[ { "id": 205355, "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-1967", "page_number": 117, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "110\n\nREV, MR. KRONE\n\nseveral times taking a cruise in his Tea-cup, the mountain was named after it “Poi-tou.' \n\n\"Poi-tou.\" Among the common people, however, the mountain is known by the name \"Shing-shan\", or holy mountain. The rough, barren, mountainous country I have described, has given birth to many superstitions and legends. Some of the huge stones on the hill sides are supposed to represent the tiger, the dragon, and the phoenix. The stones on some hills are said to have locomotive powers, and to pursue any adventurous traveller who attempts to mount their sides; other stones are said, when touched, to have the power of producing pains in the stomach, and others to emit white vapours from their surface. But these matters are of but little importance to us; of more interest are the caves which are found in some of the mountains. The most remarkable of these caves is near the market-place of U-shek-ngam, &, at the base of the mountain. For some centuries this cave has been used as a temple, and its aspect is so changed by the architecture and furniture which have been introduced, that one cannot get a good idea of its natural size and appearance.\n\nNatural History. Quadrumana, A number of small monkeys inhabit the island of Lintin; but this animal is not found in any other part of the district, though Chinese books relate that in former times they were found on 'Ng-tung, and most of the high mountains of the district.\n\nQuadrupeds, — The Chinese tiger, which seems to be a true tiger, is found about 'Ng-tung, and in the neighbourhood of most of the high mountains. It sometimes reaches a considerable size, weighing 200 catties, or 266lb. It feeds generally upon pigs and dogs, and the country people say it occasionally carries off a grass-cutter, but this seems doubtful. It is taken in traps, and is a great prize to its captor, as it will bring him in a sum of $150 to $200; for the bones are in great repute as a tonic medicine, and the flesh is eaten with the idea that the courage of the devourer is improved by the meal.\n\nMore than one species of deer, a fox, and a badger, have also been seen, and a large ant-eater -- the flesh of which is considered a delicacy, and is also supposed to possess medicinal powers. There are many snakes, and among them a large species of python, which sometimes grows to the length of twenty to twenty-four feet;", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208149, "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-1977", "page_number": 188, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "172\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nAll remarkable mountains are supposed by the Chinese to have some spiritual influence over the affairs of mortals. The rough, barren, mountainous country I have described, has given birth to many superstitions and legends. Some of the huge stones on the hillsides are supposed to represent the tiger, the dragon, and the phoenix. The stones on some hills are said to have locomotive powers, and to pursue any adventurous traveller who attempts to mount their sides: other stones are said, when touched, to have the power of producing pains in the stomach and others to emit white vapours from their surface; of more interest are the caves which are found in some of the mountains (JHKBRAS 7(1967): 110).\n\n12. Krone writes of our own Castle Peak:\n\nThe mountain is reckoned one of the eight wonders of the Canton Province. Some of its large granite boulders are said by the priests to represent various mythological monsters; and several springs well up near the top, which are also esteemed supernatural wonders by the Chinese. The mountain is often visited by students and literati, and its wonders and beauties have been celebrated by them in many verses. The legends connected with the mountain seem not to be very clearly understood. (JHKBRAS 7(1967): 109).\n\n13. In the case of the more famous mountains of the Kwangtung province alone, mythology, legend and history have endowed them with fame over hundreds and even thousands of years. This is due in part to the constant visits of famous poets whose poems are so widely read over the generations that they alone are sufficient to make them sacred and immortal.* Yet our own lesser mountains seem to have had at least one such visitor. In the history of the T'ang family of Kam Tin we read of the famous Sung poet and painter PO Yu-sim, ‘Legends have attributed to him magical powers, and he is supposed to have appeared and disappeared in all the \n\nIn the introduction to his Anthology of Chinese Literature, Vol. 2 (New York, Grove Press Inc., 1972) Cyril Birch writes 'Scholar-officials were subject to a life of movement, and no one could travel very far without lighting on a place celebrated in the verse or prose of an earlier visitor. It might be a hilltop temple or a lakeside pavilion, a mountain pass or an ancient battlefield, a city gate or a particularly awesome cliff. (p. xxvi).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208193, "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-1977", "page_number": 232, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "216\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nhead for the hall, the result is that the hall would bring about Great Wealth (大富)\n\nOn the ancestral hall itself, it is apparent that it is being surrounded by green mountains and beautiful streams. Its walls are finely made and its direction is carefully orientated so as to suit the Dragon form. The rooms inside are spacious, comfortable, and neatly packed together. In front of it is Shau Sing Kung Shan (壽星宮山) (\"Long-life mountain\") and on the left of it is Kwun Yam Shan (觀音山). All these signs imply that from here “Great Nobility\" (貴) would appear. Its form, so magnificent, calls for the Red Bird (朱雀) to lead the way (朱雀護送迎) and the Green Dragon and White Tiger to kneel (†). It drives the ranges to curl around it and the stars to look after the outlet. Every mountain, no matter how far comes to guard the cave, and every stream comes to gather round the hall. This indicates \"Great Wealth\" (大富). Thus the window of Heaven is made open and the door of Hell is tightly shut.