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": 213, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "194\n\nKang district of Chia I county where his grave is flanked by a pair of stone civil and military guardians and stone horses. Wang was created an Earl, granted the posthumous name Kuo-min, \"Determined and Beneficial\", and the posthumous title of T'ai-tzu T'ai-pao, the Grand Guardian of the Heir Apparent. Votive tablets bearing the name Wang Te-lu can be seen in a number of temples in Taiwan, including the Lung-shan Ssu in Taipei, reflecting the importance with which he is held within the island.\n\nHis paternal grandfather was a lieutenant in the force sent to Taiwan to put down the revolt by Chu I-kuei against the Manchu Ch'ing dynasty in 1721. He was killed in battle in Feng-shan county, and was followed to Taiwan by his sons and grandsons who settled in the area now known as T'ai-pao village in T'ai-pao district of Chia I county, places bearing Wang's posthumous honour of Grand Guardian, T'ai-pao.\n\nAccording to folk memory Wang Te-lu was a feckless youth causing his parents to fear humiliation. They took the extreme step of constructing a secure area within the home where he was incarcerated and fed three meals a day by his elder brother's wife who perceived that his face bore the fateful signs of a formidable future. One day she failed to follow the instructions of her parents-in-law, left open the door to the secure area which permitted Te-lu to escape. He was ever beholden to his sister-in-law, and after she died and was buried in Pai-ho district of Tainan county, he memorialised the throne requesting she be raised posthumously to the \"Lady of the first official grade”. \n\nIn 1786 Lin Shuang-wen led a revolt in Taiwan against the Manchu Ch'ing dynasty in support of the campaign to \"Restore the Ming”. Although Wang Te-lu was a mere youth at the time, he would have been 15, he nevertheless became involved in the struggle to suppress the revolt and after the troubles were over was awarded Hung-ting Hua-ling: (the red button and the peacock's feather), mandarin's rank and an imperial honour.\n\nLocal history maintains that in 1821 Wang was transferred to be the staff of the provincial military commander of the two provinces of Chekiang and Kiangsi, and in 1828, during the siege of Chia I led by Chang Ping, Wang Te-lu's service with the imperial force protecting the town and building up the town's walls resulted in him being awarded the honour of the Imperial Grand Guardian of the Apparent.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213483, "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-1995", "page_number": 79, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "(4) if he treads \"in the air\", this means ascending the staircase. (5) when two men are holding an oar - this indicates the existence of a pontoon bridge for someone to use it to get to a nearby boat or sampan.\n\n(6) two big flags, each bearing the imprint of a wheel, held by a man or woman in each hand, with a noble lady in the middle, indicates that the lady is sitting in a chariot.\n\n(7) punishment or degradation of an official or scholar is indicated by \"taking away his hat\".\n\n(8) if a man wears a heavy balaclava, that means he is on a long distance trip or in severe cold.\n\n(9) there is no eating scene in Peking Opera. Drinking wine is denoted by raising the wine cup, with the right hand, to the lip, and hiding the movement by raising the sleeve of the left arm.\n\n(10) a man without a hat, constantly swinging his hair from side to side or tapping his finger on his forehead, or the constant rubbing of hands means he is in trouble and does not know how to get out of it.\n\n(11) why does an important figure walk from the back of the stage to the centre in a funny gait? This is because the Chinese theatre usually has no curtain, as the Western theatre does, so he has to perform the action in a dignified way.\n\n(12) wiping the eye with the sleeve denotes that the actor or actress is weeping or crying. I don't know why, but possibly handkerchiefs were not used in China in former times.\n\n(13) you will find that, in some of the play, a chair is used to represent the front door of a house or cave house.\n\n(14) a painted cloth screen, with an opening in the middle, represents the city wall and the entrance to the city.\n\n(15) you never see a man sleeping on a bed with a pillow. To portray that he is sleeping, he always sits upright in a chair, with his day clothing on, behind a cloth screen.\n\nThe Painted Face Actors\n\nHow much do you know about these painted Faces? From behind these facades, how much can you make out of it, to foretell the kind of character or personality of the man the actor is trying to represent on the stage? The following few hints maybe of help for you to understand the character of the man in history that the actor is portraying.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214203, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 61, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "24\n\n'Eat or don't eat!' \n\nJohn Moloney, the British comedian, found that playing to a Chinese (partly westernised) audience in Hong Kong required less of a cultural leap than when he took his act to Beijing (Syrett, 1995:4). The itinerant comedian, in fact, soon learns to steer clear of anything remotely embarrassing or linguistically complicated and to resort to the 'language of action.' This is universal and capable of bringing about smiles and even belly laughs.\n\nWhile all people, no matter the culture, are said to cry at similar incidents, people in London, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Beijing, or wherever, may not always laugh at the same jokes. In the same way, people in the West and people in China may not always see insults in the same light. For example, Jimmy Lai, the owner of Apple Daily, in the run-up to the 1997 Handover in Hong Kong, called a senior China official a 'turtle's egg,' meaning more or less 'unnatural birth.' Although not too unpleasant, it caused a furore. Yet, as an American Old-China Hand commented to the author, 'Who would get worked up over name-calling like that?'