\n\nThis is the best Dragon form. It should foster great wealth and great nobility. It explains why the Tang clan has had so much success in wealth, fame, and in civil examinations, as compared with the other villages in Pat Heung (八鄉). Of course, it owes very much to the keen choice of Fung-shui by the Tang ancestors. Hong Kong, 1973\n\nJOHN THOMAS Kamm\n\nBEAN SKIM (豆漿皮); A PRODUCT OF BLOOD & SWEAT FROM THE MAKERS\n\nBean skim is a traditional rural product in the Tsuen Wan District of the New Territories of Hong Kong. The following account was written by WAN Chung-yan of Pun Shan Village, Chai Wan Kok, Tsuen Wan on 12.1.1976, at the Hon. Editor's request.\n\nBean skim is a kind of bean product of rich nourishment. In the age when the electric motor had not yet been invented, such product was really a product of blood and sweat from the makers.\n\nThe making of bean skim is easily described. Choose the best yellow beans, dry them under the sun and peel them. Then soak the beans in water and crush them into a paste. After filtering off the refuse, boil them in a pot. Skim off the upper layer of foam. Keep heating the paste at a certain temperature until a thin layer", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208958, "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": 120, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "88 \n\nDAVID LUNG \n\nThe westerly orientation of the village is shifted 90° from the standard south-facing position in order to adapt to the local currents of the cosmic breath formed by the azure dragon on the left, the white tiger on the right and the black tortoise on the back. The open field on the west stretching to the sea which lies beyond gives a sense of airiness and the Nan Tau Shan mountain range across from the bay keeps good influences from being washed away. Such an intricate step taken in the planning process indicates that the geomancy canons were not translated literally into a physical form, but rather the interpretation of the fundamental principles was fused with the deep understanding of the forces of nature and the micro-cosm of the local surroundings to make their aspirations and existence come true on a land which had existed before their occupation. As the commemorative tablet of Kat Hing Wai (1925) states, \"... our ancestor Fu-hip... consulted divination and settled in this village...\"20 \n\nTo authenticate the geomantic siting of each of the built forms, for example, a wai, an ancestral temple or a bridge, lies beyond the scope of this paper. It is not an impossible or improbable task per se, but rather it is a different discipline of study. The concern of a geomancer is the actual method of divination, a combination of understanding of a wide range of fung-shui classics and the use of the geomantic compass. In an over-simplified experiment, I have attempted to explore the physical and cosmic relationships of the four wais, Kat Hing, Wing Lung, Tai Hong and Kam Hing. (The last one is a ruin; its wall configuration is largely my own reconstruction based on the patterns formed by the other three.) As indicated in Fig. 5*\n the lines that are drawn to link up a corner tower of one wai with a second and a third tower of another wai, and as indicated in Fig. 6*\n the lines which join the mid-points of the walls in a similar fashion, are clear indications how the wais are related. These lines show quite explicitly a certain design pattern which is far more complex than the untrained human eye can conceive. Even though the location and orientation of these hamlets may seem arbitrary, the intensity of the hidden energy cannot help but force one to believe that the alignment and the orientation of the wais are too coincidental to have happened by chance. Although several historians assert that the walls were built 200 years later \n\n* References are to figures in the original version, not reproduced here. \n\nPage 120\nPage 121", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213280, "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-1994", "page_number": 102, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "82\n\nThe site of the flat in the case study is not perfect. The hills could surround the home, at the sides, more, thus providing a better 'armchair effect'. The shapes of hills and features on hills, similar to boulders such as Sha Tin's Amah Rock, frequently form the backdrop for wayside shrines. This rock did not ask, some rustics will tell you, to be eroded into the shape of a woman with a baby on her back, and the wind and the rain did not want to sculpt them, it is something that just happened. Such features display the power of nature and the majesty of the cultural landscape. Like the Australian aboriginals, boulders or other objects in Hong Kong can take the forms of beasts, real or imaginary. This is especially so for the Hakka Chinese. There is some resemblance between aspects of Chinese folklore and its Gaelic counterparts. The latter has its mischievous leprechauns.\n\nBut whether it be a Chinese village hovel or a palace, the ideals to aim for are similar. With the basic grammar of an ideal site, with us 'armchair of slopes' and 'ring of sunny hills', the spur on the right is known as the 'Azure (green in Cantonese) Dragon'. That on the left is described as the 'White Tiger'. More of an armchair effect would give the building in our case study better protection against calamities. Like typhoons for instance, which rampage in from the south-east.\n\nIn the case of a mountain, which should be tranquil but can also signify 'authority and vigour, it may 'overpower' the natural environment. A 'killer breath' (shaar hei), as mentioned earlier, with harmful currents that travel in straight lines, may develop. There, the chi is violent. In some instances these forces can be deflected by screens, fences, water, fountains, mirrors or lucky charms. An eight-sided Baat Kwa, with Trigrams in the centre, may be used. A small, hand-held 'windmill' can be employed to disperse strong chi. With such remedial measures an unfavourable site may later be classified as favourable.