\n\nThe last British Governor, Chris Patten, took it as a joke when he was described in catch-phrases by the Beijing Government as 'a serpent' and being 'disgraced in history for a millennium.' In fact, Patten quoted with relish his sobriquet of 'Whore of the East.' Most Britons also saw such 'insults' in much the same light as Patten, and as being faintly despicable, with the rhetoric unworthy of 5,000 years of continuous civilisation (Waters, 1995:168).\n\nIn the same way that Chinese and Westerners may see insults differently, so they often see humour differently. A Hong Kong Chinese, of Shanghainese stock, said to the author, 'I'll tell you a typical English joke which the average Chinese cannot really appreciate.\n\n'A publican and a customer were talking in a bar (E) when in came another man. He walked up the wall, walked upside down across the ceiling, and then down the wall the other side. He ordered a pint of beer, which he promptly quaffed. He then walked up the wall, across the ceiling, down the wall the other side, and out of the pub door. \"That's", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214885, "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": 300, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "2\n\n271\n\nwould still grow back! After the master said this, the fisher-people were very despondent, but they continued to hope for a solution.\n\nOne day, the Fung Shui master saw his old dog, Ah Wong, dozing beside the door of his house, and he had a brain-wave, and at last came up with a clever solution. He quickly told the fisher-people what to do to implement his plan. That evening, after the fisher-people had all washed themselves, they returned home to rest until midnight, and then, in the dark, they sailed across to Tiu Chung Chau, and then, under the master's direction, before they cut the roots, they first of all took a large basin of the blood of a black dog, and sprinkled it over the roots. When the roots were then cut off, a great noise like a howl filled the valley. At the same time, the mountain shook. A huge gale sprang up. Sand fell out of the rocks, and the whole hillside collapsed. The old banyan tree fell, and a vast amount of sand and mud fell into the sea. Not long after, this official Ho lost his position, as a result of this. No-one knows where he fled to.\n\nThis story is widely known. Chu Wai-tak (*), in his book “New Views of Old Hong Kong\" () says, “I have attempted to locate this old grave, and have crossed to Tiu Chung Chau many times, going up to the summit of the crag. On the east side there remains the shape of a grave, although nothing is left of it, and so it seems to me that there is some basis for this story.”\n\nNg Chuen-hi (47) Chairman, Kau Sai Hung Shing Temple Restoration Committee”\n\nD. Faure, \"The Man the Emperor Decapitated”, Vol. 28, pp 198-203; P.H. Hase, \"More on the Man the Emperor Decapitated”, Vol. 29, pp 388-289; Wong Wing-ho, \"Yet More on the Man the Emperor Decapitated\", Vol. 34, pp 179-181.\n\nAny further versions of stories about Ho Chan would be very much welcomed.\n\nPage 300\n\nPage 301", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215338, "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": 115, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "63\n\nofficial, sitting in full armour, with a black beard and a light brown face. He was attended by generals Gan and Meng.\n\nThe Marquis, the Kind and Merciful, Virtuous and Brave Commander-in-Chief who Pacified the Mountains and Rivers [*]\n\n玉封耀武威德仁慈綏鎮河山義勇都督候王\n\nGeneral Gan\", Commander of the Left [#]\n\n左指揮甘大將\n\nGeneral Meng, Commander of the Right [#]\n\n右指揮蒙大將\n\nDoor Guardian in charge of 1,000 Buildings, of the Left [#]\n\n左千門官\n\nHousehold Guardian in charge of 100 Households, of the Right [#]\n\n右百戶官\n\nCelestial and Terrestrial Soldiers, Yin [Darkness] Soldiers and Yang [Light] Soldiers [#]\n\n天兵,地兵,陰兵,陽兵\n\n[*] Names on lists of deities in Hainanese temples usually claimed to be one or other of the images on one of the altars but whose details, corroboration and in most cases not seen elsewhere, include:\n\nShengzhi Taizi Prince of the Holy Decree [Singapore]\n\nXiannu er niang The Second Maiden of the Immortal Women [Seletar: Singapore]\n\nZhengxun Furen The Upright and Auspicious Matron [Singapore]", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215474, "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": 251, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "200\n\nto be shown whilst in the vicinity of his head office. Government and other official visitors have to observe a certain dress code - a white shawl has to be draped over the shoulder for male visitors, and a colourful shoulder band for females. We were not allowed past the guard at the beginning of the entrance path, but even so I was asked to take my hat off (one of the very few times that I did).\n\nThe Tashichho Dzong is ginormous, and driving straight up to the front door, so to speak, does not give one the opportunity of seeing it in proper perspective. Therefore, we drove up a nearby hill to a vantage point (covered, as most are in Bhutan, by flapping colourful prayer flags) from where we could appreciate how the building dominates its setting.\n\nAs soon as this had been appreciated, and photographs taken to prove it, once more it was 'all aboard.' No organised tourist trail is complete without a visit to a local industry. Ours was the Jungshi Handmade Paper Factory. Here, in a building about the size of a double garage, half a dozen people were making excellent quality paper from the roots of the daphne plant. I often find myself amazed by the course of human progress. I mean, how on earth, with the thousands of species available in Bhutan, did they find this particular plant, mash up its roots with water, spread the mush on a bamboo sushi roller, dry it and say: 'Do you know, I think I have found a way of making paper!'\n\nSpreading the word\n\nThere was an awful lot of paper at our next port of call - the National Library. We had an appointment for 11:00 a.m. to meet the Director, but it turned out that he was busy with a previous visitor. Would we please wait for 20 minutes? Our energetic tour leader is not a man to wait and so the time was usefully filled by visiting the nearby Folk Heritage Museum. This was rather nicely done, being set in a typical farmhouse and containing examples of every sort of rural implement and artefact - perhaps more than had ever before graced the insides of any one farmer's dwelling.\n\nHis other business by now done, Mynak Rinpoche Tulku, the Director of the National Library of Bhutan, was ready to receive us and he looked every inch the Director. Resplendent in his go he greeted", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216370, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2003", "page_number": 129, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "78\n\non 15 November 1863. However, as Wright suggested, \"Hart's appointment as full Inspector-General was a foregone conclusion.\" (1950: 258) As early as June 11, 1863 a high-ranking Chinese official, Wen Xiang, gave Hart to understand that he would be the best candidate to replace Lay if he left (Wang, 2000: 63).\n\nHart took the position of I.G. very seriously and he was a man with great ambitions for power and honour. From his diaries, we know that between early summer 1863 and August 1864 he struggled desperately with his natural desire for womanising. This coincides directly with the period during which he prepared himself for and was finally appointed to the post of I.G. His expressions, such as \"They set my blood on fire\", \"desperate struggle\", \"This war of passion and principle is horrible”, and “I am mad upon the pleasure of the couch”, indicate that Hart's battle with his desire to womanise was a constant struggle. He even went so far as to say \"were I always to remain in China, I might do as the Chinese do - for though socially I consider polygamy inexpedient in the west, I do not think it inexpedient in China, nor do I consider it morally wrong in itself.\" (Smith, Fairbank, Bruner 1991:179) Although mention of his romantic chatting and pressing of hands with the girls next door is no longer present in his diaries after August 1864, it does not necessarily mean that he had finally won the battle. He still laments female intimacy and cannot stop dreaming of how happy his life would be if he could have a girl in the room with him:\n\nO Woman, lovely woman! And yet it is sexual desire - it is, I fear, more brute passion, than desire for the society of women. I like to have a girl in the room with me, to fondle when I please: and I like to have something to be affectionate with, for I have got a great stock of love in my nature. (ibid)\n\nHe chides himself constantly: \"If I don't care, passion will be off with me - confound it!\" (ibid: 180) It is obvious that during August 1864 Hart was not emotionally settled although he was determined not to go back to his old womanising ways. In this situation, the possibility that he resumed his sexual relationship with Ayaou, even occasionally, should not be ruled out, especially given the fact that their third child, Arthur, was born sometime after June 5th in 1865. Although Hart forced himself to terminate his intimate relationship with Ayaou when pursuing the position of I.G. during the period 1863 and 1864, he never disliked", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216441, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2003", "page_number": 200, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "150 battalions of Hunanese soldiers in the New Town. The Chinese Minister in St. Petersburg was instructed to demand an explanation. They were quietly withdrawn at the end of the war.\n\nIn April 1905 Russian troops marched through Chinese neutral territory, paying no heed to Chinese protests, although as it was reported in the western press at the time it appeared that the Chinese Government was at last making some effort to resist Russian intrigues, possibly realising that the Japanese were more than likely to be the final victors in the war.\n\nAt about the same time Secretary Hay in Washington proposed to the Powers to renew their pledges as to the 'open door' and integrity of China. When Britain, Germany, Italy and the others had all replied moral pressure was imposed in the interest of Chinese neutrality. The Russians responded with an announcement that they had positive proof of Chinese violations of their neutrality and that unless China refrained from further such acts Russia would have to act in her own interests.\n\nDuring May reports were received of Russian plans to march their troops across Mongolia to checkmate a Japanese flanking movement, thus violating China's neutrality. Fears among western diplomats that this was the first step towards annexation of Chinese territory opened up once more the question of the partition of China.\n\nAlso in May 1905 it would appear from various semi-official reports that Chinese mandarins along the coast of south China and in the vicinity of the mouth of the Yangzi were warned to ensure that their military forces were alert during the passage of the Russian Baltic fleet towards the China Sea. The orders required the Chinese military to prevent, wherever possible, Russian infringement of Chinese neutrality.\n\nChinese fears that vanquished Russians might invade Chinese territory to avoid being taken prisoner by the Japanese, led to the rumour that the Viceroy of the metropolitan province of Chih-li, Yuan Shikai, had been proposed as Generalissimo of all Chinese Land and Sea Forces.\n\nChinese temples and monasteries as military accommodation\n\nBoth Russian and Japanese forces used Chinese public buildings", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]