\n\nNevertheless, because of inauspicious circumstances and the anger of the gods, a slope or cliff consisting of partly decomposed rock may turn to mud during a storm. Thus a hill may not provide the intended security to a building. 'Feels as if the mountain top is always watching you,' is how some villagers explain it. To overcome such 'negative influences', trees can be planted to form a 'curtain' in an effort to 'mask' the ridge (Ajmer, 1968:75). But, during the Japanese Occupation in World War II, such trees were sometimes felled because of a fuel shortage.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214367, "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": 225, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "191\n\nindustry. It was common, so it claimed, for construction teams to hold Taoist rituals, including the sacrifice of oxen before work began.*\n\nOn the other side of the coin, according to the Bureau of Religious Affairs, about 200 Taoist temples have been re-opened to the public in China since the 1980s and seven Taoist provincial associations have been established. One of these temples is the former Taoist Cheng-i sect centre, the Heavenly Master Sect temple [T'ien-shih Miao] on Dragon and Tiger Mountain, Lung-hu Shan, in Kiangsi province. It was burned down in 1945 and work on rebuilding it did not begin until 1983. This consisted of the renovation of the main hall and the re-sculpturing of the images of the San Ch'ing, the Three Pure Ones, and fourteen other clay statues. Other sites nearby have also been renovated, including the Shang Ch'ing Palace, where the Immortals lived, and the Lien-tan Ch'ih, the Furnace [where pills of immortality were made]. It is interesting to read that both local and central authorities donated more than half a million yuan towards the project.\n\nAbout the same time as the iconoclastic campaign began, a ban was also imposed in Tsingtao, the port in southern Shantung, on the manufacture, sale and burning of funeral objects in a bid to curb a resurgence in superstition.\n\n...\n\nDespite all of these reports of the destruction of illegal temples and the crackdown on superstition, my daughter and I during the years 1995-1997 have visited a number of temples both urban and rural in remote areas of China as well as in cities and towns which, without doubt, fall under the category of superstitious religious establishments. We have not only been guided to several such temples by policemen but also in one instance we found the local party cadre actually lived with his mother inside a small popular religion temple. The only instance where a member of a temple staff had reason to explain that an activity was banned because it was superstition happened in the suburbs of Shanghai. When we asked why there were no oracular blocks on the altar with which to obtain the deity's answers to questions posed by devotees, we were told by the temple guardian that this particular practice was superstition and not permitted, whereas other routine rituals seen in temples in Hong Kong and Taiwan were. A Chinese scholar recently explained that in his view illegal temples are the structures built without permission because local State authorities have not had the quid pro quo erection of a village school, crèche or health centre paid for by the villagers with the same sum funded for the project as\n\nPage 225\n\nPage 226", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214792, "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": 207, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "172\n\nSaub us uj, listen carefully to what the Master has to say, the Master carries a crossbow on his back and a cock under his arm to accompany you, and now leads you into a deep dark forest, with great crickets wailing, take no notice of them, have no fear, for this is the sound of your own daughters and sons weeping and lamenting, you make your own way and go ahead, go ahead and play\n\nSaub us uj, listen carefully to what I am telling you now, the Master has led you past the leaping mountain crags of Dragon and Tiger, I now take you to your very own country to find the hillside of your grave, that is your country and there is your land, putting aside the breath of life, go off and play\n\nThe Master who leads you to find your country and your land, will lead you to return home again along the flowery path of revival, in the central hall, you will hear the sound of the reed pipes like great crickets wailing, and the sound of the drum like the mighty thunder roaring, but have not fear, these are the ways and the paths of your ancient Mother and Father...\n\nIn tales and legends of the past, the Hmong who have traditionally been shifting cultivators, speak of a vanished kingdom from which they were ousted by the all-powerful, dominant Han Chinese (Tapp 1989). Their dislocation as shifting cultivators and denizens of South East Asia is thus constantly referred to a 'lost point of origin' which is at the same time, most definitely, a physically located place, assumed by many Hmong to be located somewhere in their ancestral homelands in the mountains of southern China.\n\nDuring the many deaths, losses and separations of the political conflicts the Hmong were involved in during the Indo-China Wars from 1954 to 1975, these legendary and nostalgic recollections of the past took on an added personal poignancy, as parents were separated from children, husbands from wives and brothers from sisters, during the fighting and then through the refugee diaspora which followed 1975. This is truly what Robin Cohen (1997) calls a ‘victim diaspora', showing clearly the intrinsic relation between the formation of modern nation-states and the existence of displaced populations (Vertovec and Cohen 1999; Agamben 1998).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 } ]